After 50 years Carmelites to farewell Canberra

WHEN Sr Bernadette was a child in Canberra in 1974, she saw the Carmelite Sisters walking along the street.

“I ran and crossed the road and hid,” she says, smiling at the memory.

“I thought, oh, I can’t let them see me!”

Today, as winter sunshine streams through the Red Hill convent windows, she sits nestled in the warm companionship of Sr Paula, Sr Francesca, and Sr Monica.

“God got me in the end!” she exclaims, and the chapel fills with the gentle laughter of the final four Canberra Carmelite sisters.

This August marks the 50th anniversary of the Order’s arrival in the territory – and their farewell, as they are called back to the monastery in Melbourne.

“Some of the older sisters need care, and we must go and support the community in different ways,” Sr Paula explained.

“But we do feel the human pain of leaving our friends here in Canberra.”

An enclosed order, sisters in the Canberra chapter have had something of a unique experience.

“As Carmelites, we stay within the bounds of the monastery, and our life is dedicated to prayer and penance,” Sr. Bernadette explained.

“In Canberra, however, we don’t have a sister who is an extern, so we have been more intimately connected with the local people than individual sisters would in Melbourne.”

The Carmelites first came to Canberra at the invitation of the Archbishop to pray for the diocese.

Those prayer requests still come daily, a constant thread of faith and hope weaving through the decades.

“People used to come to the door, but now it is more through calls, emails and texts,” Sr Francesca said.

“Every day we have intentions – we read them to the sisters, and as we come to the chapel, we can pause and take that with us to prayer,” Sr Bernadette said.

“You get a feeling and picture them in your mind. It is beautiful, actually.”

“You don’t forget them,” Sr Paula added. “Of the hundreds and hundreds of letters I have written, they keep in touch.”

The sisters said morning mass in the intimate chapel was the highlight of each day in the convent.

“Different people come every day. They make the prayer stronger. It is a close and beautiful feeling,” Sr Paula said.

“It binds us together and opens like a flower – its perfume goes far and wide. I think my own prayer would be very weak and wavery and doubting on its own, but there is strength of faith and trust that comes from being there with others.”

Sr Bernadette said even though the sisters would be physically leaving Canberra, the connections made here would continue to touch their hearts.

“The first Carmelites had to leave Mt Carmel, but when they went to the cities, they made that their Carmel, their centre of prayer. That was a big expansion in a sense. It is bigger than we are. We are always telling everyone to stay in contact. They have promised to knock on our door in Melbourne as well,” she said. “Prayer is not confined to a place.”

 

Beginnings: The Carmelites in Red Hill (1974-2024)