The liturgical arts are alive and well at the Carmel in Alexandria, South Dakota.  Each year Our Lord leads various Catholic women here on the road to discernment, while others perhaps stumble upon it while on a road trip to see nearby Mt. Rushmore, a national memorial in the Black Hills region of South Dakota.  The Carmel is rightly hidden, a cloistered community known as theMonastery of Our Mother of Mercy and Saint Joseph.  This quiet monastic gem was established in 1997 and heaven has blessed it with vocations.  

Today the community is filled with a dozen sisters who are young and enthusiastic followers of the Carmelite tradition.  Professed members are vested in the traditional habit and they are 'discalced' (meaning, without shoes).  The enclosure was built in the 1990's and includes a small chapel and gift shop open to the public.  

Since July of last year the daily convent liturgies have been offered in the EF (usus antiquior).  Why is this so important?  In short, because it is the tradition of the Western Church and it is deeply rooted in Catholic identity and the Carmelite monastic tradition and spirituality.  

Further, whenever the Mass and Office are sung together by a community in Latin, there is an optimal musical status.  Latin has a superiority on account of its vocal richness and melodic flow and rhythmic fullness.  Latin is better suited than English in the area of musical meter, prosody, declamation, idiomatic musical expressions, sung sentence structure, and tonic accent.  

The Church in her wisdom sees immense value in Latin.  The Vatican Council stated in no uncertain terms (Constitution on the Sacred Liturgy, Article 36): "The use of the Latin language is to be preserved in the Latin rites."  In contrast to various misleading translations of this injunction, it must be observed that the official text of the document employs the subjunctive 'servetur' and therefore expresses a command and not merely a recommendation.