by Fr. John Russell, O.Carm

In 1997 Carmelites and many others will mark the centenary of the death of St Therese of Lisieux, called by many 'the Little Flower' (30th September 1997). What draws people to this woman, this saint of the Church? Her story as told in her autobiography, The Story of a Soul, is engaging. She reveals so honestly her struggles in life and how she forged a meaning, a commitment that made a difference. She lost her mother when she was only four and a half. Her older sister Pauline took over the role of mother but she departed from the family home to join the Carmel of Lisieux when Therese was only nine and a half. She missed her terribly and suffered a period of extreme anxiety and depression.

Therese had a hard time fitting into elementary school because some kids picked on her and she found it hard to relate to many of them. But she was bright and capable and had a great love for history and religion. She recognized that her early life experiences made her very self-centred and overly sensitive. She believed that Jesus Christ alone helped her to overcome this selfishness. When she received communion at the Christmas
midnight mass of 1886 in her parish church in Lisieux, she experienced a mysterious renewal. 'I felt charity enter my soul.' No longer would she walk around with a weepy and self-pitying disposition. The fact is that she did change her behaviour and quickly developed a new sense direction, one centred on love. She wanted to become a Carmelite in the Carmel of Lisieux.

Already she had two sisters living in the Lisieux convent. One might think that she was just following her sisters. St Therese makes it quite clear in her autobiography that she desired to enter on her own terms: to give her love to Jesus Christ and to those with whom she would live in the Carmelite community and also to pray for sinners and for priests. She had no illusions about the monastic life being demanding. She sought the permission of Pope Leo XIII to enter the Carmel at age fifteen while on a diocesan pilgrimage to Rome. The Pope told her to listen to the leadership of the local church of Bayeux-Lisieux.

After some hesitation the religious leadership granted her wish but not with a great deal of conviction about her maturity. The truth is that they hardly knew her and the determination which arose from her life's vision.

In a series of brief articles I will offer some of the central convictions of this woman's life. Her sense of commitment led her to a profound experience of the love of God and of neighbour. She never had an easy life, but she did live with a great sense of peace and joy. What made such joy possible? Fundamentally, she found that love can only be captivating when a person trusts completely in a loving God. She found the power of love in her relationship to Jesus Christ. Future articles will tell of her 'little
way of spiritual childhood', the power of love in her life, her experience of family life, prayer.

John F. Russell, Carm.
Seton Hall University

The annual meeting of the Northern European Bursars was held under the chairmanship of Richard Copsey O. Carm. (Brit) The first part of the meeting was dedicated to a presentation of each province from the point of view of manpower and finances. The second part of the meeting was given over to a presentation of Curia finances and the 2010 results. Finally, the meeting examined a proposed job description for the office of provincial bursar. While it was recognized that no single description would suit every province, the document did provide much food for thought and maybe a way forward could be to use this description as a sort of check list to make sure that the essential functions were covered, and that the proper procedures and controls were in place.

It was agreed that the group would not meet in spring 2012, but that, since there would be space provided at the Triennial Worldwide Bursars’ Meeting in the autumn of 2012, to defer their next meeting until then.

During the Provincial Chapter of the Dutch Province held on 18-22 May 2011 were elected:
Prior Provincial: Fr. Ben Wolbers, O.Carm.
First Councilor: Fr. Jan Brouns, O.Carm.
Second Councilor: Fr. Kees Waaijman, O.Carm.
Third Councilor: Fr. Eef van Vilsteren, O.Carm.
Fourth Councilor: Br. Wim Ernst, O.Carm.

to see photo of the chapter, please go to the website of the Province

The Carmelite NGO is inviting people around the globe to celebrate World Environment Day on June 5th with a special Day of Prayer. Materials for individuals or groups to celebrate the day can be obtained from the office of the Carmelite NGO or downloaded from their website www.carmelitengo.org.

