Our Lady of the Rock Monastery is a Benedictine monastery of women located in the heart of the beautiful San Juan Islands of Washington state. The monastery, a dependent priory of the Abbey of Regina Laudis in Bethlehem CT, is a place of recollection and prayer. Set amidst 300 acres of forest and farmland, the nuns strive to live out their lives faithful to the traditions handed on to them by their holy founders, Saint Benedict and Saint Scholastica.

Blessed Easter!

Postulant Mary with new-born lamb Josephina

TRIDUUM AND EASTER LITURGY SCHEDULE

Holy Thursday
Tenebrae 7:30 am
Mass 7:00 pm

Good Friday
Tenebrae 7:30 am
Solemn Liturgy 3:00 pm

Holy Saturday
Tenebrae 7:30 am
Easter Vigil 7:30 pm

Easter Sunday
Office of Prime and Announcement of Easter 7:15 am
Mass 8:00 am
Vespers and Benediction 4:30 pm

You are most welcome to join us for the celebration of the Triduum and Easter. All of our liturgical services take place in our Monastic Chapel.

Winter at Our Lady of the Rock

The motto of the Order of Saint Benedict, Ora et Labora (Pray and Work), is the animating spirit by which the nuns live. In our dedication to fulfill St. Benedict's call to ORA, the community sings the Divine Office and Daily Mass in traditional Gregorian Chant. Guests of all faiths are welcome to visit and pray with us in our Monastic Chapel, renowned for its simplicity and beauty.

He brought the light of dawn to shine upon this continent.

“Saint Benedict has the reputation of being the messenger of peace, the maker of unity, the master of civilization, and especially the herald of Christianity and the author of monasticism in the West. When darkness seemed to be spreading over Europe after the fall of the Roman empire, he brought the light of dawn to shine upon this continent. For with the cross, the book and the plow, Christian civilization was carried, principally through him and his disciples, to the peoples who lived in those lands which stretch from the Mediterranean to Scandinavia, and from Ireland to Poland.”

—Pope Saint Paul VI on St. Benedict of Nursia, Co-Patron of Europe

The LABORA at Our Lady of the Rock is fulfilled by supporting ourselves and serving our neighbors and guests with a variety of works focused around our farm.

At Our Lady of the Rock, we are, as St. Benedict described, “a School of the Lord’s Service”: a place where the members of the monastic community can seek God, follow Christ more closely, and be a living example of how people of diverse backgrounds and personalities can live together in total lifelong commitment to each other. Our mission is to pray for the needs of the Church, especially in this archdiocese, to meet the needs of those who come to us, and to augment the services of the Catholic Church in the San Juan Islands.