"In Nairobi, cloistered Carmelites give themselves to God in prayer"

By Barb Fraze
Catholic News Service

Photo: Sister Bernadette is among 16 sisters in a contemplative community at Mount Carmel Convent in Nairobi. (CNS/Nancy Wiechec)

NAIROBI, Kenya (CNS) -- For several of the cloistered Carmelite Sisters at Mount Carmel Convent, their life of prayer began in their families, when they were children.

"My dad taught me to pray for others," said Sister Bernadette, one of the younger sisters. She said her father told her he knew sisters who prayed for everyone, and she asked if they could pray for her, too. She said she began corresponding with the sisters and was drawn to their life of prayer.

Sister Constanza, who professed her final vows in January, said she attended Mass each morning because she did not live far from the local church. Each evening, her family gathered to pray the rosary and other evening prayers.

"I decided to give myself to the Lord for myself and for the salvation of souls," and the best way seemed to be contemplative life, she said.

In an interview with Catholic News Service Feb. 16, several of the sisters talked about the path that led them to nearly continuous prayer each day.

"I never dreamed of becoming a nun," said Sister Monica, who now serves as novice mistress for the order. In college, she met some Catholic students who began praying the rosary together, then attending daily Mass. One of the students wanted to become a Franciscan priest, and as he talked more about the saints, her interest grew.

She said she was filled with "a desire to belong to Christ."

Sister Regina, a young nun who works with aspirants, said her family prayed the rosary and intercessions every day.

"I came from a praying family," she said with a smile. She said she felt called to pray, "especially for priests."

Not all of the sisters are from Kenya. Sister Agnes, from India, said a friend of her sister was becoming a Carmelite, and "somehow that mystique of Carmel drew me very strongly."

The cloister was founded by Carmelites from Dublin in the mid-20th century. When the archbishop of Nairobi visited Cleveland, he asked the Carmelites there for help, and seven nuns and three postulants flew to Kenya in 1951.

The three postulants -- Margaret, Jean and Annamae -- remain, now as some of the oldest members of the order.

Sister Margaret, originally from Pittsburgh, said when she was a teenager, she had visited the Carmelites in Cleveland, and they invited her to go with them to Kenya. They "took a chance" and took her along, she said. Since then, she has only traveled home to be with her mother when she died.

She and Sister Agnes spoke of how much the area around the cloister has changed. Today, it has been built up and surrounded by affluent homes. When they arrived, they were the only building on the hill, and they could see Mounts Kenya and Kilimanjaro in different directions. Now the city is too built up to see far, they said.

The two were there during the eight-year Mau Mau Uprising that started in 1952, and the Mau Mau, a tribal group, had a hideout in the valley. Sister Agnes said one of the local priests talked to the Mau Mau, who promised never to trouble the sisters, because they were holy.

Today, when young women apply to join the order, the sisters require that they finish high school and begin some other course work, Sister Monica said.

"It gives them time to mature a bit," she said.

Sister Regina, who works with the aspirants, said she checks to see if candidates are "determined to live the life."

"Does she feel called because she has other things she is afraid to face or does she feel called because God is calling her?" she said.

An aspirant will join the sisters for three months to see if a contemplative life is something she really wants. The day begins with the prayers of the morning office at 5:20 and ends around 10 or 10:30 p.m. Other than a couple of hours of recreation, the day is spent in prayer. While the sisters work -- sewing vestments and altar linens, printing greeting cards and making Communion hosts -- they meditate. Meals, cooked by the sisters, are eaten in silence while one nun reads -- to nourish the soul.

The sisters pray for their own intentions -- pregnant women and mothers, priests, events in the world -- as well as intentions of those who ask, including Muslims, Hindus and Protestants.

Sister Bernadette said they prayed for Americans before the 2008 elections "because we have our American sisters."

"It's not just like we are here for Kenya," added Sister Regina.

