“Manete in Me” – “Remain in me”
This is the leitmotif of the Congregation of the Sisters of the Poor Child Jesus.
In the Gospel of St.John 15,4 we read: Remain in me, as I in you. As a branch cannot bear fruit all by itself, unless it remains part of the vine, neither can you unless you remain in me.
The foundress of the Congregation, Clare Fey, discovered during the course of her life that, above all, it is essential to “remain in him”
She discovered the mystery of Nazareth in the ordinariness of everyday life. And she learnt that Jesus, in the hidden life of Nazareth, did not shirk from using his gifts and talents, but lived a humble, ordinary life, whilst faithfully
“remaining in the Father”. Clare Fey discovered, as one of the essential lessons of Nazareth, that achievement - although good and important - is not everything. What is essential is to remain faithfully in him.
The late Bishop of Aachen, Dr.Klaus Hemmerle, called this central idea of “remaining in him” the inner room, and considered it in relation to the problems of the exterior room.
Mother Clare was totally oriented to the service of Jesus in the poor and humble; she discovered both an active and a contemplative vocation. Only the “inner room” gave space to the abandoned children who were without any room. Remaining in Jesus, remaining in him in the thousands of activities each day asks of us, also requires that we find and offer a place to others in which life is possible …life for us, and life for others who are suffering from a lack of inner and exterior room (Bishop Klaus Hemmerle, Unser Wohnproblem, excerpt of: Linien des Lebens,p.9ff …etc)
Egino Weinert from Cologne, Germany, designed a medal for the sisters incorporating this central idea. On the front is the inscription Manete in Me and on the back a grape vine, which symbolises these words from St.John’s gospel. All the Sisters of the Congregation have this medal. The lectern in the convent church in Simpelveld also bears an enlarged version of it.
