You are most welcome to make a visit to Jesus in the Blessed Sacrament or join us for worship in our public chapel.
Open: 6:30a.m. – 8:30 p.m.
Daily Mass (every day): 7:30 a.m.
Eucharistic Adoration: After Mass until Benediction
Divine Mercy Chaplet: 3:00 p.m.
Rosary and Benediction: 7:45 p.m.
Carmel of Saint Joseph
9150 Clayton Rd.
St. Louis, MO 63124
In every age, men and women who have consecrated their lives to God in prayer — like monks and nuns — have founded their communities in particularly beautiful places: in the countryside, on hilltops, in mountain valleys, on the shores of lakes or of the sea and even on small islands. These places combine two very important elements for contemplative life: the beauty of creation, which evokes the beauty of the Creator, and silence, which is guaranteed by living far from cities and the great thoroughfares of the media.
Silence is the environmental condition most conducive to contemplation, to listening to God and to meditation. The very fact of enjoying silence and letting ourselves be “filled”, so to speak, with silence, disposes us to prayer.
The great prophet Elijah on Mount Horeb — that is, Sinai — experienced a strong squall, then an earthquake and finally flashes of fire, but he did not recognize God’s voice in them; instead, he recognized it in a light breeze (cf. 1 Kings 19:11-13).
God speaks in silence, but we must know how to listen. This is why monasteries are oases in which God speaks to humanity; and in them we find the cloister, a symbolic place because it is an enclosed space yet open to Heaven.
-Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI, General Audience (10 August 2011)