Behind these locked gates on a busy street in North Belfast lives ten women in what is literally a medieval regime.
Its rules bind them to stay in there until they die.
They're woken each morning, winter and summer, at half past five for the start of a 15-hour day.
Their diet, which never includes meat, is almost wholly dependent on the generosity of others.
It's a routine which would provoke outrage if it were imposed on convicted prisoners.
But these women embrace their way of life happily, saying their calling to it is a gift from God.
These women are nuns. They're members of the Poor Clares, one of the strictest orders of the Catholic Church.
It was founded nearly 800 years ago in Italy by St. Claire herself, on the inspiration of her contemporary and friend, St. Francis of Assisi.
The order spread throughout the world, reaching Ireland in the 17th century, but it arrived in Belfast only 60 years ago.
The monastery is set here on the Cliftonville Road.
It's known to relatively few people and an even smaller number has passed through its outer walls.
Hardly anyone goes further because church law bars even relatives of nuns from passing beyond the building's reception rooms.
So what is life like in this enclosed community and what has it to offer the world? Mother Paschal is abbess of the monastery.
We are here for the people.
We are here to pray for the people. We live our dedicated lives.
This is our contribution, our total commitment to God.
It is our contribution to the people.
by praying, and it's a prayer life, a life of prayer and penance, too.
Just as our Lord asked in the gospel
for prayer and penance, and our Lady has asked so often at
various times for penance to be done, penance is needed. And this is voluntary,
joyful, ready penance that we undertake combined with prayer.
As well as committing herself to a life of prayer, a poor Clare must undertake vows of poverty, chastity and obedience.
A fourth vow, that of enclosure, means she leaves the monastery only for medical and other exceptional reasons.
She's allowed just four visits a year from relatives when the conversation is conducted through a metal grill.
It's a formidable challenge which hasn't daunted a 24-year-old from Belfast's new large road former clerical officer Bernadette Hughes
Mother Abbess, I ask you for the love of God.
In her recent ceremony, she was received into the order, though it will be five years before her probation is complete.
that you would admit me to the habit of the Order of St. Clair?
I think the first quality we always look for is common sense
and then we like to get a childlike spirit
A sense of humor is very important for our lives too.
Do you have any tests to help you assess whether a person would be suited to life in the monastery?
Yes, we give applicants a questionnaire to answer and that goes into questions about
health and family background and age and all that sort of thing.
Do you have any medical tests?
Yes, we have medical tests, usually our community doctor.
It can give us a good idea of the state of health of the applicant.
What sort of things would bar a guard from joining the order?
Well, lack of sufficient health, or lack of intelligence, or possibly a person could be running away from the world, or searching for security.
When I was very young, nuns always meant a lot to me but I wasn't going to be a
mom when I grew up because I was going to be one of those Americans.
I think all along, the Lord had given me the attraction to the religious life, but it took me a long time to come around to make the decision to enter, to leave everyone and come, you know, and follow the Lord.
I felt that it was something I was given personally to the Lord and was leaving the rest to him, kind of.
Just and other, other planets I wanted when Mother Abbas was going to staff because it was just going on, you know.
How did your family react when you told them that you wanted to become another?
Well, my mother wasn't surprised, you know, she knew me that I was kind of
I found I could see the need of our Lord in our lives and that way she wasn't surprised
But it was very hard because it come from a very big family very close-knit. There are 11 of us 11 children
And we it was very hard leaving them all and it was very hard for them
the maddest well
accepted
What did your friends say when you told them?
Well, some thought I was gone.
had gone off finally, you know, but I just couldn't understand why I thought I was awake
going on and why I didn't want to let myself awake, but I didn't make that.
Put on these garments as a sign of your consecration. May you keep in your heart that dedication
to the Lord which these garments proclaim.
I had quite an active social life. I liked to travel a lot and I liked people and I had a lot of friends.
No, no, I didn't really go kind of near as steady or as narrow as the Australian one, but I...
Receive the seraphic bravery that you may join in the liturgy of the hours in union with the praying church.
Amen.
Receive the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ in which is our salvation, life and resurrection.
The day I'm, I suppose, prospective bride of Christ and it's a celebration and it's a happy occasion.
In future, you shall be called Sister Mary Michael of Our Lady.
A great devotion to Saint Michael and the house is called as Our Lady and Saint Michael's.
Saint Francis had great devotion to Saint Michael.
And I also am doubly happy because the mother of us that I was in contact with when I was still outside
and thinking about entering, she was a mother of Michael and gave me a great lot of help.
So I really am delighted about him.
Well, in joining the convent, you've given up the prospect of marriage and the chance
to have children. Does that bother you?
