Cookies Support Sisters

As a means of supporting their cloistered community, Denver’s Capuchin Poor Clare sisters bake and sell homemade butter cookies, known as Clarisa’s Cookies—a popular item for Christmas giving.

Proceeds from the cookies—made on-site at Our Lady of Light Monastery, in four flavors: coconut, orange, cinnamon and vanilla—will also help fund the nuns’ plans to move the monastery from its current urban location in the Highlands neighborhood, to a more tranquil location conducive to their monastic lifestyle.

Earlier this year, the Poor Clares purchased a 35-acre property surrounded by farmland on the Eastern Plains near Watkins, with the support of donors and their brother community, the Capuchin Franciscan Friars. Now, they are working to raise the money needed to build a home which will include a dormitory wing, chapel, visitors’ area, industrial kitchen, sewing room, library and infirmary to care for elderly sisters.

To date they have raised about $200,000 of the total $1.5 million needed for the new monastery, according to Sister Maria de Cristo Palafox.

“So far we are still at the very beginning,” she said of their fundraising efforts.

Each 1.5-pound box of Clarisa’s Cookies costs $13. Cookies are for sale at parish gift shops and can be ordered online at www.ourladyoflightmonastery.com.

The Poor Clares are also raffling two tickets to the Dec. 28 Broncos’ game against the Oakland Raiders. The winner will also receive a parking pass, dinner for two at the ChopHouse and Brewery, and a set of hats, scarves and a blanket. Raffle tickets are $20 each, or two for $35. The drawing will be Dec. 14.

For more information or to arrange pick up of cookies or raffle tickets at the monastery at 3325 Pecos St., call 303-458-6339 or email denver.capclares@gmail.com. The cookies are available year-round.

• This article originally appeared in the Denver Catholic, November 26, 2014 by Julie Filby