The plan for a Carmelite Monastery in Alabama began with Fr. Frank Casey, S.S.E. the superior of the Edmundite Fathers. He hoped for a monastery , "where the prayers and sacrifices of the nuns would silently intercede with God for the success of the Edmundites in their difficult work."
Archbishop Thomas J. Toolen requested nuns from the Carmelite Monastery in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania and on October 7, 1943 four nuns arrived in Mobile.
Richard Cardinal Cushing of Boston gave the funds to purchase the Holcombe estate, a farmhouse of 6+ acres of land at 716 Fulton Rd. (now Dauphin Island Parkway) for the new monastery.
The nuns set about living their Carmelite vocations through many years until 2010 when they asked Archbishop Rodi to come for a visit.
[In early 2010] the Carmelite nuns asked if I would visit. And they explained to me at that time they had come to a decision that the monastery had become just too much for the four of them to care for one another, and at the same time for them to continue the most important thing of all---their life of prayers. They made two requests: they asked, "Could there be some assistance in finding them a place to live?" And the other: "If at all possible, could another Carmelite community come to this place to keep it a place of prayer?"
Well, through the cooperation of the Carmelites, the Little Sisters of the Poor and the Sisters of Mercy, the Carmelites were welcomed at the Convent of Mercy to continue their ministry of prayer, but in a much better environment." Archbishop Thomas J. Rodi
