These Catholic nuns were once Anglican sisters!

The Sisters of the Blessed Virgin Mary look like any other Catholic nuns. They follow the rule of St. Benedict, they wear black and white habits, and they’re very devoted to the Virgin Mary. A rosary is part of their habit. But these nuns are extraordinary, because they were all previously Anglican nuns, who entered the Catholic Church in 2013! Now, they are the only monastic community in the Personal Ordinariate of Our Lady of Walsingham.

The first comment that might come to mind is, “I didn’t even know the Anglicans had nuns!” Indeed, when the Church of England first separated from the Catholic Church in the 16th century, monasticism was practically wiped out in the Church of England. King Henry VIII dissolved the convents and monasteries and seized their properties.

Then came the Oxford Movement within the Anglican Communion in the 19th century. It emphasized and restored aspects of spirituality, theology, and worship that the Church of England has in common with the Catholic Church, such as monasticism. It also gave us St. John Henry Newman, perhaps the most famous convert from Anglicanism to Catholicism in recent centuries.

It was during the resulting revival of Anglican monasticism that William John Butler — a young Anglican vicar in Wantage, England — founded the Anglican Community of St. Mary the Virgin in 1848. Their rule was based on that of St. Augustine.

The community grew over the years and dedicated itself to various good works, from schools to homes for young mothers or the elderly, and for people recovering from addictions. More recently, in the late 20th century, they gradually shifted from institutional work to “more individual ministries” in hospitals, parishes, and schools, as well as spiritual direction.

In a lengthy testimony on the now-Catholic nuns’ website, Mother Winsome SBVM explains why she and a number of her religious sisters decided to move to Catholicism.

On one hand, she explains, they already “wore traditional Habit, sung Gregorian plainchant, reserved the Blessed Sacrament, took vows for life of poverty, chastity, and obedience and basically sought to replicate the practices of a traditional Catholic monastic community.” On the other hand, they felt that “over the passage of time Religious Life in the Church of England [...] had been pushed to the margins.”

Mother Winsome explains that the sisters had “reached the point where the community needed to be reformed at a deep spiritual level.” She was elected Mother Superior in 2006, and found that some sisters “were in danger of losing their monastic vocation replacing it with a notion of a loose association of well-meaning women doing good works.” But that, she points out, is not monastic consecrated life.

During the efforts she and other sisters made to reclaim spiritual ground, they ran into obstacles derived from the structure and nature of the Church of England as a whole. They started to feel the need for the guidance of the Vicar of Christ and the Magisterium, instead of an elected synod.

Pope Benedict XVI was well aware that, due in great part to the theological evolution of the Anglican Communion and the Church of England in particular, significant numbers of Anglicans were interested in becoming Catholics.

Recognizing this pastoral need, and the valuable spiritual inheritance they already carried, in 2009 Benedict XVI published Anglicanorum Coetibus. This document provided a solution: the Personal Ordinariates for former Anglicans (which would come into being two years later). These structures allow Anglicans to enter full communion with Rome while bringing with them aspects of their Anglican liturgical and spiritual heritage.

At this point, Mother Winsome says, some of the sisters approached her in private to tell her that they felt called to accept this invitation from Rome. They proposed joining the Personal Ordinariate of Our Lady of Walsingham. Some specifically cited Cardinal John Henry Newman as an inspiration for taking this step.

Initially, they had no intention of leaving the Community of Saint Mary the Virgin. Many of the sisters had independently expressed feeling the same call, “as part of a community,” while also sensing the call to remain together. And in fact, the Ordinariate was prepared to receive religious in groups. They hoped that the nuns who wanted to become Catholics could do so and remain alongside their Anglican sisters.

This proposal was approved by the whole community, and they began a period of “spiritual exploration” and discernment under the guidance of representatives of the Catholic Church and the Ordinariate in particular. In the end, eleven discerned that they “were being called into the full communion of the Catholic Church.” They also realized they felt called to follow the Rule of Saint Benedict.

Unsurprisingly, not everyone was happy with their decision. The nuns’ superiors in the Church of England were not supportive. The sisters who wanted to become Catholic would have to find a new physical home and start a new community.

God does not abandon those who entrust themselves to him, and the Catholic Benedictine community of St. Cecilia’s Abbey, Ryde, on the Isle of Wight, opened its doors to them. They had 12 empty rooms they had been preparing for nuns from Paraguay who were supposed to arrive for a year of formation. However, those plans had fallen through.

As it happened, the 11 nuns from the Community of St. Mary the Virgin had been joined by another sister from another community, so there were 12 of them as well. As Mother Winsome observed, “Twelve empty cells, twelve sisters!” It was a providential opportunity, and everyone involved agreed they would take it.

The twelve nuns were received in the Catholic Church on January 1, 2013. It had taken four years and they had faced misunderstanding and painful opposition on the part of many of their Anglican brothers and sisters, but it was worth the cost. “It seems to me that each of us was given a very special gift of healing grace, so that we could experience true joy as we were received at last into the full communion of the Catholic Church,” Sister Winsome writes.

In another sign of God’s providence, the ferry they took to reach the abbey on the Isle of Wight turned out to be named “St. Cecilia.”  “Welcome home” were the first words they heard from a sister of St. Cecilia’s abbey.

Eventually, they would become a new Catholic community, the Sisters of the Blessed Virgin Mary. They also found a permanent home of their own at Aston Hall in Aston-by-Stone, Staffordshire. It’s a building with important Catholic ties to two English saints, including St. John Henry Newman. They are the only monastic community in the Ordinariate of Our Lady of Walsingham. 

“We know that we are now in communion with the See of Peter, with all the saints that we love. When the conclave was electing Pope Francis I, we were not on the outside looking in; they were electing OUR Pope, OUR Holy Father. We are now truly part of the Church,” Mother Winsome says, full of joy.

You can learn more about the sisters by watching their video below.