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BARRINGTON, R.I. (WPRI) — A former monastery left vacant when the last nuns moved out has gone on the market for over $3 million, and now Barrington officials are seeking to buy the property. With their numbers dwindling, the final six Roman Catholic sisters of the Discalced Carmelite order last year decided to vacate the location on Watson Avenue where they had lived a cloistered life of prayer since 1957. “It’s really the only option available to us at this time,” one of the six, Sister Sue Lamb, told the Rhode Island Catholic in October. “We’ve lost about 14 sisters...

A 92-year-old nun, who took a vow of silence, solitude and poverty, has died at the monastery where she lived for the past three decades - however the full story of Sister Mary Joseph's life is far from traditional. Until she dedicated herself to a life of prayer she was known as Ann Russell Miller, a wealthy San Francisco socialite who hosted lavish parties, had season tickets to the opera and was the mother of ten children. Born in 1928, Ann had dreams of becoming a nun, but she fell in love instead. At 20, she married Richard Miller, who...

Eleven sisters are the founding members of a new hilltop monastery in the Diocese of Harrisburg.Eleven Discalced Carmelite Sisters of Fairfield, Pennsylvania are establishing a new monastery on a 40-acre, hilltop site in the Diocese of Harrisburg, just eight miles from the historic town of Gettysburg. The nuns were originally part of the Carmel of Jesus, Mary, and Joseph in Elysburg, also part of the Harrisburg diocese, but as their community has grown, the 11 sisters, according to the Carmelite custom, separated to form a new community. Both groups had previously separated from a Carmelite community in Valparaiso, Nebraska. The...

Death is a tragedy for mortal man, and yet with faith in eternity and anticipation of the embrace of our heavenly Father, death becomes radiant. We share today the news of the death of Sister Cecilia, a Carmelite of Santa Fe in Argentina, who suffered from lung cancer. She astonished those who surrounded her in her agony, [smiling as she approached her culmination.] The Carmel of Santa Fe announced the death of Sister Cecilia to their brothers and sisters and friends of the Carmel, with a brief but profound note. Dear brothers, sisters and friends: Jesus! Just a few lines...

This year marks the 750th anniversary of the death of St Simon Stock I wonder what you were thinking when you dressed this morning. Had you already laid out your clothes for the day? Did certain expectations dictate your choices? The simple fact is that how we dress can say a lot about who we are, what we do, how seriously we take life and its tasks. I have clear memories of one Christmas, when a child, having received a soldier’s outfit as a present and I can remember to this day the sense of pride and purpose that...

On 24 July 1936, exactly a week after the Spanish Civil War broke out, three women, who had taken up the habit of their countrywoman, Saint Teresa of Avila, were brutally executed by the anti-Catholic Republican faction in the Castilian city of Guadalajara. Their names were Sister Maria Pilar of St. Francis Borgia, age 58; Sister Maria Angeles of St. Joseph, age 31; and Sister Teresa of the Child Jesus and St. John of the Cross, who was only 27 years old when she was martyred with her two friends. The three had fled from their Discalced Carmelite monastery two...

The morning of July 13, the Feast of St. Teresa of the Andes, found the mountains of central Pennsylvania wreathed in thick clouds of mist, as if Nature herself had some inkling of the wondrous thing that was about to happen and had adorned herself with a veil of white of her own in honor of the occasion....I had come to bid a fond farewell to one of my dearest friends and sisters in Christ...who in a couple hours would pass through the enclosure door of the Carmel of Jesus, Mary, and Joseph to begin her new life of prayer...

The Carmelites of Wyoming are looking to expand their present facilities, and McCrery Architects have come up an ambitious design for the Carmel. James McCrery, the architect, offers this statement: The vision for the New Carmel is for an authentically Catholic, Carmelite Monastery that embraces the French tradition of gothic architecture. This is the architecture that the Catholic Church truly owns! It developed in the 13th century in response to the strong growth of monastic life at that time. 800 years later, in this 21st century of Our Lord, these Holy Monks live a rich monastic life that is...

In Norway's far north, amid a harsh landscape and unforgiving climate, Lund & Slaatto's convent for nuns of the reclusive Carmelite order embodies a pragmatic yet poetic sensibility.Carmelite nuns belong to one of the most introverted and reclusive monastic orders within the Catholic Church. Communication with the outside world is strictly limited and daily life is ordered by sustained periods of contemplation and meditation. The sisters own nothing and are totally self-sufficient. The new Carmelite convent in Tromse, far above the Arctic Circle, has the distinction of being the world's most northerly outpost of the order. Designed by Lund...

Printer Friendly Format Nation Monks’ thriving coffee business helps attract young men to monastery By Sheila Archambault Posted: 11/16/2009 WASHINGTON (CNS) -- A small Carmelite monastery in Clark, Wyo., has seen its coffee sales take off in the last couple of years, and the growing awareness of its coffee business has brought an added benefit to the community -- more members. "In the past two years, the monks themselves have grown from six to 15 monks and all the new monks are under 25, some right out of high school," said Susie George, a neighbor of the monks who...

