Claudette Monica Powell | |
|---|---|
 Sister Monica Clare (second from left) with the other St. John Baptist Sisters in 2016 | |
| Born | 1966 (age 58–59) |
| Alma mater | New York University |
| Website | www |
Sister Monica Clare (born Claudette Monica Powell; 1966) is an American Episcopalian nun and TikToker. She is the sister superior and youngest member of the Community of St. John Baptist in Mendham Township, New Jersey. [1] [2]
Claudette Monica Powell was raised in the Southern U.S., in the Southern Baptist tradition. [3] She became interested in nuns at a young age. [3] After studying acting at New York University, [4] she moved to Los Angeles, where she worked for around 20 years in advertising, movie poster design, stand-up comedy, and television writing. [3] [4] She married a man she had met through her job, but the couple divorced after two years. While attending therapy following the dissolution of her marriage, she began to entertain the idea of becoming a nun. She joined the Episcopal Church, feeling it aligned best with her views of women's rights and the LGBTQ community. [3]
Powell joined the Community of St. John Baptist in 2012, at the age of 46. [1] [3] She made her final vows in June 2018. [5]
Sister Monica Clare manages the community's social media and website. [6] She joined TikTok in June 2021, accumulating more than 43,000 followers by the following month. [7] Her content has included videos on convent life, Episcopal teachings, and the convent's cat and dog, Jennie. [2] [8] By late 2024, her TikTok account had more than 200,000 followers and had accumulated more than 2.5 million likes. Her account has been credited with attracting the community's two most recent postulants, the first in over ten years. [1] In 2024, she participated in campaigns which criticized the proposed United States ban on TikTok. [9]
Powell has written a memoir, which is set to be published in April 2025. [1]
A nun is a woman who vows to dedicate her life to religious service and contemplation, typically living under vows of poverty, chastity, and obedience in the enclosure of a monastery or convent. The term is often used interchangeably with religious sisters who do take simple vows but live an active vocation of prayer and charitable work.
The Poor Clares, officially the Order of Saint Clare, originally referred to as the Order of Poor Ladies, and also known as the Clarisses or Clarissines, the Minoresses, the Franciscan Clarist Order, and the Second Order of Saint Francis, are members of an enclosed order of nuns in the Roman Catholic Church. The Poor Clares were the second Franciscan branch of the order to be established. The first order of the Franciscans, which was known as the Order of Friars Minor, was founded by Saint Francis of Assisi in 1209. Three years after founding the Order of Friars Minor, Francis of Assisi and Clare of Assisi founded the Order of Saint Clare, or Order of Poor Ladies, on Palm Sunday in the year 1212. They were organized after the manner of the Order of Friars Minor and before the Third Order of Saint Francis was founded. As of 2011, there were over 20,000 Poor Clare nuns in over 75 countries throughout the world. They follow several different observances and are organized into federations.
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