Our community lives a cloistered monastic expression of Carmel. Carmel is a hidden garden of God wherein the religious can live in perfect imitation of the Blessed Virgin Mary. Mary lived a hidden contemplative life in union with God. Since she is the Immaculate Conception, she was moved by the Holy Spirit always from the beginning of Her life. This was Her singular privilege as the Mother of God anticipating the Word of God would be born from Her own flesh. For this reason, God preserved Her from all sin and she lived in perfect union with Him in Her soul from the first moment of Her conception. It was St. Elias on Mt. Carmel in the Holy Land who first had a vision of Mary's Immaculate Conception and dedicated himself to imitating Her singular virginal consecrated life. St. Elias lived on Mt. Carmel in solitude where he experienced the presence of God continually. God spoke to St. Elias in a small whisper through a mystical union of love. We imitate St. Elias by living a solitary life on a mountain in order to taste of union with God in a hidden and mystical way.
Our community lives the Carmelite Rule very strictly. The Carmelite Rule contains the hidden life of Mary through which we imitate her. Through hiddenness and solitude we commune with God, striving for union with Him for the sake of the Church and the world. It is in contemplation and prayer that we advance in remaining in the presence of God at every moment in order to be love in the heart of the Church. Only the Holy Spirit can move a perfectly docile soul to perfect love of God and souls. This is our whole purpose in embracing solitude in imitation of the Blessed Virgin Mary.
There are many different expressions of Carmel. There are the active friars who contemplate God and then share the fruit of their prayer with others. There are likewise active Carmelite sisters who care for the sick or aged. There are cloistered contemplative nuns who remain hidden in order to intercede for the world. We are likewise hidden in our living of the Carmelite Rule as cloistered monks. It is in aiming at ascending the spiritual mountain to union with God that we embrace this hidden life of contemplation.
Our community makes vows of obedience, chastity and poverty according to the Carmelite Rule and our own constitutions. We live and breathe Carmel with great love and a fire of contemplation. We have the spirit of the great Carmelites such as St. Teresa of Jesus and St. John of the Cross, wherein we live a joyful life of contemplation and striving for the heights of union with God. We imitate St. Therese of the Child Jesus, patroness of the missions, by interceding for all missionaries and active priests and religious through our extreme contemplative love for God, the Church and souls.
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