Benedictine Sisters of Cullman, Alabama

Sacred Heart Monastery 
916 Convent Road, Cullman, Alabama 35055 
(256) 734-4622 --- shmon@shmon.org

Who are the Benedictine Sisters of Cullman? We are a community of 48 women of deep faith. As Benedictines we follow the 1500 year old Rule of St. Benedict which makes us a monastic community. The word monastic has as its root word the Greek word monos which means "alone"or "single". We come to this life first of all to seek God. It is a single-hearted focus on seeking God alone.

How do we do that? First, by living in community. We strive to live as the early Christians are described as living in the Acts of the Apostles, especially chapters 2 and 4--sharing all things in common. We try to help one another in seeking God.

Second, we pray together four times each day. We gather together three times daily to pray the Liturgy of the Hours, also known as the Divine Office. This is the prayer of the Church. In this prayer we pray for ourselves but also for the Church, the world, and for individuals who have requested our prayers. The fourth time we gather together each day is for the celebration of the Eucharist--the heart of our life together. Beyond these times of common prayer, we encourage one another to pray privately, especially praying with Scripture. In this prayer we strive to listen deeply to God and to open our hearts to respond completely to what God asks.

Like other religious men and women, Benedictines make vows but they are not the well-known "evangelical counsels"of poverty, chastity, and obedience. That is because the Benedictine vows pre-date the evangelical counsels. Benedictines do make a vow of obedience, but we also vow stability. This is a permanent commitment to be rooted in this place, Cullman, Alabama, with these people until death. We do this because we believe that, like a plant, we have to put down roots in order to find life and to keep our singleness of focus on God alone.

The third Benedictine vow is usually given in Latin, conversatio morum. That is because it is hard to translate, but roughly translated it means conversion of life.The monastic life is a way-of-life. So we vow fidelity to the monastic way of life; to be true to the single-hearted quest for God; to be true to the spiritual journey and to a continual conversion toward God. This last vow presupposes celibacy. We do not marry in order to be free for God alone. And it presupposes poverty. As we said before, we share all things in common. Individually, we own nothing, but beyond that we strive to not have the use of too many "things" which can distract us from our focus on God alone.

Like all Christians, our prayer ideally leads us out of ourselves to reverence and serve Christ in others: our Sisters, our guests, and outside the monastery. Benedictines are famous for hospitality. St. Benedict says in his Rule that no monastery is ever without guests. Through our Retreat Center we receive guests from far and wide for retreats, spiritual direction, and for some quiet time apart.

However, for us, hospitality to guests extends beyond the monastery walls in ministry to the larger Church community. Our ministries are many and varied because Benedictines were not founded to do a particular work. For us, any ministry is possible as long as it allows us to live and pray in community and that we can love and serve Christ in those to whom and with whom we minister.

Cullman, Alabama, in the heart of the deep South, is an exciting place for Benedictines to live, pray, and minister because this is officially considered "mission" territory by the Catholic Church. Alabama is still only 2% Catholic and the needs of the Church are great. The Benedictine Sisters of Cullman have been responding to those needs for over 100 years.

Please feel free to contact us:

Sister Magdalena Craig,OSB
Vocation Director

Sister Therese Haydel, OSB
Associate Vocation Director

916 Convent Road
Cullman, AL 35055
256-734-2199
vocations@shmon.org