Name of Church Carmel of Jesus, Mary and Joseph
Address 68 Rincon Road, Kensington CA 94707 (no phone number; write the sisters at this address)
Website Carmel of Kensington
Mass Schedule Check the website. Often at 7 am during the week and 8 am on Sundays, but check the website for the Mass schedule, as times change and some days have no public Mass. The chapel is open daily for prayer 7:30 am to 5:30 pm
Activities The sisters rise at 5 am and have prayer, Mass, and work throughout the day. There is a small chapel open to the public most days for mass; the sisters are separated by a grille.
Additional observations The Kensington Carmel was founded in 1949 (the current group of sisters came in 2012, when a benefactor purchased the property for them). This is a small community, with eight professed members. The nuns wear a traditional Carmelite habit and live in individual cells. Take an online tour. You may ring a bell during selected daytime hours and speak to one of the sisters. The sisters do not eat meat, have their photographs taken or touch others. They wear open-toed sandals year-round, despite the wet and cold winters. They survive on donations and fruits and vegetables they grow. They only leave the grounds for medical appointments. The monastery has views of San Francisco Bay and the Golden Gate Bridge; it is across from Berkeley’s Blake House and Garden.
I think these nuns are connected to the FSSP and have the Tridentine Latin Mass, Sacraments, and Divine Office. Their Kensington monastery is completely full, with the maximum of 21 nuns, eight of them fully professed. This group of nuns had to move from their monastery in Nebraska, (connected there to the FSSP) when it became too full, beyond the maximum number of 21 nuns. Bishop Barber welcomed them into the Diocese of Oakland. Today, both monasteries are full! Here are a couple of excellent links about them:
https://themonthly.com/feature1804/
https://www.carmelofkensington.org/daily-life/
Beautiful
Correct me if I am wrong, but I believe it was then Bishop Cordileone who welcomed the sisters to Kensington from their previous place in Canyon, CA. It is also a wonderful place to have a Mass said for someone living or dead and to procure a lovely card for the price of a Mass stipend for the priest who will be saying it.
I would like to have email address to write to Mother prioress about something personal.
Just send a letter. Cloistered nuns don’t use the internet or email or computers. They pray and read and write using old fashioned means such as books, paper, pen and pencil. They are old-timey that way.
The nuns are not connected to FSSP.
Fogbeltboy (in his comments), is correct.
Their website is currently down as we are
experiencing issues with transferring their new domain and hosting.
Thank you for your patience.
Please write to them they do not use Internet nor receive phone calls from the public.