Beloved retreat house near New Orleans to close

Metairie's Cenacle Retreat House closing in 2013; property to be sold

The Cenacle Retreat House in Metairie plans to close in 2013, and the property will be sold (Photo by The Times-Picayune archive)

 

By Drew Broach, NOLA.com | The Times-PicayuneThe Times-Picayune
on October 22, 2012

The Cenacle Retreat House in Metairie, for more than a half century a destination for spiritual nourishment, plans to close in 2013. The Roman Catholic order of nuns running it will sell the 20-acre property. Finances and a declining number of nuns were blamed for its demise.
“It’s a deep sorrow for me, as it is for many people,” Sister Rose Hoover, the Metairie Cenacle’s superior, said Monday.
Since it opened in 1958 at 5500 St. Mary Street, the Cenacle has functioned as a lakefront escape for thousands of people, mostly women, who visit its grounds of magnolia, live oak and white crepe myrtle trees for weekend retreats, daily programs and individual spiritual direction. The property includes 52 guest rooms, a chapel, meeting hall, library, dining room and parlors, as well as the convent.
“Usually people kind of get into a rhythm of making a yearly retreat,” said Sister Gloria Haagensen, the ministry coordinator.
But the number of nuns living and working at the Cenacle has fallen from more than a dozen in the late 1960s to seven last year and now just four, reflecting a national trend in religious orders. Where once the nuns provided what amounted to free labor for almost all tasks, the few remaining focus on administrative and spiritual duties. The Cenacle now pays a lay staff of some 20 people -- with help from many volunteers -- to cook, clean and keep up the buildings and grounds.
Individuals making three-day retreats are asked to pay $225, but the actual cost is closer to $350, Haagensen said. The Cenacle has held fundraisers and solicited gifts, yet it could no longer make ends meet.
“The retreat ministry by itself has never paid the costs of the retreat house,” Haagensen said. “We’ve always relied on the generosity of our retreatants.”
Hoover said the order, officially the Religious of Our Lady of Retreat in the Cenacle, has been studying, discussing and praying over the Metairie mission for some time. The provincial headquarters in Chicago came to recommend closing it, and the governing office in Rome eventually approved.
The Cenacle said it will fulfill its scheduled commitments, which run through mid-August. It plans to sell the property, although exactly what will become of the buildings and land is not known.

The Cenacle Retreat House in Metairie hosted an afternoon tea as a fundraiser in 2006. The Times-Picayune archive

 

 

In 1995, when the Sisters of the Immaculate Conception closed its convent adjacent to the Cenacle, the real estate was sold for $1.4 million and converted into a 12-lot residential subdivision, Holy Land on the Lake. The money was to be put into a trust fund for the nuns’ medical care.
As for the remaining Cenacle nuns in Metairie, Hoover said they likely will be assigned to the order’s other nine missions in the U.S. and Canada.
It will be Hoover's third and last time to leave. Raised Presbyterian in Gainesville, Fla., she converted to Catholicism in New Orleans and made her perpetual vows in the Metairie house’s chapel in 1985. She has served two previous stints here, returning most recently just after Hurricane Isaac struck in August.
“While it is a time of great sadness for us, it is also a time of gratitude,” said Sister Mary Sharon Riley, the order’s province councilor in Chicago. “We are grateful to God who has allowed us to minister to so many people for so many years.
“We have been blessed to be part of the greater New Orleans community -- and beyond -– for such a long time.”