Pater Noster Convent

Pater Noster Convent Review

The focal point of this Carmelite convent is a grotto, traditionally identified as the place where Jesus taught his disciples the Lord's Prayer (Matthew 6). The site was purchased by the Princesse de la Tour d'Auvergne of France in 1868, and the convent stands on the site of earlier Byzantine and Crusader structures. An ambitious basilica, begun in the 1920s, was designed to follow the lines of a 4th-century church, but was never completed: its aisles, open to the sky, are now lined with pine trees. The real attractions of the site, however, are the many large ceramic plaques adorning the cloister walls and the small church, with the Lord's Prayer in more than 100 different languages. (Look for the high wall, metal door, and French flag on a bend 200 yards before the Seven Arches Hotel.)