Benedictines of Mary, Queen of Apostles groundbreaking on new convent

Kansas Catholic has a great post about the ground breaking for the Benedictines of Mary, Queen of the Apostles new convent. Too many pictures and captions to copy here. Please take the time to visit and enjoy the post HERE.

An Interview with Mother Dolores Hart

From Catholic Exchange.com
By Barbara Middleton

Once an in-demand Hollywood actress, Dolores Hart shocked the entertainment industry when she gave up everything to become a cloistered Benedictine Roman Catholic nun. She left her career, broke off her engagement to Los Angeles businessman Don Robinson, and pursued her vocation as a nun.

Mother Dolores’ career started in 1956 at the age of 18 years. Early on, her career took off as she played the love interest to Elvis Presley in the 1957 release Loving You. After this appearance, Dolores found herself in frequent demand, and she made two more films before playing with Presley again in 1958’s King Creole. She then debuted on Broadway, winning a 1959 Theatre World Award as well as a Tony Award nomination for Best Featured Actress for her role in The Pleasure of His Company. In 1960, Dolores starred in Where the Boys Are, a teenage comedy about college students on spring break which developed a near cult-like following.

Dolores Hart went on to star in four more films, including the lead role in Lisa which was based a novel by Jan de Hartog and nominated for a Golden Globe for “Best Picture - Drama”. She was considered one of Hollywood’s rising stars and was cast for roles in Wild is the Wind, The Plunderers, Francis of Assisi, Sail a Crooked Ship and Lonelyhearts, with Montgomery Clift. Her last role was opposite Hugh O’Brian in 1963’s Come Fly with Me.

Barbara Middleton: When did you receive the call from Paramount Studios?

Mother Dolores: In the middle of charm class, at Marymount, I received a call from Paramount studios! It was the associate producer of Hal Wallis and he wanted me to come to Paramount for a meeting. The teacher didn’t want me to take the call — she thought it was a sham. I took the call.

They wanted to meet me that afternoon, maybe in a half hour, at Paramount. Indeed, I wanted to meet them, too. My friend, Don Barbeau, came to pick me up in a 1938 hearse. I had on my letter sweater and socks and went to see Mr. Hal Wallis. He asked me, “What do you want to do with your life?”

I responded quickly and said, “I want to be an actress.”

“We’re doing a picture with Mr. Presley and we want you to start next week.” I didn’t even know who Elvis Presley was but the next week were the final tests at school. I said, “Does it have to be next week?” His reply, “Yes, it does!”

Mother Gabriel, the Dean of girls, came to see me and told me, “Kids in the drama school want an opportunity like what you’re going for. Dolores this is the big one. Go for it!” I said, “Okay, okay!” I took her advice, did the screen test and got the part.

The cameraman asked, “Miss Hart, who taught you technique on film? Where did you go to school?”

“I never went to school for such.”

“You certainly know what to do.”

Finally the call came and I would start filming with Mr. Presley. I met with Wallie Westmore for make up and Edith Head to design my wardrobe for the movie Loving You.

Barbara Middleton: I know you play the clarinet. Did you play the clarinet for Elvis?

Mother Dolores: Well, two years later, I did another picture with Elvis Presley. Jan Shepherd played Elvis’ sister in the film. It was her birthday and we had a party for her at my house. Elvis came to the birthday party. I played the clarinet and Elvis sat down and played the piano. We played a few tunes for Jan’s birthday. He was quite a gentleman — a quality of simplicity, humor, and shyness about him. It was very much his persona at that time.

When we were making King Creole, he had so many people after him — you couldn’t walk through the streets in New Orleans. It was like a circus. You would not believe the crowds. Policemen were everywhere. We had to go to hotel rooms to wait in between scenes. When we finally got to the site, we were ushered into the elevator, [and] in the hotel rooms. There would be boards built from one hotel to another. We crossed over to another hotel and would go down the elevator and enter another room. They’d bring us sandwiches. Elvis would open the Gideon Bible, as that was the version placed in the hotel rooms. Whatever passage he’d open it to, we would talk about it. He would ask me, “What do you think of this passage?”

