Our Story

Monastery of the Incarnation
Beacon, New York
Carmelite Nuns
Redemptoristine Nuns

Redemptoristines of New York Rejoice in New Home

It has been a long and difficult journey. But now our community (formerly of Esopus) has finally found its way to a proper monastic home in the city of Beacon, New York. We are sharing sacramental and liturgical life, beauty, silence, and spaciousness in the Carmelite Monastery of the Incarnation.  We are making history in this arrangement; two different canonical religious groups living under the same roof. We have received the blessing of our Cardinal Timothy Dolan and the diocesan Vicar for Religious who view this development as a healthy response to the signs of the times. We would like to share with you how we came to this decision for our community.

In January of 2011, we were informed by the Baltimore Province of the Redemptorists that they would be leasing the property of Mount St. Alphonsus and that we would have to find a new home within 2 to 3 years. Four months later we learned that we would have only one year to relocate. The decision made by the Redemptorists was a wise and prudent one, but not without difficulties all around. In the end the property was sold. A bit of gold in this story is that the buyers invested a great deal of money in restoring the building and are lovingly caring for the property. The seminary building is now a private Christian high school.

We searched long and hard for a new home; a suitable monastery. We visited over 40 sites in five states and researched many others via the Internet. By the spring of 2012 we were ready to purchase a Franciscan friary in an urban New Jersey parish. At the last minute we had to give up that plan due to environmental contamination problems with the property. Having only 5 weeks to find a place to live we were fortunate to arrange rental of space in a building owned by the Missionary Sisters of the Sacred Heart only 5 miles south of Mount St. Alphonsus. We moved on June 25, 2012. All of our furniture was stored in a gymnasium in the same building. It was a crowded and very awkward space for our life but it did offer spectacular views of the Hudson River.

In January of this year the Missionary Sisters informed us that we would have to leave the property by the end of June. We had already hired professional consultants who work with religious communities to create relocation plans. Everyone went full speed ahead to find the right place for us in a very short period of time. Through the months of searching we learned that private homes require too much remodeling for monastic use and local laws can sometimes interfere in that process. We also learned that former convents, novitiates, etc., required a great deal of repair and adaptation to accommodate the elderly and handicapped. We also knew that it would be very difficult to have daily Mass wherever we went. As the process went on we saw our personal resources diminish as sisters aged and required more care. We had to ask ourselves, “Is it realistic for us to buy a property and take care of it into the future?” Our consultants found situations for us in a few continuing care retirement communities which offer independent or assisted living as well as nursing home care at the same location. These facilities offered great care for our sisters needing assistance. However, the rest of us would have been separated into various buildings. In such an arrangement our communal contemplative monastic life would have been destroyed. By April of this year, we were disheartened and very discouraged. We had two months to find a new home and move.

From September of 2012 through 2013 the Carmelite community of Beacon was prudently examining their own future and their ability to remain on their lovely property. Our two communities have enjoyed close friendship since the 1960’s as members of the Metropolitan Association of Contemplative Communities (MACC). In 1985, the Carmel of New York City moved to a former Ursuline Novitiate in Beacon. During the 1990’s they merged with two other Carmels, added a new wing to their building to accommodate a total of 30 nuns and redesigned the chapel. By September of last year there were only 15 sisters living in the monastery. They wondered how long they would be able to stay in a half empty building. Their options were to rent space in the building or move to a smaller place. Neither option was an attractive one. During this time they followed with heavy hearts our story of disappointment and displacement. At an April community meeting with their professional facilitator present they spontaneously put the planned agenda aside and began talking about what it would be like if they invited us to come and share the house with them. By the end of the meeting they voted unanimously to issue an invitation. Within two weeks the councils of the communities met and the generous invitation was accepted. We had exactly seven weeks to plan the move and make all arrangements.

