The Monastery of the Visitation last opened its doors to the public in 1918, just after construction was completed and just before the bishop turned the keys over to mother superior.

“They had to turn away 5,000 people [at 5 p.m.] because there were that many people inside the monastery,” said Sister Marie de Sales, citing accounts her community maintained of the massive turnout that day. “Many of them didn’t see it.”

Those who are curious about the community of cloistered nuns, who live in prayerful seclusion on Parkside Boulevard in Toledo, shouldn’t expect another opportunity like that to arise. Sister Marie de Sales, who is the community’s mother superior, imagines with a good-natured laugh that the earliest sisters must have breathed a sigh of relief when the last of the visitors left in 1918.

But the sisters are offering a limited peek into the monastery next week: They’ve been working with artist Anne Goetze on an exhibition that highlights their community and others in the Order of the Visitation of Holy Mary. It’s on display at Corpus Christi University Parish beginning Tuesday.

Pray to Love: The Annecy, France, Nun Series in part kicks off a capital campaign for the Toledo Visitation, whose 100-year-old monastery is in dire need of new boilers, windows, and a roof. The nuns hope to maintain the integrity of the building by replacing the Spanish-style roofing tiles, a project that could run up to $1 million alone.

Perhaps more importantly, the exhibition is a way to introduce a community of women whose vocation typically keeps them out of the public eye. Theirs is a hidden life, and they don’t mind if they’re out of sight and out of mind. Just know that they’re thinking — and praying — for you.

“We’re praying for you everyday,” Sister Marie de Sales said. “We may not know your name. You may not know us. But we’re praying for you.”

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Pray to Love is a personal series for Ms. Goetze of Tennessee, whose paternal aunt was a vowed sister of the Visitation Order in Annecy, France. Soeur Margarite Marie, or Aunt Helen to Ms. Goetze, took her vows in West Virginia and later traveled to and stayed in Annecy, where Saint Francis de Sales and Saint Jane de Chantal founded the order in 1610.

Ms. Goetze writes in an artist’s statement that her aunt’s life had seemed so mysterious to her when she would visit the family from behind wooden bars that seemed jail-like to a child. At the Toledo Visitation, a similar grill separated sisters from reporters during a summertime interview.

Ms. Goetze collected the photographs that are at the heart of the mixed-media Pray to Love over 20 or so years in numerous visits to Annecy. As her aunt began to near the end of her life, and after she died in 2014, the artist especially dove into the work, selecting and creating images that captured the charism and the day-to-day life of the women and of the community from which they secluded themselves in prayer.

Pray to Love premiered at a gallery in Nashville in 2015. When that exhibition was drawing to a close, though, the artist couldn’t shake the feeling that more was in store for the series.

There are 11 Monasteries of the Visitation in the United States, some of which are cloistered and contemplative, like the Toledo Visitation, and some of which are not. Around the same time that Ms. Goetze began toying with the idea of taking the images to each of these communities, she was contacted by a mother superior in Brooklyn, N.Y., who asked her to do just that.

Pray to Love has since traveled to Minneapolis, Mobile, Ala., and Washington, among other locations, and Ms. Goetze continues to line up additional exhibitions. It evolves as it goes, with Ms. Goetze incorporating new images with each community she visits.

The artist came to the Monastery of the Visitation in Toledo in July, spending time with the sisters there and taking the photographs that will appear, in mixed media, in a dozen of the pieces to be on display at Corpus Christi University Parish.

“It was just really nice to be in their company,” Ms. Goetze said, describing a common thread she sees in each community where she’s been welcomed through Pray to Love. “They have such peace and joy about them. It really is a contagious thing when you’re around them.”

* * *

The local images offer a peek into the sunlit corridors and courtyards of the monastery, as well as the lives of the 19 women who call it their home. Ms. Goetze said she aimed to capture the women in day-to-day life and in prayer — an integral part of life in the monastery.

Just as someone might work an eight-hour office job, the sisters see their full-time job as prayer, Sister Sharon Elizabeth, a former mother superior, said. That’s reflected in a daily horarium that sees the women gather each day for morning, midday, evening, and night prayers, in addition to daily Mass at 7 a.m. They rise at 5:30 a.m.

There’s also time set aside for meditation, spiritual readings, and other activities.

They and others see these essentially full-time prayers as a critical support for the community, as necessary to the community as a foundation is to a building. It’s been their role since they were called to the Diocese of Toledo in 1915. The diocese itself was established in 1910.

“The bishop wanted a community of cloistered nuns praying for the people,” Sister Marie de Sales said. “He wanted us to be like Moses on the mountaintop, with our hands raised in prayer. In the Bible it says when [Moses’] hands were kept raised, the Israelites won,” she continued. “But as he got tired and started lowering his hands, they were losing.”

The earliest sisters of the community — four professed sisters and a novice — moved into then-Bishop Joseph Schrembs’ residence on Collingwood Avenue, according to a history of the Order of the Visitation of Holy Mary. They moved into the just-built monastery in 1918.

Sister Marie de Sales and Sister Sharon Elizabeth said it’s not hard to believe that at least some of the windows are as old as the building. These are primarily the windows of the cells, or rooms, where the sisters stay; they sometimes find themselves looking for an open window only to identify an obvious draft from a closed one.

Donations have and continue to come in to cover window replacements, Sister Marie de Sales said; grants and donations are likewise enabling them to replace boilers before the winter.

The roof is the primary focus of the capital campaign that kicks off with Pray to Love. Its terra cotta tiles are distinctive on Parkside Boulevard; they cover an estimated 3,030 square feet.

Pray to Love kicks off with a pre-exhibit fund-raising event between 6:30 and 8:30 p.m. Monday. For $20 admission, attendees can enjoy wine and cheese with Ms. Goetze, Bishop Daniel Thomas, and other supporters. Violinist Thomas Stuart will perform.

Pray to Love remains open 3 to 7 p.m. Tuesday through Friday and 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. Saturday at Corpus Christi University Parish, 2955 Dorr St. Admission is free, and prints will be available for purchase.

To welcome attention of any sort feels unusual for the sisters of the Toledo Visitation, Sister Marie de Sales and Sister Sharon Elizabeth said. But through their capital campaign — and this photo exhibit — they’ll be able to continue the prayerful work they’ve been doing on Parkside Boulevard for a century.

“For us it’s really a privilege,” Sister Sharon Elizabeth said.

Contact Nicki Gorny at ngorny@theblade.com or 419-724-6133.

First Published October 6, 2018, 9:00 a.m.