Hermits Of Saint Mary Of Carmel

[Indwelling Trinity]

My Dear Friends:

I wanted to share this with you.

This is a little article on my community. The Hermitage is located in Houston Minnesota. This coming year we will be celebrating thirty years of foundation. This article was written four years ago. The sisters do not have internet presence so as to keep strictly to their vocation as hermits in community. It is hard to find us.

Initially Our community did not accept vocations into the community who did not have at least 5 years of experience in religious life feeling that a certain maturity and religious foundation was important in order to embrace the hermit lifestyle successfully. However I spoke recently with Mother Rosemary and due to the many requests from less experienced vocations the sisters are now open to seriously considering those who are sincere in their desire to give all to Christ in a hidden life of silence, solitude, prayer, penance and a deep love for each other a all whom they hold in their prayer;especially for priests and religious the needs of Holy Mother Church and the world at large.

This is a life demanding total gift of oneself to God and community. It is a deeply joyful life for those who are called to this expression of religious life. It is a life that allows one the freedom to stretch themselves and enter into the deepest mysteries of love and holy contemplation.

I do not say it is an easy life for it requires saying that total "Yes" to Jesus in the Carmelite tradition. For one who wishes to give less than their all, I would not encourage this way. But for those few souls who seek to completely surrender themselves to God in a hidden life of love, it can be a heaven on earth as we grow together reaching towards Christ each sister seeking to utter her Total Fiat to God in Love.

As Our holy Father Elijah, the prototype for all Carmelites exclaimed, "with zeal have i been zealous for the Lord God of Hosts!" so too do the sisters strive to give their all to Jesus. This is the patrimony of Carmel to ponder on the law of the Lord day and night and to keep watch in prayer for in so far as the the Carmelite prays so too does the whole world pray for we are ever united as one body in Christ with a tender filial love for Mary our Mother who surely will protect her own under the mantle of her love. Hermit communities in general tend to be small as few are able to embrace this life. It is not a life for the masses. And that i alright as it is not meant to be a popularity contest on who can get more vocations. That is missing the whole point of the life. The point is intimacy with jesus in which the wilderness call to the heart as the best way for one to seek His face in love. The call may be immediate or develop over time we are each lead over a unique path for God never repeats himself in His creatures. We are each facets of a diamond reflecting different aspect sof the divine predilection. Each equally precious in His sight.

If you have any questions feel free to write me. I am not stumping for my community but only sharing possible options in religious life. What is most important is not which community but following where the Lord is leading you so that you may best give yourself to him in love no matter what community or spirituality you are called too, for it is the way of holiness that God has chosen for you if you only surrender to him in Love. So Dominican, Franciscan, Benedictine or Carmelite or any other community, follow where the Lord leads and you will find happiness and peace for you will be in His holy will!

[url="http:///www.carmelitereview.org/issues/v45n2/making-honey.php"]Hermits of St Mary of Carmel[/url]

Tenderly,

Indwelling Trinity

Edited August 23, 2010 by Indwelling Trinity

[Antigonos]

Indwelling, the link does not seem to work.

[Indwelling Trinity]

[quote name='Antigonos' timestamp='1282575461' post='2161996']
Indwelling, the link does not seem to work.


I dont know why it works when i click on it. here is the URL: you can try clicking again or copy and paste

[url="http://www.carmelitereview.org/issues/v45n2/making-honey.php"]http://www.carmelite...aking-honey.php[/url]

Edited August 23, 2010 by Indwelling Trinity

[sistersintigo]

Sr. Emmanuel, I stumbled across a journalist's article about your community, on the internet. Today I can't find it again. Must have been a year or two ago, and perhaps the article itself was older still. Different than the Carmelite Review write-up. The author gave a simple account of making plans in advance to visit your monastery and speak with some of you there, then described driving out in the middle of nowhere to find you all, speaking with you, looking around, asking practical questions about the hermitage cabins like how they were heated in the coldest weather. There were comments from one hermit about women who are no longer young, and how older vocations have a value and a quality different than young vocations. And you know, that article with those interviews has haunted me from that day to this. God must be trying to tell me something.