Two other big decisions were made. Three of our sisters (Sisters Mary McCaffrey, Mary Anne Reed, and Lydia Lojo) would move to Meadowview, an assisted living facility in Mt. Vernon, New York.  At Meadowview they receive all the care they need and join many Franciscan and Dominican sisters in residence there. The second decision was to retire from our work producing ceremonial capes for the Knights and Ladies of the Holy Sepulchre. We have done this work since 1985. It was a good monastic work, well organized by Sr. Maria Paz and then passed on to others. But we had to recognize that we no longer had the number of sisters required to produce 200 capes a year.

On June 11 three sisters moved into Meadowview Assisted Living. On June 23-24 six sisters moved to Beacon and received a most loving welcome from Carmelite community. We have lovely bedrooms in their new wing, a community room now called Celeste Hall, and offices for prioress, treasurer and secretary. We are blessed here to have Mass every day provided by a delightful rotation of priest. Only two days after moving in we had a wonderful celebration for the Feast of Our Mother of Perpetual Help in a Mass concelebrated by the Redemptorist Provincial, Rev. Kevin Moley, and his Council.

In our decision to accept the Carmelite invitation we were acknowledging the signs of the times; fewer vocations, fewer priests, aging sisters. We were also acknowledging our deep desire to preserve our contemplative vocation. We saw that we could do that by joining forces with another contemplative community and sharing the sacramental, liturgical life already established in their horarium.

This is not the ideal that we had in mind when we set out on our journey in search of a new home. But we came to see that given our circumstances, resources and the limited choices before us this arrangement was the most life-giving for us all. We believe the Holy Spirit worked mightily in the hearts and minds of each sister in both communities. We have had to accept losses but we have also embraced new life and welcomed with grateful hearts the opportunity to live out our Redemptoristine vocation. Jesus Christ is the center of everything in this Monastery of the Incarnation. Could we ask for more?

“It is our desire to create together an environment that fosters the growth and well-being

of each Sister’s contemplative life as lived in the Carmelite and Redemptoristine traditions

and that has the potential for creating together opportunities for effective outreach

to the larger community and Church.”

 Redemptoristine Nuns

89 Hiddenbrooke Drive

Beacon, New York 12508

845-831-3132

Fax 845-831-5579

Rednuns.Esopus@gmail.com

www.RedNuns.org

www.Facebook.com/RedNunsEsopus

 

 

 

Catching Up Again

View of pond and Mt. Beacon
from the front of the monastery

         Seems I spend much too much time   offering apologies on this blog, especially for not having written a post in such a long time. Seeing that my last post has a February date and thinking how I can fill in the gap is very daunting. So much has happened in these few months. The following is just and over view and will be written about in greater detail in posts to come.

 

 

 

 

April 17 - My father Helmut Eric Nimke died after one week in Kaplan Hospice Residence in Newburgh, New York. Both my sister and I were with him.

 

April 25 - Carmelite Nuns of Beacon, New York (a contemplative monastic community) extended an invitation for my community to share their monastery.

 

April 28 - My family begins the arduous work of clearing out my parents' home.

June 11 - Three of the sisters in my community moved to Meadowview Assisted Living at Wartburg continuing care retirement community in Mt. Vernon, NY

 

June 24 - Six sisters of my community moved lock, stock and barrel into the Monastery of the Incarnation, Beacon, NY.

 

July 14 - My mother hospitalized with pneumonia. This is followed by 3-week stay in nearby nursing home.

 

August 18 - Mom is returned to assisted living facility, The Promenade, Tuxedo, NY.

 

That is a very spare overview which allows lots of room for your imagination to conjure what was involved and required each step of the way.

 

As a means of providing our community story to all in our international Order I prepared an article detailing the entire saga. That will the next post to this blog.

Contemplative Nuns Relocate

Announcing Our Move:

The Story of Our Process

and Our Hopes for the Future

It has seemed an extraordinarily long time in coming. We are grateful for the support, patience and advice offered to us by so many. We are particularly grateful to our Redemptorist brothers who have so generously contributed to our ability to move into our own home.

With the help of God we will move to

4 Jersey Street

in East Rutherford, New Jersey during the last week of May. This urban residential location may appear to be a very surprising choice. Some background for our decision-making in this regard can be reviewed in an article posted to this blog a few months back, “Monastic Architecture: The Household of God”.

