Carmelite Hermits in Lake Elmo (USA) Building Bigger Chapel to Accommodate New Vocations
According to a report of the Our Sunday Visitor, the Carmelite hermits in Lake Elmo, Minnesota (USA) need to expand their monastery because of an increase in vocations to the hermit life. “We must build to accept more men …” John Mary, prior of the Hermits of the Most Blessed Virgin Mary of Mount Carmel, is quoted as saying. “We must build for the good of our families, our community, our country and our world. We must build so the faithful can pray with us!”
The current community consists of nine priests and brothers. The hermits were aggregated to the Carmelite Order on May 14, 2003. According to the hermitage’s website, their life consists of three elements – prayer, work and study. Particular emphasis is given to Carmelite and monastic spirituality and to the liturgy. “Manual labor provides an important balance to the work of the mind and helps to sustain the hermitage. We have an extensive garden, carpentry and leather shops, as well as a studio of sacred art.” According to the prior “The solemn celebration of the liturgy is important to us, as is a generous amount of time spent in contemplative meditation and the prayer of the heart.”
The construction of the chapel began in 2022 and is planned to be completed in the summer of 2025. Besides the new chapel, four new hermitages will also be built.
“The favorite part of the chapel for me will be its beauty,” the prior said. “Beauty is one of the attributes of God and the way in which he created the world.” The chapel’s design was inspired by the early Christian churches of Rome and Ravenna, Italy. “It has an elegant Ravenna-esque patterned brick exterior with a stone and plaster basilica interior, including marble columns and arches, side aisles, clearstory, triple apses and a series of Carmelite saints processing toward the altar,” he said.
The architect for the project is the award-winning architecture professor, Duncan Stroik, from the University of Notre Dame.
“Beauty inspires us to see beyond ourselves with all our contradictions and shortcomings, and to glimpse something of the eternal,” Fr. John Mary said. “Beauty stirs awe in us and motivates us to seek something better in our personal moral life.”
“We are thrilled that [the chapel] is under construction and hope it will draw many pilgrims to experience its beauty and the solemn liturgy of Carmel.”
Guests are welcome. “Quite a few friends, benefactors, and neighbors have asked to attend Mass or share in our Divine Office,” the prior said. Now they can partake in the sacrament of confession and spiritual guidance, and visit the hermitage gift shop (also available online), which includes art from the hermits sacred art studio. But the guests will have to wait to worship with the hermits. There is no more room in the current 18 foot by 18 foot chapel. But the new chapel will accommodate up to 44 people.
(Pictures courtesy of the Hermitage of the Blessed Virgin Mary website)
