On an early Saturday morning in May, the chartered white Lion Express bus with blue streaks emblazoned on the sides sat idling on Granada Avenue in Alhambra. Inside the bus, and a smaller one parked nearby, almost 100 women and men, many of Hispanic and Filipino ancestry, were chatting away, all revved up about their trip to the desert on this one-day turnaround.

But they weren't headed to Las Vegas or Laughlin to play slots, roulette or craps in hopes of raking in a big payoff.

"I'm Sister Timothy and I'm your spiritual tour guide," said the Carmelite Sister of the Most Sacred Heart of Los Angeles at the front of the bus. She was standing, holding a microphone and almost smiling.

Right after the buses pulled away for the 90-minute ride to Mount Carmel in the Desert, a middle-aged priest wearing a black cassock turned around in his front seat next to the Carmelite nun. He blessed himself with the Sign of the Cross and led the group of modern-day pilgrims in praying the "Our Father," "Hail Mary" and "Glory Be."

Then Sister Timothy explained how the Carmelites trace their roots back to the Old Testament Prophet Elijah and his traditional home on Mount Carmel in ancient Israel. She said the sisters had wanted to add to their apostolates of teaching, health care and retreat work something like what happened more than 2,000 years ago on that sacred mountain.

So seven years ago, in an act of "stepping out in faith," they bought 240 acres in the vast Mojave Desert near Palmdale. "The world and the United States have grown so materialistic, so commercial, so filled with all these wants for things that maybe we don't really need," she mused. "Or we have these things, but we have to have a better car, a newer house.

"And the gift of the Carmelite order to the world is to be a symbol and a reminder of prayer. To provide opportunities for people to get in touch with their soul within them. Because our life is fast and demanding. Some call it the 'rat race.'

"So the purpose of today is to go back to the simple, to go back to nature, to be quiet so that we can remember and hear God," she said. "We're going to go for spiritual riches."

On the bus

Going through Pasadena, the on-the-road searchers started watching a video on how the monastic tradition had developed from St. Benedict 1,600 years ago to today. There were profiles of a Benedictine monastery in Arizona, a Trappist monastery in Missouri, an Orthodox monastery in Michigan and others, along with segments on singer-musician John Michael Talbot, founder of a monastic community, and a hermit in Ontario, Canada.

After, as the bus reached the high desert, riders became silent, many staring out tinted windows at the dry sagebrush, creosote shrubs, cactus and occasional Joshua tree. In a different, more mellow voice, Sister Timothy led a meditation.

"May the word of God be in our mind, on our lips and in our hearts," she prayed, urging the pilgrims to rid themselves of false egos, self-centeredness and selfishness.

"And that's precisely why we go to the desert," she said, pausing a beat. "In all the great spiritualities of the world, there's such universally a need to empty ourselves. That's why we're afraid to go to the desert. God might ask too much."

As the bus neared the local Mount Carmel, Sister Timothy advised her captive audience to participate in "everything or nothing." She spoke of previous pilgrims who had simply taken a chair outside to sit in silence.

She reported that the sisters had gone to a lot of trouble to provide a day without noise for people who might be suffering or grieving. She even demonstrated how to deeply breath out before taking in the peace of God.

"Don't be afraid of the silence," Sister Timothy warned. "It will heal, it will renew, it will restore."

Contemplative calling

At 9:28, the buses came to a stop at the retreat center, a single-story, cream-colored stucco building with a painted brown strip along the bottom. Outside in the thin, clear morning air of the Antelope Valley's high desert, the ultra-bright sunshine made riders squint and shade their eyes with cupped hands. Inside the large multi-purpose room, two Carmelite sisters were setting out Danish pastries, bagels, fruit, coffee and orange juice on banquet tables.

While people ate, the director of the center welcomed them to the "Holy Land of the Mohave." She stressed how they were making history by participating in the first May crowning of the Blessed Virgin Mary in honor of the 150th anniversary of the apparitions of Our Lady to St. Bernadette Soubirous at Lourdes.

"This is a beautiful place to be in touch with God's mission for you," Sister Gloria Therese said. "Just be present to the silence.

"But because this is the desert, there are some little critters who like to sun themselves on rocks," she added with a knowing grin. "So before you sit on a rock, make sure to look first, because the snakes make their home there, too."

The next order of the day was making the outdoor Stations of the Cross. A couple of sisters led some 70 pilgrims down a windy, gray gravel-sandy path bordered by stones to the life-sized crosses scattered around two rocky hills.

After, Father Robert Pirrone, the priest on the bus and associate pastor of All Souls Church in Alhambra, spoke for nearly an hour on the Rosary as contemplative prayer.

Basing his remarks on an apostolic letter by Pope John Paul II, he said contemplation was the highest form of prayer and that the Blessed Mother's entire life was an act of contemplation. He noted that the Carmelites were one of the oldest contemplative religious orders.

"But all of us are called to be contemplatives," Father Pirrone declared. "It is to gaze upon the person you love. That's what contemplation means. So we're all called to be contemplatives."

Spiritual thirst

When lunch was over, most of the pilgrims, lead by two women playing guitars and a man with a violin, processed single file to a natural rock grotto with a white statue of Mary. Along the way, they sang "Ave Maria" and other Marian hymns. Women held their hats from being blown away by the ever-present gusts of wind.

At the grotto, first children and then adults placed single long-stem red, pink, orange and lavender roses in a basket at the base of the statue, while singing, "O Mary we crown thee with blossoms today...." Then they recited a "Hail Mary."

Back at the center, there was time for adoration of the Blessed Sacrament in the Holy Family Room, to go to confession or to simply browse in the bookstore. The day ended with a Mass and some brief reflections in the retreat center.

Before getting back on the big bus at about five o'clock, Jennifer Nguyen of Alhambra told The Tidings that the day in the desert had not only been peaceful for her, but also for her elderly Vietnamese mother, even though she understood little English.

"She enjoyed the stillness and the desert," the 49-year-old clerical worker explained. "I think this is a great opportunity for those who are in need of spiritual help, especially for those who have a spiritual thirst.

"Usually I pray to God, but this helped me to be aware that Our Lady is really the important bridge to Our Lord." she confided. "What I liked the most was forgetting my busy daily life, working and taking care of my mom. This gave me time to reflect."

Luis Lopez from the City of Commerce agreed. It was the 41-year-old man's first time in the desert. "I found that it was a very contemplative environment, and in our busy hectic lives we need to find some sort of enrichment to spiritually nourish ourselves and strengthen our faith in God," he said.

Lopez pointed out how Christ spent 40 days in the desert before starting his public ministry and Moses lead the Israelites for 40 years in the desert to purify them. "So it brings those biblical stories to life and lets you experience what it's like a little bit," he said, "even if it's just for a day."