The Apostolic Carmel Sisters in Sri Lanka celebrated the centenary of their services to the island nation. The congregation's charisma is education and the empowerment of girls and women.
Some 250 Apostolic Carmel Sisters work through 36 convents in Sri Lanka.
In the span of a hundred years, the nuns have touched thousands of Sri Lankans, especially young female students, orphans, poor tea estate workers, prisoners and the aged, following the exemplary obedience, faith and courage of Venerable Veronica, their foundress.
The advent of the Apostolic Carmel in Sri Lanka took place in 1922. Jesuit Father L. Dupont of Trincomalee travelled from Ceylon to request from Jesuit Bishop Gaston Robichez of Trincomalee for Mother Aloysia, the Apostolic Carmel superior general.
The prelate requested that she take over schools, homes, and orphanages from the Sisters of Cluny, who were withdrawing from Trincomalee for the lack of new members.
The nuns went from Mangalore, a southern coastal town, to Colombo.
God’s divine will for the Apostolic Carmel in Sri Lanka took shape on February 2, 1922, when the pioneer band of Sisters Mary Lourdes, Cresence, Clare, and Justin left India. They arrived in Trincomalee three days later. Our second convent in Sri Lanka was also a Cluny — St. Joseph’s Convent in Batticaloa, on May 8, 1922.
Interestingly, the Cluny Sisters returned to Sri Lanka and set up a small mission in Velanai, Jaffna," Sister Lydia Fernandes, the superior of the St. Agnes College in Mangalore (now Mangaluru) and a senior member of the congregation told a Catholic news portal.
Then, Bishop Bede Beckmeyer, the second Bishop of Kandy, invited the congregation to work in his diocese.
The Apostolic Carmel took over St. Ursula’s Convent in Badulla and its school.
Gradually the congregation was handed over other Catholic-run schools such as St. Mary’s College Trincomalee, St. Cecilia’s College Batticaloa, St. Anthony’s Vidyalaya Dematagoda, Carmel Central College Chilaw, All Saints College Colombo, St. Paul’s Balika Vidyalaya Kelaniya, St. Anthony’s Balika Vidyalaya Colombo, St. Theresa College Atchuvely, Holy Cross Tamil Vidyalaya Kalmunai, Sacred Heart College Muttur, Don Bosco School Jaffna, St. Benedicts Vidyalayam Jaffna and the Apostolic Carmel School Maharagama.
The 150-year-old Apostolic Carmel has a presence in India, Sri Lanka, Kuwait, Pakistan, Kenya, Tanzania, Uganda in East Africa, Rome, Bahrain, and Pau, France. The congregation has six overseas provinces and a region (East Africa). Their headquarter is in Bangalore (Bengaluru) in Karnataka State. Sister Maria Nirmalini is the superior general, the president of the Conference of Religious India, the national body of some 125,000 Catholic religious sisters, brothers and priests.
The Apostolic Carmel sisters carry on their mission with the motto “God alone Suffices.”
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