We were running late. It always took longer than we thought it would to get Jess and Jill moving, their five-year-old brother Aaron’s morning medical care completed, and Aaron’s wheelchair loaded into the van and strapped down. Today, the first Sunday of Advent, snowy roads and winter clothing added time, so we barely made it by 9:30 a.m. As our vintage, slightly rusted Ford Econoline van lumbered ahead and stopped along the curb, the kids peered out of the van’s windows.

A simple cross and the words “Poor Clare Monastery” adorned the low-slung façade of a sprawling red brick building in Bloomington, a suburb of Minneapolis. Doug and I had been surprised to learn that, just a few miles from The Mall of America, an order of Poor Clare Sisters had lived and worked since 1954. A contemplative order founded in the twelfth century by Clare of Assisi, the Poor Clares took vows of poverty and specialized in prayer.

“Where’s the door?” Jess wondered. Blonde curls escaped from her stocking cap. At eight, she kept us on track. 

“I don’t know!” I called into the cavernous van.

“Is there an accessible entrance?” Doug asked. 

My anxiety mounting, I answered, “I don’t see one.” The two visible entrances each had a step up. We never knew in advance if we’d be able to push Aaron’s 200-pound power chair up steps. It depended on the conditions and dimensions. 

Just then, a slim woman sprang from the door closest to us. Her close-cropped dark hair waved artfully around a calm, focused face. A creaseless brown wool dress was gathered around her small waist, ringed by a knotted belt. A white turtleneck peeked out along the neckline and below turned-up cuffs. With a big smile, she brandished a handmade wooden ramp. In an uninterrupted movement, she slid the ramp over the single cement step in front of a metal door, straightened, and beckoned us forward. 

“How did they know we were out here?” I asked. The nun had popped out of a door on a wall with only clerestory windows. 

“Heck if I know!” Doug shook his head. With Aaron strapped into the lift, Doug pressed the remote to lower it to the sidewalk. 

Doug and I weren’t Catholic, but we felt drawn to the oldest forms of Catholicism, whose orders of religious people directly served the poor, providing them with food, clothing, health care, shelter, hospitality, and comfort. We both loved that straightforward, literal adherence to the Gospel. 

We’d heard about the Poor Clares through a close friend, Karen Clift, a professional singer. Karen had worked with Ewa Bujak, a thirty-something university music teacher who’d immigrated from Poland. This order of sisters had helped ease Ewa’s homesickness. After Karen relayed Ewa’s praise for the contemplative order, we’d decided to check out these Clares, surprisingly nestled in a nearby Minneapolis suburb.

Before Aaron, our youngest, was born, Doug and I had dreamed of doing some kind of service work abroad, as a young family with two small daughters. We also liked the idea of leaving a small environmental footprint. We were set to launch as soon as I finished nursing school in the spring of 1985. It didn’t work out this way.

That May, Aaron was born with medical fragility and technology dependence, just as I finished the rigorous three-year diploma nursing program run by Dominican Nuns in St. Cloud, Minnesota. It was my first exposure to a no-nonsense, endlessly compassionate community of single-minded, focused Roman Catholic women. They showed us how to take care of our patients with discipline and a recognition of the inherent value of each person.

Aaron almost died several times during his first years, unable to breathe unless we repositioned him just right, suctioned, did respiratory treatments, and sometimes administered antibiotics. Many times, we resorted to hospital admissions. Our son wasn’t ever going to chew, swallow, or breathe without support, or walk without a walker. Counter to our intentions, we became major consumers of disposable medical products and drove increasingly larger gas-guzzling vehicles to accommodate Aaron’s wheelchairs. 

Just like that, our family slid into a different level of the social strata. To keep Aaron at home and cared-for, we became welfare recipients. This was the only way we could provide the expensive medical care Aaron needed under our roof, at a cost of roughly $10,000 per month. 

In 1986, we moved to the Twin Cities metropolitan area from our small central Minnesota farm to be closer to Aaron’s medical specialists. We joined a Christian Reformed Church, the same denomination Doug and I had grown up in. While we appreciated its beautiful music and sacred teachings, increasingly we felt like outsiders. Typical congregants reflected a material success we’d never achieve, leading lives filled with social activities we couldn’t participate in. 

Were we meant to be token needy members in our affluent congregation? Should we develop more humility and graciousness in that role? We tried. But on the day the church elders informed us, after we’d asked for a pew cut-out, “Good news, we discussed it at our last council meeting, and none of us mind if Aaron is parked in the aisle,” we began our reconnaissance. 

