Bethany House opens in Virginia as mission and discernment house for young women

The Northern Cross 

Four young women have begun living together in a missionary and discerment community in Virginia called Bethany House. (Submitted photo)

At Holy Spirit parish in Virginia and its surrounding mission field, a small new women’s missionary and discernment house has opened, with the young women there choosing to live in community as missionaries of healing, hope, and joy in their communities. 

Bethany House, named for the home of Mary, Martha, and Lazarus, three of Jesus’ friends in the Gospel, had an official move-in day in September, but it has been the fruit of a longer period of discernment between Father Brandon Moravitz, the pastor at Holy Spirit, and Naomi Ringhand, the full-time youth minister at the parish and the leader of the fledgling community. 

“The Bethany House, we are missionaries of healing, hope and joy,” Ringhand said. “That’s what we are, just living in intentional community life together, serving our mission field in whatever ways the Holy Spirit moves us to. … It’s so simple, just about intimacy with Jesus and love in the heart of the church.” 

In practice, that means five young women (including one on the way) living in a home together in Virginia. 

“We have a very basic rule of life,” Ringhand said. “We pray together in the mornings and the evenings. We have a holy hour that we pray together each day, along with the Liturgy of the Hours. We are committed to going to daily Mass as often as our different work schedules allow, and confession regularly, as well as spiritual direction.” 

She noted that they are also working to renewing their minds through spiritual reading, they have community meals, and they practice hospitality, welcoming people into their home for things like meals and Bible studies. 

She said it’s modeled after the biblical account of the early Christians living together in community and takes inspiration, as well, from her own experiences of living in community at Franciscan University in Steubenville, Ohio, and Teach for Christ. 

Father Moravitz said it’s been an ongoing conversation over a period of a couple of years, but it wasn’t until recently that things suddenly began coming together, with the right people and a house opening up, almost without their own effort. 

“It seemed as if it was like God’s Providence, the way it all played out,” he said. 

Ringhand credits Father Moravitz with inspiring it, calling him a “dreamer and a visionary.” She said they had been talking about what a house of missionaries in the community could look like and what it could become. 

“Something in my heart just, like, lit up with that,” she said. Her mind started to turn to practical questions: What would it take to do it? What would it look like? What would they need? 

“And just as we both dreamed and planned and discerned together, it just kind of took on a life of its own,” she said. “The Holy spirit, just kept opening doors.” 

Ringhand invited the women now living at Bethany House and that they are from the diocese but not from Virginia — she’s been there the longest at about two years. They work in a variety of places, in the parish in her case, in the school, another at a mental health facility, and one in a coffee shop. 

It’s also a place of discernment, where the young women living in community are discerning what vocation they are eventually called to in life, but in “a very gentle way,” Ringhand said, just being with Jesus and letting him lead. 

As for their missionary work, Ringhand said it works through the aspects of their covenant living together, in poverty, presence, and praise. 

“Allowing ourselves to be seen in our poverty heals us and leads us to deeper security and freedom in Jesus,” the covenant reads. “Seeking out the gaze of the Father in the ordinary infuses our hearts with an inexhaustible hope. Pouring out our alabaster praise is itself a promise and foretaste of the radiant joy of heaven.” 

Asked about their missionary role, Father Moravitz said: “Yeah, I think I’m gonna start with the hope and joy of actually having four all-in women in our community, just like it just brings about a hope in our people. And they see these four women that are at Mass, they see them out in the community, they see them at high school football games, they see them at adoration. They see them in our school. And you just see, especially I see our young girls, are looking up to these young women and having a deep desire of just, like, being holy young women. I see something really beautiful happening.” 

He cited one recent moment when, during a time of adoration and praise at the school, Ringhand invited any girls who were open to the possibility of giving their lives to the Lord in a religious vocation to come forward: 35 of them did. 

Bishop Daniel Felton frequently remarks that the Holy Spirit only gives us the one next step, and that seems to be the inspiration for how Bethany House is proceeding. Both Ringhand and Father Moravitz expressed hopes and dreams of Bethany House growing and evolving into “something absolutely incredible.” They are planning for growth, and an application for those interested in joining the community is planned for early next year. 

But for now, the next step seems to be “living this,” Ringhand says, and “keeping faithful to the Holy Spirit and open to the Holy Spirit. I think it’s also being open to big dreams for what this could be.” 

For more information about Bethany House, visit their website at https://www.holyspiritvirginia.com/general-8.