The saviour of Antwerp

At Rosier 22 street, in off-the-beaten-track part of Antwerp one finds a set of  austere buildings. It is a convent of the Discalded Carmelite  nuns. Since the early XVII century, with the exception of a short interruption following the French Revolution, this place has been home to a silent dedication to the Divine.  

The church and convent of the Discalded Carmelites in Antwerp

The convent holds a very special place in the Carmelite community. It was founded by the Blessed Anne of Saint Bartholomew (1549-1626).

The Blessed Anne of Saint Bartholomew, prayer  card

Born in a Castilan village Ana García Manzanas became one of the closest collaborators - a nurse and personal assistant of Saint Teresa of Avila, who, together with Saint John of the Cross, reformed the Carmelite Order. A sheperdess in her youth, she was the first lay sister admitted to St. Teresa's Discalded Carmelite convent in Avila in 1570. There she learned to write, it is said thanks to the miraculous powers of St. Teresa. Anne took the black veil of a choir nun only in 1604 as a condition for becoming a fouding prioress in Pontoise (she also served in this capacity in Paris and Tours). Ana's sister also became a Carmelite nun. After Saint Teresa's death, Anne left Spain, along with another protegee of Saint Teresa, Venerable Anne of Jesus (the founder of a Carmel in Brussels), and three other sisters, to found convents in France, and in today's Belgium. 

Following a one-year stay at the Monastery of Saint Joseph in Mons, Anne of Saint Bartolomew arrived on the 29th of October 1612 in Antwerp with three fellow sisters. She took up residence in the house of Don Ignatius de Borgia, a local governor. According to convent chronicles, he and his wife "considered themselves very happy to receive one whom they honored as a Saint, and who was revered as such by everyone." It is said that Anne helped him mend his ways, including overcoming an addiction to gambling. 

Three years later, the Carmelite nuns bought land at Rosier, a Rose-tree - several small houses and a large orchard. Impressed by this place, Anne told the superior of the province, Father Thomas of Jesus, that "the songs of the birds will draw our minds to recollection."

In the fall of 1615 Archduchess Isabel Clara Eugenia, the daughter of King Philip II of Spain, and her husband Archduke Albert of Austria (a one-time cardinal of Toledo), the sovereigns of the Spanish Netherlands, arrived in Antwerp to oversee one of Isabella's maids of honor taking the habit of a Carmelite nun. The pair also laid the the first stone for the convent church dedicated to Saint Joseph (the cult of St. Joseph was spread by St. Teresa). This simple structure, in the tradition of Carmelites, was completed in 1639. The inscription on a silver medal, commemorating the occasion, states as follows:

"Albert and Isabella, by the grace of God, Infantas of Spain, Archdukes of Austria, Dukes of Burgundy and Brabant, Counts of Flanders and Holland, with their own hands these pious and happy princes have placed the first stone of this church in the year 1615."

Memorial with painted portrait of the Infanta in the Antwerp church of the Discalded Carmelite nuns

As prof. Cordula van Wyhe of the University of York, put it: "Albert and Isabel's primary goal was to secure their subjects' confessional allegiance to the Catholic Church and political allegiance to the Spanish crown... Albert and Isabel brought a Spanish flair to Catholicism in the Low Countries through the promotion of Iberian saints and Spanish spirituality." The introduction of the Discalded Carmelites thus exemplified "the hispanicization" of the religious life in the Spanish Netherlands. (from van Wyhe's Spiritual Writings of Sister Margaret of the Mother of God (1635-1643), published in 2015). 

Infanta Isabel in front of Mariemont Castle, Jan Brueghel the Elder

Saint Teresa of Avila by Peter Paul Rubens on the cover of Cordula van Wyhe's book

Archduchess Isabel had first met Mother Anne when the latter took up an invitation to see the princely couple at their country estate at Marimont while on her way from Mons to Antwerp. She made a deep impression on the sovereigns. Infanta Isabel would henceforth maintain an intimate correspondance with Anne, and - as was not unusual for the age - consult with her on all matters, secular and spiritual.

In 1614, St. Teresa was declared blessed. Thanks to her close relationship with her - Saint Teresa died in the arms of her beloved infirmarian - Anne of Saint Bartholomew, the foundress and life-long prioress of the Antwerp Carmel, became a figure of authority, and of public attention outside of the convent, and beyond the Low Countries. In one of her many visions she saw that "the foundation in Antwerp would be a torch, which would cast its splendor and light throughout the whole country."

