News from the Cloistered Carmelite Monastery

Praised be Jesus Christ! Easter is such a blessed and holy time; the joy of our Risen Savior permeates the monastery. We pray that this Paschaltide may be filled with many blessings for you and your family as we contemplate the resurrection of Christ and the eternal beatitude that awaits our Lord’s faithful servants. May an ardent longing for heaven, our true home be deep in our hearts and visible in our daily lives.

With Lent now past, we find ourselves with the joyful task of responding to so many of your beautiful letters and kind words, and especially of sharing with you a bit of news from our Carmel. The work of acquiring Irma Lake, our New Mount Carmel seems to be taking much of my time as we labor to realize our vision. We have indeed been entrusted with the noble task of protecting and preserving our particular Carmelite monastic charism for the young men to come. This is a great project for the glory of God and the salvation of souls for which we beg your continued prayers and support. It is in sincerity that I say that we cannot do it without your friendship, bonded together in charity and in love of our Lord and our Lady. Oftentimes, the work of acquiring this monastic setting and the grounds necessary is daunting, but it seems we are encouraged at that moment, knowing that you are united with us and praying for us.

Recently the Holy Spirit has led us to a few anonymous individuals with the capability to help us in accomplishing this awesome vision. In your charity, would you please keep us in your prayers in the upcoming weeks as we approach these folks to share with them our monastic way of life and our very real need for monastic silence and solitude in the mountains? I know that God will hear the prayers of those who love us.

As our efforts towards Irma Lake progress, we find ourselves with an overwhelming number of vocational inquiries. Our monastery is blessed to be receiving such fine and selfless young men. Easter week alone brought two new postulants to us, so there are ten of us now. We have three young men who have completed the application process and will be entering in May, June and August. The Lord is so good as He forms this army of prayer warriors behind these walls. As you can imagine, every last space in our small rectoryis someone’s bedroom and even the new house next door, planned to help us house our candidates, is unable to accommodate our rapid growth. What a blessed problem! As so many monasteries find themselves without young vocations, God is calling so many to His Mother’s Order and the cloistered, contemplative life. Our society, and our country in a particular way, is certainly in need of prayer, so it is with great awe at God’s designs that we see these zealous young men enter our monastery to offer their lives in prayer and penance.

Our small chapel (an old converted bedroom in the rectory) is filled with young monks in brown habits; there is little room for me to even process in for Holy Mass. Do we need greater proof of the Lord’s providence for His Church? It seems so obvious that the Lord is strengthening the cloistered life and nurturing with special care this newest blossom on the vine of Carmel, our young monastery in Wyoming. It is a great privilege to be able to share this venerable way of life of our Saints with you by keeping you and your intentions in our hearts as we go about our monastic day.

It was with great thanksgiving that we learned of our beloved Holy Father’s upcoming visit to our country. What a wonderful gift for our nation to have His Holiness, the visible successor of St. Peter, here in our midst and his blessing upon our country and her people!

In preparation for the Pope’s arrival, we are offering many prayers and little penances each day that His Holiness’ visit may soften the hearts of so many and bring about conversion to Christ and His Church. In our monastic observance, we do not have television in the monastery, yet we will certainly be offering many special prayers as Pope Benedict addresses the leaders of our country, our Bishops, priests, religious and faithful. With our Holy Mother St. Teresa of Avila, we cannot help but to have a special filial love for His Holiness and a desire to remain forever obedient to him and his successors. How blessed we are by his visit! May His Holiness gloriously reign for many years to come.

I humbly impart my shepherd’s Blessing upon you and your family. Be certain of our prayers for you, your family and all of your intentions; It is our privilege to remember you before our Risen Lord. May we grow in our love of Him and in love of His Mother, our Glorious Queen and Beauty of Carmel. Know just what a blessing you are to us as your charity helps us to pay our bills and work towards our future. Until the monastery bells of the Gothic Church resound throughout the mountainside, we shall not rest.

