"In the heart of the Church, my
Mother, I shall be Love." (St. Therese of Lisieux)
The Discalced Carmelite Nuns are a praying community who imitate
Our Lord contemplating on the mountain. We share in Christ's self-emptying
through our Solemn Vows of obedience, chastity, and poverty, lived
in the desert solitude and silence created by Papal Enclosure
in the midst of the city. Prayer is our apostolate. It is our
first and greatest contribution to the Church and the world. "A
Carmelite should be for Him as it were, another humanity in which
He can perpetuate His life of reparation and sacrifice, of love
and praise and adoration." (Bl. Elizabeth of the Trinity)
The Order of Carmel goes back to the 12th century... and, by tradition,
even to Old Testament times and the prophets (particularly the
great prophet Elijah), whose lives bore witness to the Presence
of God among His people. The great Spanish mystic, St. Teresa
of Avila, reformed the Order of Carmel in the 16th century (1562),
setting up very much the same lifestyle our community follows
today, together with about 60 Carmels in the United States and
more than 800 throughout the world... on every continent. St.
Teresa blended this hermit way of life with the element of community
in a unique balance which was her special gift to contemplative
life, totally given to prayer, silence, sacrifice, and manual
labor.
We are like hermits but we live in the context of community, praying
together, taking our meals in common, and recreating together
each day in a true spirit of sisterly joy. We work in silence,
striving to make everything an act of love and service, so as
to live faithfully the Gospel, for Him and in union with Him.
By our Solemn Profession we belong to the Blessed Virgin in a
special way. Her presence permeates our house of prayer; she is
our Queen and the Patroness of our Order. Therefore we take her
as the model of our life, rejoicing to wear her scapular as part
of our religious habit. Carmel is all Mary's.
We are in Carmel for the service of the Church and the world.
Our whole life, not only our prayer, has a transcendent influence
on the world through its hidden apostolic fruitfulness. The Holy
Sacrifice of the Mass is the focal point of each day, the Source
from which comes all grace and strength. We gather in Choir seven
times each day to pray the Liturgy of the Hours, the official
Prayer of the Church, fulfilling our special duty and privilege
as cloistered contemplatives of offering continual prayer and
praise to God, in the name of and in union with the whole Church.
It is the task of Carmel today to adapt its life in accordance
with the directives of Vatican II, returning to its roots, and
deepening the essential prayer life.
St. Teresa stimulated this life of prayer by making it apostolic. In her great vision of the Church, she exhorted her nuns to offer their lives for priests and theologians. In our 20th century this vision remains as an unquenched thirst of a cloistered Carmelite nun. Our tradition is ancient, but there is nothing old-fashioned about Carmel: our ministry, though still hidden, is as relevant to the times we live in as it ever was... our life of prayer for the Church, for the needs of the world, and for all the peoples of the earth.
"Both together, Lord, let us walk;
wherever You go I must go;
wherever You pass I must pass."
(St. Teresa of Jesus)