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(From left) Congregation President, Sister Elizabeth Fitzpatrick, O.Carm., Father John Marse and Brother Luis Couvillon, SC at the reception of Sister Margaret
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By: Sister Lawrence Habetz, O.Carm. Congregation of Our Lady of Mount Carmel, New Orleans, Louisiana
On July 15, 2006, Sister Margaret Williams officially transferred her vows from the Monastery of the Order of the Visitation in Mobile, Alabama, to the Sisters of Mount Carmel in Lacombe, Louisiana. Her transfer took place at the Carmelite Spirituality Center in Lacombe on the celebration of the Feast of Our Lady of Mount Carmel and the commissioning ceremony for the congregation. “Just as becoming a convert to the Catholic tradition was not something I had planned,” said Sister Margaret Williams, O.Carm., “neither was becoming a Carmelite. God gave me these wonderful gifts as I was seeking.” Sister Margaret whose lovely smile and sense of ease welcomes all who meet her said, “that the prayers of my new Catholic Religious friends and Thomas Merton’s books shaped my conversion into the Church.” But her transition into Carmelite Spirituality from the Visitation (Salesian spirituality) happened after meeting the Dixie Carmelites (Sisters of Mount Carmel in New Orleans) and reading The Carmelite Way by the Very Reverend John F. Welch, O.Carm.
Prior to her entrance into religious life, Sister Margaret served as medical technologist, research technician and lab instructor at Auburn University; instructor at Brevard Community College at Cocoa, Florida, and public health instructor at Titusville, Florida. “Sister Maggie,” as she prefers to be called, served in Thailand as a lab consultant for three years. While in Thailand she converted to Catholicism and later entered the Visitation Monastery.
“The images of total transformation of heart and mind in Christ along with the fidelity of the prophetic voice are expressed most wonderfully and completely in our Carmelite tradition,” Sister Maggie said. “In truth, that is all I wish to accomplish in God’s grace; yet how could this transformation process be complete if it excluded any part of God’s creation?”
After leaving the Visitation Monastery she served as a medical technologist in Pontiac, Michigan, and at the University of Alabama Hospital until she began her transfer process to the Sisters of Mount Carmel in 2003. While in transition, Sister Maggie continued her work as medical technologist at East Jefferson Hospital in Metairie, Louisiana. She also became a master gardener and took care of the gardens at the Carmelite Spirituality Center in Lacombe.
Sister Maggie went to Thailand as a volunteer in 1985 and planned to help upgrade some of the laboratory services in small mission hospitals. Her expectations did not include the development of and administrative responsibilities at a leprosy rehab center and meeting visiting doctors and the British ambassador. After joining the cloistered Sisters of the Visitation in Mobile, Alabama, she became the retreat facility coordinator and stated that she, “probably had more contact with people (through the ‘barrier’) than I ever had before in my life. Small wonder that the Psalmists tell us that man proposes and God disposes.”
Following her transfer, Sister Maggie will serve with the Sisters of Mount Carmel in the Philippine region at Carmel Center in Balugo, Philippines. Sister Maggie’s reaction to this new venture: “I am smiling in anticipation of seeing how God’s plan develops.”
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