We learned just one year ago that we would have to move from Mount St. Alphonsus. The search began. The list of our particular needs was great; among them many factors which do not figure into the considerations of a regular family.

The monastic pilgrim travels two inseparable parallel paths in a journey of self-abandonment and interior transformation into Christ; the way of prayer and the avenue that is life in community. Within the enclosure created to support and protect a life of intensive intimacy with God and intensity of relationship with a stable group, all of the functions of the monastic household are carried out twenty four hours a day, seven days a week within a fixed group of members. Unlike the nuclear family or the small group of apostolic religious living together, the contemplative monastic residence must have room for everyone to do everything together most of the time. No members will be off to a ball game or have a late night at the office. No one will go out to work. No one can arrive home after a long hard day and announce their departure to take in dinner and movie with a friend. These realities determine architectural form. The dining room and community room (living room) have to be larger than one might expect. Anyone whose work for the community requires a private office space has to have one within the confines of the monastery. The income generating work of the community, whatever it may be, will call for considerable space, the equivalent of a small manufacturing enterprise including materials storage, assembly, shipping, ordering, etc. All of the members of the community will share the work of maintaining the household. Cooking, cleaning, communication, greeting and housing guests, and scheduling, to name a few typical household tasks, also affect the need for space within the enclosure. In addition, just as the nuclear family has a role in educating its young members so does the monastic family. Like any good parent, the monastic community seeks to provide sufficient resources as well space for instruction and study to equip and inspire new members for the life they have chosen. Monastic structures are designed to provide for both this intensive life in community and the solitary search for God which is the vocation of each member.  

from Monastic Architecture: The Household of God

In addition to these considerations was the desire to have daily Mass in our own chapel (something many contemplative communities are doing without), handicapped accessibility, building condition, supportive surrounding community.

In our process we personally inspected many sites and thoroughly investigated others via the Internet and lengthy phone conversations with realtors. We walked through private homes, a bed and breakfast inn, a former mansion built by one of the Ringling brothers, former novitiates and retreat houses and cast our net as far as West Virginia.

Last October we received a call from a young priest at Most Sacred Heart Church in Wallington, NJ. His godmother is a friend of our community and she had appealed to him to call us because the church’s former convent (sold in 1983 to the Franciscan friars) was on the market. He offered a rundown more complete than any realtor’s. And we were off.

Built in 1963, this unusually large parish convent has never been empty or neglected. The Franciscans maintained it as a friary, development offices and headquarters for the St. Anthony Guild. As does any venerable building of the 1960s, it requires regular tender loving care and watchfulness. But sturdy it is and commodious. The property is long and narrow running from corner to corner on a short block. Directly across the street from the chapel end of the building on Paterson is Most Sacred Heart of Jesus Church in the town of Wallington which is the third largest concentration of Polish-Americans in the nation.

From the first floor entrance visitors will have access to two parlors, the chapel, a meeting room and a half bath. The enclosure on the first floor includes community room, prioress’ office, library, dining room, kitchen (newly modernized), walk-in pantry, a large bedroom with a private bath and two half baths, one handicapped accessible. At the rear, near the pantry is an exit to a ramp for the handicapped and access to a two-car unattached garage and drive way with parking room. Two sets of French doors lead from the public meeting room to a large raised concrete patio facing a small back yard. And the chapel – just the right size - exposed brick throughout with beautiful stained glass windows. There are two sacristy rooms.

The second floor has 11 bedrooms. Original small bedrooms were modified into five large rooms with private baths. There are three sets of small rooms with connecting doors and three single small rooms. None of these have private baths. However two bathrooms on the hall were recently remodeled, one totally handicapped accessible.

The basement offers a large sewing room for our cape department with a smaller room adjacent for storage and CSsR habit department. This level also includes space for archives and computers as well as a laundry room and half bath.

