Mission
The mission of New Jerusalem is to facilitate transformation in recovery from drug and alcohol addictions for marginalized populations by providing an affordable, spiritual and holistic approach to enhance the quality of life.
The program of New Jerusalem Laura is one of holistic recovery: we seek to integrate the physical, psychological, spiritual, political, and social dimensions of recovery in our daily lives. We are committed to work toward healing and justice for and with the impoverished people of North Philadelphia, with whom we live and work in community and reciprocity. We are not so much a service institution, as a community of people helping ourselves and our neighborhood to recover.
Recovery is about the radical change from death to life, from darkness to light, from self-will to God’s will. It involves the mystery of conversion and the aspiration to fullness of life in God. It requires risk and mutual support and the sharing of practical spirituality and wisdom. God must be the sole principle of this new way of life, this reordering of chaos.
-Sr. Margaret McKenna, founding member
New Jerusalem Laura seeks after recovery in all its dimensions, ranging from personal to societal. While the immediate focus of the residential recovery program, New Jerusalem Now, is on recovery from mind-altering chemicals, our long-range aims concern recovery from all obstacles to the fullness of human life. New Jerusalem’s members are committed to pursuing all dimensions of human development that relate to the achievement of stability in recovery: spiritual, psychological, social and economic. New Jerusalem is essentially a nondenominational spiritual community of mutual help engaged in a process of human development open to all who need it and wish to be a part of its mission.