According to St. Teresa, the freely-chosen life of enclosure involves detachment from exterior things, a life of silence and solitude ordered towards finding in Christ our Spouse the living water of contemplation.
Looking to the Prophet Elijah, whom we regard as our spiritual father and inspiration, Discalced Carmelites become more fully aware of our contemplative vocation - intent on hearing God's word, and on searching in great solitude and detachment the supreme treasure, the precious pearl of His Kingdom.
	As a small family, we are to help one another along the way of holiness. St. Teresa wrote in The Way of Perfection: "All must be friends, all must love one another, all must be cherished, all must help one another." (Way 4:7)
Under the impulse of the Holy Spirit, many have responded to Christ's invitation to his disciples and have retired to solitude where they adore the Father and listen to His Word. --- The second Vatican counsel states that 'institutes wholly consecrated to the contemplative life of cloistered solitude – offer a singular sacrifice of praise to God, enrich and encourage God's people by their example, and extend the Church by their mysterious apostolic fruitfulness.'(cf. Perfectae Caritatis 7) (Picture from the Ceremony of Sister Maria's Solemn Vows)
	Striving to follow the truth in charity, every effort is made to help one another reach the perfection to which they have been called as individual persons and as a community. (From the Constitution, #104)
Every community is a living part of the Mystical Body of Christ, and it should have that faithful feeling for the Church which animates Teresian contemplative life. In that way, renewed by the Holy Spirit, it can become love in the heart of the Church.
	In the style of the Teresian Carmel, the sisters will make all welcome as brothers and sisters, giving joyful witness by of their life of prayer to the primacy of Christ's Love.
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