With the help of daily meditation, prayer and Zoom, the Poor Clares of Arundel have thrived in lockdown. And now the nuns are recording an album
Social distancing and lockdown come naturally to the Poor Clares of Arundel in West Sussex: after all, they’ve been doing it for 800 years. “In our day-to-day life the pandemic has hardly affected us at all,” says Sister Gabriel, who joined the order of enclosed nuns in 1994, aged 23. “The biggest sadness for us is that we’ve not been able to have visitors – we’ve hardly seen any outsiders for months.”
Now, though, the outside world is hearing from the Poor Clares, because on the eve of lockdown, back in March, the nuns were in the final stages of recording their debut album. The sisters hope it will bring some of the simple, balanced principles of cloister life to those struggling with the fallout from Covid. “It’s been a time of great anxiety and stress, and people really need to zone out and find a place of peace,” says Sister Gabriel.
