He liked to sit in the chapel inside the monastery. It was a good place to recollect oneself and relocate one’s center. The monastery compound, protected by high concrete walls, itself sat within the city, like an oasis in the desert, offering the refreshments of prayer and silence to visitors worn out by the cares of everyday life. Angels cast in stone stand on either side of the gate, beckoning passersby, ushering in pilgrims.
Simplicity marked the chapel’s interior, which in the daytime shone with light filtered blue by the stained glass windows. The azure gently signified the presence of the Blessed Virgin Mary, whom the nuns addressed as heaven’s august queen, who mediated to man every grace from the Blessed Trinity. The columns, which rose and converged in the shapes of petals, and the dome that had for its centerpiece a star led to contemplation of the divine.
In the sanctuary, the altar speaks of God’s covenant with man, the Last Supper and of the first Christmas. In a Mass here that he best remembers, because it was his subject of choice for the photo essay, it was the old cardinal who had led the changing of bread and wine into the Body and Blood of the Savior. Some time later, he noticed the relief on the altar’s frontispiece.
It featured two angels on their knees before a crib between them.
The messengers were akin in his mind to the graven cherubim that shadowed with their wings the ancient ark of the covenant. That made sense since Bethlehem, he read from a pope, literally means house of bread and the altar is the first home of the Bread of Life and with the Blessed Virgin Mary is the ark of the new and everlasting covenant.
To the sanctuary’s right, a shrine housed the image of Our Lady of Mount Carmel, holding close to her the Infant Jesus. He first saw in his late father’s mother’s room a rendition of this vision of Saint Simon Stock. Elevated, the image always humbled him and he thought, helped every supplicant assume the proper posture in the presence of their heavenly mother.
In his grandmother’s picture, Madonna and Son visited purgatory to take souls to heaven. In this earthly Carmel, before the image in the chapel, he stood in the place of the purgatorial souls, aware that he needed as much as they did the aid of queen and king in a life of countless, difficult battles.
He came every so often to this chapel to ask for the nuns’ intercession in seeking favors from or giving thanks to heaven. The nuns fixed a box behind the steel grilles that separated their cloister from the public part of the monastery. At a nearby table, one could write prayers of petition and gratitude on used paper to be dropped into the box. He could only imagine the care and reverence with which a nun in cream and brown habit unfolded the pieces of paper she would retrieve from the box, which contained the hopes and joys of the world.
The culture of care shone everywhere in the monastery. The gardens were well-tended. A sign forbade picture taking. It would hurt the plants.
There were signs everywhere, exhortations to silence—the currency of caring about the nuns and fellow worshippers’ intimacy with God, calls to prayer, variations of the text on the dedication plaque: May the peace of this place fill the hearts of those who come.
The signs are small, unlike the arresting and often blase billboard advertisements. Where they do not carry instructions, they echo the utterances of the saints. From Saint Thérèse of Lisieux, an admission of not being destined for great things but for doing the simplest acts with the greatest love.
From her namesake, the mother of the monastery, Saint Teresa of Avila, a fresh translation of a poem he loved: Let nothing trouble you/ Let nothing frighten you/ Everything passes/ God never changes/ Patience obtains all/ Whoever has God/ Wants for nothing/ God alone is enough.
(The novena in preparation for the Solemnity of Our Lady of Mount Carmel begins today, July 6.)