In 2015, we renovated and rented a long abandoned convent in New York City. For five years we offered a safe place to stay for students, activists, newly arrived immigrants, recently unhoused individuals, and lay catholics marginalized by the Church. After a temporary stop in Queens (renovating another vacant convent), we established the Benincasa Community Mohterhouse at Fisher’s Nook (a long vacant camground!) in Guilofrd, CT as a homebase continuing to work together and remain connected to members living throughout the country.

Benincasa Community members make regularly renewable vows or commitments in the tradition of spiritual men and women throughout millennia. However rather than the canonical vows of “poverty, chastity, and obedience”, we commit ourselves to “living simply, being radically available to those in need, and discerning God’s call in the world.” As a intentional lay community, we share our lives with one another in a variety of ways by celebrating major milestones together, such as graduations, weddings, child birth, and new endeavors.

In addition to maintaining our commitments to one another in all aspects of our lives, we also practice a monastic rhythm of nightly prayer (vespers), preaching workshops, and monthly lay-led liturgies in the progressive catholic tradition. Through the wisdom of many mystics, spiritual leaders, and ancestors we have learned how these practices of contemplation lead to greater action and the ways in which action for justice fills our contemplation with good things.