The story of the Carmelite Monastery in Carmel-by-the-Sea, California, actually begins about eight centuries before it was built. The Carmelite Order is a Roman Catholic religious order for men and women. As far as scholars can determine, it was founded in the 12th-century at Mount Carmel in Israel. The order of Carmelite nuns was formalized in 1452. In 1602, three Carmelite friars came with Don Sebastian Vizcaino’s expedition to central California. When they saw the area now known as Point Lobos, they were struck by its resemblance to Mount Carmel…
