A Carmelite Nun is a person who has given her life totally to Jesus Christ. She desires to follow Him and belong to Him completely.

She enters this way of life because she feels called to seek God with all her mind and heart and strength, so spends her life trying to live in His presence, attentive to Him, loving and adoring Him, and bringing the needs of all people before Him in continual prayer.

She is consecrated to God by Solemn Vows, and promises to live, in the company of the other sisters, a life that is poor, chaste, obedient and wholly dedicated to prayer in the service of the Church and her fellow men and women.

St Thérèse of Lisieux, a Carmelite nun of the nineteenth century, described her Carmelite vocation to prayer in these words, In the heart of my Mother the Church, I will be love. For each one of us it is necessary to pray and get to know God our Father who loves us, but it is the special duty of a Carmelite to stand constantly before Him in prayer on behalf of all, loving Him for them and being a channel through which his love and mercy can come to them.