Denver nuns bake cookies to support life of prayer

The last time lifelong Catholic Paul Baca bought Clarisas Cookies — tasty treats handmade by nuns — they were a gift for a neighbor.

“I wanted to give him a little thank you,” Baca said. “So I thought, give him a box of the best-tasting cookies in the world.”

Baca said he wrote the neighbor’s name on a piece of paper. When he arrived at the Our Lady of Light Monastery in Denver, he handed the paper to Sister Teresa.

“I asked her, ‘Would you pray specifically for this individual?’” Baca said, “And she said, ‘Yes, we will.’”

When Baca gave the cookies to the neighbor, he attached a note:

“Here, I convinced this order of nuns to pray for your monkey ass and to pray for your salvation,” Baca recalled writing in the note. 

Clarisas Cookies are made by Capuchin Poor Clare nuns who live a cloistered, or enclosed, life at Our Lady of Light Monastery in Sunnyside. They make and sell the cookies to financially support themselves while also having time to pray for several hours of the day. Their cookie sales and the donations they receive matter more than ever as they are currently building a new home.

The Poor Clares, who are originally from Mexico, have been making the cookies for more than 30 years, starting shortly after they became established in Denver in 1988. The recipe has been passed down for far longer and remains fundamentally unchanged.

“Since our life is for contemplative devotion to prayer, doing other external works or jobs is not for our style of life,” Maria de Cristo said. “We live in enclosure — it means cloistered. So we don’t go out for external activities. We go out for needs, like going to the doctor or sometimes for shopping.”

Maria de Cristo said the sisters start their days praying in their chapel at 6:30 a.m. Then they have mass and an hour of meditation. At 9 a.m. they leave the chapel, have breakfast and start baking. For most of the year, they bake about four days a week.

“We don’t bake every day, but the days that the sisters are baking, we start from 9:30 a.m. until about 1:30 p.m.,” Maria de Cristo said. “And then we stop for prayer and then we have lunch.”

After lunch, they do chores, and only if needed, they’ll go back into their small, makeshift bakery to finish leftover work from the morning.

“Otherwise they don’t,” Maria de Cristo said. “Because we have more prayers in the afternoon and then in the evening, we pray again at 5:30 p.m.”

Clarisas Cookies are sold in large boxes for $18 online, at the monastery or over the phone at (303) 458-6339. Each box weighs two pounds and comes with dozens of handmade cookies.

According to Maria de Cristo, the sisters sell the majority of cookies during the last couple of months of the year around the holiday season. They have to ramp up to five days a week and consistently work in the afternoon. Each year around Christmas, they sell out and stop taking orders because of overwhelming demand.

“When we don’t have the cookies anymore, people start calling and they say, ‘I want my Christmas cookies,’” Maria de Cristo said. “I say, ‘I’m sorry, we don’t have.’ They say, ‘Oh no, this is not going to be Christmas without the cookies,’ because it’s tradition.”

Maria de Cristo said the two main ways the sisters support themselves are by selling cookies and receiving donations. 

“Money-wise, it’s cookies and donations especially, because right now we have a project of construction,” Maria de Cristo said. “We are asking people to donate to that project, so we’re getting more donations now because of that.”

The Poor Clares have been building a new home for a few years on land donated to them in Byers, Colo. The move will solve a few issues with life in their current monastery.

“We have older sisters, and it’s difficult for them to move around because there are a lot of steps everywhere,” Maria de Cristo said. “Also, the conditions — sometimes a lot of repairs and problems because it’s old. 
And the neighborhood around has changed a lot. It’s very noisy. It’s not very helpful for our life of prayer.”

Maria de Cristo stated that the amount of money they are able to raise for construction determines how quickly the project can be completed, but they hope to move by next year.

Paul and Pat Baca said they have bought about 10 boxes of Clarisas Cookies over the last 10 to 15 years. They usually eat them in the morning with coffee, though Paul admitted there are times he’ll have a few before bed too.

“Love them,” Paul said. “I think they are the best cookies I’ve ever eaten. That is the truth.”

“I love them too,” Pat added. “They’re really good. And I don’t know if there are too many different flavors, but they’re tasty, and they’re not real big.”

Pat joked that they’re calorie-free, since they have been blessed. Paul notes he loves to support the Poor Clares — it’s often the reason he buys the cookies in the first place.

“They pray for the poor, suffering and all the things that are going wrong in the world,” Paul said. “We’re firm believers in prayer, and I really appreciate the fact that those nuns are praying for you and I, and the rest of the world every day.”