Barbara Middleton: How did you happen to come to visit the Abbey?

Mother Dolores: In 1959, I was in a play in New York, The Pleasure of His Company. A friend invited me to meet some nuns and she said, “They are very special. I exclaimed, “NUNS! No, I don’t want to meet nuns.”

But my friend said, “Did I ever steer you wrong?” and I said, “No.” So, I came to Regina Laudis — after a few hours here, it has a definite call. You feel you’re in a special place. Well, after the first visit, I kept coming back in between shows. Eventually, I asked the Reverend Mother if she thought I had a vocation. She said, “No, no; go back and do your movie thing. You’re too young.”

I did, and then did some more films: Where the Boys Are and St. Francis of Assisi which took me to Rome. I met Pope John XXIII and he was very instrumental in helping me form my ideas about a vocation. When I was introduced to the Pope, I said, “I am Dolores Hart, the actress playing Clara.” He said, “NO, you are Clara! (”Tu sei Chiara” — in Italian). Thinking he had misunderstood me, I said, “No, I am Dolores Hart, an actress portraying Clara.” Pope John XXIII looked me square in the eye and stated, “NO. You are Clara!” His statement stayed with me and rang in my ears many times.

Barbara Middleton: Reverend Mother, would you please tell us about your engagement before entering the Abbey?

Mother Dolores: A very wonderful experience for Don Robison and [me]. He had a feeling that I might have a “calling.” He wanted to try the engagement: “Let’s give this a try.” Several days went by and we were driving down the road when he stopped the car. Don said, “Something isn’t right. Do you love me?”

“Of course, Don, I love you.” He asked again, and then said, “Something in you is not with me.”

When I returned home at 1 a.m., I called and got a flight for 6 a.m. to Regina Laudis. God is far from all of us until we get into the reality of ourselves. I finally came to say — in my heart more than anything and then openly to myself: “My search for God was a marital search.”

When I spoke to Don again — he knew, because a man knows — every human being knows when something is real. We were at supper and I didn’t have my ring on. Don said, “I know…I’ve known it. This is what you’ve got to do and I’ve got to do this with you. We’ve got to do this together.”

That was an amazing gift — and all these years he’s been like that. Don says, “Every love doesn’t have to wind up at the altar.”

Many relationships can wind up a lot worse. He never married. Don comes every year at Christmas and Easter. He wants to do whatever he can for the community.

Barbara Middleton: If you had to do it again, would you do it?

Mother Dolores: I would hope I would have the courage to do it again. My vocation has been most fulfilling and gratifying.”

Barbara Middleton: You walked away from Hollywood. Why?

Mother Dolores: I never considered my decision as “walking away from Hollywood,” Barbara. I felt it was more — walking into something more significant and by that, I took Hollywood with me. I really loved my work and the people I worked with. [Mother Dolores is still a voting member of the Academy.]

"Cheery nun lifts the veil on life in a monastery"

From Ventura County Star

By Eric Parsons

Sunday, March 23, 2008

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VIDEO BELOW

I had expected to witness the culture clash of this new century at St. Mary Magdalen School last week.

It would be a spiritual smackdown between a woman of the old world and the children of a wired age.

I figured the pace of life Mother Maria Esperanza Jose de Sagrada Familia had chosen simply would not compute with children of an age in which instant gratification takes too long.

Mother Maria Esperanza not only is a nun but she is also a cloistered sister. Her job description: Pray. Her hobby: Pray. Her ambition: Pray some more. Mother Maria Esperanza has devoted the last 54 years to the contemplative life in a Dominican monastery in Guadalajara, Mexico.

The bishop granted her permission to leave the confines of the convent for 22 days so she can visit her 92-year-old mother, who is hospitalized in Los Angeles. It is the first time in more than a half century that the stoic nun has been away from the convent for Easter.

