Couple honors St. Clare, remembers life of devotion
PEG AND BOB GENDASZEK
By Christie L. Chicoine
CS&T Staff Writer
LANGHORNE — When Bob Gendaszek was a boy, he spent two hours on many a Sunday afternoon visiting his beloved aunt — Sister Mary St. Clare of the Blessed Sacrament. But on each visit, he only saw her during one of the two hours.
That’s because his aunt belonged to the Order of St. Clare, a cloistered, contemplative congregation, then on Girard Avenue in Philadelphia and now in Langhorne, Bucks County.
Gendaszek remembers being curious about the curtain that obscured his aunt from his and his parents’ line of vision during the first hour of their visit. But then, during the second hour, in another parlor, they were permitted to see her through an iron grate.
“As a little boy, I didn’t understand the whole life of the Poor Clare,” Gendaszek said of the order’s vow of enclosure.
The Solemnity of St. Clare is Aug. 11, and Gendaszek and his wife, Peg, are gearing up for the monastery’s celebration of the founder’s feast day.
The Gendaszeks are members of St. Eugene Parish in Primos. He is the manager of dining services at the cable TV home shopping network QVC in West Chester. She is a telecommunications manager at the law firm Pepper Hamilton in Center City Philadelphia.
From time to time, Gendaszek serves as a cross bearer and acolyte at Masses at the monastery, while Peg helps the sisters prepare for receptions that follow their jubilee celebrations.
“It’s always so spiritually rewarding,” Gendaszek said. “I feel the connection with my aunt.”
His soft-spoken aunt, who died in 2005, was loud and clear about her closeness to Christ and St. Clare, and her devotion to prayer. “She always kept us on that 1-to-3 schedule because she had to get down to the chapel to say the rosary at 3 o’clock,” Gendaszek said of those Sunday afternoon visits.
The serenity of the monastery and the Poor Clare sisters’ simplicity never cease to amaze Peg.
“You feel like you’re just in the presence of holiness,” she said. “I just feel very calm when I’m there.”
In addition to asking for St. Clare’s intercession in her prayer intentions, Peg ponders what the saint would have done in a given situation.
“When I pray to her, I feel I do get my answers,” she said.
A triduum in honor of St. Clare will be held Aug. 8-10 at the Monastery of St. Clare, 1271 Langhorne-Newtown Road.
The celebration begins at 7 p.m. Friday, Aug. 8, with night prayer, a novena and Benediction. Night prayer, a novena and Benediction will also be held at 7 p.m. Saturday, Aug. 9. In addition, prayers for healing will be offered. The Transitus, which recalls St. Clare’s passage to eternal life, will be held at 7 p.m. Sunday, Aug. 10. Night prayer, a novena and Benediction will also be celebrated.
Mass will be celebrated at 9:30 a.m.on Aug. 11.
For more information, visit the Web site www.poorclarepa.org.
CS&T Staff Writer Christie L. Chicoine may be reached at (215) 587-2468 or cchicoin@adphila.org.