Pope Leo XIV to contemplative nuns: prayer, work & Eucharistic Adoration

 

Pope Leo XIV meets with the Perpetual Adorers of the Most Blessed Sacrament  (@VATICAN MEDIA)

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Pope: Church needs a Eucharistic spirituality of unity in love

Meeting with contemplative nuns, Pope Leo XIV upholds their role in the Church as weavers of communion with the threads of prayer, work, and Eucharistic adoration.

By Devin Watkins

Pope Leo XIV met on Saturday with several members of the Perpetual Adorers of the Most Blessed Sacrament, also known as the Sacramentine Nuns.

Founded in Rome in 1807 by Blessed Maria Maddalena of the Incarnation, the contemplative nuns devote their lives to the adoration of the Blessed Sacrament Day and night and follow the rule of St. Augustine.

Those who met with the Pope form part of the Federation of the Holy Spirit, a group of around 30 convents, mostly in Mexico, which was founded 50 years ago and includes roughly half of the congregation’s convents spread across the globe.

In his address, Pope Leo called the Sacramentine Nuns’ presence “a radiant testimony to the gratuitousness of God, who sows within the human heart the desire to seek and contemplate His face.”

Their devotion to Eucharistic adoration, he said, offers a response to the profound longing for God written deep in the human heart.

“This constant search for the face of God, which particularly characterizes monastic life, takes on a special dimension in the vocation you have received,” he said. “It is expressed in a life devoted entirely to the continuous and silent adoration of God who has made Himself bread and who invites us to unite ourselves with Him in the sacrifice of the altar, so as to form one body.”

Pope Leo pointed to St. Augustine’s explanation that the bread and wine upon the altar are the “sacrament of the unity of the faithful in Christ.”

“For this reason,” he said, “we need a Eucharistic spirituality, that is, a spirituality of ecclesial unity in love.”

In their daily lives devoted to adoration, the contemplative nuns “radiate throughout the world the beauty of the face of Christ in the Blessed Sacrament.”

“By manifesting within the Church the specific charism you received from your foundress,” he said, “you are called to be weavers of communion with the threads of prayer and work, Eucharistic adoration, and fraternal sharing within the monastery.”

In conclusion, Pope Leo XIV invited the Sacramentine Nuns to live their consecration to God with renewed hope and a desire for holiness.

Remember, he urged, “that fidelity to the ancient and ever-new wisdom of the Gospel is the best path for those who, guided by the Holy Spirit, dedicate themselves to loving God and their neighbor.”

These religious sisters share their story as they professed vows recently

 

Meet 4 religious sisters dedicating their lives to God in 2026

Sr. Catherine Lucia Phoebe Addington of the Daughters of St. Paul in Alexandria, Virginia, is pictured kneeling in prayer during her profession of vows in Boston Feb. 14, 2026. (OSV News/Courtesy of Daughters of St. Paul)

Katie Yoder

July 16, 2026

Sr. Catherine Lucia Phoebe Addington of the Daughters of St. Paul still remembers when she first walked into a convent chapel as a fourth grader.

"I saw the sanctuary lamp lit, and that was absolutely mind-blowing to me," she said of visiting the home of the religious sisters who taught at her school. "I said, 'Wait, nuns get to live with Jesus? I didn't know that — sign me up!' "

Sister Phoebe is among four religious sisters professing vows in 2026 who spoke to OSV News about their vocation stories and what led them to dedicate their lives to God. Their journeys are different: Some grew up regularly attending Mass, and others did not. Some knew they were called to religious life, and others walked a more complicated path. One sister temporarily left the church before joining her community. Another wanted to be a sister as a toddler.

Their stories also feature similarities. Prayer, the sacraments and adoration played pivotal roles. Many were drawn to God's unconditional love.

All of them wanted to give themselves totally to God.