Well the fact that the Lord has brought me here, I think he's gone to, he has other plans for my life, I can make that sacrifice quite willingly.
Is there anything that you'll always miss, you think?
I think if your vocation in life is just any way of life, I think you'll not miss much
else.
As if you had everything in the world and I haven't come here, I think I'd have missed
more because I'd have missed the deep, I think, call of my heart.
Having joined the community, what doesn't you recruit usually find most difficult to cope with?
But I think really the biggest difficulty is, or they find the most difficult in the spiritual life.
You see, they come in usually with not much knowledge of the spiritual life.
When you first joined the convent, there were a considerable number of older sisters.
There were, yes.
Did you find any question of a generation gap?
I did.
I didn't. Very much so.
How did that manifest itself?
Well...
things that I would be familiar with outside, perhaps records or celebrities,
television programs, the sisters had never heard of.
I found that I had much in common with them in the beginning until I grew in prayer and could speak about spiritual things to them.
I've seen a girl go right to the end to solemn profession and then leave just because of enclosure.
Coping with the rigors of life in the Purclairs is demanding enough for those in full health,
but Sister Asumta has to overcome a physical handicap.
I was just a little over 21 when it was diagnosed that I had multiple cirrhosis.
By the way, I had been ill for a little while.
Was that before or after you entered the monastery?
I'd already been in the convent about two years, a little more.
My health was very good when I entered the convent.
I used to boast of my strong constitution.
Since then, since I was diagnosed, have you come to terms with this condition?
Yes, thanks Peter God. I'm quite content now.
I think there might be a great deal in the fact that I hope the conference helps a great deal.
My faith in God that he does work through this my condition, my health, to help my own signification,
but very much it also helps.
The people whom I am praying for, when I accept it as permitted by God, then I can accept that as sometimes in spirit dependence.
An event that prompted changes in the Pearl Claire's routine was the Second Vatican Council in the early 60s.
It gave sisters a greater say in the running of the monastery, though they've always had the right to elect the mother abbess.
And it lessened but did not abolish segregation between novices and fully professed sisters.
In the freer atmosphere that developed after the council, a game of tennis became a suitable form of recreation.
The sisters keep in touch with local and world affairs through one daily newspaper, one evening news programme and radio and some magazines.
On very special occasions a television set is borrowed from neighbours.
The last time it was brought in was during the Pope's visit to Britain last summer.
But he was here not only to bless them, but to give encouragement to those remarkable people who have devoted their lives to the care of the handicapped.
Each time the crowd had responded to the Holy Father's appearance, we felt just really like, not really,
well I suppose it was an element of emotion, certainly, but that is only natural, certainly.
Earlier in the hospital's chapel, a 12-year-old handicap boy, Thomas Dryden,
I don't know very much about the TV, you know, it's only on very particular occasions we have it.
We just couldn't have it all the time because it would be incompatible with our life prayer.
It would be too much, bring the outside too much into our midst.
We might as well be outside almost if we were continually looking at the TV.
The nuns fast constantly, eating only one complete meal a day.
They depend on donations for their upkeep, a consequence of giving their lives over to prayer.
We have never had to appeal in need.
And I don't think that we would ever have to,
because we have had the assurance of so many friends.
Actually, our parish priest...
once approached us and he almost chided us for not informing him that we were
out of food and we said oh there was no truth in it whatever at all so we had
asked him to announce it from the church
that we were not a need at all, and that we thanked everyone who did contribute to,
but we never were a need, and I don't believe we will ever be a need again.
We are allowed to ask some relatives or friends for what we would need.
And it would only be what we would need at that particular time because we have found time and time again that God provides our needs.
Minor duties or charges are distributed to the sisters each week, which means then that
the sister has a different charge each week.
Perhaps it may be sweeping the cloister, cleaning the bathrooms, the ordinary household duties.
In the 30 years since Sister John entered the Order, rules have been relaxed.
Today's conditions provide a contrast with the regime she joined.
I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry.
We had much more heavy lake manual work, and we had much more of the housework.
We still have the housework, but we haven't the garden.
The sawing used to go to the crosscut.
And we saw the logs that came down from the trees,
which did for firewood.
If you broke anything...
or if you were late too often at night, you know, for the divine opposite mountains,
when you had to accuse yourself in refectoring there, the central refectoring.
Why would that take place?
You just knelt down the floor and you said,
I only accused myself of whatever fault it was.
In a city afflicted by violence and poverty, the monastery provides a sympathetic ear for the worried and distraught.
In a setting not unlike a priest's confessional box, visitors call to unburden themselves of their problems.
