At the beginning ...
We are not Discalced Carmelites. We are not Benedictine nuns. We wear the White Cloak that the Great Prophet Elijah bequeathed to his followers.
But we use the cowl like the Benedictines, because it was like that on Mount Carmel because the cowl is the robe of the monk and nun. It does not mark the body of the nun or the monk with the Belt. It is entirely straight and shows us that here we live the life of Angels as Our Lord said in the Gospel: in heaven men will be like Angels, they will not marry.
This life we live it from this earth! By the grace of the One who created us not on our own merit. We don't cover our faces so people can't see us. When we cover our face, it's for us to be collected and not distracted by the things of the earth.
We already have our face always covered: covered and disfigured like the Crucified Christ. Which is madness for the world. This face of ours is only the temple of the Holy Spirit. Our soul lives hidden in God with Jesus Christ as Saint Hildegard says.
Monastic life in Carmel is fully inserted in the history of salvation, not only because of its antiquity (although not, at first, as a canonically instituted Order, as it later became), but, above all, because she was born in the Holy Land, and because Elijah, the Solitary Holy Prophet, settled on Mount Carmel, thus giving birth and inspiration to monastic life.
The birth of this Order in the Holy Land added much to its spirituality. Due to this original context, the Carmelite Tradition has always considered its history in three periods and three different cultures, namely: Hebrew, Greek and Latin. In fact, Pontius Pilate wrote in these same three languages the sign that was placed on the cross (John, chapter 19, verse 20). This attitude was considered by many as a consecration of those languages and cultures marked by the History of the Revelation of God.
Photo of the ruins of one of the ancient
monasteries on Mont Carmel
The main purpose of the Order of Mount Carmel is to love God and live in His presence. Towards this objective concur silence, solitude, retreat, removal from worldly things, continuous prayer and meditation of the eternal truths. (Constitutions OCarm)
"Return Carmel to the Desert!"
"Return Carmel to the Desert!" This is the cry of the venerable 13th century French Carmelite, who, writing "Ignea Sagitta", called on the religious of his Order to leave the cities and return to the Hermitian way of life.
After all, there is nothing new that the loneliness and silence of the desert forged the greatest saints of Christianity, who were enlivened and strengthened by the help of divine grace. By the preaching of the Blessed Mother Church, they decided to live a life of perfection, renounced everything, embraced a mortified and penitent life and conquered the heavenly paradise where they eternally sing righteous praises to God.
It is not a new monastic way of life, but a rescue of the way of life of the first Carmelites. In this sense, the hermit monks and nuns of the Blessed Virgin Mary of Mount Carmel, inserted in a context far from the cities, in the solitude "of the mountains and the deserts" open the floodgates that contain the great power of the traditional Carmelite liturgy, which has been forgotten for centuries, whose basis is entirely based on the Roman Catholic Apostolic Church.
But now it is revived by generous souls at the voice of grace who leave the riches and illusions of the world, to follow Our Savior Jesus Christ like Saint Elijah, in a simple and obedient life, with a true conversion of customs and monastic stability.
Karmel Monastery
Hermit Nuns of the Blessed
Virgin Mary of Mount Carmel