Church officials in the Diocese of Metuchen are helping to oversee a church investigation into whether a nun who's being considered for sainthood is the cause of a medical miracle. The probe, the first in the history of the Diocese of Metuchen, involves Mother Mary Angeline Teresa McCrory, who died in 1984 at age 91 and was founder of the Carmelite Sisters for the Aged and Infirm. A unidentified married couple in New Jersey whose unborn baby was diagnosed with a genetic disorder is claiming that prayers to McCrory helped their child, who was born far healthier than expected, said...

Exactly 447 years to the day that St. Teresa of Jesus founded the first convent of the Carmelite reform, a solemn Mass and blessing of the enclosure of a new Carmelite community took place at the Carmel of Jesus, Mary and Joseph in Elysburg. The community of 11 Discalced Carmelite nuns arrived from Valparaiso, Neb., in April and came to the Diocese of Harrisburg due to a constant increase of vocations.... Father Joseph Howard of the Priestly Fraternity of St. Peter, who will serve as chaplain at the monastery, celebrated the Mass. Those present included Bishop Kevin C. Rhoades, Msgr....

An overflow crowd of more than 500 people gathered at the Elysburg Monastery Monday as the bishop of the Diocese of Harrisburg blessed the facility's reopened chapel. The most important people of the day, however - the 11 Discalced Carmelite nuns from Nebraska who moved into the Elysburg facility in April - were never seen by the public.... Following the 2 1/2-hour Mass, the bishop, the Most Rev. Kevin C. Rhoades, conducted the private "enclosure" ceremony. The diocese said he moved through the building, blessing each room, then locking the door to the sisters' portion of the monastery. While they...

38 year old Fr. Thomas Pandippallyil, was assassinated on the night of August 16th on his way to a village to celebrate Sunday mass. His body showed signs of torture, with wounds to his face, his hands and legs broken and his eyes pulled from their sockets. The bishop of Hyderabad denounces the growing climate of “violence against Catholics” in the country. New Delhi (AsiaNews) – “Father Thomas is a martyr: he sacrificed his life for the poor and marginalised.  But he did not die in vain, because his body and his blood enrich the Church in India, particularly the...

The French Revolution reveals the titanic struggle between good and evil. During the terror, over 40,000 Frenchmen were executed just for holding fast to the Catholic Faith and objecting to the worst excesses of the Committee of Public Safety. The blood lost in the years of 1792-1794 staggers the imagination even in the retelling and the campaign against the Church was as diabolical as it was cruel. Contemplative religious communities had been among the first targets of the fury of the French Revolution against the Catholic Church. Less than a year from May 1789 when the Revolution began with the...

OUTSIDERS ARE GENERALLY FORBIDDEN to enter the walls of this cloistered monastery, but reporter Jessica Ravitz and photographer Paul Fraughton were invited inside. Though the monks spend most of their days, outside of Mass, in silence, this observance was lifted for the occasion. CLARK, Wyo. -- The goodbye was bid not just to people he adored, but to a life he'd be leaving forever. Nicholas Maroney embraced his weeping mother and grandmother, told them he loved them, then turned to his future. Three times he knocked on the wooden gate and listened as the small community assembled in the yard...

Our Rule explains that as monks we need to earn our keep by the work of our hands. We were praying about what sort of product most people utilize on a daily basis, and it came to us that everyone needs coffee to start the day. On our side of things, roasting coffee can be very contemplative. It only takes one monk to run the roaster and bag the coffee, so it is very complimentary to our life. All the brothers have worked together to perfect the Mystic Monk roasts, from the selection of beans, to the creation of special...

The idea that there a "God spot" in the brain, a circuit of nerves which could explain mankind's almost universal belief in a deity, is questioned today by a study of Carmelite nuns. Scientists have been in the pursuit of the brain processes underlying the Unio Mystica - the Christian notion of mystical union with God - and this endeavour is now part of a newly-emerging field called "neurotheology".   Carmelite nuns assisted scientists in their quest to discover a circuit of nerves in the brain to explain man’s almost universal belief in a deity But the God module, as...

From cloister to chaos to a new life There is a photo Nicole Ingra keeps in the living room of her Kenilworth home of "clothing day" - the day she received her habit as a Carmelite nun. A crown of flowers rests on her head. "That was a big day," Ingra recalled. "It was the first time I was called Sister John of the Cross." All she wanted that February day in 1984 was to spend her life in cloistered meditation and prayer behind the walls of a Morris Township Carmelite monastery. "Here I thought I was going to be...

Throughout the centuries various ways of following Christ have been tried and tested. Some of these ways have endured to our present day and still have the power to attract many people and help them to live a deeper life of allegiance to Jesus Christ. One of these ways is the Carmelite way. A vocation is a very personal call from God. Each of us has our own particular vocation to become what God knows we can be. An important part of our vocation is our attraction to a particular way of following Christ. Some people are attracted to the...