[vee]

[quote name='sistersintigo' timestamp='1282577987' post='2162012']
And you know, that article with those interviews has haunted me from that day to this. God must be trying to tell me something.
[/quote]

So youre saying God is doing this to you



I cant resist posting the pic of the glass tabernacle in case the article or the pic doenst work for someone.
[img]http://www.carmelitereview.org/imgs/v45n2/making-honey-1.jpg[/img]

[krissylou]

Ahhhh, pictures!

Which one are you?

[vee]

[img]http://www.carmelitereview.org/imgs/v45n2/making-honey-3.jpg[/img]

I am going to guesssssss...... she's not in it.

[Indwelling Trinity]

[quote name='sistersintigo' timestamp='1282577987' post='2162012']
Sr. Emmanuel, I stumbled across a journalist's article about your community, on the internet. Today I can't find it again. Must have been a year or two ago, and perhaps the article itself was older still. Different than the Carmelite Review write-up. The author gave a simple account of making plans in advance to visit your monastery and speak with some of you there, then described driving out in the middle of nowhere to find you all, speaking with you, looking around, asking practical questions about the hermitage cabins like how they were heated in the coldest weather. There were comments from one hermit about women who are no longer young, and how older vocations have a value and a quality different than young vocations. And you know, that article with those interviews has haunted me from that day to this. God must be trying to tell me something.
[/quote]

The ages in the community are neither old nor young right now The sisters range between mid forties to mid fifties They are the pioneer spirits who began this monastery many years ago. Mother Rosemary was the foundress along with Sister Miriam. The lifestyle in some senses is like that of the early desert Fathers and Mothers.

The community was started at a time when there were no women hermit communities and in fact much opposition to it. All the sisters desired was to go back the thier original Carmelite roots. Most of the Sisters were Discalced Carmelites before coming to the hermitage. Having young people in a community is a true blessing but also those experienced in the ways of the desert are a singular gift by the wisdom they have to share in having lived such a life for years.

When i was a young Discalced Carmelite, we were 5 young novices; but he funny thing young as i was i was drawn to the older sisters for i was so very hungry to learn the ways of the spirit and the Carmelite life. I was so very happy to learn at their feet for although i loved my group sisters, they were not able to share with me the depths of the spiritual life for we were pretty much in the same boat.

Now at age 53 I still long to learn from my sisters whether younger or older than me. Ideally as one grows in the spiritual life, we become more simple and childlike wishing not for control or recognition but open to learn and to become subject and obedient to all even the youngest offshoot if that is the way the Lord arranges it. Hopefully as time goes on we become more humble and obedient in the process of conforming ourselves to Jesus who was completely humble and obedient to the father to the point of dying on the cross to save e that which was lost. He,The God of all subjected himself to Mary and Joseph and later in life even to those who would torture and kill him.

As gold is tried in fire so the hermitage becomes a crucible where we are tried in the fire of humility and obedience perserverence and love. We wish to become strangers to the ways of the world spurning that which is false and feeds the false ego while at the same time seeking to embrace the world in love and lift it up before God by our prayer and sacrifice always offered in union with Jesus. To become a true hermit we must become truly human with all our faults and failings embracing our poverty and nothingness with joy and opening up ourselves to the divine working in our souls gradually transforming it in the fire of love.

So in the hermitage it is not age that is important but he journey. And truth be told, the youngest happiest souls i have seen are those who have abandoned themselves to this journey of love no matter what their chronological age may be for they have consented to become children again in the heart of the father. This is true joy!

As the runt of the community... that is my nickname... lol, I too long to make the same journey into love. God grant that it may be so!

Tenderly,

Sister Emmanuel / aka Indwelling Trinity

Edited August 23, 2010 by Indwelling Trinity

[Indwelling Trinity]

[quote name='vee8' timestamp='1282588553' post='2162084']
[img]http://www.carmelitereview.org/imgs/v45n2/making-honey-3.jpg[/img]

I am going to guesssssss...... she's not in it.
[/quote]

Bingo! you win a cupie doll!

[vee]

[quote name='Indwelling Trinity' timestamp='1282606672' post='2162248']
Bingo! you win a cupie doll!
[/quote]
Woah I was right?!

[Chiquitunga]

Praised be Jesus Christ! Now and forever! Neat, I just found this .. [url="http://www.carmelitereview.org/issues/v47n1/mount-carmel-alumni.php#carmelitesister"]Carmelite Sister Makes Perpetual Profession of Vows[/url]