Community of Jesus

The Community of Jesus is an ecumenical Christian double monastery in the Benedictine tradition, which is located near Rock Harbor, in Orleans, Massachusetts, on Cape Cod.

[1] At present, approximately 225 professed members, together with another fifty children and young people live as households in thirty privately owned, multifamily homes that surround the church and the guesthouse.

Altogether, the Community of Jesus consists of almost 275 people, from many walks of life and various church backgrounds—including Catholic, Presbyterian, Episcopalian, Congregational, Baptist, Lutheran, Anglican, Methodist, and Pentecostal.

[4] The origins of the Community of Jesus can be traced back to the first meeting of two Episcopal laywomen, Cay Andersen and Judy Sorensen, who met in 1958 at the Church of the Holy Spirit in Orleans.

The two women began a ministry of prayer and Bible study, meeting in the living room of what was then Rock Harbor Manor, a bed and breakfast run by Andersen and her husband, overlooking Cape Cod Bay.

[citation needed] For a period of time beginning in 1973, three sisters from the community sang Gregorian chants at morning services at the Heydon Chapel in Sandys, Bermuda.

[citation needed] Recent performances include Talking Heads by Alan Bennett,[15] God of Carnage by Yasmina Reza,[16][17] A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens,[18] Pillars of the Community by Henrik Ibsen, The Dining Room by A.R.

Gurney, The Cherry Orchard by Anton Chekhov,[19] The Doorway by Phyllis Tickle, The Trial of Jesus by John Masefield, and Rumors by Neil Simon.

[28] Controversy surrounding alleged abuse further emerged through a successful class-action suit against Grenville Christian College, which had close ties to the Community of Jesus.

[33] In the case opinion, Judge Janet Leiper of the Ontario Superior Court of Justice wrote: “I have concluded that the evidence of maltreatment and the varieties of abuse perpetrated on students’ bodies and minds in the name of the (Community of Jesus) values of submission and obedience was class-wide and decades-wide.”[34] Aaron Bushnell was raised in the Community of Jesus, but left as a young adult.