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By Father Jon Moore, H.O.Carm. The prairie landscape is fairly level where the Cedar and Turtle Rivers meet, and one may not be reminded of the holy Mountain; but in Austin, Minnesota, (not far from Rochester’s Mayo Clinic) a small community of men is determined to give new life to the ancient Carmelite Rule in its eremitical form. They pray, study, and support themselves by manual labor as they produce with their own hands woven rugs, bar soaps, and preserves which they than sell at craft and art fairs. Like those unnamed first Carmelites eight centuries ago, the Carmelites of Saint Joseph at Annunciation Hermitage did not need much to get started eight years ago: two men agreed to start living the Rule of Saint Albert with the blessing of Church leadership. In the Summer of 2001 Father Jon Moore, of the Diocese of Winona, Minnesota, and Brother Henry Soto, Carmelite hermit, after having looked into all the preliminaries, received the permission and encouragement of Most Reverend Bernard J. Harrington, then Ordinary of Winona, to live the eremitical life at the former Queen of Angels convent in Austin. On June 28th of that year, in an intensive heat wave—for the Midwest that is—the last of the main furnishings were unpacked and moved in place, and cell space was distributed. After the Blessed Sacrament was once again reposed in the small chapel and the sanctuary lamp lit there, the hermit life was carried on in this new setting with a prayer for new vocations. Brother David Blain arrived in 2002 and professed perpetual vows in 2008. Currently there is a brother novice and a handful of inquirers who have all expressed a thirst for Carmel’s calling. When the Carmelites of Saint Joseph moved into Annunciation Hermitage, the local pastor could not have been more welcoming, and the same can be said of the lay faithful, always grateful for the presence of consecrated persons. At first not everyone in the general public understood the distinction of “eremitical,” and everyone wanted to be friendly and neighborly with the “new additions” to local Catholic life. The Carmelites’ presence on parish grounds
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