Nuns With Good Habits: The Benedictines of Mary, Queen of Apostles

“Run while you have the light of Life” (Prologue of the Holy Rule)

“The Benedictines of Mary, Queen of Apostles is a traditional monastic community of women who desire to imitate the Blessed Virgin Mary in the giving of herself to God to fulfill His Will, especially in her role of assistance by prayer and work to the Apostles, first priests of the Catholic Church.

Society in these latter days is in obvious dire need of re-evangelization and sanctification through the ministry in particular of the sacred priesthood of the Roman Catholic Church. Although times have changed, the divine mission committed to the first Apostles, as well as the needs of those to whom they were sent, have not. It is our ideal to imitate Our Lady's retirement from the world in quiet seclusion, as well as her apostolic charity. Consecrated entirely to her and filled with her spirit, which is none other than the Holy Spirit of God, we aspire to be, to the successors of the Apostles in our times, what she was to them in the beginning: behind-the-scenes encouragement, assistance and support.”

I chose to look at the Benedictines of Mary, Queen of Apostles today for a very special reason. Today, the Feast of the Assumption is the day that Most Reverend Robert W. Finn, Bishop of Kansas City-St. Joseph will break ground for the erection of the 1st building of their monastery project. (More on that later.)

This community got its start in 1995. The opening quote was the vision cited by the founders for doing so. It was started by Sr. Therese McNamara and Sr. Wilhelmina Lancaster under the name“Oblates of Mary, Queen of Apostles”. While they were starting a Benedictine Community they chose not to us Benedictine in the name "because they believed we needed to prove ourselves first before being so bold as to call ourselves Benedictine. The purpose of the name ‘Oblates’ was two-fold: first, to indicate that we offered ourselves to the Benedictine family (Oblatae is Latin for offered) and also because we had consecrated ourselves to Our Lady, and offered ourselves to her service."

They were founded under the wing of the Priestly Fraternity of St. Peter, in the Diocese of Scranton, PA. The 1st postulants were admitted in 1996. They eventually settling in Starrucca close to the New York border. There they found it easier to answer the call to follow a monastic horarium as laid out by St. Benedict in his Rule, chant the Divine Office according to the 1962 Breviarium Monasticum, and observe the ancient monastic practice of fasting.

By 2003 there were 8 women in the community. But that year also saw a rise in vocations. In 2006, Most Rev. Robert W. Finn, D.D. invited them to transfer to his diocese of Kansas City-St. Joseph in Missouri. He had been praying for nuns to come to pray and sacrifice for his priests & saw them as the answer to their prayers. With the approval of their then Bishop they moved in March of 2006. Bishop Finn offered firm support and protection of their charism & traditional liturgy. He has approved & encouraged their canonical advancement by erecting the Priory of Our Lady of Ephesus as an official novitiate in keeping with Church's canons.

On their arrival, Bishop Finn juridically installed Sr. Therese as “Mother Prioress,” endorsing the nuns with their new name, “Benedictines of Mary, Queen of Apostles". The novitiate conducted over the past years had been approved by the Most Reverend James C. Timlin, Bishop of Scranton, but it had never been canonically erected as such. After the canonical novitiate in the new diocese was completed with the instruction & guidance of the Conception Abbey and Abbaye Ste. Marie, Bishop Finn received & ratified Mother Therese’s public profession of Benedictine vows, on 18 May 2007. This enabling her to receive the vows of eleven other sisters the following day. At present, the community is in a program of ongoing formation in preparation for Solemn Profession in 2010.

The Bishop provided a temporary home for them to live in until they can build on a tract of donated land in Starfield MO. This brings me back to the reason for chosing to look at them today, 15 August 2009. At 4:30 pm CDT Bishop Finn will oversee the groundbreaking for the 1st building, a guesthouse. Seeing how fast they were growing in numbers, they decided to start with this building rather than the originally planned gatehouse. (Check out more of their building plans here.)

Currently, the community numbers eighteen: twelve in vows, two novices and four postulants, not to mention the several young women aspirants in the discernment stage. They expect to grow to number about 35 members shortly. They plan for their monastery building to hold 58 nuns.

Plans for the Bendedictine Priory of Our Lady of Ephesus, also include a retreat house for priests, a school for girls, a guesthouse modeled after Mary's house in Ephesus, orchards & gardens as well as stables, a dairy barn & apiary. They also plan on erected a grotto in honor Our Lady of Lourdes, a rose garden called Tepyac. & that is only a part of their plans.

They will be following the Rule of St. Benedict in the cycle of each day. They will follow the traditional cycle of 8 hours in praying the Divine Office. They will chant the Divine Office according to the 1962 Breviarium Monasticum. There will be daily Mass as well as Eucharistic Devotion. Time will be set aside for Lectio Divino. & of course there will be time set aside to work, the manual labor called for in the rule. Part of that includes the hand-crafting of vestments, priestly apparel, sacred linens & altar clothes. They make the vestments in all the traditional colors including black. The only exception that surprized me is that they don't seem to offer Rose colored vestments.

As someone who regularly reads a bit of St. Benedict's Rule each day, I can say that these dear sisters are chosing a path that is hard. But it is a path that will bear much fruit well beyond the Kansas City-St. Joseph diocese. Why do I say that?

These women are truly daughters of St. Benedict & are following in the footsteps of St. Scholastica. & even if they have only 1/10th of the love that Scholastica did, I expect that God will do many great things through them.