November 4, 2009

New Benet Hill Monastery and retreat center dedicated

The By Jim Myers
Colorado Catholic Herald

COLORADO SPRINGS—Nestled among pine trees at an elevation of 7,500 feet — with a picturesque backdrop that includes Pikes Peak—is the new home of the Benedictine Sisters in Colorado Springs that reveals the order’s commitment to work and a contemplative life.

The new Benet Hill Monastery and Benet Pines Retreat Center opened earlier this year. The sisters of Benet Hill hosted their official dedication Oct. 11, with Colorado Springs Bishop Michael Sheridan blessing the complex during an hour-long liturgy attended by more than 100 invitees.

“Hope sees what isn’t but yet will be … and now it has happened,” said Sister Anne Stedman, prioress of Benet Hill Monastery since 2005, quoting an unknown author.

The 43-acre property, which the order acquired in 1967 for the purpose of having a cemetery, is approximately 35,500 square feet and contains administrative buildings, a eucharistic chapel, an oratory, a worship space for liturgies, retreat houses, a hermitage, a bookstore, dining areas and housing for the sisters. There is also a transitional care facility located on the property for sisters who have special health-care needs.

“This is wonderful because it’s the first time the sisters have been able to live together in a convent. More sisters are at prayers, and we have a lot more camaraderie,” said Sister Leann Cogan, who entered the order in 1939 and professed her first vows in 1940.

Benet Hill Monastery and Benet Pines Retreat Center provide a venue where the sisters can combine all their activities on one property instead of having to spread out to different parts of the city. The complex, in the Black Forest section of the city, was built by Art C. Klein Construction at a cost of more than $6 million. Funding came from various sources, including a lengthy capital campaign and the sale of part of the previous Benet Hill Monastery on Chelton Road in the center of Colorado Springs. The old property, which has housed charter schools for nearly a decade, is up for sale.

The new monastery incorporated a “green” element to its construction. The clay walls are designed to be cool in the summer and warm in the winter, and the property conserves water, electricity and natural gas through design and a combination of high-efficiency machinery and high performance windows. The order needed to fell 100 trees in order to build the complex, and they used the ponderosas in pieces around the complex (such as baseboards and window sills).
The Benedictine order grew out of St. Benedict and St. Scholastica, who formed the charism of the Catholic Church in 480. Benedictines first came to the United States from Germany in 1852 with the purpose of educating immigrant children in St. Mary’s, Penn. They founded a motherhouse at Mount St. Scholastica in Atchison, Kan., in 1863 and came to Colorado in 1914 when they were asked to teach in schools in Walsenburg, now part of the Diocese of Pueblo. They also taught in public schools across the San Luis Valley and served as administrators and superintendents in those districts until the 1970s.

The order founded many schools, including Benet Hill Academy, Holy Trinity School and Sacred Heart School in Colorado Springs, and taught in public as well as parochial schools. They minister throughout the Diocese of Colorado Springs, in the Pueblo Diocese and in the Archdiocese of Denver.

Benedictines follow the Rule of Benedict, which is a guide for living the monastic life. It was written by St. Benedict in the sixth century and was the foundation for thousands of European monasteries in the Middle Ages, according to the Web site for the Order of St. Benedict.