Why Celebrate?
The First Monastery in New Brunswick
Join us this Saturday, October 14th, at 10:00 am for our Special Mass to begin our celebration!
There will be a reception afterwards and the chance to meet the Nuns in the speakroom.
For those at a distance, the Mass will be livestreamed.
Seventy-four years ago, a group of women moved into a house in New Brunswick. They were establishing a new Carmelite Monastery. They would stay there only a few years while a permanent Monastery was being built on Leffler Hill in Flemington, New Jersey.
This first foundation on October 14th, 1949 is what we are preparing to celebrate, and we plan to spend a whole year doing so. Why should we be doing this? Why would we consider that another Carmelite Monastery is worth celebrating? After all, there are about 60 Monasteries of Carmelite Nuns in the United States and some 600 world-wide. What is so special about one Monastery? Why make a fuss about it? Aren’t Carmelites supposed to be hidden and unknown, a silent leaven in the world?
That may be the idea that people have of us, but it is hardly the reality. If Carmelites are unknown, it is because people have lost sight of the power of prayer. They have forgotten that prayer is accepting to love with God’s love, and God’s love transforms all that it touches.
If we are silent much of the time, it because there are not enough words in any language to express God’s love. It is too vast! Too varied! Too tremendous!
If we are hidden, it is because God calls us into the desert to hear His “voice of sheer silence” (1 Kg 19, 12) and from that hiddenness our own “voice goes out through all the earth” (Ps. 19, 4) in prayer, in letters, on our website, at the Turn. We raise our voices to proclaim God’s lovingkindness and to imitate our Foundress who exclaimed, “how many are the reasons I can sing Your mercies forever!” (“Life”, 14, 10)
Those of you who write to us, who phone us, who email and visit us asking our prayers can testify to the power of prayer and to the mercies of God who never fails to answer our prayers to Him. Join us in giving thanks to Him and in making His love and power known to a world “sitting in darkness and in the shadow of death”! (Lk 1, 79)
Share with others the power of prayer! Tell them of those here in Flemington who dedicate their lives in this hidden spot in New Jersey to praying for the world and for those who suffer and search for peace and wholeness!
Join us and draw others to join us to celebrate the graces God has showered for nearly 75 years upon all those who have trusted in our prayers! Help us to continue to pray for you and for everyone for many years to come!
Sr. Gabriela of the Incarnation, O.C.D.