She came to the Camarillo parochial school for show and tell at the invitation of her niece Sophia Rodriguez, a second-grader at St. Mary Magdalen.

Once upon a time in a Catholic grade school, there would be a nun stationed at every chalkboard. But taking the veil has become far less of a habit for girls these days. In February the Vatican announced the number of nuns had fallen 10 percent in a single year of this new century. At the beginning of 2005, those living "the consecrated life," in the Vatican's words, numbered well over 1 million. By the end of 2006, their ranks had fallen to 945,210. The number of women entering the religious life is not keeping up with the number going to their reward or leaving under their own power.

Mother Maria Esperanza entered the Monasterio de Jesus Maria in 1954. For the first 20 years after she took the veil, she never left the monastery walls.

When she emerged, the world was a frightening place, she said. And it wasn't just those '70s disco fashions.

She saw poverty, starvation, deprivation. She saw stress in the faces of people trying to keep body and soul together.

"The convent is a little bubble of happiness," she told me in her native Spanish.

It's her Disneyland, her niece Petula Rodriguez explains. Mother Maria Esperanza, who speaks little English, nods in agreement. Note to Disneyland's marketeers: Ask boss for raise; even a cloistered sister knows about the amusement park.

And at least for Mother Maria Esperanza, her lifestyle appears better than Botox. She is 68 and her face carries little evidence of worry. And when her hands emerge from the pockets of her habit, they are strong and animated.

Last Wednesday, she was a nun on the run as she dashed from classroom to classroom.

Although she spends several hours in silence on a typical day at the convent, she was positively chatty.

(Photo at left: Rosa Placencia, left, watches as her sister, Mother Maria Esperanza, center, hugs her 7-year-old niece Sophia Rodriguez at Mary Magdalen School on Wednesday morning.)

Mother Maria Esperanza's calling, she told the students, came and went throughout her youth. At 15, and against her family's wishes, she entered the monastery. Today, she explains, a girl must be 18 to become a novitiate.

Mother Maria Esperanza had surprises up her wide, white sleeves. Thinking I knew the answer, I asked her if she had been on the Internet. She grabbed a pen and pad of paper to jot down her e-mail address. It seems as a mother superior she uses it to communicate with her peers at other monasteries. The order also provides her with online religious training videos.

And television? Sure, she watches it. But not for the reason most do — which is to second-guess the "American Idol" judges.

She watches only the news and then prays for all the people she sees on the screen, particularly the soldiers in Iraq and the politicians.

Mother Maria Esperanza volunteers if she had not become a nun she would have liked to go into politics.

I asked her if she knows Hillary Clinton.

Oh, yes, she nods. "I know her, and I pray for her."

That may be the best endorsement the presidential hopeful may ever get.

And me of little faith. Instead of zoning her out, the kids engaged. Hands shot up to ask her questions. In most cases, there were more questions than time to answer them.

And she connected so strongly, one little boy gave her Mexican coins so she could help the poor.

She wanted more, she confided. She hoped to plant the seeds so that even one girl would feel the pull of religious life.

To a Sister Maria Esperanza Jose de Sagrada Familia — a woman whose middle name is in fact hope — it is not out of the realm of possibility that the same hands that program digital devices also can pray the rosary.

God's "Housewife"

From an article in the Archdiocese of Miami's "Floriday Catholic":

God's "Housewife"
Colombian native becomes first Miamian to enter cloistered order of
Discalced Carmelites
By ANA RODRIGUEZ-SOTO - HIALEAH

ANA RODRIGUEZ-SOTO FC
Sister Anita enters the chapel where she will profess temporary vows to the Discalced Carmelite Sisters, a contemplative order.


At a time when vocations to the religious life are rare, Ana Carolina Bernal felt called to the rarest — to become a cloistered nun.

From now on, Bernal will be known as Sister Anita del Corazón Misericordioso (Sister Anita of the Merciful Heart).

