When the brothers and priests of the Order of the Most Holy Trinity moved to Pikesville in 1943, they were seeking a tranquil home that would foster inner reflection and spiritual growth.
They found that solitude on a 37-acre estate amid tall oaks off Park Heights Avenue. "It was all rolling woods and animals and fields completely surrounding us," said the Rev. John Dorn, provincial of the order.
Today, the monastery, which lies outside the Beltway, is surrounded by suburban sprawl. Its prayer garden is nearly overshadowed by townhouses. A colossal statue of Jesus at the monastery's entrance stretches itshands toward for-sale signs on nearby housing lots.
To ensure a contemplative retreat for men entering the order, the Trinitarians now send them to a more peaceful location -- in Texas.
Throughout the Baltimore area,convents and monasteries that once provided a refuge for reflection are being assaulted by the noise, traffic and pollution that other suburbanites lament. Some orders have benefited from the demand for acreage by selling off property and raising millions of dollars, but others are troubled by the press of development.
In Catonsville, the drone of Interstate 95 traffic and the overhead whine of jets intrudes upon the All Saints Sisters of the Poor convent's quiet retreat. Nearby, the Oblate Sisters of Providence worry about crime in their neighborhood. The Trinitarians, meanwhile, struggle to get out of their driveway in a crush of traffic, and plant pine trees to shield the view of nearby homes.
"It's definitely not as bucolic as it once was," says the Rev. Charles Flood, secretary-treasurer of the Trinitarians' order. "The quiet was important because you wanted to instill in people an inner quiet."
Of course, such inconveniences pale in comparison to the sufferings most of the orders have endured over the centuries. The Trinitarians, for example, were founded 800 years ago to ransom Christians taken captive during the Crusades, sometimes exchanging themselves for those held hostage.
Many of the religious retreats were purchased earlier this century to accommodate the growing numbers of men and women entering religious life. The Trinitarians' work in Maryland began in Hyattsville in 1931, but a few years later the order sought a quieter spot to establish a formation house -- a residence for men entering the order.
In the 1950s, the Trinitarians' land holdings increased when they were deeded the 50-acre Grey Rock estate. But as growth spread north along Reisterstown Road, the land around them started to change -- homes and stores sprang up.
"People constantly wanted us to sell," Dorn says. "They said they would make us an offer we couldn't refuse."
The Trinitarians held on to their land until the late 1980s, when the county announced plans to build a road through the middle of it. The Trinitarians decided they didn't need two pieces of property separated by a road, so they sold Grey Rock, now home to a community of condominiums and townhouses.
Although the formation house has moved to Texas, the local monastery is the order's provincial headquarters and open for school and church retreats.
"People who come here still see it as an island of tranquility," Dorn says, adding, "it isn't as tranquil as it once was, and traffic is a nightmare."
The All Saints Sisters of the Poor convent is tucked away in Patapsco State Park, but the Episcopalian order is not immune from urban pressures.
The convent offers quiet retreats to the public, but the silence is broken by the sounds of highway traffic and jets from Baltimore-Washington International Airport.
"I guess you call it sounds of progress, or something," says Sister Christina Christie, the novice mistress at the convent.
As nearby forests and farms gave way to housing developments, the nuns found it increasingly difficult to maintain their tranquil existence. Residents from nearby homes walk through the nuns' property and occasionally pause to picnic on the convent grounds.
A short distance away, the Oblate Sisters of Providence have noticed changes, too.
The sisters bought their property off Gun Road in the 1930s to establish a house for young women entering the order.
"It was supposed to be a novitiate and they needed a quiet area for training," says Sister Mary Claudina Sanz, the convent's superior. In 1960, the order moved its provincial headquarters from Baltimore to Catonsville.
At the time, the Beltway hadn't been built, Rolling Road was a narrow country road and U.S. 1 was the area's major highway.
But even in their plain brick house at the edge of the Patapsco park, development presses on them. Last year, they joined neighbors in protesting a plan for a swimming center nearby. That plan was defeated, but the nuns still worry about how their neighborhood is changing.
"We formerly didn't have those bars on our cars to keep people from stealing them," Sister Mary Claudina says.
Development hasn't always been unwelcome, however. Some orders have sold excess land, raising money to support elderly members.
The School Sisters of Notre Dame once worked the fields around their convent at Bellona Avenue and Charles Street in Baltimore, raising apples, strawberries and other foods. "It was a quiet farm," says Sister Betty Koehn, administrator for operational services.
In the 1980s, with the number of women entering the order declining, the sisters sold most of their property to a developer to raise money to care for sick and elderly members. Now the Cloisters, an upscale townhouse community, is their neighbor, and an assisted living facility is being built nearby.
The Sisters of Notre Dame de Namur are among the most active land traders in the religious community, in 1996 selling 67 acres in Brooklandville for $3.2 million. The property, near Maryvale Preparatory School, is being developed into a community of 29 homes costing $750,000 to $1.2 million.
The sisters also recently sold 98 acres on Landing Road in Howard County, once the site of their provincial house. Developers are preparing to break ground on a 174-home community on the site.
Off Dulaney Valley Road outside Towson, the Carmelite Sisters of Baltimore so far have rebuffed offers for their monastery grounds, but development has not been kept entirely at bay.
The changes started soon after the order moved from Baltimore in 1961, says Sister Constance FitzGerald, the convent's treasurer. "When we moved out, people said we were moving so far away. Now we're almost the last piece of wooded property."
Today, homes surround their 27-acre monastery and recently the county took several acres of their land to make storm water improvements.
Although their vistas have changed, and the nuns can no longer enjoy a quiet walk down their lane, they maintain the cloistered, contemplative life their order has observed for 200 years in America, Sister Constance says.
"The Carmelite contemplative life has gone on in many different places," she says. "It's been lived in the monasteries of Spain and on the street and every kind of situation, but certainly beauty and nature are very helpful."
Pub Date: 3/09/99