Cloistered Christmas: celebrating like a nun

When a woman decides to become a nun, they leave behind old traditions and practices and open themselves for a new life with their religious order, which becomes their new family. That include Christmas traditions. As every family has their own Christmas customs, with the nuns that is not different.

The Irish Catholic talked to representatives of two cloistered orders to understand a little about the Christmas behind the walls of a monastery. Sr Gwen, a Carmelite Sister from the monastery in New Ross, Co. Wexford and Sr Gabrielle, Prioress of the Redemptoristine nuns in Dublin commented about their traditions from the start of the Advent to the Feast of the Epiphany on January 6.

The Carmelites in New Ross are a group of nine sisters, and it’s a rather young group, with four of those nuns in the mid-40s to mid-50s age group. The Redemptoristines community in Dublin is composed of seven different nationalities. Out of fifteen nuns who live there, only five are Irish.

Diversity

All this diversity plays a role, not only during Christmas, but all year round. “We encourage different nationalities to have, for example, some of their food.” For Thanksgiving Day this year, the nuns celebrated “with two American sister and one Filipino American… We share each other’s cultures,” Sr Gabrielle explained.

The Carmelites start their Christmas celebration with Advent. “The idea is to focus on the great miracle of the incarnation,” Srb   Gwen explained. “We journey together as a Carmelite community and with our prayer for pondering of the Word of God. The daily readings of Advent. That’s a very powerful way for us to go through the Advent and keeping our eyes fixed on Jesus and on the Blessed Virgin Mary.”

Sr Gabrielle began by stating how important Advent is for the Redemptoristines. “We are very fortunate that we’re not caught in the commercialism,” she said. “We actually live Advent with a gradual dawning of life. The various candles been lit every week and it is an intense spiritual journey of preparation for us.”

During Advent, every Saturday evening, the Redemptoristines will have a liturgy, “celebrating the different aspects of the coming of Christ… Because Christ has came in Bethlehem, Christ is coming every day to us… Christ is our joy and our light,” the Prioress said.

The Carmelite nuns when preparing for Advent, “go out to the garden, we collect lovely greenery from around the various parts of the garden and prepare the wreaths, which will be in the church… We’re lucky to have a public church.”

We decorate the external parts earlier, but not inside where we live, because we live the Advent”

Decorating the church is part of the preparation for the Carmelite community, the preparation for the sisters starts to be planned earlier. They have planned “a few days of Advent reflection for the sisters, the whole community participates in this,” Sr Gwen explained.

“This year we’re having it with one of our Carmelite Friars. He’s coming down and he’s going to spend a few days just giving us some Advent reflection talk. We find that’s a great help to move us into the season of Advent too.”

The Redemptoristines do not decorate during Advent. “Just at the very end,” Sr Gabrille told. “We decorate the external parts earlier, but not inside where we live, because we live the Advent… It’s important we live the simplicity. We’re in that preparation stage.” This preparation stage involves “a great cleaning going on around the house.”

The Redemptoristines’ Christmas begins on December 25, “not beforehand. [For] the rest of the world, after Christmas day [it] is nearly all past for them, where we’re just beginning our celebration and living more deeply in that divine life, united with our humanity and divine life, appreciating and loving through humanity,” the Prioress explained.

Custom

Sr Gwen talked about a “custom which I think all the Carmelites have. I suppose in the older days, like when we came here in 1817, there wouldn’t have been many statues in the monastery, it might have been only one of the baby Jesus.” Because of that a very peculiar tradition was created in the Carmelite Monastery in New Ross.

During the month of Advent, “each sister, she can take an Advent treat day. So, she has that day, she can spend it especially in prayer, but she can also take the figure of the baby Jesus… She can take that to her room with her, or to the Hermitage, wherever she’s spending that day,” Sr Gwen explained.

“Let’s say I’m going on retreat tomorrow. Tonight, [the sisters] would all come up near my room upstairs on the corridor. All the sisters would gather outside my room and the prioress would bring the figure of the infant Jesus carried out with her. They would stand around and they would sing one of the Advent hymns.” That is the Carmelite way to keep their eyes “fixed on the Advent.”

While the nuns are journeying through Advent, Sr Gwen said “there will be a quietness on the monastery too. We just try and focus on our readings and so on.” A day or two will be dedicated to practice carols they will sing over Christmas.

“A few days before Christmas, we have to unpack all the crates… the decorations. Various sisters will be pulling out the crib. That would be our main decorations around the house.” The main crib is in the Carmelite’s church, but they “have cribs in different places around” the monastery, she said. “We have a Christmas tree, but we don’t overdo decorations around the house too much.”

Tradition

On Christmas Eve, the Redemptoristines have a tradition of going in procession around the monastery with candles after the evening prayer. “Welcoming Jesus Emmanuel into our home, into every corner of our monastery and into our hearts,” the Prioress explained.

