A House of Prayer: A Conversation with Sr. Beth Fitzpatrick, O. Carm

Flourishing Sisterhood

This episode features Sr. Beth Fitzpatrick, a Sister of Mt. Carmel, who discusses her lifelong connection to her congregation. On a walk with her mother and sisters, she expressed her awe in front of the Mt. Carmel motherhouse at just five years old. Her love of Carmelite prayerfulness made her feel right at home. Sr. Beth took time to carefully discern her vocation, and the path her life would take. She made the definitive decision to go to the university of her choice before entering religious life, knowing that she would eventually become a sister. As she told one of her mentors, “if I lose my vocation that easily, then I don't have one.” Sr. Beth, who was taught by Dominicans and Carmelites before receiving her master’s degree from Notre Dame University, and studying at the Jesuit School of Theology in Berkeley, says that her spirituality has been informed by each congregation from which she has had the pleasure of learning. In religious life, Sr. Beth has been a high school home economics and religion teacher, a GED teacher at Hope House in the St. Thomas Housing Development, formation director for the congregation, leader of her congregation from 2005 to 2013, and the Archdiocese of New Orleans’ Vicar for Religious.

The Flourishing Sisterhood Project is supported by the Conrad N. Hilton Foundation’s Catholic Sisters Initiative. The podcast is produced by the Loyola Institute for Ministry and retained by the university’s Digital Humanities Archive.

Music and sound effects provided by distressbear and t2audio through Pond5.