(LifeSiteNews) — Earlier this month, I traveled down to the Diocese of Tyler, Texas, to witness the final vows of Mother Miriam, also witnessed by Bishop Joseph Strickland. The evening before, Mother and I talked about what people in the diocese made of the apostolic visitation Strickland received earlier this summer.
On this special episode of The John-Henry Westen Show, recorded the night Mother and I had that conversation, Mother takes me on a tour of her new monastery in Winnsboro, Texas.
Showing me around the monastery, she explains that a good deal of things were left by the previous owners. Taking me into what she intends to be the chapel, for instance, she points out the chandeliers in the room and asks if anyone would like one.
According to Mother, over 50 women are currently waiting to discern if they have a vocation to join her monastery, and that over 100 women have written in all. When we were discussing the beds the previous owners left for the sisters, Mother explained that 30 sisters would “begin,” even though there aren’t that many sisters at the monastery.
“We were… put out of a couple of dioceses, so we could not [get that many],” Mother explains. “We were forbidden in Oklahoma to go forward or take anybody. The sisters left,” she continues, adding that one of the sisters, Sister Gertrude Marie, was the only one to stay with her.
Explaining the issue with her vows and the vows of the sisters, Mother tells me that when she met with one of her old bishops, she was told to “cancel” her vows.
“We met, and at… the first time we ever met, and at the end of the meeting, he said, ‘Oh, oh, oh! By the way, cancel your vows,’” Mother recounts. “We didn’t even talk about my vows. He knew they were set with the cathedral… [It was] like he was telling me to cancel a dental appointment.”
When I point out to her that the normal response to that kind of situation would have been to pray for God’s mercy, and that she responded positively to God’s request that she make a sacrifice, she bluntly but gently tells me, “John-Henry, I deserve hell.”
“If I never had my final vows, I said I’d do with my temporary vows with Bishop [Edward] Slattery in Tulsa,” she says. While she is “thrilled” at everything that is happening in her life, she also says that she has “chills.”
“That I get to wake up and wear this [habit] every day… God knows I’m not the type to be a religious. He knows… I’m a New York Jew and a businesswoman!” Even so, Mother maintains that no matter what is “denied” her, she is the “richest person in the whole world,” and that she belongs to Christ forever.
Meanwhile, she and the sisters thought it would be a good idea, on account of the new property, to go into Winnsboro proper once per month to “bother the world and invite everybody” to a film night, regardless of who they are. The sisters would choose the film, and then afterwards host a Q&A session about it. On another night, the sisters would hope to have a question night in which people would ask about “everything you want to know about being Catholic and [are] afraid to ask.”
She also extends her gratitude to LifeSite readers personally, saying, “It’s because of you that we’re here.”
“Without LifeSite, we wouldn’t be here,” Mother tells readers. “And we are thrilled. And we love you.”
At another point in the interview, when I ask her about what the monastery is doing for Mass, she tells me that the sisters normally travel 40 minutes for the Traditional Latin Mass. Recently, however, as the sisters have not had the time to make the trip, they have had to attend a Novus Ordo Mass 17 minutes away in Gilmer, Texas, said by a reverent priest who celebrates the Old Rite twice per week, and says the New Rite ad orientem. The priest has asked the sisters to teach CCD classes, with Mother adding that she wants to “get to the parents.”
For the time being, Mother has yet to find a priest that can come to the property to say Mass for them, even if Bishops Strickland and Athanasius Schneider have visited to say Mass.
For more from Mother Miriam on the new monastery, tune in to this episode of The John-Henry Westen Show.
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