The incorrupt hand of Saint Teresa of Jesus leads dozens of pilgrims every day to a small monastery of the Discalced Carmelites in Ronda, attracted by the legendary relic of the mysticism of Ávila. It is the same left hand (which is missing the little finger) that Franco slept next to in El Pardo and that, upon the dictator’s death, was returned to the Malaga convent from where CNT militiamen had stolen it when the war broke out. Civil war.
Sheathed in a silver glove, supernatural powers are attributed to the jewel of the Ronda abbey. And in recent years it is especially revered by women with fertility problems who want to become pregnant.
“We have an album full of photos of children and some very miraculous, like the baby of a 46-year-old woman who had been married for 25 years without becoming pregnant,” says proud Sister Jennifer, the prioress, a talkative Gibraltarian who prays that the saint give them a hand now and work another miracle, the ‘fertility’ of the monastery itself, that it can continue alive with its cloistered but not cloistered nuns, with its doors wide open instead of adding to the black list of monasteries that cast out the lock forever, about twenty each year, according to the Episcopal Conference.
The small contemplative community that inhabits this convent founded in 1924 is made up of four nuns of four other different nationalities: Sister Isabel, an 83-year-old native of Malaga; Sister María José, Vietnamese, 43; Sister Teresa, 60, Kenyan; and the British Sister Jennifer, 62, at the head of the troop since the covid began to ravage and the ‘family’ was reduced to the four ‘barefoot’ ones, one of them with senility problems.
“There were 16 of us,” recalls the superior, very aware that the directive from Rome to close abbeys with fewer than six nuns is planned on the old stones of the 16th century building.
Number of monks and nuns per monastery
When there are less than 6, the monastery has to close
Number of monks and nuns per monastery
When there are less than 6, the monastery has to close
Number of monks and nuns per monastery
When there are less than 6, the monastery has to close
Number of monks and nuns per monastery
When there are less than 6, the monastery has to close
«It is true that in just a few months we have dropped to four, but a convent cannot be closed overnight. We are in an indefinite process, but not permanent. “They are going to give us a reasonable amount of time to see if this improves,” confides Sister Jennifer, who multiplies in her thousand tasks to combine spiritual life (Mass, prayers, reading, adoration of the Blessed Sacrament, meditation…) with real life ( administration, shopping, paying bills, answering the phone, helping at the lathe, making their famous sweets and even acting as a nurse). All to try not to notice that there are more jobs than hands. “At twelve we should be in bed, but there are always things to do!”
153 closures in almost ten years
The advanced age of the nuns and the lack of new vocations push the closure of dozens of convents in Spain, a ‘power’ in cloistered nuns that is declining. One in every four female monasteries in the world is built here, but in just a decade 153 have disappeared. Although there are still 712 active sanctuaries, the Spain of the empty church spreads like a shadow in the face of the aging of its communities and the absence of relief. generational.
Number of monasteries in 2022, according to sex
11 nuns for each monastery
13 monks for each monastery
Number of monasteries in 2022, according to sex
11 nuns for each monastery
13 monks for each monastery
Number of monasteries in 2022, according to sex
11 nuns for each monastery
13 monks for each monastery
Number of monasteries in 2022, according to sex
11 nuns for each monastery
13 monks for each monastery
Some of these time capsules so rich in history and art resist with tiny communities and others have thrown in the towel. For example, the monastery of San Plácido, in the Madrid neighborhood of Malasaña, hung up its habits last May after four centuries of monastic life. There were ten Benedictines living there before the pandemic, which increased to five in 2022, almost all of them nonagenarians, with no substitutes in sight and with an added problem: they did not accept nuns who were not born in Spain.
Evolution since 2013
Source: Spanish Episcopal Conference
This is not the case with Sister Jennifer’s community, which exists thanks to foreigners like her. The Guiri trio does everything and carries the weight of the workshop, where they make the homemade sweets that they sell to cover expenses. The menu is one that makes your mouth water: muffins, pasta, San José roscos, Cortadillos, coquitos, mantecados, sponge cakes, cakes, puff pastries, pestiños… and the Santa Teresa yemas, which compete on the palate with the famous Tajo yolks, the typical ones from Ronda.
From the pastry artillery, Sister Jennifer chooses her delicious cat’s tongues, but at 2 euros or so a dozen it doesn’t seem like it will be worth much, although she doesn’t plan to raise the price. “Everything is very expensive, oil, flour, eggs… but people deserve to be able to eat a sweet, right?”
–And how are they shooting?
–No idea, for a mercy that hallucinates. We don’t owe anything to anyone. Don’t tell me how we do it, because I’m not too sure. But the Lord has his hand on it. People are generous. If something costs 5.50, they give you 6 euros and tell you to keep the change. It’s 50 cents and that’s how we go. Those from Ronda and those from outside, they are all very good and have respect for the nuns.
