Meet Our Community

As I reflect my years in Carmel, I can say that I came to know my vocation in Carmel through Prayer, Silence, Solitude, and the daily living of Community Life.  No matter what the day brings, I try my best to live that day with a deep passion for God and do the very best that I can.

While community living is not without its challenges. I/We are sustained by the Sisters we live with and the people who share our prayer.

So, if you feel drawn to this way of life, to be a Carmelite Sister, come and give it your best and you will know if this your call.  In other words, “Follow your Heart”!  I did and it has made all the difference in the world.

Why I am a Carmelite

Sr. Barbara Jean’s Writings

I am “homegrown” as they say — born and raised right here in Baltimore. After basic schooling in the Baltimore area, I went on to earn a Bachelor of Science in Biology from Saint Joseph’s University in Philadelphia, where I played field hockey and received a minor in Theology. In 2003, I received my Doctor of Dental Surgery degree from the University of Maryland School of Dentistry. I was fortunate to enjoy a very full professional life prior to coming to Carmel.

Religious life is very familiar to our family: I had one aunt who was a Sister of St. Francis of Philadelphia until she died, and two aunts who are Sisters of Mercy. Together with our parents, my aunts taught me the importance of prayer. They also taught me to love our Church (all the people of God) and to understand fully the Church’s humanity. I have a deep love of Scripture, prayer and liturgy.

My hope is that my presence here might reveal something of God’s love to our world. For I believe we are called to love God, to love one another, and to live within the brokenness of our Church, our world, our families, and our communities.

I have no idea what the future holds, but I trust that God will continue to be there for me. I arrive at this moment bringing the totality of my past, and I stand here ready to give my present and my future unconditionally to God and to this Carmelite community.

Sr. Celia’s Writings

Why I am a Carmelite

My Carmelite vocation had its seeds in a summer I spent on Sullivan’s Island when I was just five years old.  I have never forgotten that early experience of solitude, the glimmer of God as I roamed the edges of the sea and the secluded beaches.

Now, after fifty-seven years of life in the monastery, “roaming the edges” stands out as a description of my contemplative prayer and desire for God’s love to transform our world.  My prayer begs, in this time of seeming worldwide darkness, violence and disconnection, for the gifts of compassion, mutuality and a prophetic hope that will generate human flourishing and communion among all peoples.

“Living in allegiance to Jesus Christ,” is a prime and compelling mark of our Carmelite Rule.  This deep friendship with Jesus Christ strengthens me to embrace the pain of God’s people.  It also calls forth the generativity to encourage others in their own life of prayer and desire to serve every person in selfless love.

Another serious commitment and part of the Carmelite vocation is living in community.  St. Teresa tells her sisters that, in our communities, all must be friends, all must be loved, all must be cared for.  Another kind of fidelity…  We always hope our community life reflects the communion of God’s life in the Trinitarian mystery.  This is real, constant, faithful love.

As I grow older in my life here, I do think about God coming to me and for me.  Much is settled now, even though challenges and the “good works” asked for by St. Teresa remain.  But I think about the resurrected body and soul and what that might mean.  Imagination falters at the thought of what is beyond our knowledge and insight.  And where it is!  In all this I recall some words God spoke to St Catherine of Siena: “keep expanding your heart and your affection in the immeasurable greatness of my mercy.”  This is hope in my time now.

Why I am a Carmelite

Sr. Colette’s Writings

When I dreamed at a very young age of becoming a Carmelite nun, I saw it as the way to give myself totally to God. I could have no idea then of the depth and breadth of such radical self-dispossession, nor of the wonderful, multifaceted, expansive journey that would open before me in Carmel: the desire for God growing and changing over a lifetime, the long, gradual renewal of my community following Vatican II and the development of a contemporary, contemplative Carmelite life with vibrant new members, the association with other national and international groups of contemplative women as we struggled to find our voice in the Church, the joys and trials of leadership, the cost and the rewards of forming new members, my intellectual life of study and reflection coming together with the experience of prayer to interpret our Carmelite tradition and particularly my beloved spiritual mentor, Saint John of the Cross, and finally the precious, tender friendships that have graced and sustained me – and so much more. While all this flows now into the memory of God, I, myself, feel enormous gratitude for such fullness in my 9th decade. All these past and present strands of my contemplative life and prayer converge in a profound hope in the God who is always approaching from the future and promising the transformations, intimate love and generativity that will influence, by a deep spiritual energy, humanity’s crossing the threshold into a new level of consciousness and empathic community, a new epoch of evolution.

