Benedictines of Mary, Queen of Apostles

History

The community was established in 1995 as a small order of Benedictine nuns under the auspices of the Priestly Fraternity of St. Peter, in the Roman Catholic Diocese of Scranton, Pennsylvania. They were originally called the Oblates of Mary, Queen of Apostles. They began following a monastic horarium defined in the Rule of Saint Benedict, and chanting the Divine Office in Latin according to the 1962 Breviarium Monasticum.

Upon his arrival in the Roman Catholic Diocese of Kansas City-Saint Joseph in 2005, Bishop Robert Finn said that vocations to the priesthood and religious life would be seen as a "super-priority" for his diocese. In March 2006, Finn invited the order to the diocese, who were established as a public association of the faithful with the new name "Benedictines of Mary, Queen of Apostles".

Recordings

The nuns sing together daily, typically for five hours per day, as part of their daily life of prayer. The group have released a number of recordings of their songs. Their debut recording Advent At Ephesus, released at the end of 2012, reached number 2 on Billboard's Classical Traditional Music Chart and number 14 on the Classical Music Overall Chart. They were named Billboard's Classical Traditional Artist 2012 and 2013, the first order of nuns to win an award in the history of Billboard magazine.

Both their first two albums of their recorded chants and hymns reached number 1 on the classical traditional Billboard charts in 2013, displacing “Fifty Shades of Grey: The Classical Album,” a musical tie-in to the erotic novel Fifty Shades of Grey. As of 9 August 2013, the group's second album Angels and Saints at Ephesus reached the number 1 position on the Billboard traditional classical albums chart for 13 weeks, a record duration on that chart since 2006. As of July 2013, the album also reached number 3 on Billboard's Bestselling Internet Album Chart, number 7 on its Contemporary Christian and Christian Gospel charts, and number 127 on the "Billboard 200" weekly ranking of the 200 highest-selling music albums and EPs in the United States. The album has sold 49,000 copies in the United States as of February 2015.

Album sales are used to improve the monastery and pay off the abbey's debt. The music is arranged by the prioress Mother Cecilia.

Discography