PORTLAND (NEWS CENTER Maine) — After 80 years, spending their days in silent prayer at a monastery in Portland, the two remaining members of the Sisters Adorers of the Precious Blood are leaving Maine.
Sisters Mary Jo and Theresa have lived in the cloistered Catholic community on State Street in Portland for several decades. Sister Mary Jo has lived there since she was 18 years old when she arrived in 1961.
The monastery was originally home to 14 nuns, but the Roman Catholic Diocese of Portland announced its last residents will be moving to a monastery in Manchester, New Hampshire next month.
The home was formerly owned by William Pitt Fessenden who saved President Andrew Johnson from impeachment.
A special Mass is being held to honor and thank the sisters for their decades of prayerful ministry in Maine, on Thursday, Oct. 4 at 2 p.m. at the Cathedral of the Immaculate Conception in Portland at 72 Federal Street.
The Sisters Adorers of the Precious Blood were founded by Mother Catherine Aurelia Caouette in Saint-Hyacinthe, Quebec, in 1861. In 1934, seven sisters from Manchester, New Hampshire bought the William Pitt Fessenden House from the Diocese of Portland.
The house had previously served as King’s Academy, a school for girls and women who were taught by the Sisters of Mercy.
