The closing nuns who in California raise dogs, make cheese and always pray

Hidden in the mountains of Tehachapi, California, a group of closing nuns pursues puppies, elaborates artisanal cheeses and prays the liturgy of the hours, all as part of the resurgence of a 900 -year religious order.

With roots that date back to 1121, when San Norberto de Xanten founded the first community, the Priory of San José de las Canonesas Norbertinas de Belén It has grown since its foundation almost 30 years ago.

“The process of foundation of our priorato was unique, since there are no other Norbertinas canons in North America,” said Mother Mary Oda, prioress of Norbertinas canons.

Contemplative prayer is essential for the community. The daily life of the nuns is based on the liturgical prayer. They get up at midnight to sing the office of Maitines and pause in their daily tasks throughout the day to pray.

Mother Oda shared how her contemplative and closing life is deeply rooted in the liturgy.

“Praise, worship, thanksgiving and intercession that permeate the liturgical prayer also permeate the daily life of the canons, turning its own existence into a kind of ‘living liturgy’,” he told CNA, an agency in English of Ewtn News.

“As the closing canons, the liturgy of the hours is the framework of all our day and governs all our other activities,” said Mother Oda. “Because, even if we have a lot of work in the convent, our main work is praise to God in the choir.”

Part of the monastic life of the Norbertinas canons also includes self -sustaining projects. The sisters often work with their hands to cultivate, create and repair what they have. They also perform daily tasks, such as caring for their animals, Make handmade cheese and collect apples.

But, as a contemplative order, his whole life is based on prayer.

“It is appropriate that all other works, whether cooking, sewing, caring for animals or making cheese, are interrupted to return to this important work,” he continued. “It is from the liturgy of where all our other works acquire their true meaning, so that they become multiple ways that, in our Lord, we seek to radiate this prayer of praise and request to the world, and in turn, return the creation to God.”

Retrievers and Pastor Labradores de Anatolia

“Strive to live on our hands and get our communities as self -sufficient as possible has been a tradition of our order for more than 900 years,” said Mother Oda.

In addition to apples collection and cheese elaboration, the sisters began a Dog breeding program In 2016. He started with a bitch called Blitzen, which the community acquired to shepherd its cows.

After Blitzen had their first litter, the sisters decided, with the help of a community friend, raising retrievers laborers, a breed especially suitable for service and therapy work. Since then, they have incorporated the Pastor Dogs de Anatolia program, two of which help take care of their sheep.

“Today we have raised and located more than 200 puppies in love homes, and several puppies have reached their new families as possible service dogs to help people with PTSD, mobility problems, autism and other disabilities or challenges,” said Mother Oda.

“Thanks to our strict policies in this regard, none of our puppies have ended up being unwanted nor has contributed to the problem of overpopulation in animal shelters,” he said.

A centenary tradition that is still alive

It was in the 1990s that the founding prioress of the community, Mother María Agustín (then Monique Petit), began collaborating with the Norbertinos parents of the abbey of San Miguel to found a community of Canons. The founding nuns spent time in various places forming, finally finding their home in Tehachapi, a city in the mountains of Tehachapi, south of California, in 1999.

“The bases of prayer and discernment that the founding nuns sat down are consolidating as we strive to live our Norbertina tradition,” said Mother Oda.

It was not until 2011 that the Priory was officially incorporated into the Norbertina Order as an independent canony. That year, the first nine nuns made their solemn profession and, in 2012, the permanent building of the convent was built.

“There was a lot of work, prayer and discernment to do while trying to establish how faithfully live a tradition of 900 years in the modern world,” said Mother Oda.

Now, with more than 40 sisters, the Priory has plans to complete the construction of its monastery and chapel.

“God continues to bless us with vocations, so the space in the 2012 building, as well as in the chapel of our reconverted rural house, is becoming more and more a problem that must be addressed in a timely manner,” said Mother Oda. “We trust that God, at the perfect time, the funds will arrive and the space will be available!”

The contemplative life

Mother Oda shared that, although the effects of monastery works are often invisible in this world, the sisters sometimes see the fruit of their prayers.

“We receive prayer requests from all over the world and, often, we also praise reports of happy results, from problems with the vehicle resolved almost miraculous to cancer and conversion remissions on the deathbed, and the grace to fully accept and even embrace a difficult cross that a soul struggled to carry,” said Mother Oda.

He explained that a contemplative life – given to the praise of God and the prayer for men – “is certainly against the time that often glorifies the selfish and the selfish.”

“It addresses in a special way the wounds that afflict people already modern society, which, in general, have forgotten God and suffer frustration and lack of meaning that this forgetfulness always creates,” said Mother Oda.

The closing nun pointed out that all Christians are called to contemplative life, “a deeper life and union with God”, but some Christians are called to live this life of prayer “with greater intensity.”

“The contemplative life is important at any time in history, but perhaps it is especially relevant in our modern times,” he continued. “God has always preferred to speak to the heart of man in silence and, nevertheless, today there is a kind of tyranny of noise and distractions, which makes it very difficult for modern man to be attentive to his voice,” he said.

“Closing monasteries proclaim the world that God exists, which is worthy of each gram of our love and, in fact, of our entire existence, and that living in it and for him is not only possible, but is deeply gratifying,” said Mother Oda.

Translated and adapted by the ACI Press team. Originally published in CNA.