With the beginning of the new year, the "Mater Ecclesiae" monastery in the Vatican Gardens is once again the residence of a contemplative order, a separate branch of the nuns of the Benedictine Order of the Abbey of St. Scholastica of Victoria, in the province of Buenos Aires (Diocese of San Isidro), in Argentina.
It has been the Pope Francis’ who welcomed the small community of six nuns to the Vatican, which was installed on January 3. The nuns were received by the President of the Governorate of Vatican City State, Cardinal Fernando Vérgez Alzaga, the body to which the Pontiff has entrusted the management of all matters concerning the monastery.
Until December 31, 2022, as will be recalled, the "Mater Ecclesiae" housed Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI, who had chosen it as his residence immediately after his resignation, to continue to stay in the "precincts of Peter" and pray for his successor.
However, on October 1, 2010, through a letter the Pope wanted to reestablish the previous custom of dedicating the monastery to the contemplative life, which dated back to 1994 at the behest of St. John Paul II. The original purpose, in fact, was to host contemplative orders to support the Holy Father in his daily solicitude for the whole Church "through the ministry of prayer, adoration, his own and reparation, thus being a prayerful presence in silence and solitude," a note explained.
Residence at "Mater Ecclesiae".
According to the Statute of the Monastery, every five years different monastic orders alternate. From 1994 to 1999 it was occupied by the Poor Clares; then, until 2004, by the Discalced Carmelites; from 2004 to 2009 by the Benedictines, and until 2012 - before the entry of Benedict XVI - by the Visitation nuns.
The "Mater Ecclesiae" monastery is located only a few hundred meters from St. Martha's house and is divided into two parts: a two-story chapel to the west and the monastic quarters with 12 cells on four levels. There is also an orchard next to the monastery.
For its part, the Abbey of St. Scholastica, where the six new residents of the last house of Benedict XVI come from, is a monastery founded in 1941 and belongs to the Congregation of the Southern Cone. Located in the outskirts of Buenos Aires, the Benedictine community of worship "wants to be for all the inhabitants of the city like a beacon that with its prayerful and contemplative life, with its praise and its work, illuminates the path of men and accompanies their sometimes feverish and agitated steps, their great questions and sufferings, their labors and fatigues, their longings and hopes", as its web page says.
From now on, at least for the next five years, these nuns will accompany the labors and all the yearnings of hope of the Successor of the Apostles, a few meters from the seat where he exercises his Magisterium.
