Feature image: The Marylake ‘castle’ is visible from the highway. (Google Maps)
No longer is there a permanent community of Carmelite friars at Marylake Monastery just south of Little Rock, but the Marylake “castle” still stands, keeping watch over 240 acres of pine-covered retreat in extreme eastern Saline County, just before those south Arkansas piney woods brush up against the rich, alluvial soil of the Delta.
The Catholic Diocese of Little Rock still owns the property, which it has since 1952. That is when Marylake was opened as a novitiate house for the Discalced Carmelite friars of the Semi-Province of St. Thérèse, based in San Antonio but encompassing all of Arkansas, Louisiana, Texas and Oklahoma, as well as a convent in Iowa.
Today, the property is used as a retreat for friars and other officials across the province footprint, including the nuns at Carmel of St. Teresa of Jesus in Little Rock, as well as a home away from home for visiting priests ministering to Carmelites in the area, carrying out duties within the diocese or seeking a contemplative refuge…