CHEYENNE - In the remote mountain peaks of northwestern Wyoming, a rare new Roman Catholic monastery is drawing young men with promises of a Spartan life of prayer and meditation, following traditions rooted in the 16th century.

Currently, just two monks are cloistered within the wooden gates of the Carmel of the Immaculate Heart of Mary monastery, a former rectory in the Beartooth Mountains about 40 miles east of Yellowstone National Park.

The monks wake at 4 a.m. every day and dress in handmade robes and sandals, spending eight hours in prayer and meditation before performing manual labor. They sleep in small, stark rooms called cells that include a cross, a picture of the Virgin Mary, a Bible and straw-stuffed mattresses.

Most of their days are spent in silence. There's no radio, no TV, no Internet. The monks cannot leave except for emergencies. They greet visitors through a sliding window in their door.

"If you have a romantic notion of how monks live, this is it," said Paula Glover, a spokeswoman for the Diocese of Cheyenne, which covers Wyoming.

"It is the closest thing you'll have on earth to a way of life that's like a foretaste of heaven, where you have a stability that's unchanging," said the Rev. Daniel Mary, a 12-year Carmelite who runs the monastery and spearheaded its creation.

The opening of a monastery is rare these days. While other Carmelite monasteries exist around the world, few are strictly for men and not many follow the traditions of poverty and silence first outlined by St. Teresa of Avila and St. John of the Cross in the 16th century.

Even fewer prohibit the men from leaving for ministry and other community work and nearly none perform their entire liturgies in Latin, Mary said.

"The uniqueness of this particular monastic experiment is that they are trying to go back to the original (life) of the discalced Carmelites back in the 16th century," said the Rev. Peter Johnson, whose church in nearby Powell has helped the monastery get off the ground. "While communities of women have been doing that and flourishing, there is yet to be a community of men following the very strict regimen of St. Teresa of Avila."

Mary, who was born and raised in the area, got permission from his superiors to start the community after his monastery in Minnesota chose to leave the discalced - which means "shoeless" - Carmelite order.

"There's a serious shortage of priests (in Wyoming), and I really felt called for a long time to come back to my people and be a prayer force for the diocese," said Mary, who prays daily for more men to enter the priesthood in the Cowboy State.

Cheyenne Bishop David Ricken granted Mary's request in October last year and, with the help of the community and Johnson's parish, a new monastery was born.

Area residents helped Mary refurbish a moldy old rectory, loaned by the church in Powell, for the monastery while local carpenters built the monks an elaborate Carmelite altar. Handmade wooden tables based on ancient designs, religious statues and other sparse furnishings completed the facility, which was blessed by Ricken last month.

"Normally, it takes about eight to 15 years to establish a monastery," Johnson said. "This took a year. It was just the right people in the right place at the right time."

Mary currently lives at the monastery with Brother Michael Mary, who spent two years in the Minnesota monastery. All Carmelite monks take the name Mary when they enter the order.

Another brother is expected to join the monastery this spring, and Daniel Mary said 12 other men from around the world have expressed interest, though it takes six years to become a full-fledged Carmelite.

Daniel Mary said the men are drawn by the promise of tradition.

"They don't want to do new things," he said. "They want to do what the monks did for centuries. … Many men out there want this kind of life."

Other monasteries have tried what Mary is doing and failed, but Mary and others say that's because they chose modernity over the ancient ways.

"Once a community decides it's going to become modern, they let the television in, they start going out to movies, out to eat, the next thing you know there is no monastic life," Mary said. "And that's why they die out. In the end it's not a divine society anymore. It's just another human institution, another fraternity."

Mary, 36, has vowed not to let that happen in the rural hamlet of Clark, where he and his student keep up with the outside world through occasional news clippings, and talk about spirituality and related topics when their silence is broken for recreation four times a week.

They don't eat meat, and currently rely on food from area residents, who ring a bell outside and leave their donations at the 6-foot-tall wooden gate. Mary said the monastery eventually will have a garden and perhaps livestock for milk and other food.

His goal is 30 monks, though Mary eventually wants to build a larger monastery and a nunnery, as well as a retreat center and towering Basilica-style church.

Many are confident the fledgling community will blossom.

"I think there's a lot of young men and women searching for an authentic religious life. … This is kind of something that's been missing, and there is a certain number of people that have this calling," Ricken said. "This is a very austere, demanding life of pure poverty and simplicity. I think this (monastery) has as good a chance as any."