<P> The Dominican Sisters of the Heart of Jesus are located in Lockport, Louisiana . </P> <P> The cloistered sisters live a penitential life of prayer, study, community and work . They are consecrated to God by public profession (of simple, private vows) of the evangelical counsels of chastity, poverty and obedience . They have the full Habit, monastic customs and regular observances of the nuns of the Order of Preachers . This community is under jurisdiction of the local Ordinary, or Bishop . This community, however, though descended from a Second Order Monastery, is not a member of the Second Order of Friars Preachers and has yet to gain full recognition by the Dominican Order . They have the status of public association of the faithful, and have simple, private vows . They have constitutional rather than Papal enclosure . While awaiting pontifical recognition, the Lockport foundation adheres to the ideals and practices of the nuns of the Order of Preachers, though, again, not being member of the said Second Order and, for the time being, is of diocesan right as an autonomous juridic person, with canonical status in the Diocese of Houma - Thibodaux . Technically they are not "nuns" because only religious who profess solemn vows can rightly be called' nuns' . Since they only have simple, private vows they are not technically religious . </P> <P> The Dominican Nuns came into existence 800 years ago (1206) when Saint Dominic began his Order of Preachers by first establishing a cloistered monastery of women in Prouille, France . In 1880, Dominican monastic life took root in the United States . Approximately 50 years later, only days after her sixteenth birthday, the then Anna Rita McKanna (later receiving the name in religion, Sister Mary Henry of Jesus, O.P.) entered the Dominican Monastery of the Blessed Sacrament in Detroit, Michigan (since relocated to Farmington Hills, Michigan). Shortly after her solemn profession of vows there, this exemplary young religious was chosen to be one of the foundresses of the Dominican Monastery of the Infant Jesus in Lufkin, Texas (1945). Thirty - six years later, the Reverend Mother Mary Henry of Jesus, O.P., set out to found the Dominican Monastery of the Heart of Jesus in Lockport, Louisiana . </P>

Monastery of the heart of jesus lockport louisiana