Corpus Christi Monastery, founded in 1891, is the oldest monastery in the United States of

nun A nun is a woman who vows to dedicate her life to religious service, typically living under vows of poverty, chastity, and obedience in the enclosure of a monastery or convent.''The Oxford English Dictionary'', vol. X, page 599. The term is o ...

s of the

Dominican Order The Order of Preachers ( la, Ordo Praedicatorum) abbreviated OP, also known as the Dominicans, is a Catholic mendicant order of Pontifical Right for men founded in Toulouse, France, by the Spanish priest, saint and mystic Dominic of Cal ...

. It is an offshoot of

Notre-Dame-de-Prouille Monastery The Monastery of Notre-Dame-de-Prouille or Prouilhe (from Occitan: Prolha), is the "cradle of the Dominicans", where the first Dominican house, a monastery of nuns, was founded in late 1206 or early 1207. It is located in a hamlet in Languedoc, Fr ...

, the first monastery of nuns founded by

Dominic de Guzman Saint Dominic ( es, Santo Domingo; 8 August 1170 – 6 August 1221), also known as Dominic de Guzmán (), was a Castilian Catholic priest, mystic, the founder of the Dominican Order and is the patron saint of astronomers and natural scientis ...

, founder and namesake of the Order, in France in 1206. Dominic saw these first women as partners in the "Holy Preaching" of the

friar A friar is a member of one of the mendicant orders founded in the twelfth or thirteenth century; the term distinguishes the mendicants' itinerant apostolic character, exercised broadly under the jurisdiction of a superior general, from the ol ...

s he soon founded, offering them support by their prayers and sacrifices.

History

Mother Mary of Jesus (born Julia Crooks in New York City), having entered the Order in

Oullins Oullins () is a commune in the Metropolis of Lyon in Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes region in eastern France. It is a suburb of the city of Lyon, and is adjacent to it on the southwest. Population Transport *Several Buses (C7, C10, 8, 12, 14, 17, 63, ...

, France, founded the Monastery of St. Dominic in

Newark, New Jersey Newark ( , ) is the most populous city in the U.S. state of New Jersey and the seat of Essex County and the second largest city within the New York metropolitan area.Morrisania Morrisania ( ) is a residential neighborhood in the southwestern Bronx, New York City, New York. Its boundaries are the Cross-Bronx Expressway to the north, Crotona-Prospect Avenue to the east, East 161st Street to the south, and Webster Avenue ...

area of

New York City New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the List of United States cities by population, most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the L ...

(which would soon become the southern portion of

the Bronx The Bronx () is a borough of New York City, coextensive with Bronx County, in the state of New York. It is south of Westchester County; north and east of the New York City borough of Manhattan, across the Harlem River; and north of the New Y ...

), at the invitation of

Archbishop In Christian denominations, an archbishop is a bishop of higher rank or office. In most cases, such as the Catholic Church, there are many archbishops who either have jurisdiction over an ecclesiastical province in addition to their own archdi ...

Michael Augustine Corrigan Michael Augustine Corrigan (August 13, 1839May 5, 1902) was an American prelate of the Roman Catholic Church who served as the third archbishop of New York from 1885 to 1902. Early life Michael Augustine Corrigan was born August 13, 1839, in N ...

, who requested the presence of a contemplative community which would have the special purpose of praying for the

seminarian A seminary, school of theology, theological seminary, or divinity school is an educational institution for educating students (sometimes called ''seminarians'') in scripture, theology, generally to prepare them for ordination to serve as clergy, ...

s and

priests A priest is a religious leader authorized to perform the sacred rituals of a religion, especially as a mediatory agent between humans and one or more deity, deities. They also have the authority or power to administer religious rites; in p ...

of the Archdiocese of New York. The land was purchased at Lafayette Avenue and Baretto Street, and by the time Corpus Christi Monastery was built, there were twenty nuns.

References

External links

* {{Coord, 40.81566, -73.89035, type:landmark_globe:earth_region:US-NY, display=title Dominican monasteries of nuns Dominican monasteries in the United States 19th-century Christian monasteries Religious organizations established in 1891 19th-century Roman Catholic church buildings in the United Kingdom