“What the hell?” I fumed at home, after the kids were in bed, “They don’t mind if our kid is singled out in the aisle, apart from the congregation? They’re OK with that?” 

Doug put a hand on my shoulder. “Calm down,” he said, “People are doing their best.”

“Well, ‘their best’ hurts us.” Tears filled my eyes. “I’m done with that bullshit.” 

Doug sighed. “It’ll work out. We just need to figure out where we belong.” I put my head on his chest, my arms around his back. 

“Where’s our place, then? We don’t seem to belong anywhere.” 

“I know,” he comforted me. “I know.” 

The five of us walked toward the small ramp and open monastery door, Aaron leading the way in his power wheelchair. He easily navigated the ramp into a short entry that led directly into a dimly lit chapel, three candles flickering on wooden stands spaced along taupe brick walls. A medieval icon of Saint Clare of Assisi hung alone on a front wall. Silence enveloped us. About fifty empty shaker-style chairs formed rows of concentric circles facing a piano and a podium. A slim figure sat at the piano on the far side of the chapel, her back to us, sheet music in front of her. Doug and I helped the kids out of their winter gear. 

“I’m Sister Beth,” the first sister announced, with a smile that took over her face. Next to her, another woman stood, quietly observing us. Dressed in tan, her neat hair was almost the same color as her dress.

“Welcome,” she said. “I’m Fran.” She spoke quietly, but her eyes sparkled with warmth. As we clattered in, I feared we were dragging a too-large presence into their hushed sanctuary. Aaron’s tires dripped snow on the shining parquet floor. My cheeks burned. But nobody was making us feel out of place—it was just me, anticipating judgment that never came. 

Fran spoke softly to a small, frail Aaron, dwarfed by his motorized chair. “It’s the first Sunday of Advent. We’ve decided to process into the chapel with our guests, from the front door, during the four weeks of Advent. Would you like to get settled in the chapel before we process in?” Aaron reacted against this, shaking his head dramatically. 

“Actually, Aaron can’t speak, but . . .” I laughed. “He’d probably like to lead the procession into the chapel.” 

Then an astounding thing happened. Fran nodded, nonplussed. “Aaron,” she said, “that will work.” 

That will work? Immediately, my shoulders relaxed. I took a deep breath and looked at Fran, then at Aaron. 

“Follow me,” Fran said. She’d already turned. Her crepe-soled shoes made small squeaking noises as she led the way. Aaron enthusiastically motored ahead, toward a separate area on the far side where a large octagonal wooden table was laid with an altar cloth and fired clay communion elements. 

I looked at the girls and nodded to them that it was OK for us to follow. Doug held seven-year-old Jill’s hand close as they moved ahead. Her curious blue eyes took in this new place. Jess and I followed. We rounded the corner, where a pile of brown meditation cushions and bolsters stood off to the side. 

We heard low voices in the next room. Another Poor Clare held an ornate Gospel Book at the doorway to the main entrance. A priest, then another sister, followed behind. A group of twenty or so adults gathered beyond them, mostly retirement-age people. Karen and her husband, Mike, stood at the edge of the crowd. Mike raised two fingers to his forehead in greeting. Doug nodded back. 

After speaking briefly with a couple of people, Fran pointed to the spot in front of the woman with the raised Gospel Book. “Aaron, you can pull your chair up here. Let us know when you’re ready, and we’ll walk in very slowly while we sing.” Sister Beth handed each of the rest of us a songbook and a small square of colored paper listing page numbers for the hymns. We turned to the first number, a song called “All Are Welcome in This Place.”

Aaron loved a parade. His personal care assistant had rigged up blinking, battery-powered Christmas lights on his power chair a few days earlier, as they made plans for Aaron to participate in the annual midwinter Holidazzle Parade in downtown Minneapolis. 

Just before he threw his joystick into gear, Aaron reached down to turn on the blinking lights. I cringed inside. Sister Beth raised a hand in cheer and said, “Beautiful! Let’s go!” The music started. Aaron loved music more than anything. He led us singing into the chapel, driving with his left hand, directing the music with his right. Tears came as my son led the procession into the chapel. The sisters and priest followed Aaron’s cues as if he always led them in. Was this a dream? 

