meeting the sisters

thursday night after we scrubbed our city scum touristy bodies, we got dressed up nice and headed over to the larger parlor. we entered and turned on the light in the parlor on our side of the grill. as soon as we flipped the switch the sisters broke out in song. one sister pulled the curtain back and sheer beauty was revealed. their faces glowed and their eyes sparkled. we'd been treated to their wonderful voices all week at mass. we could now put faces to voices. they sang a very upbeat song (suspected to be written by our favorite carmelite) accompanied by guitar. i can't remember all the words but i remember a bit of the refrain- "hello dear family, welcome to carmel!" and "may the Lord bless you!"
after the song they sat on all available benches and the rest sat modestly on the ground. we introduced our brood and then i asked their names. mother's name is mother maria luz. let me see if i can remember the rest. next to her was our sister mary agnes. then there was sister mary immaculate(she played the guitar- she knows rose and is from augusta- formerly bernadette almeter), sister marie therese(she was a postulant- i joked with her about how she didn't get the memo to wear the black veil), sister anna maria, sister mary alta gracia, and sister mary baptist.
we told stories and jokes- at which they giggled profusely. they sent a miniatre classical guitar through the turn for samantha to play. she tried a few songs out on them. we complimented them on their cooking and asked that they share some recipes with us- especially the ice cream which was fabulous. sister mary agnes said that store bought ice cream has antifreeze in it so it remains soft and scoopable. their "antifreeze" is rum or irish cream (whichever is on hand), in our case- rum. plus they sweetened it with maple syrup.
we sang a few songs all together and said our goodbyes when the evening prayer bell rung. it was a blessing to be able to meet them all.