Displaying items by tag: Carmelite Nuns Spain

Triennial Chapter of the Carmelite Nuns of the Monastery of Santa Catalina in Aracena, Spain Held

The Elective Chapter of the Carmelite Monastery of Santa Catalina in Aracena, Spain was held on November 18-19, 2024. Fr. Emilio Rodriguea Claudio, OSA, vicar general and episcopal vicar for Contemplative Life in the Diocese of Huelva presided. Eight nuns of the community participated.

Various decisions were taken. Among these was to work on ongoing formation and within it to deepen the community's identity according to the charism and the teachings of the Carmelite saints.

The Aracena monastery was founded when two pious sisters of the Castilla Infante family, with the assistance of a religious, opened a house on their property. On Feburary 21, 1536, the house became official, dedicated to the Blessed Virgin Mary of Mount Carmel. It was annexed to the church of St. Catherine by Cardinal Alphonso Manrique, the Archbishop of Spain. The monastery has founded other monasteries in Andalucia (Southern) Spain, Portugal, and Kenya.

The monastery belongs to the Mater et Decor Carmeli Federation. The website for the monastery is www.monjascarmelitasaracena.es

The following nuns were elected:

Prioress | Priora | Priora:
Sor Elena M. López Font, O. Carm.

1st Councilor  | 1ª Consejera | 1ª Consigliera:
Sor Ma. Remedios Álvarez Soríano, O. Carm.

2nd Councilor | 2ª Consejera | 2ª Consigliera:
Sor Ma. Victoria Escamilla Martín, O. Carm.

Treasurer | Ecónoma | Economa
Sor Ma. Victoria Escamilla Martín, O. Carm.

Formator | Formadora | Formatrice
Sor Elena Ma. López Font, O. Carm.

Sacristan | Sacristana | Sacrestana
Sor Ma. Remedios Álvarez Soríano, O. Carm.

Carmelite Order Celebrates Day of the Cloistered Nuns, Pro orantibus. Prior General Sends Letter

In recognition of Pro orantibus, the day the Church dedicated to contemplative nuns, Fr. Míceál O’Neill, the prior general of the Carmelite Order, wrote to the monasteries of the Order. The letter focuses on 2024 being the Year of Prayer, as announced by Pope Francis at the beginning of the year. The prior general connects this year of prayer to the Carmelite charism, writing to those “who incarnate the Carmelite charism to think about our vocation to pray, to pray more intensely ourselves and to help other to pray.”

Reflecting on the Gospel read in the celebrations of both St. Thérèse of Lisieux and St. Francis of Assisi, he finds that God reveals “truths to children like us” in prayer. “Prayer is a communication between persons divine and human who are united in love.” The great Carmelite nun, St. Mary Magdalene de’ Pazzi, teaches us about the moment after Holy Communion when she began to think about the Gospel she had heard in the Eucharist. “There was no better place for her to be at the moment.”

Fr. Míceál also explores the Order’s tradition of prayer and contemplation as recorded in the Order’s Constitutions for the nuns. He points out that the revision of those for the men in 2019 focused the most attention on contemplation. Recalling that the nuns are well into the process revising their own Constitutions, he points out that proposed revisions clearly recognize the gift of contemplation is the nuns’ “charism and calling in a way that allows you to live out that vocation yourselves and explain it to the Church of today and to those who will approach you in the future …”

The prior general notes that liturgical prayer “is the privileged place desired by Christ for our encounter with him.”  He senses movement in the Order today “to recover and enhance our rich liturgical tradition.” He highlights a recent publication and the scheduled Liturgical Congress in May. He asks that the liturgies celebrated during the Jubilee Year “contribute to … enlightenment and moving us to seek reconciliation in families, in the Church, in communities.”

Finally, Fr. Míceál speaks of prayer as “discernment, discernment alone in the cell, nourished and completed by discernment in the community and vice versa.” He writes that “a community that comes together to pray and engage in communal discernment is a community that is capable of growing in maturity and responding each day, more fully, to the call to holiness which is union with God.” He concludes “union with God does not exist without union with neighbor, union with our families, union with our religious community.”

He concludes wishing that this day of Pro orantibus be an experience of joy for the sisters and a moment of renewal of love for prayer in their lives.

pdf Read the entire letter in English (409 KB) ...