Entitled "God Saw That It Was Good" the prepared reflection is based on the 1990s writings of Pope John Paul II's "Peace with God the Creator, Peace with All of Creation." The booklet, designed specifically for this day, can be downloaded from the website of the Carmelite NGO.

1) Opening prayer

Lord our God,

prompted by the Holy Spirit,

the church of Antioch sent Paul and Barnabas

on their missionary mission among pagans.

Let your Church everywhere send

good, zealous men and women as missionaries.

Fill them with the Holy Spirit and with faith,

that they may touch the hearts of people

and win them as disciples and friends

of Jesus Christ our Lord.

2) Gospel Reading - Matthew 10:7-13

Jesus said to his Apostles: “As you go, make this proclamation: 'The kingdom of heaven is at hand.' Cure the sick, raise the dead, cleanse lepers, drive out demons. Without cost you have received; without cost you are to give. Do not take gold or silver or copper for your belts; no sack for the journey, or a second tunic, or sandals, or walking stick. The laborer deserves his keep. Whatever town or village you enter, look for a worthy person in it, and stay there until you leave. As you enter a house, wish it peace. If the house is worthy, let your peace come upon it; if not, let your peace return to you."

3) Reflection

• Today is the feast of Saint Barnabas. The Gospel speaks about the teachings of Jesus to the disciples on how to announce the Good News of the Kingdom to “the lost sheep of Israel” (Mt 10:6). They have to a) cure the sick, raise the dead, cleanse the lepers, drive out devils (v. 8); b) announce what they have received gratuitously (v. 8); c) provide themselves with no gold or silver, no sandals, or staff, no sack, or a second tunic (v. 9), d) seek a house where they can be received until the end of the mission (v. 11); e) be bearers of peace (v. 13).

• At the time of Jesus there were various movements which, like Him, were seeking a new way of living and of living together with others. For example, John the Baptist, the Pharisees, the Essenes and others. Many of them formed communities of disciples (Jn 1:35; Lk 11:1; Acts 19:3) and had their missionaries (Mt 23:15). But there was a great difference! The Pharisees, for example, when they went on mission, provided for their needs. They thought that they could not trust the food that people would offer them because it was not always “ritually pure.” Because of this they always carried a sack and money so as to be able to take care of what they would eat. In this way, the observance of the law of purity, instead of helping to overcome divisions, weakened the living of community values even more. The proposal of Jesus is different. His method was seen in the counsels which He gives to the apostles when He sends them on mission. Through this instruction, He tries to renew and reorganize the communities of Galilee in a way that they would once again be the expression of the covenant, an example of the Kingdom of God.

• Matthew 10:7: The announcement that the kingdom of Heaven is at hand. Jesus invites the disciples to announce the Good News. They should say, “The kingdom of Heaven is close at hand!” What does it mean that the Kingdom is close at hand? It does not mean the closeness of time, in the sense that it is only a short time and then the Kingdom will come. “The Kingdom is close at hand” means that it is already within reach of the people, it is already “in your midst” (Lk 17:21). It is good to take a new look to be able to see its presence or proximity. The coming of the Kingdom is not the fruit of our observance, as the Pharisees wanted, but it becomes present in the actions which Jesus recommends to the Apostles: to cure the sick, to raise the dead, to cleanse the lepers, to drive out demons.

• Matthew 10:8: To cure, to raise, to purify, to drive out. The sick, the dead, the lepers, the possessed, were all excluded from living together with others and they were excluded in the name of God. They could not participate in the life of the community. Jesus orders the disciples to accept these people, to include them. The kingdom of God becomes present in these gestures of acceptance and inclusion.  In these gestures of human gratuity is shown God’s love, which reconstructs  communal  living and mends interpersonal relationships.

