Monks in the high desert, Norbertines in a canyon, sisters who run a bookstore with a chapel in Culver City. These are the religious communities around Los Angeles you can actually visit. Pray with them, volunteer, or go and see whether the life is for you.
The friars have been at the Mission since 1786, and the province still sends its novices here for their first year, so the men in brown you pass are often just starting out. Tour the church, cemetery, gardens and museum, or come to Mass with St. Barbara Parish in the Mission church. With the Daughters of Charity they also run an outreach center for people in need.
Jesuits have run this Boyle Heights parish since 1980: a school, small faith groups, neighborhood clean-ups and peace walks. Sunday Mass is mostly in Spanish, with English at 9 AM. Volunteering here is real, and so is the paperwork: safeguarding forms, fingerprinting and VIRTUS training before you start.
The Western Dominicans run St. Dominic's in Eagle Rock. Weekend Mass, confession on Saturday afternoons, adoration on Fridays. If you are a man seriously thinking about the Order, a Come and See weekend means actually living with the brothers for a few days.
Next Come and See weekend: October 9 to 11, 2026. Ask the friars where it is held.
Matthew 25 as a rule of life: whatever you did for the least of these, you did for me. The friars live it in East LA, in community, prayer and service to people in need, and they sum it up in six words: "Jesus our all, all for Jesus".
More than sixty priests and forty seminarians in a canyon in Orange County, living the common life St. Norbert set out in 1121. Anyone can pray with them: Sunday Mass at 7 and 9 AM, a sung Latin Mass in the Norbertine rite at noon, and Vespers every day at 5 PM. Young Adult Evenings, for ages 21 to 35, run from Vespers to Compline a few Saturdays a year.
Next Young Adult Evening: Saturday, October 3, 5 to 8:30 PM, $30
Don Bosco's order, built around young people, especially kids who are poor or at risk. In LA that means a youth center on East 4th Street and three parishes, including St. Mary and St. Isabel. Schools, camps, youth clubs: if you want to work with teenagers, this is the order that does it.
Know a community that should be here? Tell us.