The adaptations already made to the building support our use and save us expense. However, there is much to be done: handicapped ramp to chapel in place of three shallow steps in the hall; modifications to first floor bedroom bath for accessibility and safety; painting; security system; dual burning furnace needs to be changed from oil to natural gas; bathtubs changed to showers in some bathrooms; more interior lighting for safety; and repair or replacement of existing chair lift to second floor and installation of another to the basement. And these are only the most immediate. We have a two-year plan, a five-year plan, etc. To achieve all of this, we have been working with an architect, building contractor, and countless other professionals.

Not only do these items carry a price tag but so does the house itself. In this regard we have received tremendous assistance from the Redemptorists. However, as first time home buyers, without any equity from a previous home sale, we have had to enter into the realm of home financing. In order to pay off this debt we will be launching a major fund-raising campaign. We have applied for and received grants for remodeling and handicapped adaptation but grants are not available to help with purchase loans! Therefore we will depend on the generosity of others and the small income we generate. To this end we are developing a new website. Its ‘home page’ is already up on the Internet and has a Pay Pal “Donate” button for those who feel comfortable making a contribution on-line. Here's the current link: http://www.redemptoristinenunsofnewyork.org/

What cannot be left out of the recommendations for this building is its location in the heart of an active Catholic community, its proximity to other Catholic parishes and also locations of Redemptorist missions. These factors increase the likelihood that we will be able to create a rotating schedule of priests willing to come to offer Mass in our chapel.

Perhaps we will have Mass at a time when parishes do not offer them so lay people will come to join us for Eucharist. We are also eager to re-establish our lay associate program and to offer occasions for spiritual enrichment in terms of contemplative life-style as well as spiritual direction.

We did not seek this move. However we have sought to see God’s invitation in it. We live in an era of change at every level. The People of God cry out for a spirituality of depth and meaning, for community, and for the need to be encouraged by those willing to witness to the love of Jesus Christ in the Church and the world. Religious life is in the throes yet again of coming to grips with the signs of the times and discerning how to respond, how to reconfigure in order to remain true to the mission. In all of this we seek to bring to fulfillment in a different time and a different place the eternal truth of Maria Celeste’s revelation to follow Christ, to be so united to Him, that we become “Living Memories” of Christ radiating the love of God the Father in the power of the Holy Spirit. Perhaps this is more necessary now than ever; when we are no longer surrounded by meadows and river but by the flow of God’s people inviting us into their pilgrim journey.  

Contemplative Nuns to Meet in Rome

Or....As If the Esopus Redemptoristines
Didn't Already Have
Enough on Their Plate!

The process of arranging for our move to a new location late in May goes on and on. Can't wait until we can unveil the whole plan. But now the lawyers are writing the purchase agreement, the finances are being contemplated and contractors are readying their bids. Each day more loose ends appear which we try to tie up as soon as possible. Stay tuned for further installments of the saga. And keep on praying.

For over a year, as all of this 'shock and awe' was transpiring locally, we have also been participating in preparations for a General Assembly of our international community, the Order of the Most Holy Redeemer. Since we are a contemplative order we do not have a general government riding herd over all the monasteries of the Order. Each contemplative monastery is autonomous as is the case with Carmelites, Poor Clares, etc. Autonomous monasteries may organize themselves into federations but these federation do not have real legal (juridical authority). 

It is a fortunate conincidence that earlier this week Sr. Julie Viera at the interactive blog "A Nun's Life" (highly recommended) described the recent General Chapter of her congregation, Sister Servants of the Immaculate Heart of Mary (IHMs of Monroe, MI). One of the IHM founders was a Redemptorist so we have some roots in common. Note the difference of meeting title. The IHMs had a General Chapter and the Redemptoristines are going to have a General Assembly. There is a big difference between them. Here are Sr. Julie's words about their Chapter:

Although Chapter is part and parcel of our life as Catholic sisters and nuns today, it might seem like a secret event veiled in mystery for those outside of religious life! So, here’s a bit more about what Chapter is. I am drawing here from my brother Redemptorists who provide a great intro on General Chapter.

"The General Chapter is a visible expression of a fundamental sense of democracy that lies at the heart of religious life. This democracy is based on the radical equality of all the members by virtue of their baptism and their religious consecration, hence their common vocation to be prophets or spokespersons for God. In this sense, a General Chapter resembles more the gathering of Mary and the apostles at Pentecost than a modern parliament or congress. The participants in the General Chapter gather in the name of Jesus Christ, confident that his Spirit will help us to accomplish our work.

