Hi pham,

Apparently I'm meeting the Carmelites DCJ again on January 2nd... If anyone has any questions for them you could post them here and I'll post the answers they give me!

They have a very informative site with blogs by the current candidates, but unfortunately it's all in Dutch, which I don't believe many Phatmassers speak...

The only questions I have is for you VA Do you feel a bit of tug in their direction???

Oh, everyone and their tugs

I don't know. I honestly don't know. I do know that the Carmelite spirituality as it's been presented during the weekend I spent there three weeks ago appeals to me, but that's something everybody can live by - you don't have to become a Carmelite nun for it!

I also know that I honestly do like the sisters and current candidates. I've also dreamed (vividly) about being a postulant. But I really don't know whether this is specific to the Carmelites DCJ, or the religious life in general...

Sr. Elvira Maria, the vocations directress, is wonderful, and really wants to help girls with finding their vocations, whether it'd be with her community or something entirely different, so I think I'll be seeing quite a lot of her in the future.

its not that hard to figure it out in dutch!!!! I know how to spel 2 words total....but saying it is another....thing....it was weird seeing 2 Sisters talk in dutch when i visited with rachel over a yr ago!!!

other than that...have fun!!!

obtw,
who is the novice mistress there??? jw!!!!

I hope that all goes well during your visit......You will know whether you are being called to be a Carmellite... God Bless

Thank you, Jennirom!

Sixtina: I do believe it's Sister Elvira Maria, if you visited you MUST have seen her. She's in charge of the candidates and there are currently no postulants or novices, so I think she's the novice mistress. I'll ask her to make sure.

i visited the St. Louis providence......there were some people visiting from the Netherlands during my visit...it was kewl talking to them and trying to understand the language....but it didn't work out....too bad though!!!!

Enjoy your visit!!!

Okay, I'm back! It was wonderful For anyone interested, there will be a new "discernment weekend", in The House That Is Not The Motherhouse in the Netherlands (there are two houses here).

The sisters at Vogelenzang are so sweet. They're all elderly, so they have what they call "especially holy hour" after lunch - in which they all go to their cells and sleep

Oh, Catholic Anonymous - I asked Sr. Elvira Maria, and she told me that the Carmelites DCJ in Berlin have a home for the mentally ill!

(I say you can come to the Motherhouse for your formation, they speak German there, and I bet Sr. Maris Stella and M. Angelina wouldn't mind another English speaker! :P)

When Sr. Elvira Maria was a postulant, she promised her community 5 more postulants! Currently it seems that she'll make it - there will probably be three girls starting postulancy in September!

And yet again - the Sisters started measuring me up for the habit. AGAIN. Mind you, these are DIFFERENT Sisters (except for two). There's a sister visiting from Croatia to make all the sisters in Vogelenzang new habits (she gave a show on "how to make 15 full-length scapulars in one afternoon" during lunch). She disagreed with the seamstress in Sittard: apparently I wouldn't need two bundles of cloth because I might be 6'5", but I'm quite slim, so she could use half-width cloth (the technicalities were beyond me). After which I blushed my head off.

And of course, when we visited the nearby seminary and the rector provided us with chocolates (how to keep sisters blissfully happy section 2) everyone said "are you sure you should take one? You wouldn't want to grow out of your habit..." which repeated at dinner.

The sisters are, in my non-expert opinion, quite strict in their observances (don't even think for a second that Sr. EM would put off praying the Stations of the Cross until she's home because she's working her apostolate from 5 in the morning until 11 in the evening - she just parked us in Chapel with another sister (professed for 64 years)!) but they do love to party. My view must be quite askew because every time I'm allowed near is more or less "a party", but they did wish Rome didn't keep grade down half their Solemnities

I still don't know whether there's any tugging going on. I'm afraid that I might mistake my affection for the sisters and the current pre-postulants for a tug, which won't do, of course. I will go on a longer retreat with them sometime during this year - that should tell me more.

I do think that if I turn out to be Carmelite material they'd better have a HUGE library - all those meditation hours!

soud slike you had a wonderful visit....good luck with everything.....thanks for sharing with us your experience......

You seem to have had a lovely time with the Sisters....I am so happy for you V A ....... Are they trying to tell you something when they keep measuring you for the habit.? I'm so glad that you won't require as much material !!!.I am sure that you will be guided on your community as you continue your discernment. God Bless you and a Very Happy New Year.

Thank you, Sixtina and Jennirom!

Jennirom: they're probably only teasing me - they're like that!

I do think now that they've got three candidates the older sisters are a lot more comfortable with talking to girls about entering...

Oh, how wonderful! I speak a bit of German, but I dropped the subject at the earliest possible opportunity and concentrated on French and Latin instead. I wanted to study it further, but I was terrified of the teacher who took the advanced students. He used to shout really loudly, and without warning. I was a nervous wreck whenever he filled in for absent teachers.

The Carmelites DCJ in America told me to ask for Sister M. Benedicta if I wrote to the Motherhouse in Holland. Did you meet her? Presumably she speaks English.

If you see them again, could you ask what the chances of them ever making a foundation in England are? According to my priest, the Bishop of East Anglia is currently desperate for more religious in the diocese. (At the moment we don't have many.) Perhaps the DCJ sisters could fill the gap.

Oh, I had one of those teachers too. That's why I dropped Latin, although I quite liked it... but we had only one classical languages teacher at our school and I knew I wouldn't "survive" four more years of her!

Sr. Maris Stella came from St. Louis about a year and a bit ago, I believe, and now understands German and Dutch, and speaks German. While the community keeps mostly silent! I thought that quite impressive.



I probably saw her since we joined all the sisters in feast recreation, but didn't speak to her.

I will ask, but the answer will probably be they'll only do something if the bishop comes to invite them! At the moment "my" Bishop in Haarlem is trying to get Sr. Elvira Maria to move to the convent in Vogelenzang because she's doing such a tremendous amount of good work (answering 300 e-mails a month... Lord!) but since there's only one of her and our Mother the Church does not condone cloning he'll have to wait for the current postulants to perpetually profess, at least.