White gratings are the lines that separate the mundane from the sacred world, where Sister Luz Helena Barco Fonseca lives within the Monastery of the Visitation of Santa María, a cloister celebrating its 100th anniversary in Manizales. Sitting in a small reception room, the face of a white-skinned woman can be seen, her expressive eyes projecting warmth amidst spiritual gestures. Her silhouette is covered by a black habit, with a veil and white breastplate, which covers her from head to toe. Beneath the white breastplate, the nun displays a steel cross with small relics inside the armor, hanging from a chain.
The sister still remembers admiring her mother’s devotion to the Blessed Virgin Mary and her pious instincts as a child, and that this was what motivated her to make the decision, at 17 years old, to leave her home in Chinchiná (Caldas) to immerse herself in the religious world, which fascinated her. “I learned about the Monastery when I was 15 years old, through a relative. Although I felt fulfilled with my family (parents and brother), I felt I had many voids in my spiritual realm, and I decided to fill them at the Monastery of the Order of the Visitation 31 years ago,” she said.
A cloistered nun is one who decides to take religious vows for the rest of her life. “I responded to God’s call and wanted to live the simple life that the Holy Family had in their home in Nazareth, framed by humility, poverty, and spiritual richness,” added the sister, who was also Mother Superior of this convent from 2017 to May 23, 2023. With the book in her hand, alluding to the Monastery’s 100th anniversary and inspired by a gift granted by the Sacred Heart of Jesus, the sister, from those white bars that separate her from the outside world, opened the doors of her soul to reveal what a typical day within the congregation is like. “We have a much deeper renunciation of external places, although from this gate onward there is much more freedom,” she added in her soft and warm tone of voice.
One Hundred Years Ago
On October 25, 1924, eight nuns from the Monastery of the Visitation in Bogotá arrived in the capital of Caldas on a five-day horseback journey to begin the founding of a convent for contemplative nuns, divinely inspired by the Sacred Heart of Jesus. The founders of the first community of the Order of the Visitation in the world were in France. They were Saint Francis de Sales and Saint Jeanne Françoise de Chantal, in 1610.
Book
“We are telling the story of the community. The book recounts its founding, the Order of the Visitation, and its founders,” said Sister Luz Elena. She emphasized that it is a compilation of what previous nuns left behind in their logs, for future generations who come to the sacred site. “Sister María de Sales Molina, with many literary gifts, laid the foundations for what constitutes the essence of the book. We also have the custom that when a sister dies, we give her a brief account of her life and her journey within the religious community,” added the Caldas nun. This tradition chronicles the 56 nuns who have died during the monastery’s 100 years of existence. “It also speaks to our spirituality and why we were founded as a congregation. We also emphasize that it was the third monastery created in Colombia,” said the nun, holding the book in her right hand.
Closer than ever, Sister Luz Elena Barco Fonseca showed us the book A Gift of the Sacred Heart of Jesus, commemorating the 100th anniversary of the Monastery of the Visitation of Saint Mary in Manizales. y of the Visitation of Saint Mary in Manizales.Sacred
Numbers
There are 12 monasteries of the Order of the Visitation in Colombia, three in Antioquia. Nineteen sisters live in the monastery in Manizales, and others arrive or leave as missionaries. Each nun has her own cell for sleeping and resting. The room is three square meters in area, with room for a single bed, a nightstand, a chair, three paintings, and a crucifix. Every year, on December 28th, the nuns change their cells, the cross on their habits, their rosary, and everything that represents material attachments, as a symbol of change and of their pilgrimage through this earthly world. Myths and Realities It is false that the nuns of the cloister are kept away from their loved ones, because each month, their relatives can visit them, on a Sunday, for one hour.
Through the bars
Before the Second Vatican Council (1962-1965), those in the cloister did not reveal their faces or go outside. Today, they can attend medical appointments and on special occasions. Currently, the nuns have the free choice to remain or leave the convent, especially the aspirants, postulants, and novices. The temporarily professed and solemnly professed generally remain in the cloister for their entire lives. If a nun dies, family members enter the monastery for the wake in the chapel, and the burial takes place in its own cemetery, located in the cloister, where the other nuns sing the hymns for this farewell ceremony.
Priest Efraín Castaño administers the sacrament of confession to them every two weeks.
Daily Life
From the moment they wake up until they go to bed, the nuns take on activities amidst prayer, contemplation, and integration: 4:45 a.m. They wake up for 40 minutes to organize their cell and dress in their religious habits. 5:25 a.m. The bell rings, signaling the choir to go down to sing the Angelus in the chapel and recite the Divine Office. 6:00 a.m. Personal prayer before the Blessed Sacrament of the Altar. 7:00 a.m. Holy Mass with the priest chaplain. 8:00 a.m. Breakfast. 8:30 a.m. They take turns in the offices, which are the tasks in the kitchen, dining room, and other areas, where they work in complete silence. 11:00 a.m. Divine Office, chants, and in choir for the prayers of the people of the outside world. 12:00 p.m. Angelus and the bell rings to arrive at the dining hall in a posture of recollection. 12:45 p.m. Break. 1:45 p.m. Act of obedience in which the Mother Superior passes a list of prayers and intentions from people who request them from outside through various means, thus entrusting them to prayer. 2:00 p.m. Services in the offices. 3:40 p.m. Spiritual snack. 4:00 p.m. Bible readings, personal prayers, recitation of the Holy Rosary, visit to the Blessed Sacrament of the Altar. 5:50 p.m. Ongoing training for meal preparation. 7:00 p.m. Meeting in the dining hall. 7:50 p.m. Break. 8:40 p.m. Second obedience and prayers for the intentions of the people. 8:50 p.m. Bell rings for major silence. 10:00 p.m. Time to enter the cells for sleep.
Documentary On the occasion of the Monastery’s centennial, the Archdiocese of Manizales released a documentary exploring its spiritual legacy. “The contemplative life and the silent impact of this monastery on the community over 100 years,” it described on social media.
Source: Monasterio de la Visitación, en Manizales: “De la reja para acá hay mucha más libertad”
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