Just next door to where we are, similar to the grill that we have here, only there is a double curtain, there's a next curtain that's precluded, the view is precluded
because mainly, because people coming up with confidential troubles and worries and all that,
they feel that they can disclose them more openly.
What sort of things might they talk about in these conversations?
Oh, the family troubles, the members of the family will give them trouble, or they're
having housing problems, they're trying to get better housing, or selling a house, or
their children have got into trouble in perhaps maybe some of them in prison.
Many of them in prison actually, and in fact there was one lady, had three sons in Long
Kesh.
One was...
In, for a 15-year term, for a serious crime, I think it was actually, he had shot a policeman.
And the other two sons, one was only 17, another was 19.
And she was very, very worried about it.
So, there are very heart-rending stories that we hear from time to time too, and drink problems too that have broken families.
What sort of advice and consolation might a mother that you just described there get from coming here?
Well, we can just assure them that we do sympathize with them in their troubles and
assure them of our prayer, that we bring all their intentions, all their families wholeheartedly
before God, present them to God and ask God to provide the help and the assistance that
they need.
Oh god come on
The Lord's revelation to members came, said,
One by much, you have all signed your plans.
That's what we need, you're a thing.
Very often, it's peace of mind and peace of heart that they need most, and this is what we pray for.
When I entered it first, I used set formal prayers, we'll say,
but after a while, as you grow in intimacy with the Lord,
you find that the set prayers don't express what you want to say to the Lord,
and so you can use your own words.
And after a while then, you find you don't need words.
It's just when you're with someone you love.
You don't need words.
Just your feelings express what you want to say.
Prayers in the community begin shortly after the nuns have risen at half past five.
In a gilded monstrance the blessed sacrament is exposed for continual adoration.
The focal point of worship is mourning mass celebrated by a priest who stays beyond a glass screen at the front of the chapel.
But a day long round of meditation and prayer is not complete when the nuns retire at 9 o'clock.
At midnight they are woken to chant the divine office and the service which lasts an hour.
I can say that there is a happy atmosphere, everyone is as joyous as can be and not it
doesn't mean that everyone is going about gaily jumping over the moon or anything like
that.
But there's a peacefulness, a peaceful atmosphere.
because there is a prayerful atmosphere because where each sister is developing a prayerful
mentality and attitude and she's providing that attitude for the atmosphere for the rest
of the sisters for the community.
Therefore, each one
has that idea, that goal, before or all the time,
and each sister is contributing to the other's peacefulness,
serenity.
And what you realize is that there is an atmosphere created
because we create that atmosphere within ourselves,
and it must radiate.
It is very important in the church to pray.
But it is doubly, doubly, doubly important to sing.
But the tranquility of the community cannot disguise the crisis facing it and religious
orders generally.
We have had 10 deaths in the last five or six years.
We haven't had all that many applicants really in the last, we've had three who came in our
persphearing in the last four years. All orders are the same, I think there's just
short shifts, vocations everywhere. What's the general trend in the church at the moment?
The fall off on vocations has reduced numbers in the community from over 20 to just 8.
Indeed, since we started filming, two sisters have died.
Three of the remaining nuns are over 60.
So how worried are the sisters about the community survival?
Not really worried at all, quite optimistic that they will rise again.
Should the poor Klars be forced to close their Belfast monastery,
disappointment will not be confined to the Catholic community.
We have some very, very close, non-Catholic friends.
And they both call to see us and correspond with us very often.
Are you surprised?
Not in the least, no, because the most of these are very, very spiritually minded, ecumenically
minded, and they know the power of prayer.
And many of them attend prayer meetings, and I say they have a tremendous depth of appreciation
of the prayer life, and they feel so united to us, you know, in this element of prayer
life.
Why do people, do you think, come to you rather than go to, say, a priest or a minister
or a social worker or a doctor?
Well, I think principally because...
that we are dedicated.
to prayer. It is a prayer life. And it is that that they are seeking. They come, would
you pray for us? Would you pray for us? This is the continuous request. Would you pray for
my son? Would you pray for my daughter? Would you pray for my husband? Would you pray for
my wife? And it's because they know that we have such constant contact with God. Each
day.
We have a particular prayer in our divine office for peace in the world.
in our country, in our province, in our city,
and for peace in the hearts of our people.
Because peace, I feel, in the hearts of our people
will eventually bring peace to our country,
to our province, in our city.
If the monastery does survive, it will be because the order can convince young women in a skeptical age, it can provide fulfillment.
I just leave the future to whatever God has for me, and try and follow that plan, you know, I think that's the safest way.
The dark never disappoints you, and you come to live your life to me.