Carmelite sisters ask for prayers, donations after fire destroys retreat house

Carmelite sisters in Los Angeles are asking the Catholic faithful for prayers — and donations if they are able — after a fire destroyed one of their retreat houses April 11.

“[The] No. 1 [way to help] is just to pray with us, to be attentive to the promptings of the Holy Spirit right now, especially in this time of rebuilding, that we move according to what the Lord wants,” Sister Meredith Boquiren, OCD, directress of the Sacred Heart Retreat House in Alhambra, California, told anchor Veronica Dudo in an April 16 interview on “EWTN News Nightly.”

Early Saturday afternoon during a four-day Healing the Whole Person retreat, a fire broke out on the second floor of one of the two retreat houses on the campus, which is operated by the Carmelite Sisters of the Most Sacred Heart of Los Angeles.

No one was injured in the fire, but the damaged building is inoperable and will need to be rebuilt.

Three fire departments responded to the scene and prevented the fire from spreading further throughout the campus, which includes the motherhouse, where all the sisters begin formation. The sisters have operated the campus for 85 years.

The exact cause of the fire has not yet been determined, and the sisters believe the source may have been electrical.

Boquiren said in the interview that the fire alarm went off shortly after the conclusion of the final retreat Mass, which the sisters hosted during the latter half of the Easter Octave, just ahead of Divine Mercy Sunday.

“Weʼve had some false alarms before, so I just went and ran to the place that the source indicated,” Boquiren said. “So I ran up the second floor of the building and saw a bunch of billowing black smoke and realized it was real. And then I ran outside to see, and at that moment the window had burst open with flames.”

She said it was “a strange experience because we had just finished some powerful testimonies” and within the next 10 minutes, “I experienced a sense of weight and darkness at the same time.”

“It was just quite strange to … experience the paschal joy and resurrection of our Lord through the suffering, right? The actual healing journey that we were experiencing on retreat,” she said. “So it was, it was quite a strange contradiction of emotions.”

Boquiren said “the damage was pretty expensive,” noting it is “a two-building, two-floor building with 25 rooms.”

“The water, smoke, and fire damage is pretty extensive,” she said. “The firemen had to make holes through the building on the top, and so itʼs basically unusable and irreparable at this time.”

In addition to asking for prayers, Boquiren said: “If you are willing and able to provide a gift, we would greatly appreciate that.”

Sister Mary Scholastica, OCD, director of advancement for the Carmelite Sisters of the Most Sacred Heart of Los Angeles, told EWTN News “it is too early for estimated cost of damages” but “an entire building will need to be rebuilt and construction in Southern California is costly.”

She said the retreat house serves more than 13,000 people annually.

Although one building is unusable, Boquiren noted in her “EWTN News Nightly” interview that retreats are still happening, but “it’s just with less capacity.”

“Blessed be God, they are [still happening], because we still have two of the buildings that we use in operation,” she said.

Source: https://www.ewtnnews.com/world/us/carmelite-retreat-house-destroyed-fire