Sr. Maria Trinity joined the Dominican Sisters of St. Cecilia in Nashville, Tennessee, after growing up in Gaithersburg, Maryland. Her parents came to the U.S. during the Lebanese Civil War and raised their three daughters in the Melkite Greek Catholic Church.

"I remember when I was younger just having this sense that I was made for something greater than what this world had to offer," the 30-year-old sister said.

As she grew up, her family stopped attending Mass as regularly. She knew something was missing, and she reconnected with her faith in eighth grade after joining a service project at a local Catholic church.

Around that time, she also attended a March for Life youth rally where people considering religious life were asked to stand up. Her heart pounded.

"I had not been thinking about religious life at all," she said. "Interiorly I was like, 'No, no, no.' "

She embraced her faith while studying mechanical engineering and computer science at the University of Maryland. Her friends at the Catholic student center pointed her to the sacraments. She attended Mass, adoration, confession, Bible studies and spiritual direction. She encountered women religious and prayed with Dominican friars.

A pivotal moment came during adoration at a silent retreat. She heard God calling her to be totally his. That moment came after she also attended Steubenville Youth Conferences and FOCUS mission trips.

"I started having this radical desire to just proclaim the truth of God's love, and how this world is passing away, but God's love never, never fades," she said. "I realized the Lord didn't need what I could do for him; he just wanted who I was."

When she visited the Dominican sisters her senior year, she felt at peace. She entered in 2018 at 23, and she currently teaches middle school at a Catholic school in Oak Ridge, Tennessee. She will profess perpetual vows July 25.

When Sr. Concepción Medina of the Franciscan Sisters of Christian Charity was around 2, she confided to her aunt that she wanted to be a religious sister.

Born in and raised in New Mexico, she grew up culturally Catholic with her five siblings. She received the sacraments but did not attend church frequently. She experienced a big moment amid a series of little moments along her path to religious life.

"I found that along the way in life, God was always stirring in my heart to be his alone," the 32-year-old sister said.

In her early 20s, she remembered experiencing "this deep sense of knowing" while singing the Kyrie at Mass.

"I knew with every ounce of my being that God was calling me to religious life and asking me to be exclusively his. ... I was devastated," she said. "This devastation, of course, transformed over time and really was caused by my own selfishness."

God made it obvious that she should join the Franciscan sisters.

"After I had come to visit, the Lord sent St. Francis to shove me in the right direction," she said, adding that she saw images and statues of the saint everywhere. "It wasn't until I gave in and came to visit again that I experienced a deep sense of peace about everything."

She entered at the age of 24. She is currently in Manitowoc, Wisconsin, at the sisters' motherhouse. She is a nurse and cares for the sisters in their infirmary. She will profess perpetual vows Aug. 2 during the Jubilee Year of St. Francis of Assisi.

Sr. Joseph Lucia with the Dominican Sisters of Mary, Mother of the Eucharist, spoke from her order's motherhouse in Ann Arbor, Michigan. As one of seven children, she was raised Catholic in Spartanburg, South Carolina.

The 28-year-old sister said the first time she seriously considered a religious vocation came during her confirmation in eighth grade. The bishop gave a talk about vocations and said he was praying her confirmation class would follow the Holy Spirit.

"I remember thinking and praying, 'Jesus, if you want me to be a sister, I'll do it, you'll just have to let me know,' " she said.

She thought about religious life more at the end of her freshman year at Clemson University while studying nursing and Spanish. She began discerning when her older sister entered the Dominican sisters.

"That really inspired me to start thinking again, like, 'Jesus, is this something you're really calling me to?' " she said, remembering her sister's joy.

Her devotion to the Eucharist and Mary drew her to the Dominican sisters. She grew in her love for both at her university, where she attended daily Mass and made time for prayer and adoration. She also realized she was drawn to Dominican spirituality after Dominicans visited her school.

She left college to enter the convent at 21. Today, she teaches at a Catholic school in Findlay, Ohio. She will make her final profession July 28.

