IN MEMORY OF
MOTHER TERESA OF
JESUS (MAUREEN) FOX
Peacefully at the Carmel
of St. Joseph, Spruce
Grove, Mother Teresa of
Jesus, O.C.D., foundress,
passed into eternal life,
November 24th, 2016,
aged 91, in the 62
nd
year
of her religious life. Born
March 5, 1925 in Cardiff,
South Wales – Great
Britain, to William Joseph
Fox and Mary (O’Farrell),
Maureen was their second child, having
been preceeded by a brother, Fr. Francis
Patrick Joseph, I.C., who became a
Rosminian priest. She received a lively
Catholic Faith from her loving and closely –
knit family in which religion was of first
importance. Maureen entered the
Carmelite Monastery in Bridell, Cardige in
northern Wales on September 15, 1952.
On March 24, 1953 she received the
Carmelite Habit and her religious name of
‘Sister Teresa of Jesus’. She made her
First Profession on March 25, 1954 and
made her Perpetual Profession of Vows on
March 25, 1957. In 1966 she became
Mistress of Novices and she served as
Prioress from 1968 – 1971.
With the closure of Bridell Carmel in
1975, Mother Teresa went temporarily to
Darlington Carmel for Association work.
She was the Secretary of the Association of
British Carmels in its formative stage. In
April 1978 she went to help the Carmel in
Macau and became Novice Mistress in
December, 1978. She was elected
Prioress in January 1985 and has held this
office for 31 consecutive years until her
death in November, 2016. Mother’s
experience in Macau gave her a deep
insight on Communist China and a
profound love for the persecuted Church
there. As the Carmel was situated on the
mainland of China, the nuns were in a
privileged position to receive many
confessors of the Faith in their parlour
(1980 – 1990). These included priests
(mostly Jesuits), Sisters, laypeople who
had all borne heroic witness to their faith by
long years of suffering in prisons and
labour camps before finally being released
at the end of their unjust sentences. Mother
Teresa wrote 3 biographies of Confessors
of the Faith in the Suffering Church in
China. She kept close contact with many
faithful Chinese priests and laity from
around the world; several of whom had
been former prisoners for Christ there. She
worked zealously until the time of her death
to assist them, educate others, and to
promote a greater awareness of the
situation of the underground persecuted
Church in China.
Macau was under Portuguese Church
rule because China had leased Macau to
Portugal for 442 years. This lease was due
to expire in 1999, and Macau was then to
be handed back over to Communist
mainland China. In addition to that
situation, Macau could not viably generate
vocations to perpetuate the existence of
the Carmel, given that only a mere 2% of
its population was Catholic and a cloistered
Carmelite vocation is a unique calling. With
these considerations in mind, Mother
Teresa and her community decided to
relocate abroad. Many permissions of
Church and state were needed for this
tremendous undertaking. Human effort
and interventions of God’s unfailing
providence, which can only be seen as
miraculous, allowed them to leave and on
March 8, 1990, Mother Teresa of Jesus
arrived in Canada with 7 other nuns to
found this Carmelite Monastery of St
Joseph in Spruce Grove, Alberta which
opened May 31, 1993.
Although we deeply feel the great loss
of her physical presence, her spirit remains
very much alive among us as we go
forward blessed by her heroic example of
greatness, fidelity, and indefatigable trust in
God’s loving providence and care.
Archbishop José Rodriguez Carballo,
Secretary of the Congregation for
Institutes of Consecrated Life and
Societies of Apostolic Life, gave a
conference on the cloistered life and it was
very well done. So I will simply give you a
review of his excellent talk, all of which we
Nuns thoroughly appreciated.
So the cloistered life is to serve the
contemplative life, a life of intense love of
the Divine Spouse. It is an all or nothing
sort of life, radical in the sense that if we
don’t live it fully we don’t live it at all. So
because the Nuns have been called like
Jeremiah who moans that he has been
seduced, that he pants for God, so the Nun
has received a strong experience of being
loved by God, and to whom much is given,
much is demanded. So the Nun wants to
give all her life to respond to this love.
Hence her life is a cloistered life of the
Heart. The external cloister is a physical
sign and symbol of this.
Hence the need for silence and solitude in
this life, for the Nun (for that matter I
should add, the monk), searches for God,
this God who has seduced her to give Him
her entire heart. But God is not so easily
found. So the silence of waiting for Him,
living for Him. A silence that is very
positive since lived for Another, even when
it is difficult. Silence is like a lamp of love
held aloft to seek the Beloved. And in that
place of intimacy, of the solitude of the
enclosure, the Nun gives God the affection
of her heart.
So the option for the cloistered life is to
be a total gift for the first and only
Spouse, to renounce even space in order to
remain with the One who contains
everything! It is a cloistered life of the
heart. Hence the cloister calls for an
appropriate response to such a gift.
Of course there is a penitential aspect of
the enclosure. But this makes sense only if
we speak the language of love. So the nun
has to be aware of the danger of looking at
herself, falling into a false solitude. No,
our life is to be prophetic – here lies the
apex of our life of penance – that our life
of contemplative love for God be genuine.
Hence joyous as well, which for us is always
possible, and a responsibility. Joy must be
served in tribulation, and perfected in
suffering.
So the cloister is an oasis in a desert where
flowers grow, where we approach the
source of Life, to God. It is a place of
regeneration. Cloister separates us from,
in order to separate us for! It is a place of
loving intimacy, of listening, a school of
formation; it obliges us to pass from self to
a radical freedom where we can freely and
fully give ourselves to the One who calls for
this love.
Archbishop Carballo told us that our
cloister must not be absent from history.
We take history, the world, all into our
prayers and into the fullness of God. We
follow Jesus, so that we are to form
ourselves into His image, and thus become
an existential narration of God. So that
whoever comes to the Monastery must
become aware of something …ah what to
call it?
Finally Archbishop Carballo called to us,
“Don’t deprive the Church of your cry for
the Transcendent.”
I hope this explanation helps somewhat to
explain enclosure. Maybe I can say that
religious life still remains a mystery. We
love it but it is difficult to explain. Only
living it with love tells the story well.
By a Carmelite Nun
About Us
Discalced Carmelite Nuns, OCD