Nazarena of Jesus

Sister Nazarena of Jesus, OSB Cam (born October 15, 1907; died February 7, 1990), was a American Roman Catholic anchoress.

Born Julia Crotta, in Glastonbury, Connecticut, of Italian emigrants, she studied at the Hartford Conservatory, then piano, violin (with Hugo Kortschak) and composition (with David Stanley Smith and Richard Donovan) at the Yale School of Music. She then matriculated at the Albertus Magnus College.

To discern a possible monastic vocation, she joined the Carmel of Our Lady of Mt Carmel & St Thérèse of the Child Jesus, in Newport, Rhode Island, for almost three months. Traveling to Rome, she joined the Camaldolese Benedictine Nuns of the Monastery Sant'Antonio Abate, where she remained for only a short time. Still in Rome, she entered the Carmel de la Réparation in the fall of 1938, where she pronounced simple vows as a Discalced Carmelite nun. Just before her solemn vows, however, she left Carmel, in 1944.

Following a private audience with Venerable Pope Pius XII, she again entered the Camaldolese in Rome, now as an anchoress, or recluse, on November 21, 1945, as Sister Nazarena of Jesus. She was to remain in a secluded cell in that monastery, leading a strict ascetic regime, for the rest of her life, hearing Mass through a grille. As a Camaldolese nun, she pronounced her simple vows on December 15, 1947, and her solemn vows on May 31, 1953. Pope Paul VI visited the monastery on Ash Wednesday (February 23rd) of 1966, and blessed Nazarena through her grille, while she wore a black veil covering her face.

Nazarena's life of great love and penance ended in 1990, at the age of eighty-two.

References

• "A Nun's Story," Time, April 13, 1962.
• Nazarena, an American Anchoress, by Thomas Matus, OSBCam, Paulist Press, 1998. ISBN 0-8091-3792-5