"I get to give my whole self to Jesus in response to the totality of love that he's shown to me," she said about being a bride of Christ. "I get to be a visible sign of how much Jesus loves his church; how much Jesus loves each individual soul."

Sister Phoebe grew up in Alexandria, Virginia, where she now lives as a Daughter of St. Paul. As a girl, she went to their bookstore in that city. Now, she serves there as a sister.

She was raised Catholic with her two sisters and attended her parish's school. The 32-year-old sister experienced "this total instinctive sense of belonging to God" her entire life. At the same time, there were certain lights along the way to religious life. She loved learning about the saints while preparing for confirmation and noticed many were nuns.

Her path was not straightforward: She left the church when she was 18 because she was scandalized by the abuse crisis. During that time, Orthodox Christian friends invited her to their church.

"I am challenged every day by that witness of my Orthodox friends who saw someone who was hurting and said, 'No pressure, you don't have to enter our church, we just want you to know that you're welcome to pray here if that's going to help you stay close to Jesus,' " she said.

She returned to the Roman Catholic Church three years later when, among other things, Pope Francis visited the United States in 2015. His message about reaching out to those on the margins moved her personally.

The Daughters of St. Paul, who seek to communicate Christ, taught her how to pray during their discernment program. Through prayer, she fell in love with Christ. She entered in 2021 when she was 27 after completing a doctorate in Spanish literature and translation at the University of Virginia. She made her first profession Feb. 14, Valentine's Day.

"There are a lot of people who will tell themselves for this or that reason, 'I can't be happy,' " she said. "God loves you exactly the way you are, and he has a plan, and it's better than you can imagine."

All four sisters offered their advice for young women discerning. They recommended letting God lead and spending time with religious women. They suggested praying, reading the Bible and seeking the sacraments. They encouraged women to trust in God.

"Above all," Sr. Concepción Medina said, "fall undeniably in love with God and everything will fall into place."

From Anglican Nuns to Catholic Nuns

 

These Catholic nuns were once Anglican sisters!

Matthew Green 

After years of spiritual discernment, a traditional Anglican monastic community made the bold decision to enter full communion with the Catholic Church.

The Sisters of the Blessed Virgin Mary look like any other Catholic nuns. They follow the rule of St. Benedict, they wear black and white habits, and they’re very devoted to the Virgin Mary. A rosary is part of their habit. But these nuns are extraordinary, because they were all previously Anglican nuns, who entered the Catholic Church in 2013! Now, they are the only monastic community in the Personal Ordinariate of Our Lady of Walsingham.

Anglican nuns?

The first comment that might come to mind is, “I didn’t even know the Anglicans had nuns!” Indeed, when the Church of England first separated from the Catholic Church in the 16th century, monasticism was practically wiped out in the Church of England. King Henry VIII dissolved the convents and monasteries and seized their properties.

Then came the Oxford Movement within the Anglican Communion in the 19th century. It emphasized and restored aspects of spirituality, theology, and worship that the Church of England has in common with the Catholic Church, such as monasticism. It also gave us St. John Henry Newman, perhaps the most famous convert from Anglicanism to Catholicism in recent centuries.

It was during the resulting revival of Anglican monasticism that William John Butler — a young Anglican vicar in Wantage, England — founded the Anglican Community of St. Mary the Virgin in 1848. Their rule was based on that of St. Augustine.

The community grew over the years and dedicated itself to various good works, from schools to homes for young mothers or the elderly, and for people recovering from addictions. More recently, in the late 20th century, they gradually shifted from institutional work to “more individual ministries” in hospitals, parishes, and schools, as well as spiritual direction.

Feeling called to Roman Catholicism

In a lengthy testimony on the now-Catholic nuns’ website, Mother Winsome SBVM explains why she and a number of her religious sisters decided to move to Catholicism.

Recent photo of five of the Sisters of the Blessed Virgin Mary. Mother Winsome is in the center of the front row.

S.B.V.M.

