“Prayer is missionary – it reaches out to the whole world, beyond any walls, countries, borders, you can reach everyone united with Jesus in prayer,” Carmelite Sister Catherine Ann told The Catholic Leader during National Vocations Awareness Week.
Sr Catherine Ann said the Carmelite saints had taught her so much about the hidden missionary life of prayer.
Carmelites are masters at prayer in “lockdown” conditions too, having lived many years of quiet prayer at their monastery in Ormiston on Brisbane’s bayside.
The Carmelite Sisters at prayer in Ormiston, Brisbane. PHOTO: The Catholic Leader.
Carmelite Sister Marie Tania said when all the lockdowns started happening “I was thinking, ‘Oh everybody is going to be like us now’”.
“We’ve lived in enclosure in the cloister, we’ve practically been locked down 500 years so far.”
But the contemplative lives of prayer these sisters now live did not start out that way.
Sr Catherine Ann had been in musical theatre, youth ministry and pre-school teaching.
“I struggled with that until I realised that I wasn’t alone, that Jesus was always with me and I just had to sit with that for long enough to feel the presence of God,” she said.
She had felt a calling to religious life from an early age but she had always thought it would be an active missionary order, teaching or traveling.
“As I grew up, I couldn’t find anything that really resonated in my heart,” she said.
Sr Catherine Ann: “I struggled with that until I realised that I wasn’t alone, that Jesus was always with me and I just had to sit with that for long enough to feel the presence of God.” PHOTO: The Catholic Leader.
That changed when she visited the relics of St Therese of Lisieux, which toured Australia in 2002.
“She was my confirmation saint but I didn’t know a lot about it, so when I went to pray at her relics, I received a beautiful grace from God telling me that He was still calling me and that Therese would help me,” she said.
“So, from that, I discovered Therese was a Carmelite and I read her book and I felt drawn to have that deep relationship with God that she had, that willingness to give all to God for the sake of the Church.”
She said when she first arrived at the monastery, she had “struggled with the silence and the solitude”.
“It felt confronting, in a sense, and I think perhaps people may be feeling that with the lockdown,” she said.
“They’re suddenly confronted with more time on their hands, being by themselves.
“I struggled with that until I realised that I wasn’t alone, that Jesus was always with me and I just had to sit with that for long enough to feel the presence of God.”
Sr Catherine Ann said when “you believe that someone loves you, you will do anything for them, especially if it’s Jesus”.
“When I reached that real conviction deep inside myself that Jesus really did love me in spite of my sins and in spite of weaknesses and the challenges and the struggles and the trials, it opens you up and it’s life-giving and you’re willing to receive the grace that God wants to give you,” she said.
Sr Marie Tania was raised on a farm and when she came to the monastery, she said it “seemed really small”.
She said after a few months she started to see “there was a lot of beauty here”.
“I often congratulate God for being such a good artist,” she said.
When Sr Marie Tania first came to Ormiston, she had been concerned how small it was. But she came to see the beauty of the monastery. PHOTO: The Catholic Leader.
Sr Marie Tania had grown up through her teenage years with a desire to become a Carmelite nun.
She said there was always a culture shift involved in joining a monastery, which is emphasised in a secular country like Australia.
“Where I was before, I was really striving to be a good person … and good with my religion as well; Jesus was very important to me but I really had to go against the culture in many ways – very secular culture,” she said.
“Come to Carmel and it is like wall-to-wall Jesus,” she said with a laugh.
As a formator in the Carmelite community, she is the one who helps people with their discernment, particularly once they enter with their initial training.
“My understanding of religious vocation is it comes from inside where God is, the Holy Spirit touches you inside of you, and that resonates with a particular way of living your Christian discipleship,” she said.
“If then we made it more specific and someone was really interested in coming to a Carmelite monastery, I would be looking for what is it about Carmelite spirituality that resonates with that person and so I would be trying to help that person understand what the Carmelite spirituality is and listening a lot to her.”
She said becoming a Carmelite was something that grows.
“It is Christian discipleship and it is a particular way of Christian discipleship – it’s not better than any other particular way – it is just the way… God calls us as His disciples,” she said.
“For us, it is more – we’re all in this together and we have one common denominator, the one thing that is priority for all of us is Jesus.
“Even the way our monastery is, the architecture, it is all built around the central courtyard and in the very middle is the crucifix – it is Jesus.”
This article by Joe Higgins was published in The Catholic Leader. Read the article and find links to more information on the Carmelite Sisters here.