Posted by Doug Bowker

Part of what will be alonger-form documentary, this version was shot and edited by me over the course of a couple of years. The nuns of the monastery do not leave once they take their vows except for medical reasons, and virtually no one, including family may enter, other than two sitting rooms. They initially were looking for an educational video that could be shown to visitors, and over time agreed to let me shoot a longer story in return for the educational version. Within the inner city neighborhood of Roxbury in Boston, is an enclosed and protected community of Carmelite nuns. The Boston Carmelite order was founded in 1890, who built the Monastery of Our Lady and St. Joseph on three acres of land in 1896. Today it is oldest Carmelite monastery building still in use in the United States.