Through spiritual education, we provide hospitality to all those searching for meaning, hope and healing. With our continuous prayers for the world, we transform lives. Our mission is transcendent, timeless and timely. Please join in this work with your gift and by exploring our ministry.
The Sisters of Benet Hill Monastery of Colorado Springs, CO, are a contemporary Benedictine monastic presence. Our values are to provide sacred space of hospitality to create hope and healing, to revere all creation, to be radical signs of God's love and compassion, and to use our resources in service with all God's people. We ignite individual and community transformation to co-create with God a more just world.
As a contemporary monastic community of religious women, we are rooted in over 1500 years of Benedictine tradition. We are pioneer women of God who fearlessly answer the call to serve God's people wherever we are led. We live a communal life of prayer, contemplation, discernment, celibacy, simplicity, and reverence for all creation.
In 1914, we established their presence in Colorado as teachers serving the state's most disadvantaged areas. In 1960, we purchased property in Colorado Springs and opened Benet Hill Academy, a college preparatory school for young women in 1963. In 1982, Benet Hill Academy closed and we reimagined our educational focus by creating an Adult Faith Formation Center. By offering courses in spirituality, religious education and hospitality, Benet Hill became a "sacred space" for all faith traditions.
We built a new building opened in 2009, nestled in the whispering pines of the Black Forest in Colorado Springs. The structure was built using local materials and modern designs to take advantage of passive energy-saving resources. It is designed with the two anchors of Benedictine life, common prayer and common table, the chapel and the dining room on each end of the structure. Between these two, the building is shaped like an embrace. The embrace reaches out to the warmth of the southern sun, the shape of the land and to all elements of life, creating positive space.
We continue to offer an array of spiritual programs to uplift, inspire, strengthen, and ennoble all who come to this contemplative place in the forest.
"I have known the Benet Hill Benedictines most of my life since they were good friends of grandparents and parents. My family and I have continued that friendship. We support the Mission Outreach of the Monastery. We believe that the retreats, seminars, and workshops they offer are a blessing for those in search of deepening their faith or finding it. I know that by donating to the Benet Hill Community I help them continue to offer their gifts to all who come to them."
Shari Middlemist, Colorado Springs
"The Benedictine Spiritual Formation Program has taught me how to listen more deeply to others, to the Spirit, and to myself. It also has been an opportunity to develop a community with my classmates, teachers, and instructors during the last two years. I am most grateful for the hospitality of Benet Hill."
Rev. Karen Matuska, Colorado Springs
"It just seems that so many people who are grieving are attracted to Centering Prayer. Having lost a daughter, I too needed a way to go deeper and really KNOW God as tangible and within me and to know that part of me that will not die and to know that GIFT is the same for my daughter. My Centering Prayer practice of eight years has allowed me that deepening closeness to God, a comfort in "knowing" my daughter now and a growing sense of peace. I believe this came about through my consent in the prayer. It has been for me a life-giving practice."
Linda Smith, Class Participant
"I felt the serenity and the welcome the minute I stepped into the monastery. Even though I am not Catholic I appreciate the openness to one God. I felt peaceful in the room with the stained glass and loved the gardens and the mosaics."
"I was pleasantly surprised by the diversity of spirituality the sisters embrace-that is refreshing."
"The sisters have a humbling 'servant's heart' which is very inspirational in our fast-paced world."
"We are tied to the Sisters of Benet Hill Monastery: for the goodness, kindness, repose, and nourishment that we receive from them." John and Liz Wolf
"Our contributions to support the Sisters of Benet Hill are founded on their belief in service to others, their commitment to the community at large, and the examples of Christian spirit they live out daily." Alan and Eileen Johnson
"...my heart has found a place of welcome and repose..." Benet Hill Monastery volunteer