On a sunny Oct. 3, God’s grace shone on the Discalced Carmelites of the Most Blessed Virgin Mary of Mount Carmel as the monastic community celebrated 100 years of unceasing prayer, peace, and faith in historic Morristown, N.J.
Bishop Kevin J. Sweeney commenced the festivities, leading an outdoor Eucharistic procession along Madison Avenue from St. Paul Inside the Walls in Madison, N.J., to the Carmelite monastery. There, he celebrated Mass in the chapel with visiting priests for the sisters and the monastery’s benefactors, volunteers, and more than 150 pilgrims that day, which is traditionally celebrated as the feast of St. Therese of Lisieux, one of the order’s greatest saints.
During the Mass, Bishop Sweeney consecrated a shrine built in honor of the newly Blessed Fulton Sheen, who was the homilist at the chapel’s original consecration on May 17, 1941. The nationally known TV and radio evangelist and author maintained many personal connections in the Paterson Diocese, N.J., during his lifetime, including with the Carmelites. Venerable Fulton Sheen was designated as “blessed” during a Mass on Sept. 24 at The Dome at America’s Center in St. Louis, Mo.
For a century, these cloistered nuns have focused on a life of unceasing prayer, silence and solitude, penance, and self-sacrifice. The sisters now living at the monastery gather 9 times to pray. The nuns estimate that, over the past 100 years, their community has celebrated at least 36,000 Masses.
“We give thanks for the Carmelite sisters over the past 100 years who lived and continue to live that beautiful vocation to the contemplative life, praying for us, the Church, and vocations,” Bishop Sweeney said before celebrating Mass in the monastery chapel. “On this 100th anniversary, I ask the sisters to continue to pray for holy marriages, the sanctification of family life, and vocations to the priesthood, consecrated religious life and the single life,” he said.
The Carmelite sisters joined Bishop Sweeney and concelebrating priests in the chapel, worshipping behind a metal enclosure grille on the other side of the altar that keeps them cloistered. Local laity also filled the pews out front, including Knights and Dames of Malta, Knights of Columbus, and the Sacred Military Constantinian Order of St. George.
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Meanwhile, other members of the Carmelite support community and the public sat on folding chairs in the parking lot, listening to the Mass on speakers outside. Many of them participated in the Eucharistic procession that stopped at St. Thomas More Parish up the road in Morris Township, N.J. A reception followed the liturgy.
Under the leadership of Prioress Mother Therese Katulska, the Carmelite sisters said their “ultimate goal is union with God.”
“We pray for priests and for the salvation of souls and to call down the fire of the Holy Spirit on the earth and to keep that fire of love burning in the hearts of the faithful. In the words of St. Therese, who was a Carmelite, the mission of a Carmelite is to ‘be love in the heart of the Church,’” the Carmelite nuns said. “We always strive to make the Liturgy beautiful and full of reverence for the Lord, since we know such a God deserves no effort be spared in rendering Him praise!” they said.
The shrine to Blessed Sheen is contained in the wooden ambo on the altar, housing a second-class relic of his vestments under his name, a likeness made by sisters in burnt wood. In the 1970s, Blessed Sheen reconnected with the Carmelites long after his 1941 homily at the chapel dedication, through a friend, Lo Anne Mayer, formerly of the Church of Christ the King in the New Vernon neighborhood of Harding Township, N.J. “He made the Carmelites happy,” when he visited, Mayer said.
Bishop Sweeney called Blessed Sheen “a great preacher, teacher, who loved this place and loved to come and pray and celebrate Mass and preach.” The bishop added that Blessed Sheen called Catholics in the United States to be part of a “missionary Church, whether here or other places.”
The Carmelite sisters called Blessed Sheen “a good friend. We will pray for his intercession for Christ’s protection in heaven. The shrine is a special physical sign of him in the communion of saints.”
To commemorate the anniversary of the Carmelites of Morristown, Pope Leo XIV has declared that the faithful may receive a plenary indulgence by visiting the monastery this year. To receive the indulgence, visitors must recite the Creed and the Our Father, receive the Sacraments of Confession and Holy Communion, and pray for the Holy Father’s intentions.
In 1925, Bishop John O’Connor of then the Newark Diocese, which included Morristown at the time, established the monastery to thank the Blessed Mother for his silver jubilee as bishop before the Paterson Diocese was founded.
Mother Mary Magdalene of the Carmel in Wheeling, W.V., and five novice nuns arrived on the evening of Dec. 30, 1926, at a small, dilapidated house at their original location on South Street in Morristown, N.J., without a furnace, chairs, or beds. They moved to Kip Mansion on the Madison Avenue property in 1927 and into the present Monastery in 1940.
The Carmelite sisters’ centennial celebrations will conclude on Saturday, Dec. 26, with a closing Mass for the Jubilee year.
Deacon Brian Beyerl of Assumption Parish, also in Morristown, a retired physician, assists with Benediction on Sunday evenings at the monastery.
“I feel blessed. I love coming here. When I look through the grille, I see these wonderful, holy women. It’s humbling,” Deacon Beyerl said. “I appreciate that they are praying for us. They are inside in the chapel, but they are connected with all of humanity outside of the chapel. We need them,” he said.
For more information about the Carmelites, visit their website, www.carmelnj.org.
