Facing change, Carmelites seek to follow God's will

"Oh, it's so good to know we haven't been forgotten!" exclaimed Mother John of the Cross, speaking to The Evangelist from the Monastery of Our Lady and St. Joseph near Rochester.

She is one of 11 Discalced Carmelite sisters who left the Albany Diocese a year ago when the Monastery of St. Teresa of Jesus in Schenectady closed.

Traffic and noise in their inner-city neighborhood had made it difficult for the cloistered sisters to focus on their contemplative lifestyle, and maintenance costs on their aging building were prohibitive.

Merger

The Schenectady community combined with a group of Carmelites in Pittsford, N.Y., whose five members had been forced to close their own monastery due to declining numbers.

Together, the merged community has settled into the Pittsford monastery, which sits on 58 acres of rural land, including 25 acres of protected wetlands.

"That's wonderful for us, because it's a buffer zone" between the sisters and the city's noise, noted Mother John, who was elected prioress of the combined community. "Across the street is the Locust Hill Country Club. In Schenectady, we didn't have silence."

Missing Schenectady

The bustle of moving initially kept some of her feelings of loss at bay, the prioress said, but she will always miss the Albany Diocese. She had spent 48 years at the Schenectady monastery.

"There's nostalgia, leaving what's so familiar and then coming to a community [that's] not familiar," she remarked. "It's hard to explain; it takes psychological adjustment."

For one thing, she said, as prioress she'd had more contact with the outside world than many of the other sisters.

"I didn't expect to miss our friends as much as I have," she said. "I still love them, but I can't see them as often as I'd like."

Mother John said that some friends from the Albany Diocese call or write the Carmelites, and even stop by when they're passing through Rochester. But that contact doesn't change the fact that she is no longer in a place she calls "down home."

Changes

As parishes in the Albany Diocese go through the "Called to be Church" process, preparing for a future of fewer priests and some necessary changes in parish life, the prioress sympathized with their grief.

"The pain of separation is inevitable," she observed. "When we want God's will, we can accept God's will [and] still feel the pain and loss, but offer it up and pray for better times."

Moreover, Mother John recalled that it helped to have been proactive in making the decision to close the Monastery of St. Teresa.

"It was clearly God's will that we move from Schenectady," she explained, and there's "peace that comes from knowing you're doing what God wants. We didn't want to leave the Diocese, but it would have been foolish not to take this offer. We prayed and expected an answer, and God opened a door for us."

Letting go

She pointed out that people in religious life are expected to let go of worldly things anyway, even to the point of detaching from everything they once knew. That attitude prepares them to willingly to go God at the end of their lives.

"We're supposed to be just wayfarers on Earth anyway," she said.

It has become clear to the Carmelites that the move was a good one. Mother John said the community has been welcomed with open arms by those in the Rochester Diocese, "and we're very content here."

(Mother John said that, every day, the Carmelites pray for priests of the Albany Diocese. Readers can write to the Carmelite sisters at 1931 W. Jefferson Rd., Pittsford, NY 14534.)

(11/9/06) [[In-content Ad]]