Thirteen years after their reception into the Catholic Church, the Sisters of the Blessed Virgin Mary – the only monastic community in the Personal Ordinariate of Our Lady of Walsingham – continue to live a joyful, hidden Benedictine life at Aston Hall, offering a powerful witness to the fruitfulness of corporate reunion with the See of Peter.
The community, originally part of the Anglican Community of St Mary the Virgin, founded in Wantage in 1848 during the Oxford Movement, entered full communion on January 1, 2013. Their story, first highlighted by Aleteia’s Matthew Green, remains one of the most inspiring examples of Anglicanorum coetibus, Pope Benedict XVI’s 2009 apostolic constitution, which opened a canonical path for groups of Anglicans to enter the Catholic Church while preserving elements of their spiritual and liturgical patrimony.
