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Bishop's Letter March 13, 1956

My dear Brethren:

On Thursday of this week there will arrive in Asheville six professed nuns and one postulant of the cloistered Carmelite Nuns of Strict Observance, to make the first foundation of cloistered contemplatives in the Diocese of Raleigh. These good nuns will arrive from the Carmelite Monastery of St. Therese, Little Flower of Jesus, and St. Magdalene de Pazzi of Allentown, Pennsylvania. Through the efforts of Fr. Fred Stanton of New York and Mother Elizabeth of the Trinity of Allentown, a cloistered convent site has been found and purchased on the outskirts of Asheville.
It is fitting that our first contemplative group of sisters should come from a Monastery under the title of St. Therese, Little Flower of Jesus, who is the Patroness of the Missions, and that the sisters should be of the Little Flower's own religious order.
It is also fitting that the first Mother Prioress of the new community should be called "Mother M. Bernadette of Our Lady of Lourdes," one of the special titles of Our Blessed Mother, so near to the heart of Father Price, our pioneer missionary, and also the Little Bernadette to whom he was especially devoted.
It is also fitting that the new monastery be dedicated to "Saint Joseph and the Child Jesus," since the Church is still in its infancy here in the missions, and Saint Joseph is the Patron of the Universal Church, and no doubt Our Blessed Mother, the Patroness of the Diocese of Raleigh, under so many titles, has been instrumental in honoring her Divine Son and her Holy Spouse by the beginning of this good work for God and souls in our midst.
The Rule of the Carmelite cloistered nuns is the Holy Rule of Saint Albert, as given to Saint Brocard, O. Carm., on Mount Carmel in Palestine. It is a penitential life, devoted to Prayer, Mortification, and Self-Denial. The choir religious are bound to the recitation or chanting of the Divine Office, of which Matins and Lauds are said at midnight. These sisters will also enjoy the privilege of Perpetual Adoration when they are sufficiently numerous for that devotion. Day and night one or two sisters will kneel, hour by hour, in Prayer and Adoration before Our Lord in the Most Blessed Sacrament.
When not engaged in mental or vocal prayer, the nuns will engage in manual labor, such as making or mending vestments, making altar breads, maintaining mission correspondence, publishing books on the order, pamphlets on prayer, etc. Some nuns do artistic painting on reliquaries and vestments, and the nuns usually tend their own garden of shrubs, fruit trees, and vegetables, etc.
(...)
We are privileged beyond measure in being given a foundation of Carmel in the Missions of North Carolina. Our obligation will be to help these good nuns by our interest, our alms, our prayers, and our support, for they are ours and have been given to us in the Diocese of Raleigh by our Holy Father who is their Major Superior.
I am sure that our good priests and people will welcome these Carmelites with open arms and that this Carmel of "St. Joseph and the Child Jesus" will blossom forth in our mission territory and obtain good contemplative vocations in numbers. By their good prayers and sacrifices the Church in the Diocese will produce fruit a hundredfold.
May I commend, especially, these nuns to our good people in and around Asheville. You are privileged above the rest of the Diocese in getting this first foundation of contemplatives. Though they will pray and sacrifice for all of us, they are closer to you. Please assist them in every way possible in name of Christ and the Church.
Thanking God through His holy Mother for this special sign of His Benevolence to us of the Diocese of Raleigh, and praying His Divine Blessing on the beginning of this good work, I remain sincerely yours in Christ, Bishop Vincent Waters Bishop of Raleigh.

Source: North Carolina Catholic