Our Lady of Mount Carmel Monastery

Our Lady of Mount Carmel Monastery is a religious complex in Munster, Indiana, where a landscape of shaded woods gives way to underground grottoes, candlelit passages, and the startling spectacle known as the Ultraviolet Apocalypse. Violet visits as she carries on the wandering project she began with Theodore Finch. The monastery’s layered spaces make the trip more than a return to a place on a map: its shrines lead her through an encounter with death, remembrance, and a small object that binds her journey to Finch’s.

Setting and Origins

Munster lies near Indiana’s northwestern edge, about thirty miles from Chicago, and is described as a bedroom community of the city. Rivers border the town, a detail Violet associates with what Finch would have liked. The monastery occupies a large, shaded property; from outside, it resembles an ordinary church among woods. That unassuming setting contrasts with the elaborate spaces concealed within its grounds.

A friar approaches Violet as she wanders the property. She explains that she is there for a school project but is unsure where to go, and he guides her toward the shrines. On the way, they pass carved tributes in wood and copper to a priest from Auschwitz and to St. Therese of Lisieux, known as the Little Flower of Jesus. The friar explains that former chaplains from the Polish army designed and built the church, tributes, and grounds after coming to the United States following World War II. Their ambition to establish a monastery in Indiana strikes Violet as unexpected. Remembering Finch at Hoosier Hill, however, she recalls how he could find beauty in a landscape she considered ugly, and decides to look at the monastery through his eyes.

The Shrines and Their Underground Spaces

The shrines are a sequence of grottoes made from sponge rock and crystals. Their outer walls catch the light, while the rough, shell-like surfaces give them the character of caves. The architecture brings together an ancient-seeming quality and a handmade, folk-art appearance. After leading Violet through an arched entrance crowned with painted stars, the friar leaves her to explore on her own.

Below ground, the passageways continue in sponge rock and crystals, illuminated by hundreds of candles. Marble sculptures, stained-glass windows, quartz, and fluorite catch and hold the light. Violet describes the effect as beautiful and eerie: the space seems to glow rather than simply to be lit. She emerges into cool air, then descends into another grotto and another set of tunnels. There, crystals and stained glass share the walls with angels whose bowed heads and folded hands give the passages a devotional stillness.

The route moves through rooms arranged around religious images: rows of seats face an altar above which a marble Jesus lies on his deathbed; another figure shows Jesus tied to a pillar. The succession of enclosed rooms makes the visit a physical passage through images of suffering and death before Violet reaches its most visually intense chamber. The monastery’s subterranean design is not merely a backdrop to her wandering: it shapes the experience as a gradual descent, a series of revelations, and an eventual return to daylight.

The Ultraviolet Apocalypse

In the final glowing room, the archangel Gabriel and Jesus raise the dead. Hands reach upward, while yellow crosses appear across the ceiling like stars or airplanes. Plaques line the black-light walls, paid for by families asking the angels to restore their dead loved ones to life and grant them a happy eternity. The spectacle joins religious imagery to the intimate grief recorded in those family dedications. Its name, the Ultraviolet Apocalypse, is supplied by the friar, who tells Violet that people travel hundreds of miles to see it.

Within this room, Violet notices a plain rock in Jesus’s outstretched palm. Unlike the surrounding crystals, it does not glitter and seems out of place. She picks it up and leaves in exchange a butterfly ring that once belonged to Eleanor. The exchange brings two kinds of remembrance into the same gesture: Eleanor is present through the ring, while the rock is connected to Violet and Finch’s shared history. After spending more time among the shrines, Violet climbs the holy stairs on her knees. She counts twenty-eight steps and thinks Finch would not have cheated by walking up them, so she follows the instruction rather than taking the easier route.

The Rock and Finch’s Continuing Presence

When Violet reaches the top, the friar helps her to her feet and asks whether she enjoyed the shrines. She singles out the black-light room. On the way back to the car, she remembers the rock still in her hand and recognizes it as the one Finch first gave her, which she later gave to him, and which he has now given back. Its return makes the monastery a point in their shared wandering even though Finch is absent from the visit. The repeated exchange turns an ordinary stone into a tangible trace of their relationship: Violet encounters it in a place devoted to the dead, but carries away an object that signifies a continuing bond. The stop thus lets her complete the project with Finch’s way of seeing still beside her, without making his absence disappear.