When Discalced Carmelite Father Steven Payne returned to Olney, Maryland, hoping to see the house where he had spent much of his childhood, he discovered it was gone.
There was no house to revisit. Only an empty, wooded lot and a patch of grass where his family’s home once stood.
“It wasn’t just remodeled or abandoned, but it was completely gone,” he recalled. More than 60 years had passed since his family moved away, but the discovery still troubled him.
“It felt as if a kind of sacred place from my past had been lost forever.”
Father Payne shared that memory during his homily on Oct. 10, as the Discalced Carmelite nuns of Port Tobacco celebrated the 50th anniversary of the refoundation of their monastery in Southern Maryland.
During the Mass, the nuns participated from a separate room behind a metal grille that separates their enclosure from the public chapel. As cloistered religious, the sisters live within the monastery, apart from much of the outside world, dedicating their lives to prayer, worship and community life.
The term “Discalced” means “without shoes," a reference to the simple sandals worn by Carmelites who followed the 16th-century reforms of St. Teresa of Ávila and St. John of the Cross.
The Carmel of Port Tobacco stands on the site where four Carmelite nuns established the first Carmelite monastery in the United States in 1790. Their foundation became the first community of women religious in the original 13 states.
Although the monastery’s history stretches back 236 years, the anniversary Mass celebrated a more recent chapter: the return of contemplative religious life to the site in 1976, nearly a century and a half after the original community had departed.
“Today, we’re gathered in one of those holy places, which is sacred not just for Carmelites, but for all American Catholics, really for all Americans,” Father Payne said. “We’re so grateful that it has not been lost to us.”
The founding sisters were Mother Bernardina Matthews, her nieces Sister Mary Eleanora and Sister Mary Aloysia Matthews, and an English Carmelite, Sister Clare Joseph Dickinson, who established the community at Port Tobacco in October 1790.
Before the monastery’s founding, Catholic women in the original 13 states who wished to become nuns had to travel to Europe to enter religious life. The establishment of the Carmel at Port Tobacco gave women the opportunity to pursue that vocation in the United States.
Father Payne reflected on the significance of the first community of women religious in the original 13 states being devoted to contemplative prayer, especially in a nation known for its industrious, can-do spirit.
“It’s so significant, I think, that ... the first religious community should have been a contemplative community,” he said.
The nuns remained at Port Tobacco until 1831, when financial hardships and difficult living conditions prompted their relocation to Baltimore. The original community continues today at the Carmelite Monastery of Baltimore in Towson, Maryland.
The property at Port Tobacco passed into other hands, and its buildings gradually deteriorated.
In the 1930s, a group of Maryland Catholics organized the Restorers of Mount Carmel, acquired the historic property and began restoring the surviving structures, with the goal of preserving the site and eventually welcoming the nuns back.
In 1976, during the nation’s bicentennial year, six Discalced Carmelite nuns returned to Mount Carmel Hill and reestablished contemplative life on the historic grounds.
The refoundation faced challenges of its own. In 1982, sisters from other Carmelite communities came to help sustain the new foundation, some of whom remain there today.
Five decades later, the nuns continue their life of prayer on the same hill where their predecessors established America's first Carmel.
Mother Marie Bernardina of Divine Mercy, the monastery’s prioress, thanked the many people whose generosity has sustained the community.
“God is so good and has helped us in so many ways as we continue our life here,” she said in remarks marking the celebration. “Your ongoing support is part of that blessing.”
Mother Bernardina expressed gratitude to the Restorers of Mount Carmel, whose work continues to support the nuns, as well as the Secular Order of Discalced Carmelites, the 100 Women of Carmel and the volunteers who care for the monastery and its grounds.
Though they live within the monastery’s enclosure, the sisters pray for the needs of the Church and for those who seek their prayers.
Cardinal Robert W. McElroy, archbishop of Washington, also recognized the sisters’ vocation in a letter read during the anniversary Mass. The cardinal was unable to attend because he was in Rome for a gathering marking the 10th anniversary of Pope Francis’s apostolic exhortation Amoris Laetitia.
His letter was read by Anne-Elisabeth Giuliani, the archdiocesan delegate for consecrated life.
Cardinal McElroy described the monastery as “an historic and sacred place of pilgrimage in our local Church” and thanked the nuns for their witness.
“Thank you for being a living community of grace and a sign of perseverance and hope,” he wrote.
In his homily, Father Payne recalled how bishops and Church leaders throughout American Catholic history had recognized the contribution of cloistered nuns to the growth of the Church.
Their unceasing prayers, he said, were considered as necessary to the Church’s mission as the work of missionaries, evangelists and pastors.
“Where would we be without their prayers and their witness to the presence of our loving God in the midst of our troubled times?” he asked.
Thanksgiving was the central theme of the anniversary Mass, as Father Payne invited those gathered to recognize the blessings received from God and from those who came before them.
He recalled three aims Pope Francis outlined for the Church’s Year of Consecrated Life, which ended in February 2016: to look to the past with gratitude, live the present with passion and embrace the future with hope.
That message, Father Payne said, was fitting for the Carmelites of Port Tobacco and for everyone gathered to celebrate their golden anniversary.
Father Payne expressed gratitude for the four founding sisters, the generations of nuns who followed, and the clergy and laypeople who helped preserve the monastery. He also thanked the current community, whose members continue to “keep the sacred flame of Carmel alive on this holy ground.”
Mother Bernardina also asked for prayers for the community’s future.
“Please pray for our continued perseverance, and for new vocations to our Carmelite community, so that we can carry on our beautiful Carmelite charism of prayer and sacrifice for the Church,” she said.
She encouraged visitors to return to the monastery chapel for Mass or private prayer, describing it as “this sanctuary of peace and solace.”
“We are so happy that many of you come to worship the Lord with us at our weekday and weekend Masses,” she said. “You and your loved ones are always welcome.”
