Mater Ecclesiae Monastery
— — a small house kept for prayer.
Not only on a wall.
“A small cloistered monastery inside the walls of Vatican City, set among the gardens behind the basilica. John Paul II established it in 1994 as a contemplative house for cloistered nuns rotating through from different orders. From 2013 to 2022 it became the residence of Benedict XVI after his retirement. A handful of nuns live there now in silence and prayer. — from the studio
Mater Ecclesiae Monastery, on ceramic.
Each tile is finished by hand in our Knoxville studio. Artwork is slowly infused into the ceramic surface under high heat and pressure, and rests beneath a thin glossy finish. The colour lives in the surface, not on top of it.
Pick any four 4-inch tiles — National Parks you've been to, a Smokies set, the four seasons of one place. $ for a set of , cork-backed, ready to live on the table.
The place, in three passes.
Mater Ecclesiae is a small enclosed monastery within Vatican City, set in the gardens on the western slope of the Vatican Hill behind St Peter's Basilica. John Paul II established it in 1994 as a contemplative house, intending that small communities of cloistered nuns from different orders, Benedictine, Carmelite, Poor Clare, Visitandine, would each spend roughly five years in residence praying for the Pope and the universal Church. The building was renovated from a former gardener's house and chapel and includes a cloister garden, a small refectory, and a chapel large enough for the community office.
The horarium follows the rule of the order in residence at the time, but the shape is consistent: matins before dawn, lauds and Mass in the early morning, the small hours through the working day, vespers in the late afternoon, compline at night. The sisters do not receive visitors. The garden is enclosed by a high wall, and the only external sound is the bells of St Peter's a few hundred metres east and the cypresses moving in the wind off the Tiber. Even on a busy day in Rome, the cloister keeps its quiet.
The monastery is not open to the public. It sits inside the Vatican Gardens, which can be visited only on a guided tour booked through the Vatican Museums, and the cloister itself is closed to those tours. From 2 May 2013 until his death on 31 December 2022, Benedict XVI lived here in retirement, the first pope in nearly six centuries to step down from the papal office. His former rooms remain part of the cloister and are not shown.