The Building Project

Habit Forming Sisters Corporation desires by the grace of God to build a simple, solemn monastic house of prayer for our community and for future generations of Discalced Carmelites Nuns of Saint Teresa of Avila. We seek to build our monastery according to what is necessary to sustain a family-sized religious community.

 

The main physical property of a monastery includes the chapel and the cloister, the latter which is the enclosure of the nuns and includes areas such as the individual cells, the kitchen and refectory for eating, work area, gardens, and areas for recreation and study. One traditional design especially used by Irish Carmelites is called the "quadrangle." The Quadrangle design utilizes an equal distribution of space and a harmony of setting. This allows the nuns to follow the schedule of their life of prayer in perfect silence and recollection as they process from one location to another throughout the day.

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Holy Mother St. Teresa of Avila also encouraged her nuns to live by a life of prayer and holy renunciation, relying on the Divine Providence and the work of their hands for sustenance.  Our new monastery will focus on a small-scale farmstead for its garden design, where we hope to raise animals, plant vegetables and fruit orchards, tend herb and flower gardens, and house a few honeybees.

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According to our Carmelite Constitutions:

"The [Monastery], with the exception of the Church, should have nothing ornamental in its construction: the woodwork should be simple, the Convent small, and the apartments low, so that what is necessary and not what is superfluous may be attended to."

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"The walls should be as solid as possible; those of the enclosure high, within which there should be ground enough to build some hermitages, that the religious, after the example of the Holy Fathers, may retire to them for prayer."

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