As the Feast of Our Lady of Mount Carmel is approaching, the Prior General has written a letter to the Carmelite family expressing his best wishes and inviting all members to celebrate the Feast, beginning with the Novena to Our Lady of Mount Carmel from 7 to 15 of July 2014.  This custom of the Novena of Our Lady of Mount Carmel before the feast is a long tradition and is observed by many Catholics throughout the world.

In his letter the Prior General invites us to be united in contemplating, sharing, increasing the beauty which is all around us (even, if at times, somewhat hidden) because Carmel has been closely linked to beauty. He states “my desire is that our lives should be a song of praise to God for the beauty that surrounds us, and also a generous commitment to ensure that beauty will not be diminished or tarnished by what is evil, by sin, by the suffering of so many innocent people, who are the victims of selfishness and all its ramifications, (injustice, violence, inequality .....).”

The full text of the message and the Novena to Our Lady of Mount Carmel can be founded here:
http://ocarm.org/en/content/ocarm/letter-prior-general-feast-our-lady-mount-carmel-2014