Vocation Discernment -- Our Sisters Share Their First Experiences of the Cloister
“The ceaseless quest for God in solitude is like an exodus into the desert. God draws and guides us there in order to speak to our heart.” ~ Constitutions of the Discalced Nuns of the Order of the Blessed Virgin Mary of Mount Carmel, 1991; Chapter 6, #105 When we hear the term, “cloister,” it can sound medieval to the modern ear. Or it may trigger a memory of visiting or hearing about “The Cloisters Museum” in New York. Yet, cloisters are not merely a thing of the past. They are still in existence today. So what is a “cloister?” The cloister is an enclosure, wherein a person voluntarily enters to be separated from the world for the sake of Christ and His Church, yet mysteriously remains in the world; like a little Heaven on Earth. What sets contemplative orders apart from active orders is that they tend to be “cloistered,” meaning that they are “set apart” for God in a very special way—as Elizabeth of the Trinity would say, to become a “praise to His glory”—in order to r...