Saint Brigid of Kildare Monastery is a

double monastery A double monastery (also dual monastery or double house) is a monastery combining separate communities of monks and of nuns, joined in one institution to share one church and other facilities. The practice is believed to have started in the East a ...

the United Methodist Church The United Methodist Church (UMC) is a worldwide mainline Protestant denomination based in the United States, and a major part of Methodism. In the 19th century, its main predecessor, the Methodist Episcopal Church, was a leader in evangelica ...

located in

St. Joseph, Minnesota St. Joseph is a city in Stearns County, Minnesota, Stearns County, Minnesota, United States. The population was 6,534 at the 2010 United States Census, 2010 census and according to 2019 census estimates is now 7,351. It is home to the College of S ...

, United States. The guiding sources for the monastery include the

Holy Bible The Bible (from Koine Greek , , 'the books') is a collection of religious texts or scriptures that are held to be sacred in Christianity, Judaism, Samaritanism, and many other religions. The Bible is an anthologya compilation of texts of a ...

, the

Rule of Saint Benedict The ''Rule of Saint Benedict'' ( la, Regula Sancti Benedicti) is a book of precepts written in Latin in 516 by St Benedict of Nursia ( AD 480–550) for monks living communally under the authority of an abbot. The spirit of Saint Benedict's Ru ...

, the Benedictine Breviary, and

Methodist Methodism, also called the Methodist movement, is a group of historically related denominations of Protestant Christianity whose origins, doctrine and practice derive from the life and teachings of John Wesley. George Whitefield and John's b ...

texts such as ''The United Methodist Hymnal'', '' The Book of Discipline'', and the writings of

John Wesley John Wesley (; 2 March 1791) was an English people, English cleric, Christian theology, theologian, and Evangelism, evangelist who was a leader of a Christian revival, revival movement within the Church of England known as Methodism. The soci ...

. Consultations to explore the possibility of creating an ecumenical monastic community began in 1984 and led to the founding in 1999 of Saint Brigid of Kildare Monastery by Sister Mary Ewing Stamps, OSB, as a Methodist-Benedictine monastery for United Methodist women. The monastery was dedicated on the feast day of

Saint Brigid Saint Brigid of Kildare or Brigid of Ireland ( ga, Naomh Bríd; la, Brigida; 525) is the patroness saint (or 'mother saint') of Ireland, and one of its three national saints along with Patrick and Columba. According to medieval Irish hagiogra ...

in 2000 and by 2011 counted 16 members (14 Methodists), some ordained, both women and men, ranging in age from 23 to 82 years.

References

External links

Saint Brigid of Kildare MonasterySister Mary Ewing Stamps, OSB, on Blogspot
{{Coord, 45, 33, 53.3, N, 94, 18, 49.6, W, display=title Christian monasteries in the United States Methodist monasteries