Sr. Connie’s Writings and Works

I transferred to Baltimore Carmel from the Carmel in Concord, NH in the summer of 2020. This was a traumatic year both personally and collectively. Personally, I was living through the process of closing Concord Carmel; collectively, we were all living through the Covid pandemic: no vaccine or treatment,  thousands dying every day, confusion and fear–do you remember that summer? I remember flying here in a double mask and needing to be quarantined for two weeks upon arrival. 

However, I was at peace from the moment the plane took off. I had spent 3 years here when I was originally discerning contemplative life back in the late ‘70s and early ‘80s, and transferring here seemed like coming home. From meeting the ‘70s version of Baltimore Carmel up to this day I have valued the community’s dedication to the life of prayer, community, and service. We all differ in our ways of living out our vocations and we find that no one has the One Right Answer to any question. Some conflict is natural, given that we are a multi-generational community and a multi-cultural one with sisters from Colombia, Spain, Mexico, and England. We learn from all these cultures, and we grow, even as we also learn from our diversity of upbringing and generation. The sisters of the  Silent (?) Generation and the Boomers mix with the sisters of Gen X and the Milennials across all the cultures just mentioned. We would love to have some sisters  from Gen Z to share with. 

In all of this, we are one community. St. Teresa of Avila wrote in The Way of Perfection that “all must be friends, all must be loved, all must be held dear, all must be helped” (4.7).Our life of prayer supports our efforts to love one another, including our sisters here in community, people who visit, call, and write, plus people far distant from us, many of whom are suffering the calamity of war and famine. We don’t know them personally, but through Christ we can reach them in prayer and in faithful community life. 

Day by day, on the surface, our lives are quite ordinary. It is the purpose behind our lives–our participation in the life of Christ and in his service to all people–that makes our lives wild, wonderful, and significant. 

The call to be a Carmelite came in my late twenties, and I was horrified! I had a rich and rewarding job working as a Speech and Language therapist, and was quite content that I would be doing this for the rest of my working life – I even saw it as a vocation. As far as I was concerned, I had responded to God’s call, and it was a total surprise that he could now be calling me to something new and different. For a long time, I explored this sense of religious vocation in the hope that it would go away or that I could get it out of my system. I was constantly looking for reasons why it wouldn’t work, but none of them seemed very convincing – even to me. Slowly, God has unfolded to me the depths of the treasures he was waiting to offer me in Carmel: the gifts of prayer, of community life, of a fulfilled life – not without challenges, but full of joy and gratitude and an overwhelming sense of the rightness of it all. I pray that my living this life means it can be handed on to others to discover its gifts and its joys too, and that Carmel’s stream of prayer will continue to flow out to touch the broken places of our world.

Sr. Jo’s writings

One of the things that first attracted me to Baltimore Carmel was its contemporary expression of the Carmelite life; its dress, its availability to our supporting community that surrounds us. We keep the enclosure necessary for our life of contemplation, and at the same time we open our prayer of the Liturgy of the Hours and Eucharist to anyone who wishes to attend. Our chapel was built to have no division between “them and us.” To me this speaks of an equality, a mutuality, meeting people on the same level. This concern for the people is central to me. I am a Registered Nurse and before coming to Carmel worked in the profession. Now I like to think of Carmelites as “Nuns Without Borders.” As I go about my life here I can hold the world and all God’s people in my heart. Edith Stein says that the contemplative can be anywhere in prayer. I can be the nurse, the comforter and the listener. I can hold those with AIDS and the children unloved, unwanted. I can be in solidarity with the poor and the parents who struggle to care for their families. I can hold in my heart the joy and sorrow of people near or far.

