sister clare

Journeys in Faith: When Hip and Holy Coincide

By Henrietta Gomes
HERALD Staff Writer
(From the Issue of 6/28/07)

As a student at Southern Connecticut State University, she aspired to be a fashion consultant in the industry. “That’s God’s sense of humor,” said Franciscan Sister of the Eucharist Sister Clare Hunter, who declared fashion as her major her freshman year in college. “Now I wear the same thing everyday,” she said, quickly adding, “but I accessorize with sunglasses and rosaries.”
The young and lively nun serves as the director of the diocesan Respect Life Office, which was formed last August, and strives to promote the respect of all human life through prayer, education and action.
With her outgoing personality and say-it-like-it-is attitude, some people assume she had a wild life before entering the convent. But growing up in Cheshire, Conn., less than a mile from the motherhouse of her future religious community, Sister Clare was immersed in youthful days spent with the sisters working on their farm, helping with catechism programs, and doing volunteer work with them. She rarely got into trouble as a youngster. As the eldest of six children she grew into a responsible and hardworking teenager, often spending time with older practicing Catholics. In fact, once in a while her parents would plead with her to go to parties, Sister Clare said with a smirk.
Her devoutly Catholic parents, who were “amazing role models” and active members in the parish, directed marriage preparation classes and made it possible for Sister Clare to not only be exposed to religious life, but also allow the sisters to become an integral part of the family’s life.
“I was blessed with a great witness of religious life in the Church, and it was attractive enough that it made me question a possible vocation,” she said. She found the religious community to be “alive, full of joy, intense, dynamic, and I wanted that in my life. I wanted to be like that,” Sister Clare said, conceding that she did not seriously consider it until she was in college.
Like many teenagers, she struggled to balance the popular culture with Church teachings. She often sought the wisdom and advice of the sisters when plagued with “all my teenage dramas and trials,” she said.
“I always had an intense love for JPII, which carried me through [those years].”
She always felt like a minority living the teachings of the Church, but those sentiments disappeared when she experienced her first World Youth Day in Czestochowa in 1991.
“It was a life-altering experience …. That experience helped me realize the universality of the Church, and I saw young people who were in love with the Church,” she said of the experience that helped her vocation blossom. After her World Youth Day experience, she felt a palpable sense to join the Franciscan order.
“I had a moment of clarity and I needed to move on it,” she said. She entered the Franciscan Sisters of the Eucharist in August 1993.
“My parents had always encouraged religious vocations, so becoming a sister wasn’t so foreign to me,” she said. Her younger brothers shared the same excitement and thrill as her parents, but the boys were enthralled with the idea of their big sister being able to “take care of the chickens,” on the sisters’ farm.
All joking aside, Sister Clare said, “it was a true gift to really know in an instant that this is God’s call.”
The Franciscan Sisters of the Eucharist, established in 1973, seek to embody the spirit of St. Francis, and teach the sacredness of every human person. Holding up the cross she and the other sisters wear over their brown habits, Sister Clare explained that the simple metal circle with a cross made as nails is a sign of “the Eucharist suspended in the cross.” It is a reminder to the sisters that “everything we do must be centered in Christ in the Eucharist.”
“The deeper we’re rooted in Christ the more we can reach out and serve,” she said.
The order opened a new convent in Falls Church at St. Philip Parish last August at the invitation of Arlington Bishop Paul S. Loverde.
The five sisters are involved in various ministries around the diocese. Sister Gabriella Pettirossi serves in the tribunal and Catholic Charities as marriage and family counselor, Sister Judith Gebelein is as a nurse at Inova Fairfax Hospital, Sister Janet Siepker works as a Montessori teacher at Siena Academy at St. Catherine of Siena Parish in Great Falls, and Sister Timothy Prokes is a theology professor at Notre Dame School of Graduate Studies at Christendom College in Front Royal.
Her work in the Respect Life Office has sent Sister Clare throughout the area giving talks on life issues and vocations to youth groups, schools and colleges. All her talks incorporate the teachings of Pope John Paul II from his Theology of the Body, said Sister Clare, who holds a master’s in theological studies from the John Paul II Institute of Marriage and Family Life.
It is not a difficult task for Sister Clare to relate to teens and young adults, said the nun who taught high school for three years, and served as director of campus ministry at the University of St. Thomas in Houston, Texas. While in Texas, she earned a master’s in administration and education.
“I tend to gravitate towards looking for ways to connect with them on their experience and what they know through our culture,” said Sister Clare, who tries to keep up with pop culture to be on par with the students. “I use it in order to springboard into moral topics …”
Media and the secular culture is a “huge part of their lives and I believe it’s influential to them, so I use it as a tool.” Sister Clare said, “… young people are pro-life by their nature, but they need to be consistent on all the issues and have the information to think clearly about their own decisions and what’s the truth and right.”
Aside from being asked questions about life and faith, Sister Clare said she is often approached with somewhat bizarre questions regarding the religious life. She often tells kids that she staples her veil to her head, deliberately getting a rise from students who ask her how she keeps it on. Some younger children who have never been exposed to nuns have asked her if she is a princess. Others are curious to know if she lifts weights or what nuns eat.
Accustomed to the “craziness,” she responds jovially, but also concedes that it’s often “very humbling.”
As a Franciscan she is called to be a “walking Gospel … and incarnation of Christ,” she said of her desire to follow in the footsteps of St. Francis. “It’s what I’m constantly striving for,” she said. Aside from her obvious devotions to St. Francis and St. Clare, she has a great love for John Paul II. He has “always been a tremendous influence and hero in my life,” she said, recounting the time in 2002 when she and 14 other sisters from her community had the opportunity to meet him.
“It was a dream come true,” she said of the overwhelming experience.
“He was so influential in my life and I had the opportunity to say thank you for the gift he has been in my life. It was truly a very profound experience. It was surreal,” she said, recounting the awe of being in his chapel and in his presence.
It was in part his influence, Sister Clare said of the late pontiff, that led her to respond positively to the call of her religious vocation. Upon entering the convent she experienced a newfound freedom.
“I’ve always had a lot of energy. I grew up in a family that likes to have a lot of fun and has a great sense of humor. We loved doing shows and skits as a family.” However, becoming a sister was “absolutely in line with God’s call … Energy came over me that was released when I became a sister.”
“I think, too that it’s really important that people know that following your vocation is a life of joy and happiness,” she said.
Because of the lack of exposure most people have to the religious life in the world today, Sister Clare said it is “important that people see that joy. I want them to think of nuns as people too, and that this is a viable call in the world.
“It has challenges as anybody’s vocation, but I’m blessed to know that I was called to this community at that age and at that moment,” she said. The last 14 years as a sister has had “tremendous blessings and joys as well as sufferings and hardships, but that’s what it means to follow Christ.”
“It’s been an adventure,” she said with her signature mischievous grin.

Henrietta Gomes can be reached at hgomes@catholicherald.com.