What are those tasks? The General Chapter must first take an honest look at the state of the Congregation… This examination should then lead the Chapter members to face honestly certain discomforting questions: are we faithful to our mission or have we slid into mediocrity? What is the Lord asking of us today? How are we being asked to change? The General Chapter will offer specific directives for the whole Congregation as it proposes a path to help [religious] live more authentically their … vocation. Finally, the delegates will elect the leadership of the Congregation for the next six years … "(Source - http://www.cssr.com/)

For our IHM General Chapter, we had a gathering of over 150 IHM Sisters and were joined for some parts of Chapter by our IHM Associates and others who could be of great help in our discernment and decision-making. One of the best parts was that we come together from across the globe, across ministries, across generations, across cultures and gather under one roof. It was a visible expression of the community we experience with one another every day of our religious life no matter where we are.

The Redemptoristine General Assembly will have exactly the same goals and function as the IHM General Chapter and the Redemptorist General Chapter as described here. However, a General Assembly does not have the same level of authority according to Canon Law. In a congregation such as the IHMs a Chapter is composed of all the professed sisters in its various houses and ministries. In a contemplative order a Chapter is composed of all the solemnly professed nuns in that particular monastery. When we have a community meeting atteneded by only the nuns in solemn vows we are having a Chapter meeting. Chapters elect leadership, approve or reject requests for vows and provide consultation for the superior.  A General Assembly does not elect leadership because, unlike a congregation, an order does not have a general government. Our Prioress, the elected superior has the same level of authority within our monastery as a major superior (mother general or father general).  This makes the fairness of monastery elections absolutely vital so by Canon Law those elections must be supervised by the local ordinary or his representative and the accuracy of the vote count attested to by 'scrutineers'. 

Nonetheless, our General Assembly will be an opportunity for Redemptoristines to "come together from across the globe, across ministries, across generations, across cultures and gather under one roof." The Assembly, its deliberations and discussions, the personal interaction afforded by the gathering will contribute to unity and energy for the apostolic work of the Order. But monastic autonomy will continue to defend the right of each monastery to interpret the Assembly's directives as suggestions subject to their own house statutes. However, a General Assembly, can by agreement, approve and adopt a RULE, the Constitution and Statutes, that will be used a  rule of life throughout the Order.

So much for the arcane features of Church law. Bottom line is that each meeting, at whatever, level, with whatever degree of authority, is at the service of the charism of that particular religious family according to the inspiration of the Holy Spirit and in the spirit of the Gospel  love of Jesus Christ.

The Household of God

The Household of God: Monastic Architecture

Holy souls setting out on solitary journeys into the deserts of Egypt in the 3^rd century of the Christian era provided the first expression of a movement from which monastic religious life would ultimately emerge. The landscape of the desert, the landscape of desolation, was sought as the proper setting for life with God alone. The call to set out, to withdraw from worldly cities, became more and more pronounced in the aftermath of the Edict of Milan issued in AD 313. Signed by emperors Constantine I and Licinius, the edict proclaimed religious toleration in the Roman Empire at the conclusion of the Diocletian Persecution. This declaration legitimized the followers of Jesus Christ as well as their Church thus eliminating the possibility of martyrdom for illegal activity as the penultimate sacrifice in true devotion. Absent bloody martyrdom, men and woman began to satisfy their desire for total self-donation by seeking the ‘white martyrdom’ of withdrawal to solitude and silence in deserted territories. The most outstanding of these early hermits came to be known as the Desert Mothers and Fathers, the holy Ammas and Abbas. Magnetic in holiness, they drew those who wished to live for God, to pursue a life of constant prayer.  This way of being would be attained by attachment to these experienced mentors, stern, demanding, and wise, who taught more by example than words. From clusters of followers gathered around a hermit practitioner with a reputation for holiness gradually rose monasteries, organized communities under the tutelage and authority of a spiritual superior. Slowly clusters of solitary hermits became organized cenobites, women or men living in religious community together. Eventually rules of life would be formulated, the most well known written by St. Benedict in the 6^th century.

