A new monastery will be built for the Discalced Carmelite nuns of Mathoura, New South Wales, with Cardinal Mykola Bychok and Wilcannia-Forbes Bishop Columba Macbeth-Green set to break ground on the project next month. Source: The Catholic Weekly.
The ceremony will take place on January 10, marking an important milestone for the Discalced Carmelites, who have been serving the Wilcannia-Forbes Diocese since 2019.
Colleen Jreissati, the wife of Elias Jreissati, the principal patron of the new monastery, will also preside at the ceremony to mark the beginning of construction of the first stage.
A crowd of 500 is expected, including locals and supporters from all over Australia.
The following day, Bishop Macbeth-Green will celebrate a Pontifical Mass in a paddock on the site of the future chapel.
The 12 nuns in the community currently live in an old farmhouse on their eight-hectare site.
In 2019, four nuns arrived in Mathoura, a small town in the Riverina region of southern NSW, from a monastery in the US diocese of Pittsburgh. Last year, the monastery became autonomous and is now called the Carmel of Elijah.
The sisters follow a strict rule of life. According to the ancient practice of monastic enclosure, they are physically separated from the public by fences and grilles.
They live a life of prayer and poverty and depend entirely on donations. Their primary mission is to pray for the church and the world.
With the permission of Bishop Macbeth-Green, the Carmel of Elijah uses the extraordinary form of the Mass and Divine Office.
Mathoura is the latest chapter in a tradition stretching back to through the United States and Mexico to Spain and Mount Carmel itself in the Holy Land.
Bishop Macbeth-Green said in 2019 that he had been keen for a long time to get a contemplative order into the diocese, so long as it could be self-funding.
“The main reason we want them is that contemplative religious are the powerhouse of any diocese, in their prayer and their witness. They are the heart of the Church. Because ours is a rural and remote diocese, the nuns will be a great source of consolation for clergy and our people.”
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Carmelite nuns to build monastery in the Riverina (By Michael Cook, The Catholic Weekly)
