COMPANIONS PROGRAM
The Companions Program at the Sisterhood of Saint John the Divine offers two options for participants to consider:
Online Companions
Residential Companions
ONLINE COMPANIONS
Cultivating a life of prayer and spiritual community in the midst of family, study, and career
September 2025 – June 2026
- Are you longing to deepen your spiritual life?
- Are you working, studying, raising a family?
- Do you want to be part of a learning and praying community?
The Sisters of Saint John the Divine (Anglican) invite you to consider becoming a Companion Online.
Open to those of all Christian expressions, Companions Online is an opportunity to become “monastics in the world,” living a Benedictine rhythm of prayer, work, study, and recreation. Online Companions learn to develop practices that support and nurture their spiritual life from the comfort of their homes.
Classes explore the images of God, how to pray, growth in self-knowledge, how personality shapes our spiritual life, the monastic tradition that has given shape to Christian culture through the centuries, and new forms of contemplative and communal life.
Online Companions meet regularly for classes and discussion groups, and commit to times of personal prayer at home. They share in book studies, participate in on-line worship experiences, and screen films relevant to spiritual growth and self-understanding. Online Companions will develop spiritual disciplines following the liturgical year, plumbing the richness that the rhythms of each season offer.
Cost
$50.00/month is suggested. If cost is a hindrance, please contact the Companions Coordinator. Financial assistance is available.
Applications Open: January 1, 2025.
Application Deadline: May 15, 2025.
To learn more, or to apply, email Shannon Epp, Program Coordinator, at companions@ssjd.ca
or
phone Saint John’s Convent at 416-226-2201, ext. 342
Read what previous participants have said about the program in The Anglican. Article on page 12.
Listen to the Companions Online participants share their experiences:
Residential Companions
Regretfully, we are unable to offer the Residential Companions program for 2025-2026 due to ongoing construction on the Guest House.
Are you contemplating next steps on your journey? Do you want to experience life in community, learn more about prayer, serve others, and take monastic values out to the world?
Join the Sisters of Saint John the Divine for a 10-month adventure as we follow Jesus on the road of prayer, community, learning, service, and creative enjoyment.
We invite women age 21 and up to explore an expression of contemporary monasticism rooted in the Anglican tradition by becoming Companions of the Sisterhood of Saint John the Divine.
Companions will develop a rhythm of life including public and private prayer, engage in service to others, and learn to live in intentional community. In addition, they will:
- cultivate an appreciation for the countercultural values of prayerfulness and service
- deepen their rootedness and spiritual intimacy with God and each other in community
- discover a personal path to spiritual growth and transformation
- discern individual gifts and vocations
Companions live with the Sisters for the duration of the program and use their gifts to share in the work of the Sisterhood’s ministry. They also have a weekly day off, free time each day, two retreats during the year, and vacation time after New Year’s and Easter.
A LOVE OF PRAYER
Learn to pray alongside a community steeped in a life of personal prayer as well as the daily rhythm of communal prayer in the chapel.
A COMMITMENT TO WORK
Practice the presence of God while participating in work that supports the Sisterhood’s ministry and other forms of service inside and outside the Convent.
