Our Day
Personal Prayer
By vocation, the Sisters are called to the contemplative life, and prayer is at the center of their existence. Visitation Sisters spend an hour and half each day in mental prayer. Private prayer prepares and prolongs liturgical prayer.
Eucharist
The Holy Sacrifice of the Mass is celebrated as the high point of the day, the mystery in which God really gives Himself and gloriously communicates His graces and favors to us. In this mystery of Unity, the Sisters realize their desire to save the whole world with Christ.
Liturgy of the Hours
Our special vocation in the Church of chanting the Divine Office five times a day. This prayer expresses the adoration, praise, thanksgiving, and supplication of all humankind. It is an obligation of love and service in the Church, and it is normally celebrated in choir, and our choir stalls are nearly 600 years old. (See 2016 article from Institute on Religious Life). Since the Hours sanctify the whole day, we observe the time that corresponds most closely to the true time for each canonical Hour.
Spiritual Reading
Spiritual reading is made for a half hour each day, usually in private, daily reading of the Word of God is essential for contemplation. Reading the great spiritual masters, especially their Founders, will contribute considerably to developing in them a sense of God, and the knowledge necessary for their Religious Life.
Silence
A life ordered to contemplation requires silence and recollection, silence in speech and action, and still more interior silence implies patient asceticism. Indeed, true interior silence is not empty, but implies a living presence to the Living God. Silence is observed most of the day outside of recreations.
Community Life
In their relations with one another, the Sisters should be humble, sweet, cordial and open. Let them bear to one another great respect, not so much in gestures, looks and words, as truly in mind and heart, each one recognizing God in her Sisters. (Constitutions)
Our Work
The Sisters earn their own living by providing Altar Breads for many parishes of the Archdiocese. Work can take many forms, as needed: such as cooking, making our Habits, Sacristy work, cleaning, gardening, maintenance of the Monastery, planning liturgies, assisting the sick Sisters, shopping, as well as music (organ, zither, guitar, etc.) art (painting, drawing, ceramics) flower arrangements for the Chapel, and needle arts. We are planning to reopen our creativity in ceramics.
Leisure & Recreation
The Sisters recreate together twice daily, to foster a true family spirit. We also have some extraordinary recreation days for the Novitiate Sisters, as well as for the Community, such as Jubilee, Profession, Novice Mistress and Superior’s Feast Day, July 4, etc.
At the end of the daily recreations, the Superior or any Sisters make announcements , prayer requests, and concluded with the Presence of God, assigned weekly to a particular Sister.