Why I am a Carmelite

I discovered contemplative prayer when I was 24 and it changed my life. After about a year of praying on my own almost daily, I discerned that I wanted to join with other lay people in a community that shared the values of quiet prayer, simple lifestyle, and social justice. I was pretty adamant about wanting to do this as a lay person rather than as a religious, as a witness that lay people are called to live out these values too. The social justice part of the formula was easy: I had helped to found a clinic in Washington, D.C. offering free medical care to the poor, and I eventually served there as a full time physician’s assistant. Simple lifestyle was easy, too: most non-profits don’t pay a salary that enables extravagance! But in the end the community of prayer component was elusive. I helped form groups that shared my goals but they would always be transient; people would move on to other things. I continued to live in these informal communities until I was 34. At that time, when things fell apart yet one more time, I heard myself say, “Oh nuts! What will I do now? I think I’ll join the Carmelites.” I was astonished by this, but I reasoned that if I was driven to mutter something like this in a moment of despair, I had better take it seriously, for God has ways of getting us to listen and pay attention to the invitations being proffered. It was one of the best things that I ever did in my life. I found a wonderful stable community that treasures contemplative prayer, lives simply, strives for holiness, and holds all the cares of the world before the loving gaze of God.

Why I am a Carmelite

I am Sister Kelly; I am from Barranquilla, Colombia. I grew up in a Catholic family. I have been in Carmel for twenty-five years. I felt God’s call to religious life when I was seventeen. I felt an immense desire in my heart to give myself to the Lord forever, to belong only to God, and to live in God’s service. Through the life and example of Saint Teresa of the Andes—a Discalced Carmelite saint from Chile who entered Carmel at age 19 and remained there for only eleven months—I was inspired to get to know Carmel more closely; that was when I decided to enter Carmel at the age of eighteen. I experienced profound peace, love, joy, and the grace of God in the certainty of my vocation to Carmel. On July 4, 2004, I made my first profession, and at age twenty-four, my solemn profession; it was a beautiful celebration. In 2014,  The Association of Discalced Carmelites in Colombia received an invitation from the Discalced Carmelites of the Western United States for the celebration of the 5th Centenary of Saint Teresa of Ávila (1515–2015). The project involved forming a virtual choir with the voices of Discalced Carmelites from around the world to sing “Nada Te Turbe” (Let Nothing Disturb You). I had the great blessing of participating. I was particularly struck by Sister Claire Sokol, O.C.D.—the song’s author—as well as her artistic, contemporary, and modern style of living the Carmelite religious life; she was my first source of inspiration.

After 21 years of traditional Carmelite religious life, I experienced a “second call within my call”—a call to live out my Carmelite vocation through a contemporary expression. Just then, the COVID-19 pandemic arrived, and I had the opportunity to visit the website of the Carmelite sisters at the Baltimore monastery and began participating in all their virtual events via Zoom; everything about these sisters touched my heart. Their contemporary, inclusive, and profound style resonated deeply within me. That was when I was blessed to talk with the sisters of this community, who invited me to visit their monastery here in Baltimore. They welcomed me with great love, and during the visit, I had a beautiful experience of God’s love and mercy embracing me through this small community of sisters, along with the certainty of a second call to Carmelite religious life for today’s world. The inclusive, welcoming, and deeply human spirit of this community evokes for me an authentic Gospel experience, centered on the essentials. In the community, I experience the love and respect characteristic of a fraternal relationship—much like the early Christian community; it is a community of sisters that is non-hierarchical but rather conceived as a school of Christ—just as our holy mother and foundress Teresa desired—and oriented toward a synodal Church where we all build and participate in a shared journey of holiness. I also appreciate the eremitic character, just as Saint Teresa envisioned it: “here, they must be not only nuns but hermits.” Their love for literature, combined with everything described above, makes the Baltimore community an embodiment of the genuine spirit of Saint Teresa of Ávila: docile to the newness of the Holy Spirit, wise, flexible, open, intelligent, and adapted to modern times. I identify fully with this community and feel as though I had lived here many years ago. During my time at the Baltimore monastery, I have discovered my mission within the community: to pray for an increase in vocations. My greatest desire and dream is for young people to taste and see how good the Lord is. Thank you very much!

