Reconciling Eve and Mary in Another Way – UPDATED

To every thing there is a season, and a time to every purpose under heaven.

— Ecclesiastes 3:1

Via Deacon Greg, we get this terrific story out of Missouri:

A former monastery for Catholic nuns is preparing for new life. It will now become home to Life House Crisis Maternity Home, which has partnered with Catholic Charities of Southern Missouri.

For more than forty years, it was a quiet place of prayer. “They were here praying, praying for all of us in southern Missouri, and praying for peace throughout the world,” says Maura Taylor, Executive Director of Catholic Charities of Southern Missouri.

The sisters of The Carmel of St. Anne left only for special needs like a visit to the doctor. But when their numbers dwindled, they moved out of the monastery. “You can feel the tranquility. You get calm, you get relaxed, and that’s exactly what our residents are going to need, because they’re going to come to us in crisis mode and very desperate and very scared,” says Sharon Maples, founder of Life House Crisis Maternity Home.

Taylor says, “We had this wonderful opportunity that the building became available, and we knew there was a huge need for homeless pregnant women.”

Now, the sisters’ rooms will become home to up to 20 expectant mothers with nowhere else to go.
“We’re bigger than we ever thought we would be, and we share the same heart for the sanctity of life,” says Maples.

Maples felt a calling to start Life House Crisis Maternity Home in 2009. “At nineteen, I was pregnant, and the only resource for me was Planned Parenthood, and because of that, unfortunately, I chose abortion as my option. And 20 years later, God put me back together again and laid this heavily on my heart. He marched it before me, and I followed his footsteps,” Maples says.

I hope we see more coverage when the mothers move in, but when I first read the news I thought — how wonderful! The virgins with lighted lamp left a place for others to find the way! If the loss of a Carmel is disappointing, the new use for this building seems like a perfect reconciliation of it. A fortuitous resolution.

And I also couldn’t help but think of this beautiful image and another sort of Christ-bearing reconciliation:

Can’t get enough of this image from the Trappistine Nuns who make the incredible candy.

UPDATE:
In the comments, Manny shares the website where we can donate to the cause! Thanks, Manny!