The Monastic Family Of Bethlehem Nuns

[NonNovi]

They're Carthusian habit's aren't they?

 

Yes, they are. Wich is a bit weird because these are sisters wearing the male Carthusian habit (but with veil underneath)...

[beatitude]

NonNovi, some nuns do wear the cowl. It isn't exclusively a male thing.

 

 

Chiquitunga, I'm so jealous you did an Evangelical month with them! I visited them at Montvoirons this fall and I was so intending to do the month this summer but, well, God had other plans.

The community's liturgy is both Eastern and Western: their masses are Roman Rite (in the local language), and their office is Eastern Rite (Byzantine, if I remember correctly, and also in the local language). Lots and lots and lots of incense and bells, and the sisters run around kissing icons.

They do eat a lot of bread and vegetables, but they eat other things, too: rice and potatoes and whatever's in season and/or donated. Where I visited there was meat in some of the dishes, and fruit at some meals, and sometimes dessert. It was typical French monastery fare.

 

If I were called to religious life I would be with these sisters in a heartbeat. :( Sometimes reading all this makes me wistful that I don't have that call. But I discerned pretty thoroughly, and I think I discerned well. It's a case of 'greener pastures' syndrome with me, I think.

[Chiquitunga]

Chiqui, are you coming to my neck of the woods? I'd love to meet you. Since I can't PM anyone, you can email me at slevami at yahoo dot com if you want.

Thank you so much! I'm not sure when exactly yet, or even if. I'll email you to let you know. Pray for me, if it's God's will :pray: I'm researching this lots.. :bible:

Thank you Chiqui. <3 I loved those photos and I was so sad when I lost the book. It was a gift from a friend who has since died, and it was the last memento I had of her.

 

Antigonos, they are Carmelite, French in origin, with a very interesting history in the Holy Land - they were founded from the Carmel at Pau, but by a local saint who was born at Ibilin in Galilee, Maryam Baouardy. There are stories about her to rival the stories of St Teresa, including one quite charming one in which she levitated to the top of a tree and left her sandals behind. She wrote some beautiful mystical devotional poetry, which is pretty remarkable considering that she was thought to be too slow and poor at basic literacy to be a choir nun. She was a lay sister, and to my knowledge, she is the only lay Carmelite nun to have been beatified.

 

Just posted about her in the Carmelite thread bc of our conversation on all of this here :proud: It's so neat you've been there! and are living in the Holy Land now! Wow! Did you talk with the nuns at Bethlehem Carmel? They often let people wear Blessed Mariam's mantle actually. The seminarians I know got to as well as a lay woman I know. In the second music video here from Holy Land Sounds she does too.

 

Bethlehem Carmel & Blessed Mariam of Jesus Crucified "The Little Arab"  http://www.mysticsofthechurch.com/2010/07/blessed-mariam-baouardy-little-arab-and.html

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uXr6uBqtQXM

 

 

http://youtu.be/M3xyj0peLnI

 

a little about The Holy Land Sounds - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tzOx3SVglS0

 

& the book Mariam "The Little Arab" is available from the Carmel of Maria Regina for $8  :like: http://aquerofoundation.com/id19.html Their Mother Foundress, http://aquerofoundation.com/id2.html  translated it into English, along with a number of other Carmelite writings from French.

 

http://www.carmelholyland.org