The Carmelite Sisters of Baltimore are the first community of religious women to be established within the original thirteen States.
The Community belongs to the worldwide Carmelite Order which had its beginnings in the 13th century on Mt. Carmel in what is today the country of Israel. There are 844 monasteries of Discalced Carmelite Nuns in 75 nations, with approximately 11,500 professed nuns.
Baltimore Carmel was founded in 1790 at Port Tobacco in Charles County, southern Maryland, by women from some of the oldest Catholic families in colonial Maryland. For forty-one years the sisters lived there on the farm they purchased from Baker Brooke.
In 1831 the Port Tobacco property was sold and the entire community moved to Aisquith Street in Baltimore city. In order to support themselves, the sisters conducted an Academy for Girls for the next twenty years (1831-51).
This stained glass window of Our Lady of Mount Carmel that
once was in the Biddle Street monastery has been placed in our cloister walk.
There is some speculation that it was designed by Tiffany or one of his
students.
In 1873 the community relocated to a newly built monastery at Caroline and Biddle Streets.
In 1961 the city bought the Biddle Street property and the community moved to their present monastery on Dulaney Valley Road.
Of the 65 monasteries now in the United States, 45 trace their origins to Baltimore Carmel. Envisioned by their founder, Teresa of Avila, as small communities of friends, they are limited to a maximum of 22 members.
Each monastery is autonomous, financially independent, responsible for the formation and on-going education of its members and the care of the sick and elderly in the community.
Today as in the past, Baltimore Carmel is a quiet oasis of prayer where a community of sixteen nuns lives a life of reflection, prayer and contemplation. Several young women are interested in entering the community.
HISTORY AND UNIQUENESS
For 200 years the Carmelites have had a
prayer ministry in Maryland. As the first community of women religious in the
original thirteen states and as natives of Maryland, our sisters shared
intimately in the beginnings of the Church in the U.S. In the very beginning
there were only ex-Jesuits and Carmelites in Maryland.
THE CATHOLIC CHURCH VALUES PRAYER: FAITH PERSPECTIVE
The Catholic
Church says prayer is at the heart of our faith since our God is a personal God
who loves us and communicates with us. Our Carmelite lives are a living
testimony to that belief. Our sisters have committed their lives to prayer with
and for the people. Our Church believes that prayer underpins all active
ministry! Yet support for the life of prayer in the Church always challenges the
faith perception of the people.
RELATIONSHIP TO THE PEOPLE
From the beginning until the present,
the documents in the archives show the enormous dependence of many people on the
prayer and the life of the community- bishops, founders, missionaries, religious
congregations, civic leaders, thousands of lay people, Catholics and those of
other churches.
SUPPORT OF THE PEOPLE/AVAILABILITY OF CARMELITES
We are,
therefore, supported by the people. Their faith in and felt need for prayer and
God, coupled with our availability to their needs and claims on us, hidden as
this has been, have always issued in their support of our way of life. The faith
perspective of the people of Maryland is deep enough for them to understand that
we support ourselves by our prayer ministry. The people's financial support of
our community and our availability in prayer, compassion, friendship, liturgy,
spiritual direction, occasional lectures and sharing are two sides of the same
coin. Our financial situation, unpretentious and yet adequate, is a tribute to
the faith of our people and our relationships to them.
COMMITMENT TO AND VALUE OF PRAYER AND CONTEMPLATIVE LIFE
We are
unique in that we are the one purely contemplative community in the archdiocese
of Baltimore. We Carmelites, therefore, are the ones in this archdiocese, who by
profession, hold in trust the prayer tradition of the Church and one of the
richest contemplative traditions in western Christianity.
At a time when people, particularly the young, are turning to the prayer traditions of the east and to new age spiritualities, we are trying to make Christian prayer and spirituality available, understandable, desirable and credible. Since Vatican II, when the Council participants said that "contemplative life belongs to the fullness of the Church's presence," we have been trying to unveil the prayer (mystical) tradition of Carmel for ourselves and our people. We want people to understand the thirst for God within them. We want to get the message of contemplation out in justice to the people of God.
