By Donald H. Harrison
SAN DIEGO—Across California Highway 56, between the Carmel Creek Road and Carmel Country Road exits, two houses of worship are in view of each other’s back yards: Chabad of Del Mar and St. Therese of Carmel.
Besides by a freeway, these two institutions are also separated by wide theological differences. Members of Chabad, a Chassidic Jewish institution, typically refrain from using the words "Saint" or "San" so as not to imply acquiescence to the Christian concept of sainthood, which to many Orthodox Jews smacks of forbidden idolatry. It is not uncommon for Chabad members to refer in writing to the city in which they live as “S. Diego” rather than “San Diego." The name "St. Therese" poses a similar theological problem forthem.
St. Therese of Carmel Catholic Church was named in memory of Therese Martin, a 19th Century French nun of the Carmelite order, whose short life was considered so exemplary that she was canonized as a saint. She died of pneumonia in 1897 at the monastery in Lisieux, France, when she was only 24, but her reflections on how one can serve God have inspired generations of Catholics who followed her.
“I am a very little soul, who can offer only very little things to the Lord,” she is quoted as saying by Wikipedia. “I will spend my Heaven doing good on earth. After my death I will let fall a shower of roses.” A statue of St. Therese of Carmel in front of the large church shows her with flowers in her hand, a reference to her reputation as the Little Flower of Jesus.
Yet, for all their theological differences, St. Therese and Chabad of Del Mar have some shared history as well.
To begin with the Carmel Valley area was named after Mount Carmel in Israel, near Haifa, where the Bible teaches that the Prophet Elijah demonstrated the power of God over that of the pagan deity Baal, notwithstanding that he was outnumbered 450-1 by Baal’s priests. (I Kings 18:21-40)
It was on that mountain, near a place known as the Well of Elijah, that Catholic monks established in the 12th century C.E. the Stella Maris Monastery. As the order grew it established monasteries in other countries around the world, and eventually orders for women also were created.
In the 1890s, the Sisters of Mercy—an order that considered itself a cross between the cloistered Carmelite nuns and the Sisters of Charity—purchased 1,000 acres from the McGonigle family and named their acquisition Mount Carmel Ranch. There they developed a dairy and a pig and vegetable farm for the benefit of patients at St. Joseph’s Dispensary in San Diego—an institution that eventually would evolve into Mercy Hospital.
The sisters had a home built in 1905 to serve not only as their living quarters but also as a refuge for orphans. Between this time and 1947, when Robert and Ann Stephens purchased the home, the area became generally known as Carmel Valley.
The Stephens family helped to found St. William of York Catholic Church, the forerunner church of St. Therese of Carmel Church. Before the freeway was built, a bridge used to connect the Stephens' property with a cemetery where the nuns were buried, adjacent to the church. When Mrs. Stephens died in 2003, her estate sold the property for $1.15 million to Chabad of Del Mar, which had been conducting services in Del Mar—a separately incorporated city that lies to the west of the Carmel Valley section of San Diego.
The congregation, under the spiritual leadership of Rabbi Hersh Piekarski, reads Torah on Monday and Thursday mornings at the home on the historic property. However, Shabbat services which draw a larger crowd are held in an assembly room of the nearby San Diego Jewish Academy on Carmel Creek Road.
In summary: Named for an area made famous in Jewish Scriptures, Carmel Valley was settled by a Catholic order which eventually sold its property to a private citizen who helped establish the church across the freeway. After she died the historic home became property of the Chabad Jewish organization. There may not be a concrete interchange over the freeway at this location, but there certainly is a religious interchange.
Comments