In our times, I cannot think of a patron more necessary for each of us, but especially for men and for monks, than Saint Joseph. He oftentimes goes unnoticed; no words of his are recorded in the Gospels, yet our Holy Mother the Church has declared this glorious saint of greater sanctity than all the saints of heaven aside from God Himself and His Immaculate Mother. If for no other reason, St. Joseph’s sanctity and virtue alone command our veneration, our respect and our consideration.

As we learn of the state of fatherhood in our society and the effeminacy attacking manliness, I cannot help but to wonder if this doesn’t have much to do with our failure to look to our Good Father, St. Joseph and to invoke his powerful intercession. In the persecutions, attacks and sufferings of the Holy Family, St. Joseph is ever faithful. He does not shrink from his duties as the step-father of the Messiah, but rather accepts with humility the Will of God and the obligation entrusted to Him to stand in the place of the Eternal Father. St. Joseph is a valiant man, a faithful spouse and a loyal father. If we love Christ and His Mother, how can we not love St. Joseph who so wonderfully protected them?

St. Joseph is a glorious example of the virtues of chastity and of mortification. Did not his purity of heart and mind merit the extraordinary grace to be the spouse of the ever Virgin Mary? What a model of manliness, which is not a matter of machoism or worldly pleasures, but of truth and strength in the will! St. Joseph was sanctified in the womb, yet he teaches us so much. His silence, his perseverance, his humility, and all of his virtues are so radiant. Why do not we not more closely imitate him? Why not invoke his intercession that we might be more like him?

The Carmelite monk is called in a special way to be formed in the virtue of St. Joseph, to be a model of manliness and of spiritual fatherhood. We too are called to a life obedient, poor and chaste. With the labor of our hands, we work for our daily bread and to provide a house for Jesus and Mary. Like St. Joseph, we work in the presence of our Blessed Lord and His Mother; they are our companions and solace in this valley of tears as we journey to heaven. In the spirit of our blessed Father St. Joseph, we adopt all of you as our children to pray for and to purchase grace for. How blessed and happy is a life lived in imitation of St. Joseph!

Let us all reflect upon St. Joseph’s fire tried virtue and zeal for God. Let us never be afraid to call upon him, confident that he shall hear our prayers. The Child Jesus, obedient to St. Joseph in His hidden life at Nazareth, shall surely honor his requests in the eternal life awarded to this greatest of Saints.

Prayer An Excerpt from “Divine Intimacy” by Fr. Gabriel of St. Mary Magdalen, OCD

“Prayer is essentially an intimate conversation with God in which the soul seeks His presence, so that it may speak with Him in a friendly and affectionate way. It is a child talking with its Father, a friend conversing with his Friend. From its very nature, then, prayer is something intimate and interior. “For me,” said St. Therese of the Child Jesus, “prayer is an uplifting of the heart, a glance toward heaven, a cry of gratitude and of love in times of sorrow as well as of joy” (St, 11). In this perspective we must understand the traditional definition of prayer: elevatio mentis ad Deum, the raising of the mind to God, and not only the mind, but also, and especially, the heart.”

“Whatever form it takes, true prayer is not complicated or constrained; it is the breath of the soul that loves its God, the habitual attitude of the heart which tends toward God. The soul seeks Him, wants to live with Him, knows that every benefit, every help, comes from Him. Thus, spontaneously, without even thinking about it, the soul passes from the simple elevation toward God to the prayer of petition or to intimate colloquy, to arrive finally at the transport of the heart, the glance toward heaven. Prayer understood in this way is always possible, in all kinds of circumstances and in the midst of varying occupations; furthermore, for a soul who really loves God, it would be as impossible for it to interrupt prayer as it would be for it to stop breathing. We can thus understand how everyone, even those living in the world can fulfill the words of the Gospel: “Pray always” (Lk 18,1). The one condition necessary is to have a heart capable of loving; the stronger and more vigorous this love is, the deeper and more continuous will the prayer be.”

• It is our great privilege to be able to offer the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass in our beautiful Carmelite Rite for you and your intentions. Regretfully, please note that our Mass calendar is full for the upcoming year. We will be certain to let you know when we are able to begin taking stipends again. Thank you for your understanding and be certain of a most special remembrance in the prayers of our monks at Holy Mass each day.