On September 28 members of Spain’s Mater Unitatis Federation held a course on finances given by José Mª Herranz, O.S.A., at the monastery of Nuestra Señora de las Maravillas in Madrid.

The first part of the course dealt with the way of living and concretizing the vow of poverty in the consecrated contemplative life, starting from the following of Christ and dealing with practical questions.

In the second part he presented the document of the Sacred Congregation Boni dispensatores multiformis gratiae Dei which deals with the fundamental criteria that should govern the relationship between the different institutions that make up the consecrated life and material goods, essential for the survival and development of their own goals and charism.

The professor showed great experience and knowledge on the subject and gave us valuable guidance.

From October 7 to 11 the sisters took part in the ongoing formation course in the monastery of the Incarnation in Zaragoza. Salvador Villota, O. Carm., prior provincial of the Province of Aragon, Castile and Valencia, and doctor of Sacred Scripture presented the Wisdom and prophetic books. 

According to the possibilities of each monastery, sisters from Valencia, Madrid and Huesca attended in person. The rest of the sisters received it online, so all the monasteries of the federation participated. 

This year the Carmelite Nuns of the Federation of America also participated in this transmission, according to their possibilities and schedule compatibility, at the request of their president, M. Consuelo. Consuelo.

According to chronicler, Carmelite Sister Mª Brunilda Rodríguez, “As every year, we all received an abundance of spiritual fruits that Fr. Salvador, with his wisdom and humility, served us from the abundant table of the Word of God.”

On February 14th, the Carmelite community of the monastery of the Most Pure Blood of Christ celebrated its triennial elections. The monastery is located in Onteniente (Valencia), Spain.  

The monastery has a rich history. On September 18, 1575, some intrepid nuns from the Monastery of the Most Holy Incarnation of the Word from Valencia, Spain, traveled to Onteniente with the appropriate permissions of the King D. Felipe II, those of the Patriarch and Archbishop of Valencia, San Juan de Ribera, and with the approval of the Ontenienses Jurors. They intended to found a Carmelite Monastery, a cenacle, where, in company with Mary, the mother of Jesus, nuns would pray, imploring the action of the Holy Spirit in the permanent Pentecost of the Church.  

Sister Catalina Tejeda and the sisters were received with great enthusiasm by the people of the town. They saw them as their angels who would obtain God’s blessings for them. They settled in small buildings that had been set aside for them.  

Only a month later, one of the Carmelites died. A month later, a second Carmelite sister died. Their faith was tested but they fought to renew it. A year after arriving, the prioress, Mother Catalina Tejeda, also died. Instead of returning to Valencia, they became even more firmly rooted in the Lord and abandoned themselves to him. Soon their small monastery filled with postulants. They purchased more ground and constructed more cells to accommodate their increasing numbers. In 1914, Sr. Joachim Felius went to the city of Caudete to found a Carmelite monastery there.  

The flourishing of new members continued until the start of the Spanish Civil War in 1936. Despairing of riots and persecution, the community had to disperse with sisters returning to live with their relatives. The monastery building was in flames for a whole month, becoming uninhabitable, just a pile of rubble. After three years of conflict, Spain returned to normality and the monastery came back to life. While there was great economic hardship and food was  scarce. It was necessary to rebuild everything that had been destroyed. But in addition to the members of the community returning, twelve young women asked to join within a year. Enthusiastic and generous, they were not afraid of the situation of the monastery. With fervor and joy, they worked hard to restore the monastery knowing that, with meager resoures, the project would take time. The monastery eventually housed a community of 42 Carmelites sisters.  

The monastery belongs to the Mater Unitatis Federation. More information can be obtained by visiting the community's webpage.

The results of the elective chapter were as follows:

Prioress | Priora | Priora:  
Sor M^a Margarita Medina Armas, O. Carm.

1st Councilor  | 1ª Consejera | 1ª Consigliera:
Sor M^a Jesús Barahona Berzal, O. Carm.

2nd Councilor | 2ª Consejera | 2ª Consigliera:
Sor M^a Gabriela Bordones Herrera, O. Carm.

Treasurer | Ecónoma | Economa
Sor M^a Gabriela Bordones Herrera, O. Carm.

Formator | Formadora | Formatrice
Sor M^a Gabriela Bordones Herrera, O. Carm.

Sacristan | Sacristana | Sacrestana
Sor M^a Lourdes Font Font, O. Carm.