These cloistered Dominican nuns pray the “Adoring Rosary”

The Eucharist is placed at the center of our chapel, and the chapel, in turn, is located in the center of our monastery. Our day is arranged around it, with daily Mass and the hours of the Divine Office which flow from it, and the daily schedule of sisters assigned to keep guard before the Lord as adorers. The physical centrality reflects a deeper spiritual one: The Eucharist lies at the heart of our vocation as cloistered Dominican nuns.

As contemplative nuns, we are called to seek the face of God. Many of the Dominican monasteries in the United States have the privilege of perpetual adoration. Here, before the monstrance, we gaze on his hidden face, bringing before him the sufferings and trials, needs and petitions, the joys and thanksgiving of all the world. Continually, we receive phone calls, letters and messages asking, “Sisters, would you please pray for… ?”

In our monastery, we have the tradition of praying what we call the Adoring Rosary. During our assigned adoration time, we contemplate the mysteries of Christ’s life through the prayers of the Rosary while we adore him in his Eucharistic presence. There is such peace in the quiet chapel, looking up at Our Lord as the beads slip through my fingers. The mission of the Dominican order is “to contemplate, and to give to others the fruits of contemplation.” As a cloistered nun, I do not share the fruits of my contemplation by preaching the way my brothers, the friars, do — rather, in a mysterious way, the Word contemplated in my heart bears fruit through the Word preached by others.

Sister Lucia Marie of the Visitation,  a cloistered Dominican nun of the Monastery of Our Lady of the Rosary in Summit, New Jersey.

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