Carmelite convent

“ The Contemplatives are contributing it every day, and all day long. Each, in her case, behind her grille, is forever giving something immeasurable, except by God, to the transcendent quality of the Catholic Church. This may be, and mostly is, unsuspected by almost all her fellow-creatures; but not unfelt by quite all. A Carmelite's convent is mostly in a great city; countless human beings pass its walls. They cannot help, seeing them, saying to their own hearts, 'In there, human creatures, like me, are living unlike me. ”

“ They play the organ of the chapel, which is a public one, though they themselves are entirely invisible; and they are not even allowed to see the altar, which is concealed by a heavy black curtain drawn across the grating looking into the church. They have an image of their great foundress, the size of life, dressed in the habit of the order, and to her they go night and morning and salute her, as to a mother. Their convent is rich in relics, beautiful pictures, and crucifixes, brought in by different religious, especially the Duchesse de Bega, who became a Carmelite about fifty years ago. ”

“ It is on our free English ground, in one of our simplest and prettiest English villages, that the austerities of a Carmelite convent are now most resolutely practised, and the seclusion of a Carmelite convent most vigilantly preserved, by the nuns of Mawgan! They are at present twenty in number: two of them are Frenchwomen, the rest are all English. They are of every age, from the very young to the very old. The eldest of the sisterhood has long passed the ordinary [Pg 222] limits of human life—she has attained ninety-five years. ”

“ There was another circumstance which added to the celebrity and augmented the wealth of the Carmelite Convent. Did a young unmarried lady deviate from the path of virtue, or did a husband detect the infidelity of his wife, the culprit was forth-with consigned to the care of the abbess, and forced to take up her abode in that monastic institution. Or, again—did some female openly neglect her religious duties, or imprudently express an opinion antagonistic to the Roman Catholic Church, the family to which she belonged would remove her to the spiritual care of the abbess. ”

“ These vague and uncertain reports did not, however, prevent some of the wealthiest families in Florence from placing their daughters in the Carmelite Convent. A nobleman or opulent citizen who had several daughters, would consider it a duty to devote one of them to the service of the church ”

“ I will take my oath that we shall find a good Carmelite there, who will give the Spanish gentleman Christian burial in a grave somewhere on the gardener's premises."
"You are too much of a Huguenot, Adamas," said Monsieur d'Ars. "The Carmelites are not such dissolute fellows as you imply."
"I say no evil of them, messire; I am speaking of a single one, whom I know, and who has nothing of the monk except the frock and the paternosters. It is Jean le Clope, who followed monsieur le marquis to the war, and for whom monsieur le marquis procured admission to the convent as a disabled veteran." ”

“ Of a Carmelite monk who came to preach at a village and after his sermon, he went to dine with a lady, and how he stuffed out his gown, as you will hear.
It is the custom of all countries for religious mendicants—Jacobins, Cordeliers, Carmelites, and Augustinians—to go through all the towns and villages, preaching against vice, and exalting and praising virtue.
It happened once that a Carmelite, from the convent of Arras, arrived one Sunday morning, at Libers, a pretty, little town of Artois, to preach—which he could do piously and eloquently, for he was a learned man and a good orator. ”

“ By conforming to most rigorous rules, they consider themselves suffering beings who deserve heavy recompense; and the Carmelite or Trappist sister, who macerates herself by the hair-shirt or the cilex, would look upon God as a false or wicked Being, if, after such cruel torment, He did not promptly open to her the gates of Paradise.
"Sire," added the Abbess de Fontevrault, "I have three nuns in my convent who take the Holy Communion every other day, and whom my predecessor could never bring herself to absolve for some old piece of nonsense of twenty years back." ”

“ The discovery had such an effect on me, that I spurned all idea of entering a convent where the rules were comparatively easy, as was the case at Anticaille, and determined, when I did take the veil, to enter an Order whose discipline was as severe as the discipline of La Trappe itself. Father Deveaux informed me that I should find exactly what I wanted among the Carmelite nuns ”

“ The people made songs, and told stories, about the luxury, the greed, the concupiscence, the license of the friars, but the convents remained, and the people continued to cling to the supposed sanctity of the place. A man who one day cursed the whole crew of monks, friars, and pardoners, the next day begged for a letter of fraternity, by which he might participate in the spiritual advantages of Carmelite or Augustine; he arranged for burial in the Convent Church; he would be buried in a friar’s robe; he would found a chantry, a trental, an obit, an anniversary. ”

“ In a comparatively short time the Ursulines spread over most of the Catholic countries of Europe, so that nearly all the most modern and best equipped schools for Catholic girls were in their hands. In 1639 they went to Canada where they opened the convent known as the Hotel-Dieu at Quebec, and in 1727 they settled in New Orleans.
St. Teresa [20] (1515-82) is the reformer rather than the foundress of the Carmelite nuns. Being anxious from an early age to follow her religious vocation, much against the wishes of her father she entered the convent of the Carmelite nuns at Avila (1535) . ”

“ Many strange legends had gone to weave round the Convent of the Carmelites—so long the centre of fashionable Catholicism—an atmosphere of romantic mystery.
Tradition taught that the order had been founded on the summit of Mount Carmel by Elias himself. Its earliest members were the mysterious Essenes, but they were converted to Christianity by Saint Peter’s Pentecostal sermon, and built on the mountain a chapel to the Blessed Virgin Mary, she herself becoming a member of their order. ”

“ In accordance with this desire, at the age of twenty years, she entered the convent of Carmelites, and chose as her life work the reforming of the order of Mount Carmel, as well as the establishment of a number of convents for men. ”

