Carmelite Nuns, Christoval, Texas

[ACS67]

http://www.carmelites.net/video/going-deep-with-the-carmelite-sisters-in-christoval-texas/

 

Beautiful video about the O. Carm nuns (one nun in particular) in Christoval, TX. 

 

(Sorry I don't know how to embed the video). 

[inperpetuity]

Thank you ACS6!  Great video.

[ACS67]

I thought it was nicely done.  It is apparently a very unique monastery in that each cell is it's own separate little building, almost as if each sister has her own little hermitage.  I will be visiting these sisters July 23-29.  If allowed, I will take pictures and post a few, with their permission of course. 

[Jennifer]

Lovely thank you for sharing this video.

[Jennifer]

Lovely ...............................                    thank you for sharing this video.

[Chiquitunga]

Really beautiful, ACS!!! Thank you for sharing! & that is wonderful you are visiting them this week! :pray:

[ACS67]

Thank you Chiqui.  I am very excited.  Please pray for me!  :) 

[ACS67]

I just returned today from my visit with the Carmelite Nuns in Christoval, Texas.  It was absolutely beautiful there.  They are on 100 acres of "desert"...West Texas desert.  The silence is THICK and the monastery is beautiful.  I will post pictures as soon as I download them from my camera. 

 

I cannot recommend this community enough for all those discerning a Carmelite vocation, but especially if you are an "older/belated" vocation. They have not had the best of luck with younger postulants.  The younger ones do not persevere for whatever reason.  It is tough out there, like any Carmel really, but the weather out there can be brutal if you are not use to it.  I live in Oklahoma so it was not that much of a difference.  They do have air conditioning but there is a lot of outdoor work to be done.  They have individual little "cottages/hermitages" for their cells.  They are so cute on the outside but when you see the inside they are quite stark.  There is only a mattress on a thin wooden plank, a desk, a wardrobe/closet, a toilet and shower, and a kneeler (I can't remember the official word).  That's it.  The floor is cold granite. It is very barren as you would expect in a Carmelite cell.  But the view out your window is...oh!  Beautiful.  There is a lot of wildlife out there.  Their "neighbor" (a few miles away) is a rancher and his cattle herd grazes on the Sister's land.  You will also see llamas and goats along with plenty of deer, foxes and rattlesnakes!   

 

I am now planning to go through the application process to be admitted as a postulant.  That will not take place until at least next year as I have a $3300 student loan to clear and my apartment lease is not up until May.  Please keep me in your prayers as I continue on this journey. 

[OnlySunshine]

I just returned today from my visit with the Carmelite Nuns in Christoval, Texas.  It was absolutely beautiful there.  They are on 100 acres of "desert"...West Texas desert.  The silence is THICK and the monastery is beautiful.  I will post pictures as soon as I download them from my camera. 

 

I cannot recommend this community enough for all those discerning a Carmelite vocation, but especially if you are an "older/belated" vocation. They have not had the best of luck with younger postulants.  The younger ones do not persevere for whatever reason.  It is tough out there, like any Carmel really, but the weather out there can be brutal if you are not use to it.  I live in Oklahoma so it was not that much of a difference.  They do have air conditioning but there is a lot of outdoor work to be done.  They have individual little "cottages/hermitages" for their cells.  They are so cute on the outside but when you see the inside they are quite stark.  There is only a mattress on a thin wooden plank, a desk, a wardrobe/closet, a toilet and shower, and a kneeler (I can't remember the official word).  That's it.  The floor is cold granite. It is very barren as you would expect in a Carmelite cell.  But the view out your window is...oh!  Beautiful.  There is a lot of wildlife out there.  Their "neighbor" (a few miles away) is a rancher and his cattle herd grazes on the Sister's land.  You will also see llamas and goats along with plenty of deer, foxes and rattlesnakes!   

 

I am now planning to go through the application process to be admitted as a postulant.  That will not take place until at least next year as I have a $3300 student loan to clear and my apartment lease is not up until May.  Please keep me in your prayers as I continue on this journey. 

 

Praise God!  So happy to hear you have found the place you want to apply!!!  :woot:

 

Prayers that your student loans will be cleared by the time your apartment lease is up! 

 

Also, I believe the kneeler is called a prie-dieu.  ;)

[Chiquitunga]

So wonderful!! I'm very happy happy for you, ACS!!! Their monastic life sounds beautiful... & again, I really love that video. I love that they have hermitages too, like the first hermits on Mt. Carmel. They have wonderful hermit brothers & a priest near them too. Prayers that all will work out with the debt. :pray:

[ACS67]

I'm not sure how to post pictures here so I have uploaded a few on my blog.  If you click on the picture they enlarge.

 

http://lovealwayscorinne.wordpress.com/2013/07/30/our-lady-of-grace-monastery/

 

I could not take pictures of the cloister, for obvious reasons.  I was only allowed back there on the Sunday before I left and even then I was only given a brief tour of the outside and also one of the empty hermitages/cells.  They have an huge bronze statue of St. Therese in their cloister yard.  It's beautiful. 

[Feankie]

The pictures are lovely! How exciting for you to begin the entrance process.  But rattlesnakes?! I get semi-hystrical when I see a garden snake ;)  I wouldn't make it 5 minutes there as i'd be constantly scanning for snakes. But if you're an Oklahoma girl, w e l l .....I think you'll do just fine  

[Totally Franciscan]

It is wonderful to see your photos of the monastery.  The chapel is beautiful!  Thanks for posting.  I am very happy you are discerning with this community.  May God bless you abundantly!

