Monastery Refurbishments

We have an old building that requires much care. With that, there are no lack of places that require refurbishment around the monastery. Leaky and damaged roofs, cracked and leaky ceilings, electricity and heating problems, and peeling and dirty walls are present in several spots around the monastery. We would like to renovate all of these items in order to show proper stewardship of our spaces and to enhance the overall beauty of this domus Dei.

Moreover, as part of our refurbishment, we would like to renovate many of the rooms in the retreat house in order to grant greater privacy and silence for our retreatants.

Cenacle Press

 As the monastery’s primary remunerative work, The Cenacle Press helps to support both its own expenses and the expenses of the monastery. Given the shop’s youth and size compared to the monastery’s size (both in terms of land and community members), it is not currently attainable for our shop to cover costs on both ends. So, in addition to purchasing from our shop, it would also be a great boon to The Cenacle Press for you to donate as well. This will help us grow and develop our products and pursue this apostolate of equipping the faithful to run the race and fight the good fight for Christ our Lord.

Some of The Cenacle Press’s expenses consist of such things as:

  • Printing costs for our own books, prayer cards, newsletters, etc.

  • Keeping our bookshop stocked from other publishers

  • Rosary materials

  • Woodworking and candle making materials

Storage Space

With a growing community and developing activities, space is becoming tighter and tighter around the monastery. We have less and less space to store items for our shop, food, agriculture equipment, books, and the various items that have been gifted to us over the years.

Moreover, not all of the storage space presents an environment that is conducive to long term storage for certain items. Currently, we have to use some empty rooms for storage space since they are more climate controlled than our already overfilled attic. Some brothers even have their rooms accumulating with overflow items that do not fit elsewhere in storage space.

Thus, regarding new construction, the addition of separate work and storage spaces would facilitate our efforts to support ourselves and make available more rooms for use as monastic cells.

As an addendum to the storage spaces, we should also note that we lack proper spaces for meetings with visitors and guests. Our only parlor for visits at the moment is our retreat house kitchen or our gatehouse. As neither of these are particularly suited to the circumstance, constructing small new buildings for this purpose also would be beneficial.

Hermitage

As we desire to fix up every aspect of our property, one of the major items is the renovation and development of our hermitage. Currently it is used for old storage, though even here it does not fulfill its function very well. Damaged roofing, cracked walls, and no way to mitigate damp and mold inside, this building is hardly functional even as storage space.

Yet our hope is to make it suitable as a living space. This will require electricity and water to be supplied, the roof to be restored, the interior re-designed, and its size expanded. An expensive project, but essential in continuing to restore and renovate the entire property of our monastery so that no corner is left disheveled.

Kitchen

For a community of almost twenty young men plus visitors to our retreat house, the size and make of our scullery and kitchen becomes more and more of a challenge.

In our scullery, with only two small sinks that are falling apart, we are in sore need of several upgrades, such as a dishwasher, new plumbing and sinks, and proper storage spaces for pots, pans, and cleaning items. Our kitchen is also in need of several upgrades and renovations.