Our diamond jubilee year of celebration formally ended in May, 2023. We are now preparing for the next 75 years by making structural improvements to Cor Jesu Monastery in order to accommodate the needs of our growing and changing community. These critical improvements will provide:

• a place to pray… prayer resides at the centermost point of our lives and our charism. Our contemplative, cloistered vocation calls us to be in constant union with our Eucharistic Lord as we offer ourselves for priests in supplication and prayerful adoration. We have outgrown our Chapel (a converted garage) and are in need of more space to accommodate our growing community along with those who wish to celebrate Mass with us. Included within our Holy Family improvement plans is a new chapel that will help us meet these needs for many years to come.

• a place to grow… A dormitory cell is a modest private space dedicated to a sister’s individual contemplation, rest and health. We have exceeded our occupancy capacity in our current dormitory and are in need of additional cells for new sisters entering the community. Continued growth in vocations also demands that we expand functional workspaces dedicated to maintaining our charism. Holy Family will provide us space to move all professed Sisters under one roof, while our new Sisters can reside at Mater Dei; and much-needed new space for our growing archives, a dedicated sewing space to help supply our clothing needs, and a fitness room to help ensure the sisters stay healthy and physically fit.

• a place to heal… As cloistered sisters, we do all we can to minimize our time spent outside of the cloister so that we may benefit from the special familial bond found in community life, including the loving care we provide to each other when we become ill or disabled. Holy Family will provide much-needed infirmary space to help minimize the time we must spend outside the papal enclosure when we require medical care, physical rehabilitation, or longer-term assisted living.

• a place we call home, work, and church… we live as a family, praying and working in constant communion with Christ in the Eucharist. Our monastic life needs to expand physically so that the many areas we call home can benefit the multi-faceted life we live.

Please prayerfully consider helping us continue our important work in the Church with the expansion of our monastery by donating to our Holy Family Building Project.

the Handmaids of the Precious Blood˝