We are what we are because beauty is important and even necessary, but it is also too easy to forget in what it truly consists.

Beauty is the name and the title by which Mary, the Mother of God, is primarily known in Carmel.  She is the Beauty of Carmel who embodies what it is really about.  A life of contemplative prayer is a life of beauty, even in the midst of suffering, because it is the life of God as it wishes to give itself in our world if only we would let it.  We are here in Carmel to let it.