India, Sept. 15 -- When people imagine contemplatives, they often picture monks or nuns hidden in monasteries, living in silence and prayer. Their witness is precious, but in the twentieth century a new vision emerged: what if that same intensity of prayer and holiness could be lived not behind monastery walls but in the very streets of the world?

This radical idea was affirmed by Pope Pius XII in Provida Mater Ecclesia (1947), which recognised secular institutes - communities of consecrated persons living in the world rather than in convents or monasteries. Among these, the Ancillae Secular Institute carried a striking expression from its Foundress Mother Maria Perpetua Radlemair: the call to be a "Carmelite on the street." It was a dar...