The order of things had shifted, and this new order, no pun intended, held space for my small family, just as we were. We settled into seats near the back. One of the sisters had reconfigured the chairs, allowing Aaron’s wheelchair to fit into the row. 

Ours were the only children in the chapel. We soon learned that, while the monastery welcomed all guests to every mass, it wasn’t considered a parish, so it had no children’s programming. In the Roman Catholic structure, it’s a parish that provides programming and hires teachers who specialize in educating children in matters of faith. 

Eventually, we would discover that many of the people sitting around us on our first day didn’t belong to a regular parish and attended masses exclusively with the Poor Clare Sisters. Like us, these people were drawn to monasticism and moments of quiet contemplation as their expression of worship. Some had previously loved a Catholicism that had refused to include them. Many parishes forbade offering the sacraments to people whose marriages had ended in divorce and to same-sex couples and other members of the LGBTQ community. Not surprisingly, these people at the monastery who had been excluded from other churches would, over the next years, become our closest friends. We all treasured the radical inclusion these Poor Clare Sisters offered.

The mass began with a nun carrying a lit taper toward the fragrant evergreen wreath on a plain wooden stand. Lighting one of four candles set into the wreath, she was joined by the priest, who spoke to the symbolism of the candles. Light enters a dark world, he said. He blessed our intention to wait in the darkness, knowing the light was coming. The two of them stood in front of a woven tapestry depicting a brown-skinned Christ figure greeting a woman with Indigenous features at a well in the center of a South American village. 

A period of silence followed each hymn, reading, or transition in the service. The still moments calmed me. Silence was missing in our noisy home life. We had nurses in daily for Aaron, requiring direction and occupying our kitchen, dining room, and bathroom. Aaron’s equipment alarmed frequently at night, he had health crises, the phone rang constantly, and we had the usual hullaballoo of a family of five with two working parents and three children. I embraced the quiet in this dimly lit chapel.

The priest’s message, or homily, gathered us in. Unlike the sermons Doug and I had grown up with, often structured to tell us why our belief system was right and others’ wrong, shouted from positions of male superiority, this priest spoke in a gentle voice and used inclusive language. He invited us to wait with open hearts over the coming weeks, willing to be transformed by the coming of the Messiah. “Behold,” he quoted from the Bible, “I make all things new.” 

I glanced at our girls, bent over in their seats, enthusiastically sketching pictures with paper and pencils I’d packed for them. Doug helped Aaron readjust himself in his wheelchair. We noticed that the Poor Clare Sisters led the mass overall, with the priest officiating at the Eucharist, reading the Gospel passage, and giving a homily. The female leadership added a different strength and wisdom.

I don’t recall which Gospel book the priest read from, but I remember how he stood in the center of us, on the same level, making eye contact. He spoke each word quietly, yet distinctly. He used “we” and “ours” instead of “you” and “yours.” 

No money was collected at this mass. Espousing poverty, the sisters relied on unsolicited donations and an allowance from the diocese for their food, shelter, and basic needs. 

The priest sang the whole Eucharistic liturgy in a beautiful, measured baritone voice. I held my breath, not wanting to miss a word. We stood gathered around the altar in concentric circles. An Asian sister we hadn’t met gestured for Aaron to pull his motorized chair up to the altar. Maybe she’d seen his thick eyeglasses and knew it would help him to come in closer. 

When we came to the sacred ritual of exchanging the peace, I approached Aaron. A short, rounded nun with rosy cheeks, a short gray bob, and wire-rimmed glasses met us. She looked deep into my eyes as she grasped my hand. She gestured toward Aaron and said, “I’m Caroline. He’s your son?”

I nodded.

“What a gift!” she said. She spoke slowly and reverently, without piety or pity. She recognized Aaron’s extraordinary spirit. She saw him.

We treasured those Sunday mornings more and more as weeks stretched into years. Twenty-five years in all. We didn’t stop attending mass with the Poor Clare Sisters until they moved to a retirement community. Eventually, Doug and I converted to Catholicism, taking classes to fill in gaps in our learning. We appreciated the standard liturgy, the same the world over, and that every mass features the Eucharist, or Communion, as its central focus. 

Many years after that first Sunday at the monastery, Sister Beth and I were reminiscing.

“You know that first Sunday you showed up?” she prompted.

“Yeah?” I was curious to hear what she had to say.

“Well, we’d prayed together that week, asking for something extraordinary to come to us in the coming Advent season. Then your family walked in the door.”