Our Community

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The Monastery of Our Lady of the Rosary in Summit, New Jersey was founded in 1919 by Mother Mary Imelda Gauthier, OP and 13 Sisters from the Monastery of the Perpetual Rosary in Union City, NJ. Mother Mary Imelda founded this new monastery with a two-fold vision that, over 100 years later, continues to characterize the community. This new monastery dedicated to Our Lady of the Rosary was to be both American in its approach and fully incorporated into the Order as Nuns of the Order of Preachers (The Union City monastery was a diocesan “3rd Order” cloister). Our monastery expresses the Dominican monastic life that is over 800 years old in a way that is rooted in the tradition yet lived in the 21st century.

Currently the community comprises of about 20 nuns from the ages of 26-91 with a median age of 36. The nuns come from 14 different states and 5 different countries.

 

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What is a Dominican Nun?

Like all contemplatives, our specific mission is unceasing prayer for the entire Church, a spiritual service in the form of praise, adoration, intercession, expiation and thanksgiving. By profession, we are wholly consecrated to the Church and are called to the task of spreading the Kingdom of God in the world, using only the means of prayer and penance, which are endowed with a marvelous hidden apostolic fruitfulness. We hold in our hearts the sufferings and anguish of all, and are a sign to believers and unbelievers alike of the existence and presence of God, affirming the transcendent values of the life to come. By our hidden life we proclaim prophetically that in Christ alone is true happiness to be found, here by grace and afterwards in glory.

Contemplative activity at the service of the Church is the definite pattern set by St. Dominic for the Nuns of the Order, for he founded them ten years before the Brethren to offer their prayers and penances for all “preachers of the word.” From the very beginning of the Order, St. Dominic associated us with “the holy preaching,” through a life of contemplation, liturgical prayer, work, and sacrifice. He founded the nuns before the friars, knowing that the success of his preaching depended upon and was linked intimately with the intercession of his daughters.

Our life is apostolic and universal in scope, consisting, according to the Dominican ideal, in giving to others the fruits of contemplation: “contemplata aliis tradere.” Yet, the ultimate end of the Dominican contemplative nun is to live by God alone and for God alone. While it embraces our personal sanctification and the apostolate, nevertheless transcends them both. It is transformation into Christ through Love.

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History

  • Our Beginnings

    St. Dominic de Guzman (1170- 1221) gathers together a group of women converts from the Albigensian heresy at Prouilhe, France, in 1206. Forming them into a community of prayer and penance, he associated them with the holy preaching of his brethren, the friars of the Order of Preachers, founded in 1216. Under Dominic’s fatherly care, monasteries were founded in San Sisto, Rome, and Bologna, and spread throughout Europe.

  • For His Honor and Glory

    In 1880 in Calais, France, Fr. Damien-Marie Saintourens, O.P., and Mother Rose of Saint Mary Wehrle, O.P., found a community of Dominican cloistered contemplative sisters whose special apostolate is the Perpetual Rosary. While keeping the monastic observances, the sisters were also to be “Mary’s Guard of Honor,” contemplating the mysteries of salvation presented in the Rosary.

  • Established in 1919

    The first American Perpetual Rosary monastery was established at the Blue Chapel, Union City, NJ, in 1891. In 1919, fifteen sisters led by Mother Mary Imelda Gauthier, O.P., left there to found the Monastery of Our Lady of the Rosary in Summit, NJ. Two more foundations issued from our monastery: North Guilford, CT (Our Lady of Grace Monastery) in 1947, and Cainta, Philippines (Monastery of Our Lady of the Rosary) in 1977.

  • Fraternal Support

    Our monastery is one of the founding monasteries of the North American Association of Dominican Monasteries. At present our sisters serve the Association in various capacities. Sr. Mary Catharine, OP serves as Vice-President and head of the Committee for Publications and Communications. Sr. Denise Marie, OP serves as Treasurer. Sr. Mary Martin, OP serves as a member of the Formation Committee and Sr. Mary Magdalene, OP serves on the Publications Committee.

Our Copy of the Shroud of Turin

The nearly 400 year-old copy of the Shroud of Turin which has been the possession of the Dominican Nuns of the Monastery of Our Lady of the Rosary is now on display for public veneration in the monastery chapel.

This Shroud replica was commissioned by the Most Serene Infanta, Maria Maddalena of Austria, Grand Duchess of Tuscany, wife of Cosimo de’ Medici in April, 1624. To give the copy greater value it was placed for a time on the Shroud of Turin.

What makes this replica treasured and venerated to this day is the fact that it came into physical contact with the Holy Shroud of Turin.

It was the Duchess Maria Magdalena, a close friend of the Nuns of St. Catherine’s Monastery, Rome who presented this copy to the monastery. This copy was venerated by the Nuns for nearly 300 years.

In gratitude for the generous help of the fledging Monastery in Summit, New Jersey after World War I, the Dominican Nuns of St. Catherine’s Monastery gave it to the Summit Dominican Nuns on April 6, 1924.

Between June 1924 and March 1926 a great deal of research took place toward re-affirming the relic’s authenticity. The Procurator General of the Order of Preachers, Rev. Father Philip Caterini, O.P. was able to re-establish authenticity of the copy by documents found in the State Archives at Turin. Bishop John O’Connor, Bishop of Newark authorized its public veneration and the Holy Father granted rich indulgences for its veneration.

For many years the Shroud copy has been kept within the enclosure and available for private viewing only.

The Shroud copy is now on permanent display in the public chapel of the Dominican Nuns. The chapel is open from 6:00 a.m. to 7:00 p.m. daily.