This desire to share contemplation and prayer with the people is not new or foreign to Carmel. From the beginning of Carmelite life in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries this has been done. What is significant and praiseworthy about our community, in the past and in the present, as Archbishop Borders indicated at the Liturgy opening the Bicentennial on October 15, 1989, is its ability to adapt its contemplative life and sharing to the changing culture.
THE PRAYER LIFE OF THE COMMUNITY
Carmel has always situated itself
in the heart or the center of the Church. We want to create a place that speaks
of God and communion. We see ourselves as a center of prayer, a center of peace.
We, Carmelites, celebrate the Liturgy of the Eucharist and the Liturgy of the Hours (Morning Prayer, Vespers, etc.) day after day whether anyone is present with us or not. However, The American Bishops have called on contemplatives to offer good, sound liturgical life to the people. We want to try to make it easy for others to join in our prayer.
Many come for our liturgical celebrations, particularly Sunday liturgy and solemn Vespers early Sunday evening. People join us also for daily Eucharist and the Liturgy of the Hours. The renovated chapel, a model for participation and inclusivity, has made it very possible for the people to take part in prayer with us.
CARMELITE LIFE
The heart of the Carmelite's day is solitary and
communal prayer. A typical day includes celebration of the Eucharist, chanting
of morning prayer, evening vespers and vigil, two hours of solitary prayer,
contemplative reading and study.
A strong deep community life is paramount in Carmel. Solitary prayer supports and is supported by shared life in community. All the sisters participate as equals in decision-making and in determining the goals of the community. This on-going effort to share life is expressive of deep faith and has produced an unusually strong and resilient contemplative community.
We have committed ourselves to the development of community because we believe that in the world of today the witness of a loving, multi-generational community is especially valuable. We have made choices and sacrifices in order to live together in harmony, peace and real love, and to bear witness to friendship, connectedness and fidelity in a world where so many live isolated, lonely, disconnected and uncommitted.
Our love and concern spill over into inclusiveness for the wider community and become life-giving and nurturing for those who come to the monastery. The community shares in the joys and hopes, the grief and sorrows of family, friends and all those who seek for prayer and consolation. People from every walk of life have come to our monastery for over two hundred years seeking God, encouragement, compassion and prayer.
During its entire history the community of Baltimore Carmel has been characterized by a deep awareness of the intrinsic relationship between prayer and presence to the wider church and civic communities in friendship and concern. Serious prayer and reflection on the tradition, particularly the works of the great Carmelite mystics and Doctors of the Church, Teresa of Avila and John of the Cross, have had important implications for the community's interpretation of contemplative life in today's world. These three elements- the experience of God in prayer, knowledge of its history and tradition, and an understanding of contemporary life- have shaped the community's response in love, hospitality, and teaching to the many people who come or contact the monastery each day.
Numerous occupations are part of the life in a modern monastery of contemplative women: welcoming visitors, listening to those in need who come or call on the phone, correspondence with those who rely on the community's prayer, spiritual direction and the teaching of prayer, scholarly study, research and writing, administration, archive management, library acquisitions and cataloging, education of new members, preparation and celebration of daily liturgy, complete maintenance of house and grounds, preparation of community meals, care for the sick and aged.
Monastic life is more ordinary than one might think; it includes all the elements of everyday life. What is distinctive is the continuous life of deep prayer and contemplation, The life of prayer is not an escape from reality. Rather it is a deeper entry by way of awareness into the routine responsibilities and cares of everyday existence bonding the sisters not only to the many painful situations people face today, but also to the ordinary joys they experience. This intense awareness of the presence of God in human experience is what characterizes a Carmelite community. Into this blessed space of God's presence we want to welcome people.
DESIRES FOR THE FUTURE
We want to be a center of peace, a sacred
space in the heart of the archdiocese that calls people to prayer and to the
experience of communion with God. It is our intention that the community, by
being an oasis of sanity, peace, mutuality and collaborative living, give
witness of hope in a world that suffers from violence, war, and struggle.
We want to provide a place of nourishment for those who live and minister
in society.
We want to call people into the process of
transformation.
The act of praying makes people more available
to the
work of God in life and in the world.
It teaches quiet, simple presence
to one another.
It makes the human conscience more alert.
It puts
the soul in touch with itself.
THE MONASTERY STANDS AS A PUBLIC
SIGN OF INTERIORITY.
When you drive up to the monastery you drive up
to your own heart!
