The Visitation Sisters of Toledo: An Ark Amidst the Storms of Life

The COVID phenomenon has thrown many of our lives out of order in one way or another. Work, school, parish and social lives have been tossed into disarray.

But there is one corner of our world that has been only slightly affected by this stressful event, and that is the lives of enclosed, or cloistered religious. 

These monks and nuns live entirely within the walls of their monasteries. By design, they have little human contact with outsiders. Thus the concerns of the infections of the coronavirus are kept at bay.

And yet their style of life was meant not to isolate themselves from the problems of the world, but to give their undivided attention to the Lord. Life for most of these religious has continued as it did before COVID - they pray the Liturgy of the Hours, work at raising vegetables or labor at some means of livelihood. They continue to enjoy community life with each other, within their walls, as before.

Thus they live in a kind of Noah’s Ark; a bubble on the sea amidst the storm. Because of their solemn vows, they can fulfill their purpose - to keep company with God, and keep their minds clear for contemplating and participating in His love.

Cloistered religious are thus different from active religious men and women who take simple vows and serve outside in the wider community in various ways, such as teaching or hospital work.

Nuns’ Spousal Relationship

All consecrated persons enjoy a spousal relationship with Jesus Christ and his Church. And the Church recognizes that women, in a special way, embody this relationship. The 1999 document Verbi Sponsa (The Instruction on the Contemplative Life and on the Enclosure of Nuns) says,

“Nuns moreover, by their very nature as women, show forth more powerfully the mystery of the Church as ‘the Spotless Bride of the Spotless Lamb’ rediscovering themselves individually in the spousal dimension of the wholly contemplative vocation.” (VS, 4)

The document also says that:

“Welcoming the Word in faith and adoring silence, they put themselves at the service of the mystery of the Incarnation, and united to Christ Jesus in his offering of himself to the Father, they become co-workers in the mystery of Redemption.” (VS, 4)

Not Floating in Space

Cloistered orders, although separated from the world, serve others near them in a spiritual way. Women contemplatives, such as the Visitation Sisters of Toledo, Ohio, are not just spiritual communities floating in space. They are rooted in a certain place in our land, and are joined to the local Church through the bishop.

The first Bishop of the Diocese of Toledo, Bishop Joseph Scrembs, invited the Sisters of the Visitation in 1915 to the diocese early during its founding. He saw the sisters as crucial to his vision for the diocese. He said, 

“The sisters should remain upon the mountain-top in prayer and sacrifice pleading for the salvation of souls, particularly those of the diocese, clergy, religious and laity.”

Indeed, Verbi Sponsa states:

“A contemplative monastery is a gift also for the local Church to which it belongs. Representing the prayerful face of the Church, a monastery makes the Church's presence more complete and meaningful in the local community.” (VS, 49) 

Recently the diocese visited the Sisters’ monastery and shared their experience with others through photographs and a description of their ordered way of life.

Take a look at their lives in the article, “A Sneak Peek Into the Lives of the Cloistered Visitation Sisters.”