• Matthew 10:9-10: Do not take anything. Unlike other missionaries, the Apostles can take nothing: “Provide yourselves with no gold or silver, not even with copper for your belts, with no sack for the journey or a spare tunic or footwear or a staff, for the laborer deserves his keep.” The only thing which you can and should take is peace (Mt 10:13). This means that they have to trust in the hospitality and  sharing of the people,  because the disciple who does not take anything with him and takes peace indicates that he trusts people. He believes that he will be received, and the people will feel appreciated, valued, and confirmed. The laborer has the right to his nourishment. In doing this, the disciple criticizes the laws of exclusion and recovers the ancient values of sharing and of community living.

• Matthew 10:11-13: To live together and to integrate oneself in the community. Arriving at a place, the disciples have to choose a house of peace and they should remain there until the end. They should not go from one house to the next, but rather live in a stable way. They should become members of the community and work for peace, that is, to reconstruct the human relationships which will favor peace. By means of this practice, they recover an ancient tradition of the people, they criticize the culture of accumulation, typical of the politics of the Roman Empire and they announce a new model of living together.

• Summary: The actions recommended by Jesus to announce the Kingdom are the following: accept the excluded, trust hospitality, encourage sharing, and live stably and in a peaceful way. If this happens, then we can and should cry out openly to the four corners of the world, “The Kingdom is among us!”  To proclaim the Kingdom does not consist, in the first place, of teaching truth and doctrine, catechism and Canon Law, but to lead persons to a new way of living and of living together with others, to a new way of thinking and acting,  starting with the Good News, brought by Jesus: God is Father and Mother, and therefore, we are all brothers and sisters.

4) Personal questions

•Why are all these attitudes recommended by Jesus signs of the Kingdom of God in our midst?

• How would you announce the Kingdom among us today? To whom would you need or want to announce it?

• In making this announcement, by being an example of the Kingdom in action, to go on this mission, it is an invitation to the hearer to come closer to Christ and the Church. Action goes hand-in-hand with knowledge and an understanding of what the community is about. What would be your next steps in bringing someone closer to the community, Jesus, and His Church?

• Do these instructions help us to discern true disciples of Jesus from those who use His name to distort the truth and build a big bank account for themselves?

For further knowledge

Many religious orders other than the Order of Carmelites, as communities, build on these missionary instructions of Jesus as well. The Benedictines take a vow of stability, to not move from place to place. Others, of the mendicant movement such as Franciscans and Dominicans, rely on the material support of others. Take some time today to look into and read about the various Orders and the ways they have chosen to announce the Kingdom of God in the world.

5) Concluding Prayer

Sing a new song to Yahweh,

for He has performed wonders,

His saving power is in His right hand and His holy arm. (Ps 98:1)

The Elective Chapter of the Carmelite Monastery of Allentown, USA, was held 5 May 2011. The following were elected:

• Prioress: Sr. M. Gertrude Schrey, O.Carm.
• 1st Councilor:  Sr. M. Therese Raubuch, O.Carm.
• 2nd Councilor: Sr. Joseph M. Schouten, O.Carm.
• Director of Novices: Sr. M. Therese Raubuch, O.Carm.
• Sacristan:  Sr. M. Veronica Korb, O.Carm.

for more info: click here

by Fr. John Russell, O.Carm.

In turning to a more specific consideration of the Carmelite charism — the community's gift to be given to others — I will pass over two aspects already mentioned: the foundational character of ongoing conversion to Jesus Christ which we share with all Christians and the communal and ecclesial aspects of Carmelite commitment.

The prophetic/Elijan spirit associated with the Carmelite heritage is lived with particular vigor these days in many Carmelite provinces in South America. For many Carmelites in North America (perhaps this is the case with many other religious men and women), the prophetic dimension of our charism comes upon us with a certain newness. We need time to sift through the implications of the prophetic call. Many are not quite sure of what it means personally. Certainly religious need to be open to the demands of the call to serve human dignity and freedom. Papal teaching for the past twenty-five years, in particular, has been reminding religious and others of the relationship between creation and redemption. Freedom, as the 1986 Vatican Instruction put it, "demands conditions of an economic, social, political and cultural kind which make possible its full exercise." [9] While the prophetic nature of the Carmelite charism seeks to respond to the social configuration of sin and the existence of unjust structures, parochial ministry often enough keeps us mindful of the need to comfort people, to touch the lives of those who suffer the consequences of human weakness and sinfulness as individuals: the divorced, the sick, the lonely and troubled, the victims of drugs, alcohol and child abuse as well as the unemployed, the depressed, the empty, the anxious. In a word our ministry includes in practice not only a challenge function but also a comforting one. I believe that both aspects characterize parochial experience. I believe, too, that the prophetic role calls Carmelite religious to initiate and to support movements within the parish which raise the consciousness of the community to the demands of justice and the requirements of human dignity.

