Hidden Maryland: Baltimore Carmelite Monastery
The third installment of Hidden Maryland heads to Baltimore Carmelite Monastery, where 18 sisters from all walks of life garden, share meals, and cheer Baltimore sports teams in between devoting their lives to prayer.
- Sister Constance (Connie) FitzGerald walks by a stained glass window of Our Lady of Mount Carmel. The window was moved from the old monastery on Biddle Street to Baltimore Carmel’s current location in Towson. A date on the window reads Oct. 15, 1897. (Kim Hairston/Baltimore Sun)
- Sr. Mary Fleig, 49, clears brush on the grounds of the Baltimore Carmelite Monastery. Said Fleig: “You don’t always get to see the results of prayer. Here, you work for a while, and the weeds are gone. That’s a blessing, too.” (Kim Hairston/Baltimore Sun Photo)
- Sr. Leah Hargis (left) and other Carmelite nuns are shown during Vespers, the sunset evening prayer service. (Kim Hairston/Baltimore Sun Photo)
- Sister Veronica Emmick (left) and Cecilia Ashton, a postulant, walk the grounds. One of 65 Carmelite monasteries in the nation, Baltimore Carmel houses 18 nuns and two postulants (community members-in-training), women ranging in age from 33 to 93. Their ex-professions include dentistry, nursing, education and the law. (Kim Hairston/Baltimore Sun Photo)
- Sister Constance (Connie) FitzGerald, sprinkles holy water on Cecilia Ashton, a postulant, during the last part of Vespers in the chapel. “There’s a connection between prayer and people’s lives,” Sr. Connie says. “We believe that. If we didn’t, we wouldn’t be here.” (Kim Hairston/Baltimore Sun Photo)
- Sister Judy Murray, 66, plants beans in a garden on the grounds of the Baltimore Carmelite Monastery. “God started things in a garden – at least that’s our foundational myth,” she says. (Kim Hairston/Baltimore Sun Photo)
- Sister Veronica Emmick (second from left) and other Carmelite nuns are shown during Vespers. (Kim Hairston/Baltimore Sun Photo)
- From left, Sister Lupe Gallo, who was visiting the monastery, shares a laugh with Cecilia Ashton, a postulant, and Sister Monika Blies. (Kim Hairston/Baltimore Sun Photo)
- Today’s Carmelite nuns wear white robes for services, regular clothes the rest of the time. Since 1990, they regularly worship in a light-filled chapel alongside members of the public, about 140 of whom come for Sunday services. (Kim Hairston/Baltimore Sun Photo)
- Sister Luisa Santa Cruz goes through the serving line during the midday meal at Baltimore Carmelite Monastery. (Kim Hairston/Baltimore Sun Photo)
- Carmelite nun Barbara Jean LaRochester (left) and postulant Olivia Stebach, pray at Baltimore Carmelite Monastery. “The external details of our lives might differ, but every Carmelite believes prayer is a fundamental part of life and has a real effect on the world,” says Sr. Constance (Connie) FitzGerald. (Kim Hairston/Baltimore Sun Photo)
- Sisters Mary Fleig (left) and Judy Long, put away food after their midday meal at Baltimore Carmelite Monastery. (Kim Hairston/Baltimore Sun Photo)
- Postulants Olivia Stebach (left) and Cecilia Ashton study the Gospel of Mark with Fr. John Donahue, a Baltimore Jesuit. (Kim Hairston/Baltimore Sun Photo)
- Sister Robin Stratton writes to people who need “a word of comfort.” People call Baltimore Carmel all the time, she says, with prayer requests or simply to share their burdens. (Kim Hairston/Baltimore Sun Photo)
- Carmelite nuns and two postulants hold a Vespers service in the monastery chapel. The Carmelites, an order of the Roman Catholic Church, were born around the year 1200, when a group of religious hermits set up a community on Mt. Carmel in what was then Palestine. (Kim Hairston/Baltimore Sun Photo)
- Sister Constance (Connie) FitzGerald pulls a document from the monastery archives. FitzGerald, 79, a historian and scholar, has lived at the monastery since 1951. (Kim Hairston/Baltimore Sun Photo)
- Sister Constance (Connie) FitzGerald looks at the Profession Book at Baltimore Carmel. (Kim Hairston/Baltimore Sun Photo)
- Sister Constance (Connie) FitzGerald holds the Rule of Albert, a book from 1616, which outlines how to live a Christian life. The book is in the Carmelite Monastery archives. (Kim Hairston/Baltimore Sun Photo)
- In the Baltimore Carmel archives, a note next to an artifact (right) reads “Altar stone used by English Martyrs in Tower of London.” (Kim Hairston/Baltimore Sun Photo)
By Jonathan Pitts, The Baltimore Sun
On a typical day, as you head north on Dulaney Valley Road just above I-695, you might be speeding to outrun the tailgater behind you, glorying in that steal you just scored at the nearby Towson Town Center or just trying to make Jarrettsville in time for dinner.