An introduction to development of monasteries from the historical perspective sets the stage for explanation of the nature of monastic life and community. Lack of familiarity, even among Catholics, of the purpose and features of the monastic household has become apparent as we seek a new location for our contemplative monastery. There is little, if any, sense of the organic daily reality of the monastic enterprise. Questions and suggestions received from family and friends; from apostolic religious whose life is dedicated to active service; and most profoundly from conversation with laity, Catholic and non-Catholic alike, indicate that the purpose and nature of contemplative monastic life remain to them almost a complete mystery. In addition, the fact of a relationship of architecture, the structural design of a monastery, with the intended use of this specific type of dwelling is lost. It has become necessary, over and over again, to explain how a monastic structure truly illustrates the principle which states ‘use determines form’.

Generally, the image conjured by the word ‘house’ is a dwelling in which one family whose members are related by blood makes its home. The image is limited to an experience of home as either an ordinary family dwelling or, in the case of vowed apostolic religious, as the typical residence for an active community. The visualization is limited to an abode which is a place of safety, nourishment and restoration for those who will be sent out into the world to be educated, to earn a living, to contribute to the well-being of others, to relate to the body politic and to be integrated into all facets of society and culture.

The monastic house, any monastery, is not intended to be such a launch site. It is not a place designed to send members forth prepared to act on the world stage. While a call to action is the most common vocational call, the monastic, the monk or nun of our time, no less than the hermit St. Anthony or the great Pachomius, father of monasticism, is called to go apart; to migrate to a place at the margins of social intercourse; to cultivate in silence and solitude an intimate relationship with the Divine. Recognizing their weakness and as an expression of humility, monastics seek the support and challenge of organized community as well as the authoritative guidance of experienced practitioners as they travel the path of interior transformation into the likeness of Christ within community.

From the very beginning these purposes motivated the creation of highly self-sufficient and self-contained enterprises. However varied in nuance of expression by virtue of spiritual charism and chosen modes of life, the members of all monastic orders pray, work, nourish themselves and recreate together. Prayer, both communal and private, is the central core, the rotating energizing hub from which all other functions radiate. Monastic institutions support themselves by work done within the monastery walls even while income is augmented by the philanthropy of benefactors. In earlier centuries the work was mostly agricultural, even for monasteries of women. In time income would also be generated through handicrafts and the arts: carpentry, calligraphy, manuscript copying and illumination, bookbinding, embroidery, lace making, weaving, woodworking, pottery and production of wine and foodstuffs, etc. These enterprises required space for organized production especially in communities where membership could soar to over one hundred. Today a common source of income for monasteries of women is the manufacture of altar breads (hosts) for Eucharist. It is a difficult and highly mechanized work requiring a great deal of space. Our own monastery business requires a space resembling a garment factory; rows of industrial sewing machines flanked by large cutting and ironing tables, surrounded by racks of neatly sewn ceremonial capes for the Knights and Ladies of the Order of the Holy Sepulchre ready to be packed and shipped.

Until thirty to forty years ago a few monastic architectural terms remained in the general Catholic memory. A Catholic vocabulary included the word cloister. However, the mental image of that term was often limited to an experience of some dark monastery vestibule dominated by a turn set into a wall. A delivery could be placed in the cylindrical device which would be rotated by an unseen hand while a disembodied voice uttered a word of appreciation and blessing. A second but none the less limited mental image associated with the word cloister was that of the monastic parlor where a privileged visitor could get a glimpse of a heavily veiled nun separated from her guest by metal grille work sometimes appointed with spikes to remind that the encounter would not include a touch or kiss.

