On Sunday, April 28th (Easter season), religious communities of the Mount of Olives, gathered to pray for peace. We first attended Holy Mass in the Our Father Church of Carmel monastery at 3 pm, and then shared a glass of friendship on the terrace of our Benedictine neighbours, overlooking the city of Jerusalem, before praying Vespers in their chapel at 5 pm.      We were almost forty to gather together. The Holy Mass was presided by Mgr Natale Albino, the Delegation's deputy

Happy Easter! Dear Families, benefactors, Volunteers and Friends of our Carmel in Jerusalem We would like to share with you the homily of our Patriarch Cardinal Pierbattista Pizzaballa on Easter Sunday. It echoes with our daily reality here: our suffering, our Faith, and our joy in the Hope of the resurrection even in our daily life. Extracts of the homily of our Patriarch Cardinal Pierbattista Pizzaballa on Easter Sunday In this terrible time, marked by so much violence in o

On this first Lent Sunday, the Church invited us to follow Jesus into the desert. The Gospel tells us that this occurs immediately after Jesus’s baptism, when the Spirit leads Him into the desert so he may be tempted…        We began the Holy Mass celebration, joyfully and faithfully singing: “Lord, with Thee we shall go to the desert…”, not forgetting that this desert truly exists in our own lives.     For our Sister Anne of Jesus, this was first and foremost the day she ans

The Carmelite Sisters of Carmel of Pater Noster on the Mount of Olives in Jerusalem are delighted to announce the First Profession of Sister Anne of Jesus in the Order of the Blessed Virgin Mary of Mount Carmel on February 18th, 2024, the first Sunday of Lent. During Mass, at 11 a.m. In the meantime, we wish you a “Happy Lent”! May this long journey of 40 days purify, renew, and bring peace to all of us in our world so that we may receive the joy and peace of Easter! Your Car

“May the Lord bless you and keep you! May the Lord make his face shine upon you, and be gracious to you! May the Lord turn his face toward you, and give you peace!” (Num. 6:22, 27) This is the wish that the Church offers us at the beginning of each year with the first reading of today's liturgy! It is also what we wish for one another at the beginning of this New Year! On this new day of this new year, while war and hostilities continue as yesterday, in our country, in the af

Merry Christmas to all! We are happy to share with you an excerpt from our Chaplain's homily on this Christmas Day!       ...When God comes to visit this earth, He does not do so with the power of an army or by terrifying the world as men think; He does not bring war and desolation with Him. He does not have the economic or political power of a great man of this world. God comes to visit us, and behold: He is a poor and exiled newborn baby. He has no means of defending hims

Merry Christmas and Holy Year 2024 Dear Brothers and Sisters in Carmel, Dear families and friends, Dear benefactors and volunteers,               We are glad to reach you all, beyond our walls, beyond the city and the country, and even beyond the seas!                According to the custom of end-of-year circulars, we would like to offer you a hindsight of the year 2023. It is not easy to go back before the shock of October 7th, as this date impressed us, with the sudden agg

It began on October 7th, Feast day of Our Lady of the Rosary. During the Office of Lauds and the Eucharist, the alarm sounded almost...

Many people have asked us how we live the tragic events that our country is experiencing these days. We intensify our brotherhood: with all victims, with the bereaved families, with the people of Gaza currently under the bombs, with the Christians of Gaza who sheltered in the parish, praying day and night: their faith and courage are impressive.       Our neighbourhood is sometimes very silent: the people avoid going out, the works are stopped, there are no more feasts, no mu

The Carmel of Jerusalem – the first to be founded in the Holy Land – was founded in 1973 thanks to the encounter, in April 1872, of the Princess Aurelie de la Tour d’Auvergne and Mother Xavier. The foundation was enabled thanks to the will of the Carmel of Carpentras from which came Mother Aloysia, first prioress of our Carmel. 150 years since our Foundation! On October 15th, 2022, we had the grace to celebrate the opening of this Jubilee with our Patriarch Mgr Pierbattista P

Saturday October 14th 2023, Mass was celebrated to pray and give thanks to the Lord for our Sister Ange who was going to receive the habit of the Carmelite nuns in the afternoon.           Sister Ange is Sister of Our Lady of the Apostles since August 14th, 2005. She was happily engaged in her vocation to continue the Apostles’ mission they had received from the Lord: to preach the Good News to those who do not yet know Christ, in Africa.       Our Lord surprised her, inspiri

On this day we honor the Virgin Mary, whose sisters we are at Carmel. The liturgy helps us make the connection between Mount Carmel, where the prophet Elijah announced the Virgin under the sign of the beneficial rain, and Mount Calvary, where Mary stands witness to a new Covenant through the blood shed by Jesus. This is what Father Laurent highlighted in his beautiful homily by inviting us to climb now to the mountain of the Eucharist where we pray for the world in its diffic

On June 7, 1923, Marguerite Marie Guiomar was born in Landernau (Finistère) into a close-knit and happy family.                 On June 7, 2023, at the Carmelite convent in Jerusalem, Sr. Marguerite Marie de Jésus celebrated her 100th birthday surrounded by her sisters in the community and her sister Sr. Marie Guénola, a Benedictine nun from Calvary and neighbor on the Mount of Olives, as well as many friends, priests, nuns, and lay people who came to join in our thanksgiving

Throughout this great week, we have accompanied Christ in the mystery of his Passover. Sent by the Father, the Lord Jesus offered everything and draws us into his offering. "The right hand of the Lord has done marvelous things, his right hand has lifted me up. No, I shall not die, I shall live and proclaim the works of God." (Psalm 117:16-17) Happy and Holy Easter to all!

Holy celebration of the Lord's Supper! "Father, [...] my soul needs to tell you that it is in complete communion with yours, allowing itself to be taken, carried away, and overwhelmed by the One whose charity envelops us [...]. I was thinking of you as I read [...] these words on contemplation: “The contemplative is a being who lives in the radiance of the Face of Christ, who enters into the mystery of God, not under the light that rises from human thought, but under that whi

Sing a song of joy to Christ as He enters into Jerusalem!                  Each one of us is there, present, during our Lord’s Passion in Jerusalem. The Paschal Mystery reflects on us, touches us, sanctifies us. This is ongoing, from our conception in God’s eternal Will, to our today’s life, and will be so until our death and resurrection!                 Indeed, “when Jesus had cried out again in a loud voice, He yielded up His spirit. […] The earth quaked and the rocks were

Let us talk straight as we enter into Lent: what do we need? Which specific Word of God shall we echo? On Thursday after Ash Wednesday,...

Religious communities of the Mount of Olives On the 3rd Sunday in Ordinary Time, Sunday dedicated to the Word of God, the religious...

"You have come into your Temple, you, the sacrificed Lamb, the torch of the new Jerusalem, the true Temple of which we are the living stones... "         It was to the singing of this refrain that we went this morning, February 2, to the Meeting of the Lord presented in the Temple by the Virgin Mary and St. Joseph, and joyfully welcomed by Simeon and Anna, the prophetess.          The procession with lighted candles begins at the enclosure gate and continues through the clois