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. . . .

On Saying "Yes" to My Vocation

     Having accepted God's invitation to serve him in religious life, I then proceeded to the next phase: finding out which order he wanted me to join, and which monastery within that order. As I discussed in an earlier post, "On My 'Reversion' and Religious Vocation," there are basically two kinds of religious orders in the Catholic Church—active orders (also called "congregations") and contemplative. From the very first inkling of my call, I knew God was asking me to be a contemplative. I believe unswervingly in the power of prayer, and I have a deep desire to pray for, and in the stead of, those who cannot or will not pray themselves. I also believe unswervingly in the "white martyrdom" of the cloistered contemplative life, the freely given offering of one's own worldly life in reparation for the sins of the world. I can't bear the thought of anyone using their free will to choose evil over good and, having chosen it until the moment the soul separates from the body in death, being deprived forever of union with God. If, as I believe, prayer can save one soul from that particular destiny, then I wanted to give my whole life and being to prayer. Contemplative orders are also necessary to the active orders, the orders that devote themselves to some kind of public service in the world.  The prayers that arise continuously from contemplative monasteries help to support those sisters and brothers who remain in the world to teach, nurse, and do missionary work. Monasteries are the "powerhouses of prayer" in the Church.

     After exhaustive research, reading countless books and perusing countless websites, I narrowed my choice down to three orders: the Carmelites, the Benedictines, and the Dominicans. I was very much attracted to the austerity of the Carmelites, their great poverty and humility, and their equal balance of solitude and community. The Benedictines, whose motto is Ora et Labora ("prayer and work"), work the land and keep animals; they put great emphasis on the Liturgy and, in the larger monasteries and abbeys, are known for their expertise in Gregorian chant. The Dominicans are great students. They place emphasis on the pursuit of Truth (their motto being Veritas) through the study of Scripture and the writings of the Church Fathers. However, they are more community-oriented than the Carmelites.

     I also decided to begin my search for the right monastery in my part of the country. If God willed, I wanted to remain within easy distance of my family. I stumbled on the website of a Dominican monastery in Lufkin, just two hours north of Houston, called the Monastery of the Infant Jesus. Surprised that my spiritual director, who was a Dominican priest, did not mention this monastery to me, I asked him about it. He said he purposely didn't mention Lufkin because he didn't want to influence me toward the Dominicans.

     An opera stage director I knew put me in touch with the prioress of the Carmelites in Santa Fe, where she had done research for a production of Dialogues of the Carmelites. Then I found a new Benedictine monastery in Canyon, Texas with the help of a vocational placement service. This house was founded by a large active Benedictine teaching congregation in Arkansas that wanted to found a contemplative community.

     All three houses were willing to consider older vocations, which was essential for me, being 43 at the time. The usual age bracket for acceptance is 18 to 30 or 35. But with the relatively recent phenomenon of the young "career woman" and the general opinion that a woman just sprung from school should enjoy some years of independence before marrying and having a family (if indeed she ever eventually does so), the notion of a religious vocation is often not seriously considered or even entertained until later in life. Gone are the days when the options open to young women were pretty much limited to teaching, nursing, secretarial work, marriage, or the religious life. The luxury of choices now available to them tends to lure many of them away from the religious calling they may actually have. More and more religious communities are realizing this, and have adjusted their age limit of acceptance accordingly.

     And so, I wrote to the three monasteries I finally chose, asking to make a visit, and awaited their answers. . . .