A New Future for Convent

Outside St. Vibiana’s Cathedral in downtown Los Angeles, faded graffiti mars the facade of the old church and darkens the spirit. A homeless man lies on the sidewalk sound asleep. His head is buried against the crumbling church walls, and he is oblivious to the holy place where he is resting.

From inside the abandoned building comes the staccato rhythm of sewing machines mixing musically with the whispers of six women at prayer.

For more than a century, St. Vibiana’s reigned majestically as the city’s Roman Catholic cathedral. After suffering damage from the 1994 Northridge earthquake, the crippled cathedral was locked shut in 1996. Construction is now underway for the $163-million Our Lady of the Angels Cathedral, expected to open in 2002.

Yet a community of nuns has continued living and working quietly at St. Vibiana’s, using the parish school as a convent and work space where they make vestments for clergy and sell them at a religious gift shop in East Los Angeles. The order, Disciples of the Divine Master, is known nationally for their custom-made garments and the devotion that goes into every stitch.

“When we make the vestments, it’s not just sewing. There’s prayer in there,” said Sister Maria de la Paz Masaquel. “It’s done with more dedication because it’s our mission. I think people can sense that right away.”

But with the news that a local developer plans to rehabilitate the abandoned cathedral into a cultural complex, the sisters have decided to move. After searching for a site, they have purchased a downtown lot at the corner of Sunset Boulevard and Beaudry Avenue where they plan to build an ambitious $5-million religious complex.

The project would be just a few blocks from the new cathedral and would include a convent with 11 bedrooms, a workroom for the sisters, conference rooms, a religious gift shop, a garden courtyard and a 75-seat chapel that would be open to the public. A ground-blessing ceremony is scheduled for Sept. 16. Though still in its early fund-raising stages, the plan is a sign of downtown’s resurrection as the city’s soul, said Sister Lucille Van Hoogmoed.

“Downtown needs this. Right now, it’s dead. You don’t see many flowers or plants or even people. You need beauty. Our ministry helps foster that, whether in the creation of our items or this project itself,” Van Hoogmoed said.

The Disciples of the Divine Master was founded in Alba, Italy, by Father Giacomo Alberione in 1924 as part of the Pauline Family of religious orders. In 1947, a group of sisters arrived in New York and built their first house on Staten Island, which now functions as their headquarters. They arrived in Los Angeles in 1971. Today, the order has 1,400 sisters in 28 countries around the world.

Daily Devotion

As envisioned by their founder, sisters of the Disciples of the Divine Master, who dress in white from head to toe, have a triple mission: service to the liturgy, service to priests and Eucharistic adoration. The liturgical portion, which is their main source of income, is carried out in the creation of priests’ vestments, paintings, sculpture and different pieces of sacred art that are used in the celebration of Mass. The six sisters in Los Angeles make about 200 vestments, albs and stoles per year.

Service to priests is done through domestic work, medical care and establishing retirement homes for elderly priests. The nuns compare this part of their mission to the Virgin Mary’s work of service to Jesus. But what makes these sisters unique is their intense adoration for the Eucharist.

As part of their commitment to this religious order, each sister must spend two to three hours a day in deep prayer before the Eucharist. Walk into their little chapel at any time during the day and a sister is always there, her hands fingering a rosary, a long sky-blue veil flowing from her head down to her feet. The six nuns in Los Angeles pray in shifts with a schedule to guide them on who’s up next. Although the devotion is normally done 24 hours a day, the small number of nuns in Los Angeles called for bending the rules, so the prayer is not done overnight.

The most difficult part of fulfilling the daily devotion is that their store is on Whittier Boulevard in East Los Angeles, about three miles from the chapel. That has sometimes sent the sisters racing from store to chapel in the middle of the day to make their shift, then driving back to the store. Similarly, getting vestments to priests has meant shuttling back and forth from the workroom at St. Vibiana’s to the store in East L.A. The new complex will eliminate that distance--bringing all the facilities under one roof.

“This is really the first time we’ve had a say in how we want our place to be. It’s a dream and a necessity,” said Van Hoogmoed.

In the 29 years that the sisters have been in Los Angeles, they have never had a permanent home. They began at St. Vibiana’s, then moved to Holy Spirit Church in 1973, then moved back to St. Vibiana’s in 1981. Some, like Sister Margaret Ceballos, are excited about moving into a workroom with more space to store fabrics and make the vestments. Currently, they work in a cramped classroom with two ancient Singer sewing machines.

“Oh yes, we need a big workroom,” said Ceballos. “When I cut the fabric for the garments, it’s so hard to lay it all out. We can’t wait.”

Van Hoogmoed also hopes that with the new complex the sisters will be able to expand their business from vestments and sculptures to larger furnishings for churches--altars, lecterns and tabernacles. They also pray the new center will attract more young women to join religious vocations, which have been in gradual decline.

The sisters recently have begun working with a consultant to raise the $5 million needed to build the complex. While they know it will be difficult, they are hopeful their dream will be fulfilled. Van Hoogmoed believes there are signs from God that the project is destined to become reality. She points out that they began the process to buy the property on Nov. 26, 1998, the day their founder died. They closed escrow on June 30 of this year, which is the feast of St. Paul, patron saint of their religious family.

“Little by little things started falling into place. I don’t think it’s just a coincidence things happened on those days. I think maybe the Lord is trying to tell us something,” she said.