In case she was missing something, the busy prioress has now started making necklaces with little crosses and bracelets with Saint Francis knots. «If it is a euro, a euro that comes in. “If it’s not done, I wouldn’t get in,” she says resolutely.
With former Minister Portillo
Lately the convent has not stopped receiving foreign visitors. Recently there was former British Defense Minister Michael Portillo, a celebrity for his television documentaries combining tourism and train travel. Portillo, son of a Spanish republican exiled in England and residing in Carmona (Seville), arrived at the monastery attracted by the hand of the wandering saint and with the idea of telling her story in a series of reports about Spain. «People come asking about the arm of Saint Teresa. I no longer correct them. Here we have the hand of the saint, la-ma-no! Her arm with the rest of the incorrupt body is preserved in the monastery of Alba de Tormes,” explains Jen, as her friends from her native Peñón call her, where she was a young and carefree ‘little girl’ who never imagined that the founder of the Carmelites barefoot was going to cross his path one day.
Born into a Gibraltarian family of Greek origin on the maternal line (her second surname is Licudis), the current Sister Jennifer del Corazón de Jesús was a teenager who loved spearfishing, who did not miss one of the parties they held in ‘British’ plan the social clubs of La Roca and that he had left school at the age of fifteen “because he couldn’t stand” either school or the teachers. “She wanted independence, and look how well I got behind bars, it couldn’t be more independent! She hahaha.”
Before becoming Sister Jennifer, Jen was a plain young ‘party girl’ who jilted a boyfriend to go on a spiritual retreat that changed her life.
Remember also that although she was a practitioner, she was not at all devout. “I went through the mass but the mass did not pass through me.” Until she was invited to a spiritual retreat where she went one weekend to stand up to a boyfriend candidate. “He was a boy I liked and I went to retirement just so he would miss me, hahaha.” That escape “without vocation” changed her life course. “I found what I was looking for, the truth of God.”
After a few years that she describes as a “breakthrough” in which faith, like a boomerang, came and went, Jen began to soak up the spirituality of Saint Teresa and her soul mate, Saint John of the Cross, until she decided to take the habits. «I was going to London, to the Discalced Carmelites of Notting Hill (the popular neighborhood that gives its name to the film immortalized by Hugh Grant and Julia Roberts), but a priest told me about the community of Ronda. My idea was to go to England because I could handle myself better in English and I thought that, if I had to study in Spanish, I was going to die, but that wasn’t the case.
The prioress does not lose hope of keeping the convent open at least until October 15 of next year, when Ronda turns one hundred years old.
Jennifer, who has not changed her name when she became a nun, landed in Ronda at the age of 24 and has been in the convent for 38 years, the last three as head. «When they chose me I thought she was nonsense. I laughed, but he told me ‘the Lord will know what he does’. And what happened to that kid she left standing at that social club? “My friends wrote to me that he was still single, hahaha.”
The superior now has the task ahead of her to keep open what has been her only ‘home’ since 1985. She does not lose hope of reaching at least October 15 of next year, when the convent will celebrate its centenary since its foundation, the Saint Teresa’s Day, 1924.
“I’ll beg to be left open for a long time,” Sister Jennifer longs, who also alleges humanitarian reasons for the liquid memory of Sister Isabel, the octogenarian nun. «She has been here for more than 60 years and she knows where her cell is, where we pray, where the mass is, where we eat… this is a small convent, if you change it to a bigger one, you will lose it to me» . For Sister Isabel, the abbess is willing to sacrifice herself, to look for money and vocations from under the stones, although she admits that her decision is not hers. “The Lord has helped us and I hope that he continues to help us because this convent is very alive.”
So alive that they receive a daily trickle of 300 pilgrims wanting to see the hand of Saint Teresa, and with the embrace of Ronda, whose population continues to pour out their ‘barefoot’ (there are two other cloistered convents) as happens in Gibraltar, where they sell monastic sweets. When someone drops by, Jennifer sharpens Shakespeare’s tongue, which she speaks with the accent of a Chelsea lady, and catches up or shares concerns arising from her recent hernia operation… and Brexit! !. «Oh Brexit, my mother. I had a bad time. After 28 years in Ronda, they gave me permanent residence in Spain and now they have taken it away from me and I have to redo the paperwork, this Brexit thing is a hassle! », she laughs.
The prioress has had to respond many times to whether she feels Spanish or British, whether she is more like Philip VI or Charles III. «No offense intended, I feel Gibraltarian. But I have to say that Ronda has welcomed me with incredible affection and we keep joking about Spanish Gibraltar and all those things… We laugh a lot, but I don’t get involved in politics,” he says with his left hand, the same as Saint Teresa, whom Sister Jennifer guards, will bring to light to keep her convent ‘open’.
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