On Visiting the Santa Fe Carmel

In case some of you didn't know, "Carmel" in this context is pronounced with the stress on the first syllable—unlike the city in California. The word "Carmel" pertains to any Carmelite monastery, e. g., the Santa Fe Carmel, the San Diego Carmel, etc.

The Carmelites were the first order I became interested in when I was researching the many Catholic religious orders. I have a particular love for both St. Teresa of Avila and St. Therese of Lisieux, and am strongly attracted to Carmelite spirituality. Very early in my discernment, I came across the autobiography My Beloved, by Mother Catherine Thomas of the Carmel of St. Joseph in Oklahoma City, and my hunger for the "all or nothing" life of the cloister flared up even stronger, and is still strong today.

 

As I wrote earlier, I was put in touch with Mother Rose at the Santa Fe Carmel through a rather unlikely connection, an opera stage director who had interviewed Mother while doing research for a production of Poulenc's heart-wrenching opera, Dialogues of the Carmelites. Since several of my opera colleagues worked at the Santa Fe Opera in the summers, I arranged to stay with one of them while I visited the Carmel in August of 2003.

Here's what I wrote in my journal:

August 2, 2003, Santa Fe.   My main reason for coming here is to visit the Carmelite monastery; in fact, I am at this moment sitting in the kitchen of their guest house, waiting to be summoned for another visit with Mother Rose. I had one yesterday upon my arrival. I must admit, my very first encounter with a turn and grille [a "turn" is the vertical half of a cylindrical structure, fitted with shelves, and set on a pole in an opening of the wall so that it spins, enabling a person to place an object on a shelf, then turn the half-cylinder so that the person on the other side may retrieve it. People are able to hear, but not see, each other. It's a remnant of the days when cloistered nuns weren't supposed to be seen by the public. Except in Carmels and a few houses in other orders, turns are no longer used today.] was a bit daunting, even though the whole complex, of which the monastery is a part, is very public. There are conference halls, retreat accommodations, chapel, etc. Mother herself answered my ring at the turn and instructed me to go into the small parlor immediately next to it. I went in, sat, and heard Mother come in. She opened the heavy curtain on her side of the iron grille, and there was her welcoming, smiling face framed by a heavy brown woolen veil and guimpe (white covering on the neck). We spoke for about a half hour; the whole time, Mother knelt on the floor, settling back on her heels. It's a common posture for Carmelites. They must have incredible knees.

As we talked, I began to notice a certain trait common among nuns: a kind of light, serene and joyful, that emanates from their eyes, their smiles, their very skin. The light of the Spirit. It's impossible not to feel at ease in the warmth of that light, and it awakens a yearning to possess it for oneself. But I've come to realize that we all possess it; it just gets buried beneath the more wretched part of our humanness. The contemplatives' constant striving to strip away that wretchedness, and the constant striving for prayerful recollection which is helped along by the silence of their surroundings, allows the Spirit to speak within them, and His pure light to shine forth.

The bell for Vespers rang, so Mother and I went into the chapel. Vespers was followed by adoration and Benediction; then I met the extern nun, Sr. Marie Bernadette, who showed me to the guest house. It is indeed a caseta with an entrance, hall, bath, large kitchen, and bedroom. However, I don't want to make it sound luxurious by any means! The bedroom is Spartan—it's actually a cell where one of the elderly nuns stayed in seclusion before she died. The bed is extremely crude, of the simplest construction, with just a six-inch mattress on the hard wood planks. There is a small bureau, a chair, a radiator, a small table, pictures of St. Padre Pio, and a rather large statue of Our Lady of Guadalupe. No carpet, just a large rubber mat by the bed. The kitchen and bath are modernized—well, '70s—but there is a definite atmosphere of rusticity and mild poverty. I did sleep very well, however, on my monastic bed. Dinner, which was brought to me by the extern, consisted of very plain baked trout (with bones), beets (e-e-w!), brown rice, and corn on the cob. But we had to interrupt dinner because the whole community was waitng to meet me in the large parlor. There are, I think, 11 in all, including Sr. Marie Bernadette. (Carmelites usually like to keep the number of sisters in their communities close to the number of the original Apostles.) They are such joyful women; they laugh readily and often and, like the Dominicans in Lufkin, are great listeners. In fact, I will go so far as to say that, besides psychiatrists and the like, priests and religious are the best listeners in the world.

Compline followed, then I went to bed around 9.15, since I had to rise for Lauds at 5.

My visits to the Santa Fe Carmel and the Lufkin Dominicans behind me, I looked forward to my third and final "get-to-know-you" visit: St. Benedict Monastery in Canyon, Texas. . . .