The same happens in the Carmelite monastery. “On Christmas Eve, maybe late afternoon, it’s quite dark, so the community will process all around the monastery,” Sr Gwen explained. They will be “carrying candles and little handbells. We just ring those gently and we process with the baby Jesus. Just turn around to different parts of the monastery.

“This procession happens before Mass, so they would walk to the church and place the baby Jesus in the crib, which will be blessed by the priest… We’re very blessed to still be able to have a night Mass. Lots of friends and local people would join us for the night Mass and then we have an early Mass at 8am again on Christmas morning,” Sr Gwen said.

On Christmas day, after the morning Mass, the Carmelites gather to discuss which sisters are assigned to cooking dinner. After dinner, “at night-time, after tea, we would open our gifts that we’ve got maybe from friends or family. We’d all gather at our tea-time and we’d open our gifts and we’d be pulling crackers and we’d be telling jokes. That’s great fun, actually.”

On the other hand, for the Redemptoristines, “Christmas is not about exchanging presents, it’s about receiving Christ in the world,” the Prioress explained. For that reason, they do not exchange gifts between themselves. “We don’t have things to give each other. But people give us gifts and some give gifts for each individual sister, and we open them on Christmas Day. But everything goes to our community, we share everything… Whatever is there is shared among us.”

Exchange

That doesn’t mean the Redemptoristine nuns don’t exchange something. “They get their joy. The present we give each other is being present to each other… You don’t have to give physical gifts. But give time to somebody is so very important.”

As any other family, “we have our traditional Christmas dinner,” Sr Gabrielle said. “People are very generous to us… everything that we have for our Christmas dinner is gifted to us by our families and friends… We realise that it comes from the Lord himself.”

For Christmas dinner, the Redemptoristine nuns are free to come into the kitchen and prepare a dish from their countries. “It’s a wonderful time to come in during the day and do our little bit to contribute to the meal. It’s a group effort,” the sister said.

“After Christmas dinner, the fire is lit in the community room and we gather around there, sharing stories and hearing about stories from different families, from different countries and how they celebrate. It’s a beautiful moment,” Sr Gabrielle said.

When the visitors come, they ‘receive them with respect… It’s a time for greater deep recollection for us, as far as possible in our daily life’”

Normally, on Christmas day the Redemptoristines don’t receive family visitors. “We try to keep it simple,” she explained. “But life has changed for people. We were never allowed to have visitors before during Advent, but it doesn’t suit people anymore, we have to consider people. So, people come, for example, our families and friends come, give in the food for Christmas and give gifts in.”

Sr Gabrielle said that, when the visitors come, they “receive them with respect… It’s a time for greater deep recollection for us, as far as possible in our daily life.”

For the Carmelites, Sr Gwen said that some sister might miss spending Christmas with their families, especially the younger ones, but the community is also a family. The community is their new family, the family they chose to be a part of.

However, the Carmelites do receive visits of family and friends. “Say, on the day after Christmas, my family will come and visit me, then somebody else’s family will come. It’s not that we’re cut off,” she explained, “If they [the families] wanted to come on Christmas day, [they could], but most people are too busy on Christmas.”

On the three days after Christmas, the Carmelites meet “at 5:30 in the choir, all the sister gather and we’re singing a number of Christmas carols as a community. We just sing them together, for ourselves”.

Young People

On the Feast of the Holy Innocence, December 28, “the young people kind of take over a bit in the monastery. Their job is to entertain us… They often try to play something hilarious, funny… They might put on a play, or they might have some games organised for us… Or a quiz or sing along. It’s very exciting and funny and be great fun that night,” Sr Gwen said.

Because of the Feast of Holy Innocence, the Carmelites “let the young people go wild a bit.”

On January 1, they gather in the community room around 7pm. On the table, a tray with envelops will be waiting for them. Each sister will get one of the envelops not peeking inside. “Inside that envelope will be our patron saint for the year… It usually is a Carmelite saint… That’s our prayer companion and our patron saint for the year.”

On January 2, the nuns go into a three-day retreat to prepare for the Feast of the Epiphany. Celebrating the “women’s Christmas on January 6”, the Carmelites try to honour famous Irish women, like St Briged… The more adventurous ones might try to dress up and we might have to guess who they are.”

“It’s great fun,” Sr Gwen said. “We pray, but we got the joy of the Lord and we share that with each other. And we enjoy Christmas.”

Inside the monastery, Sr Gwen explained, they don’t get caught in the craziness of commercial Christmas, with shopping and flashing lights. They don’t feel like they are missing out on anything.

Sr Gabrielle said that when celebrating Advent and Christmas, it is important to “never forgetting that in welcoming Christ, the light, we welcome all people. We cannot separate Christ from the rest of humanity. That is surely the message of Christmas.”