[Pia Jesu]

Like the others, I'm SO happy for you, ACS67!  The video and blog pic's were awesome.  Do you find much

difference between  the OCD's and O.Carm communities in practices, etc.?  The professed sisters of the

Port Tobacco, MD Carmelites have individual hermitages--while those in formation live together in a novitiate

house.  http://www.carmelofporttobacco.com  I remember reading an article about how they had to shovel

snow paths to get from their hermitages to the chapel and other buildings.  The land and chapel of your Texas

Carmelites reminds me a lot of Spain--and Holy St. Teresa of Avila!

God bless you!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[ACS67]

Thank you all for the well wishes.  I appreciate it. 

 

Pia,

I was actually surprised how little difference there was between OCD and O. Carm., from what I know that is, which isn't a whole lot.   Of course the OCD's of the 1990 constitutions would be quite a bit more strict in some of their practices.  But overall the O.Carm's celebrated the same saints and feasts days as the OCDs.  Some Saint's feast days were considered "optional" or perhaps a feast day was a solemnity in the O.Carm but only a memorial in the OCD's and vice versa.  They share the same Carmelite supplement to the breviary as the OCD's (perhaps the OCDs of the 1991 constitutions).  The chapel at Christoval obviously has a tremendous devotion to St. Therese as there is a statue of her in their cloister garden and in the visitor's chapel. They sing a lot of their hymns in Latin at Christoval which I enjoyed very much.  The monastery in North Dakota is their motherhouse. 

[Totally Franciscan]

Okay, now I am confused.  You said that the monastery in North Dakota is the motherhouse for the nuns in Texas?  How does that work?  If you are accepted for admission to the postulancy in Texas, do they send you to ND?  Wait, I think I understand.  You mean that the Texas monastery is a daughter house to the one in ND, right?  I am a bit slow today; so sorry!

[ACS67]

Okay, now I am confused.  You said that the monastery in North Dakota is the motherhouse for the nuns in Texas?  How does that work?  If you are accepted for admission to the postulancy in Texas, do they send you to ND?  Wait, I think I understand.  You mean that the Texas monastery is a daughter house to the one in ND, right?  I am a bit slow today; so sorry!

Yes.  The monastery in Christoval is the daughter house of the North Dakota monastery.  They will remain under North Dakota until they have 8 solemnly professed sisters.  Then they will be autonomous.  The O.Carms only have 4 monasteries throughout the USA.  That's not much considering how many the OCDs have. 

[Chiquitunga]

Thank you all for the well wishes.  I appreciate it. 

 

Pia,

I was actually surprised how little difference there was between OCD and O. Carm., from what I know that is, which isn't a whole lot.   Of course the OCD's of the 1990 constitutions would be quite a bit more strict in some of their practices.  But overall the O.Carm's celebrated the same saints and feasts days as the OCDs.  Some Saint's feast days were considered "optional" or perhaps a feast day was a solemnity in the O.Carm but only a memorial in the OCD's and vice versa.  They share the same Carmelite supplement to the breviary as the OCD's (perhaps the OCDs of the 1991 constitutions).  The chapel at Christoval obviously has a tremendous devotion to St. Therese as there is a statue of her in their cloister garden and in the visitor's chapel. They sing a lot of their hymns in Latin at Christoval which I enjoyed very much.  The monastery in North Dakota is their motherhouse. 

 

They sound beautiful! And I didn't realize they were still officially under ND. The OCD Carmels that use the Liturgy of the Hours (either Latin or the vernacular) would use the same OCD/O.Carm. Supplement, whichever Constitutions they are under :like:

[ACS67]

They sound beautiful! And I didn't realize they were still officially under ND. The OCD Carmels that use the Liturgy of the Hours (either Latin or the vernacular) would use the same OCD/O.Carm. Supplement, whichever Constitutions they are under :like:

I don't think they expected to still be under North Dakota at this time either.  They have had a hard time with vocations. They get vocations and they seem to stay through postulancy but they just don't seem to make it through the canonical year, when communication is restricted.   Maybe the isolation really starts to get to them by that point (It might get to me, who knows! God forbid) because the cells are very "hermit-like"...the silence is "loud" and there are sometimes no visitors for days.  That's just my guess, however. 

 

San Angelo, their diocese, is very small and the Catholic Church is not the majority in town, the Baptist are.  Christoval is about 40-45 minutes from San Angelo so it is a good drive for anyone to come out there even from San Angelo.  But the faithful who do support them are so very generous.  They are just fantastic. 

 

The chaplain is a former Trappist monk.  He is now a diocesan hermit on their property.  I got to meet and speak with him about my vocation and he was fantastic!  It's nice to have him on the property.  He is usually the one who kills the rattlesnakes! :) He's a pretty burly guy!  He can handle himself! :) I learned that a chaplain cannot be a confessor of a monastery.  I never knew that.  So every 2 weeks another priest comes in to hear confessions.  The chaplain cannot even be their spiritual director.  Again, I never knew that.  Interesting.  So basically Fr. Anthony just says Mass and does all the "manly work" that the women can't do...like shooting rattlesnakes! LOL! By the way, I didn't actually see any rattlesnakes.  They say they come out more when it rains, which it rarely does.  But they are out there. 

 

I did meet the nun in the video above, Sr. Theodore.  She was so great!  We really hit it off.  She is a former executive with Dell computers!  She is the type of vocation that the Abbey of Regina Laudis would get! I just loved her.  I loved all of them.  Their fidelity is amazing.  One Sister has been a nun for 68 years, another for 52, and another for 45.  That to me is just beautiful.  Oh, and they all had wedding rings (except Sr. Theodore, she is only temporary professed) and consider themselves "brides of Christ!"  I specifically asked that question! LOL!  :)

[Benedictus]

Thanks for sharing!  Sister Mary Theodore Therese seemed adorable :nun3: I hope your discernment with them progresses well  :saint2:

Edited July 30, 2013 by Benedictus