These dark images spoke of separation and carried the notion of possible contamination by the world. They do not give testimony to the real purpose of the cloister or the traditional monastic enclosure from its beginnings to our time. While in the distant past some real protection from outside forces may have been required, the true purpose of monastic enclosure is to preserve and enhance the apostolic work of contemplative nuns which is prayer. The typical cloister, indeed any architecture of enclosure, protects by design the life to which the nuns within have dedicated themselves. The cloister or enclosure is constructed in such a way as to ensure that degree of silence and solitude in which the life of prayer can be born. Today few monasteries retain the vestibule turn or the metal grille in the parlor. Noting the absence of these features many conclude that the nuns must no longer require any form of enclosure. The direct opposite is true. Monastic cloister or enclosure is a living space for the community set apart from space open to the public (chapel, library, parlor, meeting room, etc.). In the public places nuns may mingle freely with those who come to worship, to unburden their hearts, to seek spiritual direction or to experience the monastery as a school of prayer. Today, our contemplative monastic community does not wish to be defined only by the descriptor which declares us ‘cloistered’, as  women who live separate of from the world and from those who live in it as if warding off contagion or, even worse, announcing ourselves as special in the eyes of God. Rather, we present ourselves as a dedicated praying presence in the world, a burning flame of praise and petition before God. Contemplatives do whatever they find suitable in order to follow the often repeated directive of our Church to be ‘a school of prayer’ and offer comfortable spiritually enriching public spaces in their monasteries. At the same time, the heart of our vocation to constant prayer in the midst of the Church requires some more protected space provided by the architecture of enclosure. The enclosure is that more private space in which the contemplative way is lived by a community praying, working, eating and recreating together while managing a large household. Above all it is a space that allows for those activities as they cluster around the true center of the life; prayer and praise expressed at the Eucharistic table in the Mass and in the daily round of Liturgy of the Hours. The enclosure thus supports the public prayer life of the community and also guarantees an environment conducive to a quiet and recollected way of being personally available to God.

The monastic pilgrim travels two inseparable parallel paths in a journey of self-abandonment and interior transformation into Christ; the way of prayer and the avenue that is life in community. Within the enclosure created to support and protect a life of intensive intimacy with God and intensity of relationship with a stable group, all of the functions of the monastic household are carried out twenty four hours a day, seven days a week within a fixed group of members. Unlike the nuclear family or the small group of apostolic religious living together, the contemplative monastic residence must have room for everyone to do everything together most of the time. No members will be off to a ball game or have a late night at the office. No one will go out to work. No one can arrive home after a long hard day and announce their departure to take in dinner and movie with a friend. These realities determine architectural form. The dining room and community room (living room) have to be larger than one might expect. Anyone whose work for the community requires a private office space has to have one within the confines of the monastery. The income generating work of the community, whatever it may be, will call for considerable space, the equivalent of a small manufacturing enterprise including materials storage, assembly, shipping, ordering, etc. All of the members of the community will share the work of maintaining the household. Cooking, cleaning, communication, greeting and housing guests, and scheduling, to name a few typical household tasks, also affect the need for space within the enclosure. In addition, just as the nuclear family has a role in educating its young members so does the monastic family. Like any good parent, the monastic community seeks to provide sufficient resources as well space for instruction and study to equip and inspire new members for the life they have chosen. Monastic structures are designed to provide for both this intensive life in community and the solitary search for God which is the vocation of each member.

In early efforts to find a new home for our community we visited a number of large, attractive, newly constructed homes. It was our hope that one might be suitable as a monastery. We also visited older structures originally built for active congregations of religious. Invariably we realized that each structure conformed to the rule which declares ‘use dictates form’. Private family homes, no matter how large, were built to be just what they were. Buildings designed for apostolic religious supported the kind of life they lead, a life with work outside the residence, a life in which not all members of the community would be present at any time. So fit were these buildings for their specific function that no effort at remodeling would successfully transform them into a suitable monastic structure. Arriving at this conclusion brought us to in-depth consideration of our monastic enterprise. It required us to ponder the question, “What is it we wish to protect; what is it we wish to nourish and pursue in the structure we envision?” Use determines form, not the other way around. In the end we also recognized that no mere structure will guarantee dedicated contemplative life. Thoughtful design provides suitable space, an environment conducive to prayer, a place apart. The rest is the work of God’s grace in the desiring soul.