The religious did not know about the story of the Pope and the roses of Saint Therese of Lisieux. They were surprised to hear of it.
The Pope spent several minutes greeting all the religious.
"He told the mother superior that it was a great blessing that we were giving our lives (to God) and praying for the Church and for him," the nun reported.
Pope Francis blessed the most elderly sisters. Then he went up to the novices.
"He told them to learn from the older ones and to be faithful. Then he told us not to forget to pray for him and he gave us his blessing," the nun told CNA.
She sees the providential encounter with the Pope as a confirmation of her vocation.
"It's worth it to sacrifice your life, not to be involved in the things of the world, to sacrifice yourself in the cloister. The Pope stopped to see us, he invited us to value our lives, our tradition as contemplative nuns. He exhorted us to be faithful."
She said the Pope's unexpected visit "obliges us much more to pray, to be constant in our prayer." She said it encouraged the nuns to give themselves "day after day, in our hidden life so the Church may have life and bless our Holy Father."
There are 90 Visitation monasteries in the whole world, with eight convents in Mexico. Or all the cloistered religious in the country, their order has the most novices.
"When the pope left, we returned to our cloister and gathered together to sing a Te Deum in thanksgiving for this visit. We prayed a Salve Regina for the pope's visit to Mexico. We sang a Magnificat for the blessing this means for our order, and even though he came to just this monastery, the blessing is for all of our communities."
The order of the Visitation of Holy Mary is a religious institute of contemplative life founded by Saint Francis de Sales and Saint Jane Francis de Chantal in 1610 in France.
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