Brother Andrew of Jesus (Brzechwa), the first Polish Carmelite Discalded

After Brother Andrew of Jesus (Brother), the first Polish Carmelite Discalded visited Mother Anne in Antwerp, her fame spread to Poland as well. The Polish Primate Laurence Gembicki wrote to her on the 26th September 1623: "I recommend my person, this kingdom, surrounded on all sides by fierce and barbarous nations, the king whom God has placed at its head, and the holy Catholic church whose ship is tossed about by the upheaval of such great wars."

Archbishop Laurent  Gembicki (1589-1624)

The spread of the Discalded Carmelites  to Poland was helped by the familial and dynastic relations of the Vasa kings, then reigning in Warsaw, with Infanta Isabella and the Spanish Habsburgs. In fact, the Discalded Carmelites, who established their presence  in the Spanish Netherlands  would subsequently set up convents in Poland.  

The times were extremely precarious for the Spanish Netherlands. Having contributed to the introduction of the reformed order into France, from 1604 until 1611, Anne of St. Bartholomew arrived in Flanders in the midst of the Eighty Year's War (1568-1648). The Catholic Spanish Netherlands were at war with the Protestant Dutch provinces. The Dutch revolt had a traumatic impact on Antwerp, which was the economic and financial centre of the Low Countries. The city was sacked by mutinied Spanish soldiers in 1576. This and other incidents gave rise to the "Spanish fury," a dark legend spread among Protestants to demonize the Spanish. Antwerp joined the anti-Spanish revolt, but was reconquered by Alessandro Farnese, governor general of the Spanish Netherlands after a year-long siege, from July 1584 to August 1585.  

Anne was credited with saving the city from Dutch invasions in 1622 and 1624, earning her the title of Guardian and Liberatrix of Antwerp. Archduchess Isabel told one of her ministers: "I fear nothing for the citadel, nor for the city of Antwerp, for Anne of St. Bartholomew is there, and she alone is worth all the armies of the world."

Anne became what one today might call a celebrity. She wrote in her autobiography, without exaggeration, that "this monastery was esteemed by the entire city." She was a strong defender of the Teresian heritage, no doubt happy to live to see Teresa of Avila canonised in 1622. Anne left behind a treasure trove of letters, including hundreds dictated to her by Saint Teresa.

A title page of the Dutch translation of Anne's autobiography (1632)

Mother Anne not only looked after the spiritual well-being of the nuns under her care, but also their physical well-being. Knowledgeable as a herbalist, and a skilled infirmarian, with enlightened views on the physical and mental health, she was  one of the precursors of nursing. As one scholar notes: "Less than a decade after the death of Ana de San Bartolomé, nursing began to professionalize" (Healing on the Margins: Ana de San Bartolomé, Convent Nurse. Barbara Mujica. Georgetown University, 2014).

In 1624, Anne welcomed into the fold Mary Margaret of the Angels (van Valckenisse), the future foundress of the Carmel in Oirschot. The young nun was deeply affected by the example set by Anne, who welcomed the profession of her vows one year  later. Though never beatified, Mary Margaret herself would lead a life of a saint.

Mary Margaret of the Angels (1605-1658)

Anne of Saint Bartholomew died in the odour of sanctity.  On the day of her funeral, more than 20,000 chaplets or pictures touched her remains - such was the desire of the people to  retain a connection with her (and a belief in the power of relics). As well as Antwerp, Brussels was said to have been "deopopulated; not only the lower classes, but the nobles and several princes and princesses, departed immediately to venerate this holy body before it was placed in the tomb."  

By 1632, some 150 miracles owing to her intercession had been approved. Here is one example. In 1633, the Queen Marie Medici of France, then in exile in the Spanish Netherlands, fell ill at Ghent.  Even though the Infanta's doctors and the Queen's were called for, none could stop the fever which lasted forty-four days. Then, the prioress of the Carmel of Ghent sent her a mantle worn by Mother Anne. The Queen covered herself with it and within three hours regained perfect health.     

***

 “Silence is precious; 

by keeping silence and knowing how to listen to God, 

the soul grows in wisdom 

and God teaches it what it cannot learn from men.”

Bl. Anne of St. Bartholomew

Unfortunately, I have not yet been inside the convent church (there is only one mass celebrated on Sundary early morning), nor, obviously, the cloistered quarters. However, let me share the pictures showing what the Antwerp Carmel looks like today and what it looked like in the first half of the twentieth-century. For this reason, I juxtapose the pictures from Flanders' Inventory of Real Estate, with illustrations from the book Antwerpen Karmel klooster. Anvers Monastère du Carmel, published in 1930.  

  

The interior of the church

An interior of the cell of Blessed Anne of Saint Bartholomew, transformed into a chapel

A refectory

The courtyard

One of the hermitages

A reliquary of the Blessed Anne