Mother Winsome explains that the sisters had “reached the point where the community needed to be reformed at a deep spiritual level.” She was elected Mother Superior in 2006 and found that some sisters “were in danger of losing their monastic vocation replacing it with a notion of a loose association of well-meaning women doing good works.” But that, she points out, is not monastic consecrated life.

During the efforts she and other sisters made to reclaim spiritual ground, they ran into obstacles derived from the structure and nature of the Church of England as a whole. They started to feel the need for the guidance of the Vicar of Christ and the Magisterium, instead of an elected synod.

Benedict XVI opens the door

Pope Benedict XVI was well aware that, due in great part to the theological evolution of the Anglican Communion and the Church of England in particular, significant numbers of Anglicans were interested in becoming Catholics.

Recognizing this pastoral need, and the valuable spiritual inheritance they already carried, in 2009 Benedict XVI published Anglicanorum Coetibus. This document provided a solution: the Personal Ordinariates for former Anglicans (which would come into being two years later). These structures allow Anglicans to enter full communion with Rome while bringing with them aspects of their Anglican liturgical and spiritual heritage.

At this point, Mother Winsome says, some of the sisters approached her in private to tell her that they felt called to accept this invitation from Rome. They proposed joining the Personal Ordinariate of Our Lady of Walsingham. Some specifically cited Cardinal John Henry Newman as an inspiration for taking this step.

Initially, they had no intention of leaving the Community of Saint Mary the Virgin. Many of the sisters had independently expressed feeling the same call, “as part of a community,” while also sensing the call to remain together. And in fact, the Ordinariate was prepared to receive religious in groups. They hoped that the nuns who wanted to become Catholics could do so and remain alongside their Anglican sisters.

This proposal was approved by the whole community, and they began a period of “spiritual exploration” and discernment under the guidance of representatives of the Catholic Church and the Ordinariate in particular. In the end, eleven discerned that they “were being called into the full communion of the Catholic Church.” They also realized they felt called to follow the Rule of Saint Benedict.

Finding a new home

Unsurprisingly, not everyone was happy with their decision. The nuns’ superiors in the Church of England were not supportive. The sisters who wanted to become Catholic would have to find a new physical home and start a new community.

God does not abandon those who entrust themselves to him, and the Catholic Benedictine community of St. Cecilia’s Abbey, Ryde, on the Isle of Wight, opened its doors to them. They had 12 empty rooms they had been preparing for nuns from Paraguay who were supposed to arrive for a year of formation. However, those plans had fallen through.

As it happened, the 11 nuns from the Community of St. Mary the Virgin had been joined by another sister from another community, so there were 12 of them as well. As Mother Winsome observed, “Twelve empty cells, twelve sisters!” It was a providential opportunity, and everyone involved agreed they would take it.

Catholic at last

The twelve nuns were received in the Catholic Church on January 1, 2013. It had taken four years, and they had faced misunderstanding and painful opposition on the part of many of their Anglican brothers and sisters, but it was worth the cost. “It seems to me that each of us was given a very special gift of healing grace, so that we could experience true joy as we were received at last into the full communion of the Catholic Church,” Sister Winsome writes.

In another sign of God’s providence, the ferry they took to reach the abbey on the Isle of Wight turned out to be named “St. Cecilia.”  “Welcome home” were the first words they heard from a sister of St. Cecilia’s abbey.

Eventually, they would become a new Catholic community, the Sisters of the Blessed Virgin Mary. They also found a permanent home of their own at Aston Hall in Aston-by-Stone, Staffordshire. It’s a building with important Catholic ties to two English saints, including St. John Henry Newman. They are the only monastic community in the Ordinariate of Our Lady of Walsingham. 

“We know that we are now in communion with the See of Peter, with all the saints that we love. When the conclave was electing Pope Francis I, we were not on the outside looking in; they were electing OUR Pope, OUR Holy Father. We are now truly part of the Church,” Mother Winsome says, full of joy.