Most days, the nuns, who ranged in age from 19 to 80-something, did not speak to anyone outside the monastery, although a mobile phone and a computer were on the premises and used when necessary. Photograph: Kholood Eid/The New York Times Joseph, in the Cypress Hills area of Brooklyn in February 2023. Highland Park, near the Monastery of Our Lady of Mount Carmel and St. “Their singing made you feel like you were in heaven,” Alicea says. The sisters, who remained unseen, would sing behind a metal grating in the choir room next to the chapel. Mass there was special, says Roberta Alicea, who attended services for nearly 12 years. The sisters dedicated themselves to prayer, meditation, spiritual reading and baking altar bread. The monastery was “an ideal location, in a quiet corner of the city”, according to the Carmelite website.įor a while, life in Cypress Hills was “peaceful and amazing”, Mother Ana Maria says. In 2004, six sisters took up the diocese on its offer and relocated to New York. As the Carmelite sisters fanned across the United States, the Brooklyn diocese later indicated that if any wanted to return, an empty Lithuanian Franciscan monastery in Cypress Hills was available.
Their original monastery in Crown Heights, described by the New York Times as a “medieval fortress”, closed in 1996.
This is not the first time the Carmelites have been displaced in Brooklyn. Their singing made you feel like you were in heaven “It’s a big loss, as I know they loved the city, their neighbours.” “As a New Yorker, I’m angry and embarrassed that the city couldn’t take care of this,” says Louis Pfaff, a lay volunteer who is helping the sisters build a monastery about 50km north of Scranton.
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