She will live with 8 other Discalced Carmelite Sisters in the Monastery of the Most Holy Trinity on the grounds of Immaculate Conception Parish in Hialeah.

She will spend all of her days in prayer, leaving the convent only on rare occasions, and greeting visitors, including her family, through a grille.

“It is a life with God. It is a total surrender,” said the 28-year-old Colombia native, who is the first local vocation for the order.

If Bernal’s vocation is rare, it seems even more so considering her background. The youngest of three children, and the only girl, she came to the United States at age 9 and graduated from Coral Gables Senior High School before earning a psychology degree from Florida International University.

ANA RODRIGUEZ-SOTO FC
Behind the partition that separates the Discalced Carmelites from the world, Sister Anita professes temporal vows to her superior, Mother Alba Mery de Jesus.

While in college, she began attending prayer groups and taking courses with the Siervos de Cristo Vivo (Servants of the Living Christ), a lay association founded by the late Father Emiliano Tardif. Little by little, she became more and more involved in the life of the church.
“I was very attracted to the Blessed Sacrament, to the Eucharist,” Sister Anita said.

‘It is a life with God. It is a total surrender.’
Sister Anita del Corazón Misericordioso

Then she found out about the existence of the cloistered Carmelites and stopped by for a visit. She says she did not think much of them at first, but “a restlessness inside me urged me to return.”

ANA RODRIGUEZ-SOTO FC
Sister Anita reflects after receiving the symbols of her profession -- a crown of flowers symbolizing her espousal to Christ, a book containing the rules and constitution of the Discalced Carmelites, and a crucifix.

She started attending classes they offered every Saturday, and “felt God calling me more.”

In 2004, the Carmelites invited her to experience their lifestyle for three months.

“She stayed,” said her brother, Jose Bernal, a realtor in Raleigh, N.C., which is where their parents also live.

“I kind of suspected” she had a vocation, Bernal said, but like his parents, he was surprised his sister had been called to a life of prayer and contemplation.

“We were surprised because in this day and age it is so difficult for a young professional to enter a cloistered convent,” said Lucila Bernal, Sister Anita’s mom.

“She looks happy. No one has seen her bored yet,” said her aunt, Cecilia Aranzazu, who along with Sister Anita’s parents, brother and other relatives was present Dec. 12 for her profession of vows.

She already has spent one year as a postulant and two as a novice with the Discalced Carmelites. These first, or temporal, vows are for another three years, after which she can make her perpetual profession.

“I felt that I had to love God with all my heart. I had to be everything for him,” Sister Anita said of her vocation.

She compared the life of cloistered nuns to that of active religious by saying, “They dedicate themselves to the people. We dedicate ourselves exclusively to God. We’re like the housewives of God.”

ANA RODRIGUEZ-SOTO FC
Sister Anita stands behind the grille that now separates her from the world. She is committed to spending the rest of her life in constant prayer as a member of the contemplative order of Discalced Carmelites.


ANA RODRIGUEZ-SOTO FC
Separated by a grille, Sister Anita chats with relatives after her profession of vows.

FIND OUT MORE

The Discalced Carmelite Sisters arrived in Miami from their native Mexico in October 2001 at the invitation of Archbishop John C. Favalora.

He asked them to pray especially for the needs of the people of the archdiocese, for more vocations to the priesthood and religious life, and for the success of local pro-life efforts.

Currently housed at the former Mercy Convent on the grounds of Immaculate Conception Parish in Hialeah, the sisters are planning to move to a larger facility, the former Rader Memorial United Methodist Church in Miami Shores, as soon as it is refurbished to meet their needs — and as soon as they have raised the $2.5 million needed to pay for the refurbishing.

In addition to newly-professed Sister Anita del Corazón Misericordioso, the Discalced Carmelites have another young woman, a native of Nicaragua, entering as a postulant in January.

The group’s current superior, Mother Alba Mery de Jesús, attributes the vocations to “the mercy of the Lord. We do not promote ourselves, but somehow each one of us managed to get here.”