The Community of St. John Baptist (CSJB) celebrated 150 years of ministry in the United States on February 5, and the community is marking this sesquicentennial with several events throughout the year.
Eleven life-professed CSJB sisters welcome over 2,000 visitors annually to their historic convent in Mendham, New Jersey, sustaining the life of a religious order first begun in England in 1852 by clergy widow Harriett O’Brien Monsell (1811-83). By the time her cofounder, Canon T.T. Carter of Clewer, died in 1901, CSJB had over 300 sisters in 45 houses. Its initial work was primarily among marginalized women of late Victorian society who were dislocated by poverty, single motherhood, human trafficking, and insufficient educational opportunities. “The Clewer Sisters,” as they came to be known, now have their largest presence in the United States.
The order arrived in New York City on February 5, 1874, to open a branch house among poor German-speaking immigrants on the Lower East Side centered on the Holy Cross Mission that would give its name to the men’s Order of the Holy Cross. It grew quickly with the support of New York Bishop Horatio Potter, expanding efforts in the United States alongside other women’s religious orders to staff orphanages, hospitals, schools, and parishes.
CSJB’s ministries over its century and a half have broadened to retreat offerings, preaching, and spiritual direction based at its convent in New Jersey — but also since 2003 to support of over 150 children orphaned by AIDS in Cameroon, West Africa. Their ministry at the Good Shepherd Home in Bamenda now includes a school, farm, bakery, and clinic.
The sisters have continued strong associations with parish work in Jersey City, New York (notably and recently at the Church of St. Mary the Virgin), in Navajoland, and in Oregon. A high-profile current ministry is the @nunsenseforthepeople TikTok and social media outreach of superior Sister Monica Clare, reaching in excess of 200,000 followers with a reach of over two million views and interactions. The “Nun” Better Shop on Etsy is another outreach project supporting the order by selling art and jewelry by Sister Mary Lynne and Sister Suzanne Elizabeth.
Sesquicentennial celebrations began with a festal Eucharist on February 6 at Trinity Church Wall Street not far from the lower Manhattan beginnings of the order in America. They continued with a vestment exhibition at Trinity Wall Street curated by textile historians Steven Leavitt and Marianna Garthwaite Klaiman highlighting CSJB sisters’ roles in the transatlantic artistic heritage of 19th- and 20th-century Anglo-Catholicism.
The sisters launched a capital campaign to continue their ministry of presence and sanctuary at the convent and St. Marguerite’s Retreat House in Mendham and to renovate the convent cemetery. A first phase of this campaign has already raised $2.5 million to replace the boilers and septic system of the convent complex and to replace the convent’s roof. Also in connection with CSJB’s stewardship of its venerable tradition, religious life historian Valerie Bonham has published The Second Spring chronicling its history to 2020.
The sesquicentennial culminated in a Commemoration Day on June 15 with retired Presiding Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori as celebrant and preacher, followed by a festive luncheon. The 26th Presiding Bishop drew deeply on the sisters’ history to bring a message honoring the community’s wide regional and national influence through “the changes and chances of life” that “come to us all”: “snow and hurricanes that block the roads and times the priest can’t get there; fire in old New York buildings; cars that die in difficult weather; broken water pipes; naughty children; injuries and death.” In the face of these challenges, she praised the community for its charism of fearless and “holy crisis management: be not afraid!”
Bishop Jefferts Schori prayed that “the loving faithfulness of the Community of St. John Baptist continue to challenge the world around us” as “a beautiful and holy witness to God’s love in human flesh.”
CSJB’s next anniversary event will be “Monastery in Mendham” on September 28, when the convent will be open to the public for tours from 1 to 5 p.m.