Two other aspects of the Carmelite charism require some reflection. Carmelites have an essential call to contemplation, and our heritage has been consistently labeled Marian. The contemplative character of our charism continues to seek both individual and communal responses. Does contemplation mean that Carmelites spend a great deal of time each day in personal and communal prayer? Or is contemplation a particular degree of prayer subsequent to years ofascetical discipline? Is contemplative a name which designates Carmelites as teachers of prayer? Is it a mark of identity attached to us simply because we are monks or friars? Some judicious observations were made over fifteen years ago by a former Prior General in a circular letter on the Carmelite Rule. He stated that the Rule "is valid for both those living a purely contemplative life or the active life. It is flexible and adaptable. It proposes for both ways of life the same specific purpose, vacare Deo, that is, total occupation with God, the life of Christ lived with his Father. . . . Among the pure contemplative Carmelites [this occupation with God] finds its expression in their extended prayers, silence and sacrifices. Among the active Carmelites it finds its expression also among their apostolic activities." [10]

If I read the letter correctly, the active Carmelite embraces the contemplative vocation in the very activity of directing or centering his or her life in the Lord in the many ways that such a movement occurs. The Prior General wrote: celebrating "the sacraments, preaching the word of God, teaching, counseling, all these over and above being a service to the Church and [people] should bring us to a more intimate relationship with God." [11] The Carmelite rule, mitigated by Pope Innocent IV in 1247, has changed our relationship to external solitude. The letter continues: "we are not bound to the solitude of isolated places, but only to that solitude necessary for contemplative life, or in the case of active friars and sisters to a solitude that will help us to pray." [12] What is essential to the Carmelite charism is interior solitude, an abiding desire to seek the Lord's presence in our lives, a concern to be open to the demands of the apostolic life. The contemplative charism, it seems to me, has us concerned in particular about one pole of the paradox of our humanity: the deep need we have to seek interior integrity, Christian identity, unity of purpose, singleness of heart. The other pole of the paradox legitimately recognizes and expresses our social nature, our bonding with all men and women. Our contemplative vocation expresses the conviction, as Parker Palmer once put it, "that until we are at home with ourselves, our relations with others will be distorted and distorting." [13] It is interesting that presently one of the best sellers on the New York Times Book Review list for non-fiction is Anthony Storr's Solitude: a Return to the Self, a book which argues that "the capacity to be alone [is] a valuable resource, which [facilitates] learning, thinking, innovation, coming to terms with change, and the maintenance of contact with the inner world of the imagination." [14]

Within parish life so much of the ministry in sacramental catechesis, marriage preparation, preaching, counseling, R.C.I.A. evokes a contemplative depth: to assist people in coming to recognize and to arrive at authentic personal Christian responses along the journey of faith, hope, and love. Perhaps religious have not given sufficient attention to the contemplative encounter with others in parochial ministry which reveals a continual story of grace. Being open to mutuality in ministry promotes contemplative awareness.