I have been given two vocations in my life. First was a calling to help people find and organize useful information. I received a Master’s Degree in Library Science and became a law librarian, working at both state and federal level. Then, in 1998 I answered the second call, that of being a nun in Baltimore Carmel. I still consider the day of my Solemn Profession of Vows the happiest of my life. In this new calling, I can still live out my old one, since I work as librarian in the community. But I have also been surprised as previously unknown or unnourished talents have emerged, like art, floral arrangement, and liturgical planning. Most of all I love the opportunity to share the contemplative life with all our friends –the ones who come to daily liturgy, our Sunday “community,” or those who call or write us. I marvel at the courage and perseverance of the People of God, in sickness, in grief, in all realms of daily struggle. St. Teresa of Avila, our great founder/reformer, says that “those who are friends look in the same direction.” This is what I find, deeply and intensely, in our community life. We all look to Jesus to dwell within us and to love us without reserve, as we live our response by loving all.

Why I am a Carmelite

I was born in Madrid, Spain, a good number of years ago. When I was about 10 or 11 years old I read an old version of St. Therese’s <em>Story of A Soul</em>, called <em>A Stripped Rose</em>. It really struck me deeply and put on my soul the first seed of my desire to become a Carmelite. I finally entered Carmel in my twenties. My desire was to search for union with God through a life of prayer, silence and solitude, and also “to save souls,” in the language of that time. To accomplish this goal Carmel seemed to me more effective than the career of teaching for which I was prepared.

When I entered Carmel, I thought I would die just there, after a holy and peaceful life. OK, it was not totally so. Short before my Solemn Profession I was invited to participate in the foundation of a new Carmel in Bolivia. It was a great adventure into which I entered only by faith, not by my own inclination. It proved to be very providential. After ten years I visited the States accompanying the Prioress of my monastery, who needed medical treatment here. I came as her “interpreter,” even though I knew only a very few words of English. However the impact was strong and very deep. I found a new way to look at my Carmelite vocation in Baltimore: I found a group of very prayerful, mature and loving women, trying to live their lives in Carmel in a more contemporary way than the one I had known until then, and, above all, very committed in the task of passing on our Teresian charism to the world of our times, to new generations. I realized that this was “my” place. Here I learned that no structures can sanctify us, but only our union with Christ.

Now, after enough years of waiting, I was able to come here finally in January 2010. My hope is to integrate myself into the life of this community -my community – and to myself at the service of its living prophetic mission in the Church and society.

Why I am a Carmelite

¡Hola! My name is Sr. Lupe.  I was fifteen years old when I began to think about becoming a religious sister, specifically to be a missionary.  In 1982, I met the Carmelites for the first time in Puebla, Mexico, 373 miles from my hometown of Jalostitlán, Jalisco.  I was 20 years old when I entered the parlor for the first time and I was overwhelmed with feelings of peace, joy, and gratitude that I was speechless!  At the end of my visit, Sr. Josefina, the novice mistress, gave me a holy card of St. Teresa of Jesus and a small book entitled, <em>Thoughts of Elizabeth of the Trinity</em>.

As I began reading the book, I realized that its contents were echoing my inner desires.  I was deeply touched by St. Elizabeth’s profound, tender, and great love for Jesus, the Triune God, the Church, and her loved ones.  I understood that being a Carmelite was the way for me to be a missionary.  As Carmelites, we trust that united to Jesus, our prayer and love has the capacity to reach everyone and every situation.

Since then I knew that my deepest desire to follow Jesus in consecrated life, would be realized in Carmel<em>.</em>  I entered in December 1982 and from the beginning I loved community life, solitude and contemplative prayer, friendship with God, with Christ, and with one another.

In 1994 I went to Cameroon, Africa; the Mexican Carmelite Federation made a foundation there and I volunteered to go and help start this community. I was in Cameroon for 13 years before returning to my community in Mexico.

I’ve been a Carmelite for 34 years and when I first met the nuns in Baltimore in 2012, I was immediately drawn to the way they lived our Carmelite charism, a beautiful contemporary expression of the Carmelite life of prayer.  I perceived a spirit of love among the nuns amid an atmosphere of deep prayer and passion for God and God’s people.  Their joy was palpable!

