Introductions | Exaltation of the Cross

Hiding behind the anonymity of the screen is much more comfortable than putting yourself out there, but sometimes it is necessary to step out into the light. About a year ago, Brother Richard handed the responsibility of the website over to my care, and since making some updates, there have been several inquiries about vocations to the eremitical life in general as well as to the Hermitage of Saint Joseph.

While it was so good to see interest and hear from different people, I could not help but to be just a little disappointed that they were all men, but how was anyone supposed to know that the vision of the future Laura is to be of both brother and sister hermits living in separate housing? I was told to introduce myself, and I dragged my feet for a while...

We are not angels, stop it with these pious pictures. I am chopping onions.

My name is Jacqueline and I have been living in a hermitage just north of Brother Richard for about three years. The house is named "Ephesus" after the last home of Mary on earth - it is her example of contemplative silence that we desire to emulate.

Ephesus represents the hopeful future home of the sister Hermits and our expectation is that the Hermitage of Saint Joseph will be able to provide a modicum of the sweetness and freedom of the cloister by alleviating some of the worldly burdens associated with the more typical solitary life and that the Laura will allow the hermit to enjoy a "stricter separation from the world" which is not abstract or purely interior. Mass in a common chapel, in house formation, common recitation of the office on Saturday evenings, and gathering for major feast days are a foreseen means of generating this interior 'space' - the freedom of remaining hidden.

Still in its infancy, The poverty of the Hermitage of Saint Joseph outweighs its richness. The road ahead seems as though it will be long and arduous, a truly "Teresian" adventure which will require a single thing, something we cannot give to ourselves - grace, an abundance of grace, in order to persevere in hope as we travel these rough seas whose buffeting waves pose a constant threat to our peace. The only way out is through. Sempere avanti, ever forward.

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dry cross

The feast of the Exaltation of the Cross has particular significance to the Carmelite. It is the beginning of a fast that will last until Easter of next year.

The world itself seems to be entering a period of austerity when the fullness of summer hands its gratuity over to the gravity of wind, rain, and death. The landscape slowly ages, becoming cold, barren, even skeletal.

Visually, the beauty of Carmel is not found in ornate coir stalls or regal mahogany but in its echoing hallways adorned only, if at all, with holy scripture and the admonitions of Carmelite saints. Look closely and realize that the place is held together with twine and straight pins. Saint Teresa threatened her sisters about the loud noise that a large and ornate house will make as it crashes down on them. What need do thirteen poor women have of such things? The silence of Carmel is not only auditory - it is visually silent - and these many layers of exterior silence form an abundance of space for the fostering of interior silence.

A sister eats her meal with eyes cast down, listening to scripture - except, perhaps on a feast day when silence may be dispensed. At the head of the table of the prioress and sub-prioress is a skull, and behind them one of my favorite of the 'silent' symbols of Carmel - the Dry Cross - a barren cross without corpus. This cross, which also hangs in each cell, is not some protestant aberration, but a reminder both of the Cross of Christ, our only hope, by which we have been saved, but also that each of us must die with Christ in order to rise with Him, that there is no resurrection without the crucifixion, no Easter without Lent. There are times when the darkness is so obscure and deep, that there is nothing else to do but embrace this dry cross understanding that it is by this rough wood, by these nails - poverty, chastity, and obedience - that God purifies our soul, that He delights in every opportunity to reach down to us in this dark and lowly state in order to elevate us to greater union with Him.

The cross is the joy of Carmel

Until next time,
- Jacqueline (Teresa)