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Adoration before the Blessed Sacrament at Corpus Christi Monastery, the Bronx, begins at 4 a.m. and concludes at 9 p.m.
Corpus Christi Monastery is a Dominican community of cloistered contemplative nuns known as the Dominican Nuns of Perpetual Adoration. It was founded in 1889 at its present location, 1230 Lafayette Ave., the Bronx.
Sister Mary Catharine Perry, O.P., prioress of Corpus Christi Monastery, said she is excited about the three-year National Eucharistic Revival that began in the archdiocese and across the country on Corpus Christi Sunday, June 19.
“It’s a wonderful gift for the Church,” she said. “As a community, we’re going to be talking about how we are part of that.”
Sister Mary Catharine quells a common misconception about the National Eucharistic Revival.
“Some people think it’s just about Adoration. It’s not. It’s primarily about going to Mass.”
To those who insist, “‘I don’t get anything out of going to Mass,’” Sister Mary Catharine gently counters, “We don’t go to get anything. We go to give God the worship, the love and the thanksgiving that is due Him.
“And it isn’t about how I feel, really,” she continued. “He, in return, He’s always giving us more. All we have to do is just be before Him and be with Him and for Him and He gives us Himself. It’s a superabundance of His love.”
Sister Mary Catharine also advises spending time with Scripture before the Blessed Sacrament “and just being nourished by His Word.”
“Go and just be with God,” she said. “Don’t try to have any expectations. Maybe you’ll leave that time of prayer like nothing happened—whatever that means—but then later on, you’ll see the fruits of it.”
She offered the analogy of spending time with friends and loved ones. “We don’t go saying, ‘I hope I get something out of this,’ we just go to be with them.
“We just have to be present to Him and even if we’re not aware of it, He is more present to us,” said Mother Mary Catharine.
“Even though God is always present to us and He dwells within us, the Lord gave Himself to us—His body and His blood and His soul and divinity.”
As a contemplative, “He is the center of our life, and He is the purpose of our life...in our monasteries, the Lord present in the Blessed Sacrament, the life is about praising and intercession before the Lord, and everything else fits in. We don’t fit in our time with the Lord and our prayer, it’s the other way around.”
She concedes that “it’s not easy to keep that balance because we’re human, we live in this world, but especially as a contemplative monastery…we’re always being brought back to the Lord.”
There are 14 sisters who reside at Corpus Christi Monastery. They range in age from 36 to 91. Sister Mary Catharine, the prioress, is 53. The youngest is a novice, Sister Maria Guadalupe, O.P., a Bronx native raised in St. Lucy parish who was born Claudia Diaz. Among her work before entering the order in February 2021 was seasonal zookeeper for the Wildlife Conservation Society at the Bronx Zoo.
Additionally, there are three aspirants, women who are discerning religious life.
According to the order’s history, Mother Mary of Jesus (Julia Crooks of New York City) entered the Dominican monastery in Oullins, France, with the stipulation that, if the opportunity presented itself, she would bring Dominican contemplative nuns to the United States. Bishop Michael Corrigan of Newark, N.J., led the Monastery of St. Dominic in Newark in 1880. Nine years later, Mother Mary of Jesus and five other sisters went to the Bronx, at the invitation of Archbishop Corrigan, then-Archbishop of New York. He requested the presence of a contemplative community of nuns with the special purpose of praying for the seminarians and priests of the Archdiocese of New York.
“The sisters are very aware of where they are,” she said. “We are here in New York, in the Bronx, to pray for the people of New York,” she said of the city, the archdiocese and “the Bronx. There’s a very strong sense of place.”
“Hospitality is a real keynote of this community,” Corpus Christi Monastery, Sister Mary Catharine said. “It’s beautiful,” she added of the “warmth” and “family atmosphere” among the sisters. “It’s not rigid.”
Although there are allotted times for conversation and recreation, their monastic life is predominantly one of silence. “The silence is important because we came here to grow in union with God,” Sister Mary Catharine explained.
“You have to be attuned to the Lord. Everybody in the world now is very aware of the noise and all the distractions. Even more so, for us.”
Fridays are designated as retreat days where the sisters spend “a deeper time of space to be with the Lord” privately. “It renews you, it nourishes you, it refreshes you,” she said.
“If there’s something going on in your life, you’re not comfortable with being in the silence, it really makes you have to face it in many ways.”
A lot of times, people in general are afraid to be alone, she said, “because they think they’re alone with themselves. If God isn’t in their life then yes, they are (in a sense) alone with themselves—but they’re not.”
“The Lord is there, they just don’t know it.”
