Benedictine Sisters of Annunciation Monastery celebrate 75 years

On March 24, 2022, the Benedictine Sisters of Annunciation Monastery, Bismarck, North Dakota, celebrated the 75th anniversary of their establishment as an independent monastic community in the Diocese of Bismarck.  In 1944, 140 members of St. Benedict's Monastery, St. Joseph, Minnesota, volunteered to be the founding members of the new community in Bismarck.  Benedictines first came to Dakota Territory in 1878 to teach the German immigrant children.  A few years later, they established St. Alexius Hospital, now known as CHI St. Alexius Health.  After the establishment of the community in 1947, the sisters founded Mary College, now known as the University of Mary.  The sisters continue to sponsor both institutions and recently took on sponsoring Ministry on the Margins, a social service ministry offering a food pantry, overnight coffee house and other services to those in need in Bismarck.  Sister Nicole Kunze, prioress of Annunciation Monastery, states, “We look forward to the next 75 years of faithfulness to prayer, community, and service, in the way of St. Benedict, in which we treat all as Christ. We respond to the needs of the times in collaboration with others. God has blessed us. God still blesses us.”