“I can only show you ‘snapshots’ of my own journey into a cloister which
I have found to be so beautiful that I never want to leave it again.”
-Nancy Shuman, from the book, The Cloistered Heart
False Prophets
During the first few months after my website’s launch in November 2021, I received dozens of spam messages through my online Contact page. Some offered to improve my search engine optimization (SEO) – for a fee, of course. Others solicited marketing help or tech support.
One email from a “Patricia Hope” suggested that I include audio recordings on my site. Ever eager to accommodate my readers, I began recording audio versions of my web content (Let Me Hear Your Voice). I received some positive feedback from family and friends, but I never heard back from “Patricia Hope.”
“Do you think she was even real?” I asked my husband a month or two later. “I mean, did I put all those hours into recording my posts…for a robot?”
“It’s possible,” James said. “Online scams are becoming more sophisticated these days.”
Needless to say, I was more cautious about responding to my website mail after “Patricia Hope.”
The Message
Then on March 12, 2022, I received another email message:
Sender: Cora Brown*
Hello Mary. I just discovered your blog a week or so ago. It makes me think of The Cloistered Heart which I would love to share with you. There are 12 of us consecrated as “Cloistered Hearts,” one of whom spent 5 years in a monastery before being called out to family life. I sent your Monastery in My Heart audio poem to her and she told me she cried…Heart speaks to heart.
Unlike the “Patricia Hope” message, this email felt authentic and real. Cora Brown, the email’s sender, had said there were other people out there, with the same monastic desires as me. One of them had even spent time in a convent.
She read my poem, and it made her cry.
I closed out of my email and placed my phone beside the sink. My “Monastery in My Heart” poem had connected with someone. Not for the first time, I felt a little frightened by the power of my writing. The Lord had taken my ordinary words and used them to touch someone’s heart.
In this case, to touch the Cloistered Hearts.
Are there really other people out there, longing for a “convent of the heart”? I wondered. Or is this note yet another scam message?
A Slow Attraction
I responded to Cora Brown several weeks later, during Holy Week 2022:
Thank you so much for your message and for sharing with me about the “Cloistered Hearts” and your friend’s reaction to the Monastery in My Heart poem. So sorry to hear about her loss, I have been remembering her in my prayers.
I am praying for you and would love to learn more about the “Cloistered Hearts”. As you can see from my website, I am still seeking out this “convent of the heart”. The journey continues, but writing this convent book is getting me closer, blessed be God! 🙂
Normally, I would have responded back to Cora’s message much sooner. But during March, I’d spent my nights filling out paperwork for my son’s special support services. I also traveled to California for my friend Lisa’s wedding.
And, as I mentioned earlier, I was afraid. My instincts told me Cora’s email was important. So I delayed my response.
Cora’s return message to me was delayed, too. It was almost as if our correspondence had begun to mirror that within a convent: short, poignant letters set between weeks of reflection and prayer.
Hello Mary Rose,
Now it is I who must be apologizing to you for taking this long to reply. Being a “Cloistered Heart” is definitely a call on my life, along with others for whom it speaks so deeply. I’m thinking you already know about that.
I would like to refer you to two things at this point:
1. The Cloistered Heart blog which you can find here http://www.thecloisteredheart.org/
2. The book which can be purchased on Amazon: The Cloistered Heart
The author, Nancy Shuman, for whom the Lord graced with this “call” died in 2017. Her blog, as you will see, is beautiful, and it is our intention to continue the blog with more of her as yet unpublished writings when the timing presents itself.
Cora also gave me the contact information for the team lead of the Cloistered Hearts, whom I promised to contact.
What is a Cloistered Heart?
I visited the Cloistered Heart website while waiting in the Sam’s Club parking lot for our pickup order. James had asked me to run this errand for him that afternoon, and I had a little free time to peruse my messages while I waited for our groceries.
The children were quiet in the back seat, so I opened Cora’s latest email and clicked on the link. The website had a pleasing layout, featuring contemplative blog posts and beautiful religious art. I clicked on one article titled, “What is a Cloistered Heart?“
THE CLOISTERED HEART IS a way of living for God in the midst of the world. It is heart monasticism that can be embraced by married or single persons, religious or lay. It’s an analogy in which our lives can be “monasteries,” our hearts can live in the “enclosure” of Christ, and all things may be viewed through the will of God as through a “grille.”
Nancy Shuman, excerpt from The Cloistered Heart: What IS a Cloistered Heart?
It sounded good. It felt true to me. I liked that “heart monasticism” was open to married lay people, as well as religious. Still, I didn’t want to jump into something this important without learning more and speaking to some of the Cloistered Hearts.
Cora had assured me that twelve women were presently committed to following this cloistered way of life. She’d also written that the Cloistered Heart was a “call” – something given to a person by God.
Jesus, are you calling me to this way of life? I prayed during the next few weeks. How can I know if this is something meant for me, or just a beautiful call meant for others?
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*Name changed
Thank you so much for reading! Join me next week for more on the Cloistered Hearts, as well as a new position I began within my parish!
Also, here are a few pictures of our family and Baby Valerie Inez! ❤️❤️❤️
***Coming Soon***
My husband James suggested I mix up my serious blog posts with some lighter fare. So next weekend I will post a Midsummer’s Reading List for your enjoyment! 🙂
