Carmelite nuns in Mobile celebrate feast day

By The Catholic Week
MOBILE — Archbishop Thomas J. Rodi celebrated Mass on July 16 at Carmelite Monastery in Mobile to commemorate the Feast of Our Lady of Mount Carmel.
Carmelite Monastery in Mobile was founded in 1943 when Archbishop Thomas J. Toolen requested nuns from the Carmelite Monastery in Philadelphia. Four nuns arrived on Oct. 7 of that year.  
By 2010 the Carmelites, who were continuing their contemplative prayer in Mobile, found that due to age and infirmity that they could no longer keep up the ministry of prayer and care adequately for one another.  Those nuns were allowed to move to the Convent of Mercy and Archbishop Rodi invited a community of Carmelite nuns from Vietnam to move to the cloistered Mobile monastery.
The feast of Our Lady of Mount Carmel was first instituted in the late 14th century in commemoration of the approval of the rule of the Carmelite Order 100 years earlier. According to legend, a religious community was established even before the time of Christ on Mount Carmel. 
This is the mountain overlooking the Mediterranean Sea on which the prophet Elijah successfully challenged the priests of Baal and won the people to the true God. The feast of Our Lady of Mount Carmel entered the Calendar of the universal Church in the early 18th century.
Although there is no historical evidence for the pre-Christian Carmelite community, references in the 12th century record a community of monks on the holy mountain. Despite continual difficulties, the community built a monastery and church dedicated to the Virgin Mary on Mount Carmel in 1263. Saint Louis, King of France, had visited Mount Carmel in 1254, and brought back six French hermits for whom he built a convent near Paris.
Mount Carmel was taken by the Muslims in 1291 and the brothers were killed and the convent burned. The spread of the Carmelites in Europe is largely attributable to the work of Saint Simon Stock (1247-1265). The Carmelite Order was formally approved in 1274 at the Council of Lyon.
— Information provided by Catholic News Agency.