After 25 years behind the screen of the Monastery of the Poor Clares in Alexandria, Sister Mary Charitas of the Child Jesus stood in an open doorway before family and friends, carrying a lit candle. She possessed all the elegance of a bride, wearing a crown of baby’s breath on her head and a white rose pinned above her heart, as she beamed at her family seated in the pews.
Bishop Michael F. Burbidge celebrated a Mass in honor of Sister Charitas’ silver jubilee at the order’s Monastery of Mary, Mother of the Church June 28. The monastery’s altar faced an elaborate wrought-iron screen of blooming vines, behind which sat the other Poor Clare sisters, obscured from the view of the lay worshippers.
After Sister Charitas greeted her family from the doorway at the beginning of the Mass, sacristan Sister Colette closed the “communion doors,” as Sister Charitas rejoined the sisters in the adjoining chapel.
Bishop Burbidge took a moment at the beginning of Mass to welcome Sister Charitas’ family and commemorate her father, Daniel Schneible, who died May 6.
He commended Sister Charitas on her silver jubilee in his homily. “Sister, throughout these 25 years, and as you continue this journey here on earth, look to Christ as the source of hope as you live out your vows of poverty, chastity, and obedience; as you vow to the Lord to enlighten you with his Word each and every day; as you rest in him in silence and meditation and prayer; as he feeds you with the gift of himself in his Precious Body and Blood.
“You are fully alive in this monastery,” Bishop Burbidge said. “Please continue to inspire us.”
The communion doors opened again for Sister Charitas. Bishop Burbidge approached her and asked, “Dear Sister, what do you ask of God and the church?” She responded, “I ask for the grace to renew my consecration and dedication to God, in the radiant spirit of our father St. Francis and our mother St. Clare, resolving to follow the life and poverty of the Lord Jesus Christ and His most holy Mother until death in our community of Poor Clares; and may he find my lamp burning when he comes.”
Bishop Burbidge invoked God’s help over Sister Charitas, after which she knelt before the order’s abbess, Mother Thérèse. Placing her hands in the abbess’, she renewed her vows of poverty, chastity and obedience. She paused a few times to compose herself, as family, friends, and even one of the concelebrants wiped away tears.
Following Sister Charitas’ renewal of vows, Bishop Burbidge imparted a blessing upon her: “May you be filled with every grace and spiritual blessing, so that you may share eternally with your Mother St. Clare the secret sweetness which God has kept for those who love him.”
Following Mass, family and friends congregated outside as a line steadily grew from the adjoining monastery parlor to greet Sister Charitas through a screen.
“She does look very bridal,” said Dorothy Schneible, Sister Charitas’ mother. Dorothy remembered the moment when her daughter — then called Patricia Schneible — told her that God was calling her to religious life. “She said she always wanted to get married and have children,” she said. But after hearing the call, “She actually cried. She said, ‘Mom, God’s calling me.’ And of course, I couldn’t say no.”
Danny Schneible, Sister Charitas’ brother, drove with his wife and six children from Ohio for the special Mass. “It’s always mixed emotions,” he said of seeing his sister once again. “It’s happy and a little sad.” With five daughters, Danny added, “It’s also beautiful for them to see religious life,” remarking that his sister sets a good example for his children.
One concelebrating priest had a close connection with Sister Charitas before she entered the order. “We were both young adults active in the Legion of Mary,” said Father Stephen F. McGraw, in service at the diocesan mission in the Dominican Republic. “We were working and (doing) door-to-door evangelization. And then we both, providentially, ended up following our vocational paths the same summer,” he said.
In an interview with the Catholic Herald, Sister Charitas said that she first felt the call to religious life when she was 15. “My thoughts and desires were going in a different direction, maybe toward marriage,” she said. “I was really upset. But I said a prayer every day. I said, ‘God, if you want me to be a sister or a nun, make me want it.’ And I just prayed that every day, And eventually, I just wanted it — it wasn’t even that long.”
Sister Charitas went on to attend Christendom College in Front Royal and began touring religious orders, including the Poor Clares, but didn’t feel a “draw” to one. Following graduation and during her work with the Legion of Mary, however, she felt “a love growing for the Poor Clares.” One day, while doing Legion work in Staunton, “it just hit me all of a sudden; I felt like God was inviting me to be a Poor Clare. The words in my head were, ‘Why don’t you become a Poor Clare?’ ”
More than a quarter century after she entered the Poor Clares as a postulant, Sister Charitas said she sees life through the mysteries of the rosary — both sorrowful and joyful — and reflects often on a phrase of St. Clare of Assisi, “We ought to ponder the immense favors of God bestowed on us.”
The moment she began to renew her vows, Sister Charitas said she became overwhelmed by the “immensity of God’s love.”
“When I did say my vows, I kind of lost it,” she said. “But my mom was so dear … I looked at her, and she had this encouraging smile.”
As Sister Charitas returns behind the screen, she encourages the lay faithful to look at the object as an invitation to holiness. “God’s calling me to be more with him, and to pray for the world,” she said. “I think the screen is also telling the world that God is calling them to be with him, too.”