“ On each side of the choir and behind the gratings opening into the convent was assembled the whole community of the Carmelites, who listened to the divine service, and mingled their chant with the chant of the priests, without seeing the profane, or being seen by them. ”

“ I have seen a great deal of these monks lately, and it is only they who preserve some of the old spirit of the old ideal. To enter the Carmelite Chapel in Kensington is to step out of the mean atmosphere of to-day into the lofty charm of the Middle Ages. The long straight folds of habits falling over sandalled feet, the great rosaries hanging down from the girdles, the smell of burning wax, the large tonsures, the music of the choir ”

“ If the permission of our Holy Father must be obtained before a woman can enter a house of Saint Bruno [the Chartreux] the like rule exists here. It is impossible for any man to enter a convent of the Bare-footed Carmelites, unless he is a priest delegated by the archbishop for duty in the House. ”

“ Suddenly there arose from the depths of the chapel, from behind the inexorable grating, a sound that drew his attention from the altar—the sound of a strange, lugubrious chant uttered by women's voices. It began softly, but it presently grew louder, and as it increased it became more of a wail and a dirge. It was the chant of the Carmelite nuns, their only human utterance. It was their dirge over their buried affections and over the vanity of earthly desires. ”

“ Our conversation continued till near dinner-time; for I was so delighted, I scarcely knew how to snatch myself away: such a happy melange of piety and pleasantry, grave wisdom and humour, I had never met. At length, the Convent-bell tolling, I rose: he took me by the hand, and, in a tone of the most complacent admonition, said, “Remember, my child! as long as you live, remember 127the Convent of the Carmelites; and in the innumerable evils that certainly await you if you are to live long, the words you have heard from old Friar Augustine will afford you comfort.” ”

“ The historical origin of the Carmelites must be placed at the middle of the 12th century, when a crusader from Calabria, named Berthold, and ten companions established themselves as hermits near the cave of Elias on Mount Carmel. A Greek monk, Phocas, who visited the Holy Land in 1185, gives an account of them, and says that the ruins of an ancient building existed on Mount Carmel; but though it is likely enough that there had previously been Christian monks and hermits on the spot, it is impossible to place the beginning of the Carmelite institute before Berthold. ”

“ The convent of Mt. Carmel, as alluded to and described by travelers during the last five hundred years is to be understood as denoting not a single building, but a series of buildings, that have risen, flourished, and gone to decay on the same spot, in a long succession, like a dynasty of kings following each other in a line on the same throne. The grottos and caverns which are found upon the mountain began to be occupied at a very early period by hermits and solitary monks, who lived probably at first in a state of separation from each other as well as of seclusion from the world. ”

“ The earnest wishes of the saint are to this day carried out by faithful friars who, even through the terrible winter months, live at La Vernia, suffering privation and cold with cheerfulness. At midnight a bell calls them to sing matins in the chapel of the Stigmata connected with the convent by an open colonnade, down which the procession files, following a crucifix and lanterns. When the service has ceased, the monks flit like ghosts behind the altar while the lights are extinguished and in the gloom comes the sound of clashing chains. ”

“ You bare-footed Carmelites do well to mortify the flesh in youth, by which you escape the pains of a decreasing power. One like you can have few wrongs of his younger days to repair?"
"We are none of us without sin," returned the monk, crossing himself. "He who would flatter his soul with being perfect lays the additional weight of vanity on his life."
"Men of my occupation, holy Carmelite, have few opportunities of looking into themselves, and I bless the hour that hath brought me into company so godly. ”

“ During the 15th and 16th centuries various attempts at reform arose, as among other orders, and resulted in the formation of semi-independent congregations owing a titular obedience to the general of the order. The Carmelite friars seem to have flourished especially in England, where at the dissolution of the monasteries there were some 40 friaries. (See F.A. Gasquet, English Monastic Life, table and maps; Catholic Dictionary, art. “Carmelites.”) There were no Carmelite nunneries in England, and indeed until the middle of the 15th century there were no nuns at all anywhere in the order. ”

“ Women are now forbidden entrance into the choir, and so Mrs. Ambrose had to stay in the body of the church, while we, with other people who had come to see it, saw the rich high altar and many of the finest things. There are not many precious stones, like rubies, emeralds, &c., but a profusion of altar-fronts of Pietra-dura, beautiful alto relievos in marble, and many fine pictures. The convent is but lately reinhabited. Count Mellerio was the means of replacing monks there. They are all French. ”

“ The Discalced Carmelites spread rapidly all over Catholic Europe, and then to Spanish America and the East, especially India and Persia, in which lands they have carried on to this day extensive missionary undertakings. Both observances suffered severely from the various revolutions, but they both still exist, the Discalced being by far the most numerous and thriving. There are in all some 2000 Carmelite friars, and the nuns are much more numerous. In England and Ireland there are houses, both of men and of women, belonging to each observance. ”

“ The simple chaplain of Countess Carlotta lived alone in the convent, like a priest of silence, content with his meagre prebend, content to preach with might and main in the little church, to be called during the day to bless the beans, and at night to assist the dying, to cultivate the vine with his own hands ”

“ Carmel. The Basilians in reply alleged that the costume of the portrait was no innovation of theirs, and they were not responsible for it at all. The work, they said, was a faithful copy of an ancient painting that had hung for six hundred years, unquestioned and uncomplained of, in their former monastery, and that they could not give up the ancient traditions and relics of their institution; and they were especially unwilling to consent that the prophet Elijah should be represented in their church in a Carmelite dress, since that would prejudice the ancient claims of the Basilian order. ”