I appreciate the way in which on-going formation is so central to our life, as well as the healthy balance we maintain between solitude and community.  I love how each sister’s individuality and freedom is respected within the framework of community.  I have found everything I have been searching for in Carmel and more!

I am the oldest of 12 children and I am blessed to have 31 nieces and nephews and 10 great nieces and nephews!  I enjoy stitching, working in our vegetable garden, crochet and knitting, cooking, and playing cards.

I am so blessed to be part of this community, I hope you will consider it for yourself.

Why I am a Carmelite

I have always been on a spiritual quest, always been a seeker. I previously had careers in both Social Work and Law.  Though I was happy in these careers, with my lovely condo in the city, my friends and family, my life in general, I kept looking for something more, something deeper. I was active in my downtown Baltimore parish when a Jesuit friend invited me to Baltimore Carmel for the first time to attend Sunday Eucharist. I told the sisters very clearly that I didn’t want to be a nun, but as I began to attend Sunday liturgy at Carmel I felt a strange and unexpected attraction deep in my heart to this community of vibrant, intelligent, and passionate women. As a logical thinking person, this strange, silent voice seeming to come from deep inside me was confusing and I tried desperately to resist it. One day I showed up for what I thought was a normal liturgy to find out it was the first vow ceremony of one of the sisters, and I was struck by the line on her program: <em>There you will show me what my soul has been seeking</em>. It seemed to be blinking neon just for me and I remember saying to God very clearly, “You mean This? Me?”

I am very much aware of much the world is in need of prayer, and while I could make a difference in the world as both a Social Worker and an Attorney, I feel that a life of deep prayer has the biggest effect of all.

I remember while coming for liturgy, one day I got out of the car and looked around and asked myself how could someone spend her whole life here in (this) single small place.  I have found that each day brings newness and expansion, and rather than going out to discover it, the call is to go deeper and deeper inward in union with the Beloved:  God continues to surprise and challenge.

Why I am a Carmelite

What can I tell you of my years in Carmel?  When I was introduced to the Sisters on my first afternoon in Carmel, tiny Sister Mary who was eight-something, reached up, embraced me warmly and exclaimed, “Oh, you’re such a child.”  I was so hurt!  After all, hadn’t I just left everything for God?  Didn’t that mean I was grown up? Yes and no. It took me years to realize how young eighteen—yes, I was eighteen—really was.  And how much baggage I had carried with me into the monastery, mostly packed into my head and heart. Having learned that it takes a lifetime to become a Carmelite, I continue to live into the mystery of letting God become the <em>all</em> of my being.

What mysteries lie hidden in the seasons of my life? The Spring dance of young love that knows everything is possible.  Summer drought when I envied the birds because they were free and I was not. Autumns of ripening and fruitfulness borne of daily life among my sisters.  Winter darkness and clinging to God while gazing at the moon, repeating over and over a verse of Psalm 89 “Like the moon that remains forever, a faithful witness in the sky.”  During Lauds one morning in my Postulancy I discovered and claimed as my own a verse from Psalm 27: “One thing I ask of the Lord, this I seek; to dwell in the house of the Lord all the days of my life, to contemplate God’s beauty.”  I have always known at the core of my being that I want God more than anything else, and that desire has only grown stronger with the passing of years.

As my Golden Jubilee came and passed, a phrase from a homily slipped into my heart and took up residence: “We celebrate, not the tenuousness of life, but the tenacity of God’s love taking hold of us for a lifetime.”  And indeed, that is the heart of the mystery – God’s love – not only for me – but for each of us – a love that pursues, haunts, captivates, surrounds – and this, whether at 18 or 88, is the life and the gift I celebrate.

At this point in life I’m skipping – or slipping – toward eighty.  Sometimes I wonder where the years have gone and the mystery encountered in what they might mean.  The seventh century Caedmon, who is said to have composed the first English poem, is remembered as “a humble and joyful singer of songs.”  I live in hope of making these words a lived reality in my life.

Why I am a Carmelite

Sr. Robin’s Writings

History of Our Community