If so, you might miss an invitation to history.
Turn left at a little white sign south of Seminary Ave., cruise up a wooded lane and park by a fieldstone mansion, and you’ll find yourself on the 27 quiet acres that serve as home to Baltimore Carmel, which descends from the first community of religious women formed in the 13 colonies.
“Oh, there’s a whole other world back here — that’s one way to put it,” says Sister Monika Bies, a German native who joined the community in 2001. “It’s more interesting than you might guess.”
Selah, as the Old Testament might say. Indeed it is.
One of 65 Carmelite monasteries in the nation, Baltimore Carmel houses 18 nuns and two postulants (aspiring members), women ranging in age from 33 to 93. Their ex-professions include dentistry, nursing, education and the law.
Their spiritual focus is prayer, and their roots go a long way back.
The Carmelites, an order of the Roman Catholic Church, were born around the year 1200, when a group of religious hermits set up a community on Mt. Carmel in what was then Palestine. Their brief formula of life, the Rule of St. Albert, laid out 21 articles. These called for members to live in individual cells, make vows of poverty and obedience and observe silence from evening through morning.
The goal: to develop lives of constant prayer.
“The external details of our lives might differ, but every Carmelite believes prayer is a fundamental part of life and has a real effect on the world,” says Sister Constance (Connie) FitzGerald, 79, who has lived at the monastery since 1951.
By the 1700s, the order was well established in Western Europe, including Spain and southern France, and later that century, a contingent of women from southern Maryland travelled to the Low Countries (later Belgium) to enter English-speaking monasteries.
In 1790, they boarded a boat home and set up a convent at Port Tobacco, the first Carmelite monastery in America. It was moved to a site on Aisquith Street in Baltimore in 1831, to another on Biddle in 1843, and to the Towson location in 1961. Along the way, the place opened like a budding flower.
For 185 years, the nuns practiced strict seclusion. They wore habits and veils, stayed behind grates when interacting with the public and rarely left the grounds.
Then came the Second Vatican Council, or Vatican II, which sought to modernize Roman Catholicism.
Baltimore Carmel, like many others, adapted. To some, it was a relief.
“I was fine with the old ways at the time, but the habits were heavy and hot, we looked like penguins, and I still have bald spots from the veils,” says a chuckling Sister Barbara Jean LaRochester, 80, who joined in the 1950s. “I’m glad we left those days behind.”
Today’s nuns wear white robes for services, regular clothes the rest of the time. The grates and veils are long gone. And since 1990, they worship in a light-filled chapel alongside members of the public, more than 150 of whom regularly come for Sunday Eucharist.
“In a world where the culture is much less Christian than it was, it’s necessary for contemplatives to be more visible,” says Sister Colette Ackerman, the monastery’s prioress. “Our mission is to share contemplation with the people.”
At the monastery today, life alternates between silence and sound, aloneness and community, spirit and matters of the world.
At 7:30 on a recent morning, the women file into a chapel for lauds, an “office” in praise of God. Sister Monika, a musician, breaks the silence with some bright notes on the piano, and the sisters take up a quiet chant. “Praise the eternal God in all your words and deeds,” they sing.
