Abbey of St. Walburga and the Benedictine nuns

Gift Shop Monday through Saturday: 9:30 am-11:30 am and 1:00 pm-4:30 pm

Located in Virginia Dale, a very small town 45 minutes north of Fort Collins off of Hwy 287. On the west side of Hwy 287, approximately 35 miles north of Fort Collins, Colorado and approximately 30 miles south of Laramie, Wyoming.

From the south, a green highway sign just past Virginia Dale will alert you to the approaching left turn. Be aware that the turn appears suddenly at the bottom of the hill.

There is no public transportation to the Abbey. If traveling by air, fly to Denver International Airport. We recomment renting a car for the two-hour drive to the Abbey. Airport shuttle service is available to Fort Collins, but the Abbey is not able to provide pick-up service from any of the drop-off points.

• Weekdays: 7:30 a.m. (When no priest is available: Communion Service)
• Saturdays: 7:30 a.m. (When no priest is available: Communion Service)
• Sundays: 8:00 a.m.

Divine Office

• 4:50 a.m. Vigils (apx. 1 hour)
• 6:45 a.m. Lauds (apx. 30 minutes)
• After Mass: Terce (apx. 15 minutes)
• 11:45 a.m. Sext or Sext and None combined (apx. 15 minutes)
• 5: 00 p.m. Vespers (apx. 45 minutes)
• 7:30 p.m. Compline (apx. 30 minutes):
• Compline is sometimes sung at 7:00 p.m. Please call ahead to check.

Adoration Mondays from Vespers (5:00 p.m.) to Compline (7:30 p.m.)

History of the Abbey

Patroness, St.Walburga (710-779) herself participated in the missionary thrust that carried Benedictine monasticism from the flourishing monasteries of Anglo-Saxon England to the continent. Her relics and memory are preserved today at the Abbey of St. Walburg in Eichstätt, Bavaria, which was founded in 1035 to care for her shrine.

In 1935, three sisters were sent from Eichstätt to a then-remote farm in Boulder, Colorado. Times were troubled in Germany. Hitler’s rise to power cast the shadow of threat over all religious foundations. Ironically, the Abbey of St. Walburg was itself thriving to such an extent that it could no longer house its growing population of nuns.

For both reasons, Abbess Benedicta von Spiegel chose to make several foundations in the English-speaking world: one in Minster, England, one in Latrobe, Pennsylvania, one in Canyon City, Colorado, and one in Boulder. They would serve both as a potential refuge for the nuns of Eichstätt and an outlet for the burgeoning community at St. Walburg as it outgrew its buildings.

The first nuns built a strong foundation for the future by their hard work, their grinding poverty, and their unshakeable faith in God’s providence.

In 1986, Abbess Franziska Kloos, OSB, who, as abbess of the Abbey of St. Walburg in Eichstätt was still the superior of the Convent of St. Walburga in Boulder, granted the Boulder community its independence from the motherhouse. We remain a member community of the Federation of Bavarian Monasteries of Nuns, with strong ties of gratitude and affection to our motherhouse, but we are now an autonomous house.
As the numbers continued to grow, however, we too began to outgrow our buildings. By 1992, it was clear that we needed more workspace and larger living quarters in order to continue to accept new members. As we considered various options for expansion, we realized that our Boulder location, by this time on a busy highway and surrounded by subdivisions, was not the right place to build a new monastery.

So, in 1997, after five years of planning, discussion, and preparation, our community relocated to our present site in Virginia Dale, Colorado, on land donated to us by a generous Denver businessman and his wife.

On October 22, 1997, we sang the Te Deum, the Church’s great song of thanksgiving to God, for the first time in our new Abbey. The new Abbey Church and monastery were blessed by Most Rev. Charles Chaput, Archbishop of Denver, on November 7, 1999