A Benedictine Monastery in the Heart of DC
Rt. Rev. Dom James Wiseman, OSBAmazingly, up here near the north-east boundary of the District of Columbia, twelve minutes by Metro from Union Station and twenty minutes from the Capitol is a real traditional monastery where monks live the life of prayer established by our 6th century founder St. Benedict and where we continue that life and the aspirations of our founder for the glory of God and the sanctification of the nation and the world.
Here within an urban oasis of 40 acres of secluded woodland, the sounds of the city are virtually unheard. Here too stand our prestigious academic High School and close by the Catholic University of America where monks still teach alongside their lay colleagues, and the values of our patrons, St. Benedict and St. Anselm, are proclaimed among our youth to the glory of God and the wonder of the modern world.
Sometimes we are referred to as “Washington’s best kept secret”; perhaps this is because monks are not naturally given to the more ostentatious ways of projecting themselves upon the surrounding world. Monasteries are power-houses of prayer and virtue, and our evangelization is precisely by prayer, spiritual direction and education, so we invite you to share our “secret”. We invite you “come and see”.
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Advent 2011 Newsletter The Advent 2011 edition of the Abbey newsletter is now available online!
First & Third Saturdays with the Monks Join the the monks for a talk on a theme specified for the day, along with a period of private meditation in the church, evening prayer, supper, night prayer, a Marian litany procession, and reflection together on the Sunday readings.
Fr. John’s Memoir |
January 23, 2012 Saint Louis Priory & Abbey School Visits for March for Life St. Anselm’s welcomed and was pleased to offer hospitality to the contingent from St. Louis Abbey and Priory School who came to participate in the annual Right to Life March and activities....
November 12, 2011 Abbot James Speaks at Templeton Conference On Saturday, November 12, Abbot James was one of four speakers at a conference sponsored by the Washington Theological Consortium and funded by the Templeton Foundation. This was the first of four conferences that will be held...
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January 8, 2011 | Abbot James Feast of the Epiphany I’m going to begin this homily in a way that could well appear to be blatant name-dropping, but I do think this little anecdote will be to the point. About fifteen years ago I was part a small group of people who had been organizing a dialogue between Buddhists and Christians that was going to be held at the Abbey of Gethsemani in Kentucky...
December 25, 2011 | Abbot James Birthday of the Lord (Midnight Mass) I expect a lot of you, like me, receive many unsolicited emails, some of which can indeed be infected by viruses and others not especially worth reading even if they are not malicious. Happily, still others are very fine. A week ago I received a message from a friend that included a story that has apparently been making the rounds on the Internet for a couple years and that is worth repeating, even if some of you may have heard it before...
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