By Matters India Reporter

Panaji, Feb 12, 2022: The Cloistered Carmel at Chicalim in the Archdiocese of Goa-Daman on February 12 celebrated 75 years of its foundation with a concelebrated Mass.

Archbishop Filipe Neri Ferrao of Goa-Daman, presiding over the Eucharist, appreciated the Carmelite community saying, “So many people have experienced God’s love through you. As Jesus tell us, ‘If you abide in me, if you are rooted in me, if you remain in intimate communion with me, you will bear abundant fruit.’ Dear sisters we thank God for you.”

He added, “For the last 75 years you have tried to become Christ-like, totally obedient to the Father’s will, trusting in him unconditionally and striving to remain and live a life of intimacy with the Holy Trinity, like Mary our Mother. We thank God for you and for your dedicated life of rootedness in God and we ask God to bless your community.”

He promised them, “We continue to pray that you may stay on rooted in God, that your life may become an unceasing hymn of praise to God, that you may thank God for the joy you share in his house, and that you may also inspire us, God’s fellow workers knowing that God in his goodness has chosen each one of us to belong to his Son Jesus.”

Sister Luiza, the prioress, said, ‘If we have reached today to celebrate 75 years of our existence in Chicalim, it is because God has sent countless earthly angels on our journey to support us spiritually and materially, thus helping us to live our life smoothly and fruitfully.”

She said that she was happy “that many people irrespective of race, color or religion, call us or visit us, requesting our prayers for their various needs.”

The cloistered community at Chicalim was opened in February 1947 with six sisters led by Mother Elizabeth of the Holy Trinity, a French national who was the prioress in Bangalore Carmel.

“She was a woman of indomitable courage and trust in God,” one of the sisters said. They arrived in Goa at the formal request of the new Patriarch of Goa Dom Jose Da Costa Nunes.

By then in Bangalore Carmel there were five Goan novices.

Many nuns from Chicalim had opted and were sent to Portugal, Mumbai, Baroda, Hassan, Raipur, Mysore, Delhi and Tanzania over the years.

At present the community has 15 sisters.

Chicalim Carmel is one of the 800 Carmelite monasteries spread around the world.

Blessed John Soreth, prior general of the Order of the Discalced Carmelites, founded the cloistered nuns in 1451.