Carmelite Abbey Ikskile

Barefoot Carmelite nuns live in a cloister, in simplicity and poverty, praying especially for the peoples among whom they live. They earn their living by doing manual labour, also baking Hosts. Day and night the nuns are awake, praying for the Church and the world. According to the regulations of the Carmel Abbey, one community can have no more than 21 nuns because each community lives as a family.

The main mission of the nuns in the Barefoot Carmelite Order is prayer. Staying in their abbey, the nuns live in seclusion from the world. They are praying for about 7 hours a day, working and with their lives testifying to the love of Christ and His coming. The nuns sacrifice prayers and appeals for the entire Church, but especially for priests and servants of God.

The whole day is scheduled around prayer, the opportunity of the soul to reach God and be in His presence. Therefore the nuns spend their days and nights in silence, except for one hour after lunch and one hour after dinner, which is devoted to everyday recreation, i.e., when all the nuns gather to talk freely while doing handiwork.

In the abbey schedule, 5.00 – 22.00 is the time for prayer and work. Each nun has to work for the benefit of the community. The candidates to the Barefoot Carmelite Order have to be people of prayer who strive for absolute love and distance from the world. They need a good sense of responsibility, need to be able to live in a tight community of nuns in the seclusion of the cloister. One can join from the age of 18, however finished education and a profession is preferred. A nun usually stays in the community she has joined for the rest of her life, without ever changing it.