At 8, a dozen lay friends join the nuns for Mass. They pray for the Syrian people, for the 19 firefighters recently killed in Arizona, for a friend who has passed away. Then it’s time for work, another form of intimacy with God.
Sister Connie, a Carmelite scholar, heads upstairs to tend the archives, which include such treasures as the land grant for the old Port Tobacco site and a relic — a bone fragment — from St. John of the Cross, the Spanish mystic and poet who helped reform the order in the 15th Century. “We draw strength from our history,” she says.
Sister Mary Fleig, tall and strong at 49, heads outside. She tends both the website and the rolling, well-manicured grounds, and she and Celia Ashton, 36, a postulant and former dentist, are clearing brush from a grove of trees.
“You don’t always get to see the results of prayer. Here, you work for a while, and the weeds are gone,” Fleig says. “That’s a blessing, too.”
Up the hill at the community garden, Sister Judy Murray, 66, tends peppers, beets, eggplant and more, striving always to keep the divine in mind. “God started things in a garden — at least that’s our foundational myth,” she says. And at the midday meal, the nuns sing “Happy Birthday” to the Rev. John Donahue, a community friend who’s turning 80.
They tear into salad and roast pork. The dining hall buzzes with noise as they talk family and theology, brain science and a bit of baseball. Before long, they’re back at their jobs.
In a quiet room overlooking a courtyard, Sister Robin Stratton, 73, sits down to answer the phones. People call in all the time, she says, with prayer requests or simply to share their burdens. She tries to listen well.
Her favorite caller, she says, was a lady who simply said, “I’m out of hope. Can you hope for me?” The two prayed together. The woman kept calling. Fifteen years later, they’re close friends though they’ve never met.
“I sometimes think we’re God’s heart,” Sister Robin says.
As the hours go by, the sisters dine together, read Scripture, watch the news and retire to their rooms for more of their two-plus hours of daily private contemplation. At Baltimore Carmel, circa 2013, it all feels like part of the same process.
It’s hidden, but also in plain view.
“There’s a connection between prayer and people’s lives,” Sister Connie says. “We believe that. If we didn’t, we wouldn’t be here.”
jonathan.pitts@baltsun.com
Have a suggestion for a Hidden Maryland location? Tell us about it at baltimoresun.com/hiddenthoughts.
Baltimore Carmelite Monastery, also called Baltimore Carmel
Where: 1318 Dulaney Valley Road, Towson
You never would’ve guessed that: In Scripture, God sent a raven to bring food to the hermit-prophet Elijah – one reason the nuns at Baltimore Carmel are rabid Ravens fans.
ALSO SEE
Baltimore Carmel website: baltimorecarmel.org
Sister Frances Celine: Moved by the spirit [Sun archives]
Carmelite Sisters Of Baltimore: Prayer for a world in pain [Sun archives]
HIDDEN MARYLAND SERIES
Domino Sugars Sign
Building the Webb Telescope in NASA’s clean room
Baltimore Carmelite Monastery
Office of the Chief Medical Examiner
William Donald Schaefer archives
Ladew Topiary Gardens
Ravens game broadcast
Orioles clubhouse kitchen
Inside the State House dome
Howard County police training center
John O'Brien
Sep 07, 2013 @ 17:59:07
Greetings from Ireland I wish to seek the prayers of your Community for my special prayer intentions.
Please pray that the holy friendship that exists between my friend Michael Stack and my self John O’Brien will be blessed by God and be life long and that Michael will always be honest and truthful in all his dealings with me please God.
Please pray that I John O’Brien will get relief from the pain and stiffness of arthritis especially my right hip and both knee’s please God.
Bernadette Benninger
Jul 17, 2013 @ 12:49:04
I have been coming to Carmel since I was 9 years old when my sister Collette entered. Wonderful article, but I already knew the special importance of Carmel and its nuns.
josh
Jul 15, 2013 @ 21:48:23
your slideshows never work on any computers i use. i can get two photos or so in and then no more photos will load. maybe it should be fixed?