Convento

If I were a woman with a calling to cloistered contemplative life, I might be a Carmelite sister. (Or I would be a Benedictine. It’s a close call.) In the early days of my religious fervor, when I was an undergraduate at Cornell University, I discovered the works of St. Teresa of Avila and St. John of the Cross. The mystical writings of these Spanish Carmelite spiritual geniuses made me want to take up an interior journey, into my own soul and into the heart of God. They planted seeds that much later took root and produced the fruit of my present-day religious vocation. 

Today I visited Santa Teresa, the Carmelite convent and museum that occupies an entire city block bounded by Calle Baptista, Calle Ecuador, Calle España, and Calle Mayor Rocha. In 2012 it was designated a national monument for its historical, cultural, and architectural significance. A five-year restoration program, funded in large part by the U.S. embassy in Bolivia, was completed in 2018, and the results have been amazing. They call the convent La Joya de Bolivia (“The Jewel of Bolivia”); indeed, it is like a hidden gem, and it is has been hiding from me up until now. But after the celebration of Our Lady of Carmel last Tuesday, it was time for me to appreciate this great jewel up close. 

With evening prayer on the night of Oct. 13, 1760, the feast of Saint Teresa, four Carmelite sisters from Sucre established a monastery in Cochabamba. Following the reform of the Carmelite order by Saint Teresa, there would be exactly 21 sisters dwelling in this foundation, which included both a convent and a church. (The present-day church is the third to be built on the site.) Our guide brought Profesora Viviana and me through many but not all of the restored areas of the convent. 

The convent cloister is admirable for its architectural simplicity, but its stark minimalism tells you much more. It speaks of its inhabitants, the sisters who sought literally to espouse themselves to Jesus Christ. They thought of nothing else but to give themselves over totally to Jesus; and it was the solitude of the monastery that helped them achieve this spiritual aim. It struck me how thoroughly quiet the cloister is. Despite the noisy city whirling around it outside, the cloister preserves silence and stillness. Maybe the two-meter-thick walls surrounding the convent have something to do with that. In the calm air of the cloister, you can breathe in the Spirit of God. 

A sisters’ cell was as simple and bare as the cloister itself. It had the minimum of necessities: a bed, a jug and basin, a candle stand and reading desk, and an hourglass to help you keep track of your periods of rest and recitation of prayers. 

We passed through the sala capitular, or chapter room, where the sisters received their postulants, who changed their civilian clothes for the brown tunic, white head covering (toque), and black veil of the Carmelites. In this room the prior of the community was elected. The sisters would also gather in this room to share fellowship while their hands were busy with manual labor. The choir room, with exactly 21 stalls, was where the sisters would offer their spiritual labor, chanting the divine office together. 

Several labors, of course, had their proper place outside the chapter room and choir. For instance, we passed through a chamber where the sisters made candles from beeswax, and later paraffin. They also baked goods, made sweets, wove fabrics and embroidered them, and kept a vegetable garden. The sisters, who number about ten today, still do all these things. The sisters were also their own nurses and apothecaries. They reserved a large cell for the infirmary; and one closet in a cloister corridor revealed a botica or drugstore replete with bottles, flasks, and vials of powders and grains, liquids and tonics. All manner of druggists’ tools were there. From the look of it, you might think it was the medicine chest in the potions classroom at Hogwarts! 

You also got the vibrations of Harry Potter’s universe in the cell that served as the library. Locked in the cabinets were books bound in cowhide with titles written in Latin in very Gothic-looking script.

Saint Teresa of Avila was devoted to the infant Jesus and played tambourine, castanets, and drums to celebrate the Nativity. Therefore, one room of the convent is dedicated to the Holy Child. The sala de Belén, or Bethlehem room, features miniatures recreating the birth of Jesus. But these Nativity scenes go far above and beyond a stable, animals, and angel to include the history of salvation, beginning with the expulsion of Adam and Eve from Eden. The details in these models are exquisite, being wrought in the baroque style characteristic of Spanish Catholic piety. 

Equally ornate is the calvario, a chapel dedicated to Jesus Christ’s passion. Ten great paintings render in life size the condemnation and crucifixion: all the agony of Jesus’ radical self-sacrifice. At the front of the chapel is an enormous altarpiece (retablo) carved in wood and layered in gold paint, much in the same style as the altarpiece here at Templo San Francisco. 

Throughout the tour I was impressed with the quality of the restoration. So many original elements of the convent have been successfully preserved: stones and steps, paintings and wallpaper, ornamentation, wooden doors and roof timbers. The Carmelites built their monastery to last, using the best materials: lime, stone, and a wood called maguey. Where portions of the roof had to be repaired, they did it faithful to the original construction methods of cane, mud, and slate layers. 

We saw the room where the deceased sisters would be wrapped in a shroud and lie in a catafalque while the prior would keep vigil and pray for the departed. The sisters used to have their own burial ground until the city required all the dead to be interred in the municipal cemetery. 

There were other chambers and spaces we were not privy to on this tour, like the vegetable garden, the kitchen, or the winery. On the last weekend of the month, you can see those spaces on an evening tour. We did not visit the church itself, either, but if I wish, I can attend Mass at Santa Teresa on Sunday at 8 a.m. 

I have dropped some news and photo links along the way. Would you like a closer look at the convent from the inside? I leave it to you to visit the Facebook page for the Carmelite convent or follow this link from my Google search for fine photos of the convent. What I cannot do for you is put you on the rooftop of the cloister, from where you could survey the convent in all its immensity, all of Cochabamba around you, and Cristo de la Concordia in the eastern distance. 

Okay, I lied. You can have a view from the rooftop. 

Would that everyone could taste the air of a sacred space like this. They might want to embark on a journey with God into the soul, too. If I had more time, I would remain in the cloister of Santa Teresa until nightfall to contemplate God through the Carmelites’ gift of solitude. But I will content myself with the Franciscan cloister I have been blessed to admire for the last five and a half months.