Another feature of the Carmelite charism centers upon its Marian character. The present Prior General circulated a letter on the Marian Year. He suggested that Marian renewal urges Carmelites to seek Mary in the Gospels: "the Woman of Faith who is a constant source of inspiration in humbly listening to and obeying God's word, and the Disciple of Jesus who rejoiced to be included among the poor and was committed to the service of others." [15] The renewal of Marian devotion in parishes might center first of all upon the biblical stories: Mary's faith and openness to God in the Annunciation, her own experience of suffering and separation from her Son within the mystery of the Cross, her generous heart encountered in the story of her visit to Elizabeth. People can absorb a feel for their own faith responses in hearing these stories again and again. Liturgical celebrations need to reflect the biblical portrait and the direction given at Vatican II, especially in the document on the Church, Lumen Gentium. Mary stands always united to Christ. Our relationship to her needs to celebrate, according to the document on the Church, not "fruitless and passing emotion" but Mary's unique role as mother and model of faith, hope, and love.

        

[9] Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, Instruction on Christian Freedom and Liberation (March 22, 1986), Washington, D.C.: U.S.C.C., No. 995, p. 3.

[10] Most Rev. Kilian Healy, O.Carm., The Carmelite Rule after Vatican II (Rome: Curia Generalizia dei Carmelitani, 1971), p. 17.

[11] Healy, p. 14.  

[12] Ibid.

[13] Parker Palmer, "The Monastic Way to Church Renewal," Expressions (Jan./ Feb., 1986, St. Benedict Center, Madison, WI 53705), p. 6.

[14] Anthony Storr, Solitude: A Return to the 5c//(N.Y: The Free Press, 1988), p. 202.

[15] Most Rev. John Malley, O.Carm., "Father General's Letter for the Marian Year," (Rome: Curia Generalizia dei Carmelitani, July 16, 1988), p. 14.

From 26 April to 1 May 2011, almost sixty students from all provinces, commissariats and delegations in Asia Australia Oceania Region gathered in Dilli, Timor Leste, for the second Regional Students Gathering. The gathering was organized and led by a team consisting of the regional formators Fr. Pedro Manilag, O.Carm. (Phil) and Fr. Bruce Clark, O.Carm. (Aust) and the international commission of JPIC.

This year, the gathering focused on topics of the International Justice, Peace and Integrity of Creation Commission and especially with regard to climate change. The speakers were Fr. Eduardo Agosta Scarel, O.Carm. (Cast-Arg), Fr. Albertus Herwanta, O.Carm. (General Councilor), Fr. Hariawan Adji, O.Carm.(Indo), Fr. Boniface Kimondolo, O.Carm. (Ken), Fr. Gilbert Sabado, O.Carm. (Phil) and Mr. Aderito de Jesus Soares (a Timorese lay man who was active in the Timorese anti-corruption movement).

After the conference ended the students prepared a statement and sent it to the Prior General and Provincials of the region proposing some activities for implementation that they had learned in the conference. The program ended with a cultural evening in which students from every province, commissariat and delegation gave a cultural performance.

On the 1st and 2nd of May last, the organizing team met to prepare the meeting for Carmelite youth during the World Youth Days which will be held on 17th August 2011 in Madrid (see citoc-online 27/2011). It reviewed the organization of the day and the invitation extended to all wishing to take part. It is important to formally register all groups from the different participating countries who will take part in the meeting on the 17th. Groups, together with the person responsible, can do so through http://www.ocarm.org/madrid2011. All youth groups linked to the Carmelite Family may join in the day. The meeting on the 17th will begin at 10.30 and end at 18.30. It will be held at the Colegio Hermano s Amorós-Marianistas de Madrid.

The Elective Chapter of the Carmelite Monastery of Valencia, Spain, was held 7 May 2011. The following were elected:

• Prioress: Sr. M. Auxiliadora Muñoz López, O.Carm.
• 1st Councilor:  Sr. M. del Sagrario Lorite Beltrán, O.Carm.
• 2nd Councilor: Sr .M. Socorro Padin de la Vega, O.Carm.
• Director of Novices: Sr. M. del Sagrario Lorite Beltrán, O.Carm.
• Treasurer:  Sr. M. del Sagrario Lorite Beltrán, O.Carm.
• Sacristan:  Sr. M. Socorro Padin de la Vega, O.