Our Roots

Our Congregation

A contemplative/apostolic religious congregation of Pontifical Rite and aggregated to the first order of the Discalced Carmelites (OCD), our Carmel of the Divine Heart of Jesus is an international congregation (visit our international website). Soon after its beginning in Berlin, Germany, in 1891, our congregation spread rapidly across Europe with Homes and day centers for children. It was in 1912 that Mother Maria Teresa brought our Carmel to North America, establishing several Homes for children, as well as for seniors, in the United States and Canada.

Since that time, our Carmel has continued to spread across the world. Today, our congregation numbers close to 400 Sisters worldwide in fifteen different countries. In addition to providing Homes for the old and young, our Sisters also engage in missionary work and catechetical instruction, run retreat houses, and offer homes for troubled youth and mothers in need of rest, always with the main purpose of winning countless souls for the Heart of Christ.

Our Provinces and Missions Today

Provinces

Our congregation is divided into ten Provinces according to geographic location and/or language groups. Each Sister belongs to a particular Province wherein she can be transferred freely. Inter-provincial transfers are possible, but not common. When a young woman enters our community, she enters a particular Province and will likely remain within that Province throughout her religious life.

Since 1964, our convents in the United States have been grouped into three Provinces – the North (Wisconsin, Indiana, Michigan), the Southwest (Texas), and the Central. This, our Central Province, currently consists of two convents, one in St. Louis, Missouri, and another in Owensboro, Kentucky. Our St. Louis convent is our Provincial House and House of Formation, i.e. where postulancy and novitiate take place.

Our Motherhouse

Our General Motherhouse is located in the city of Sittard, in the Netherlands. Here, our Mother General with our General Council serve as the principal body regulating religious life in our Congregation after the Holy Father and the Congregation for Institutes of Consecrated Life and Societies of Apostolic Life in Rome. In a side chapel built off of the main chapel at our Motherhouse, lie the remains of our Foundress, Bl. Maria Teresa of St. Joseph.

If you wish to write or visit our General Motherhouse, please write to:

Carmelite Sisters, DCJ
Kollenberg 2 
6132AL Sittard
Netherlands