On Tuesday 14 December a meeting between took place in Rome regarding a project to update and expand the 18th century work Bibliotheca Carmelitana. Kevin Alban, Giovanni Grosso and Ton van der Gulik received Prof. Dr. Gert Melville and Dr. Coralie Zermatten from the Research Center for the Comparative History of Religious Orders of the University of Dresden, Germany. The joint venture between the Order and the Dresden research centre aims to expand our knowledge of Carmelite history with the help of a database, which will be based on the Bibliotheca Carmelitana of Cosma de Villiers of 1752. The main purpose of “Bibliotheca Carmelitana Nova”, as this project has been named, is to collect, examine and organize all the information that can be found about every single Carmelite author since the 13th century. This database will eventually be an online resource. This project is bein g jointly supported by most of the provinces in the Order and the Carmelite Institute in Rome.

The project began in August 2010 and this meeting provided an occasion for the Carmelite Institute to become acquainted with Dr. Zermatten, who is in charge of the compilation of the database. A consultative committee, which will monitor her work, was also named. It is made up of Frs. Kevin Alban, Giovanni Grosso, Paul Chandler, Ton van der Gulik, a lay Carmelite historian, Dr. Edeltraud Klueting, and Prof. Gert Melville. The first meeting of this committee will take place in March 2011 at the research institute in Dresden.

A young woman used to come to Mass every Sunday, and one could see immediately that there was something not quite right about her.  She would dress inappropriately, and when she spoke, one could barely understand her mumbling.  Her face usually had a distant and sometimes vacant expression.  Unable to sit still during the liturgy, she frequently stepped outside for a cigarette.  Sometimes when she walked, it was as if her body was made of lead, and she was trying to drag it along.  Yet every Sunday, the young woman came.

At one point, the young woman died, and I was asked to do the funeral. After Mass had finished, some members of the family gave eulogies for the woman, and the words that came out of their mouths were a great surprise to me.  They all talked about her as someone who certainly had a difficult life, with bad relationships, problems with drugs and alcohol, and health issues, and they recognized the many challenges she had had to face in her lifetime.  But she was also the one in the family who had the most faith.  She was the one who would find some time during the day to be in the presence of the Blessed Sacrament, not praying for herself, but for all others in need.  She was the one who would talk about the goodness and fidelity of God whenever other members of her family were experiencing crises.  She was the one who kept them united in the faith.  And it amazed me how God worked in this young woman, in spite of, and perhaps even because of her brokenness.  Her brokenness also changed me.

As we see from the Gospel today, God worked in what seemed to be a broken situation.  Imagine Joseph, excited at the prospect of marrying his bride, only to find out that she was with child.  He may have received the news with great skepticism when his fiancée told him that she was pregnant because the Holy Spirit made her so.    He must have been hurt and disappointed that someone he loved would betray him in such a way, and incredulous that she would come up with some strange and bizarre tale to save face.  But it was through this seemingly broken situation that God revealed his greatest glory, the incarnation of his Son.  In these challenging circumstances, Christ began his salvific work on earth.  Ultimately, it is Christ broken on the cross that is the culmination of his earthly mission.

And God continues to work in what seem to be broken situations, and invites us to witness his saving power.  When our plans do not seem to come to fruition, no matter how hard we try—God is at work.  When we are disappointed and frustrated when our expectations are not met—God is at work.  When our prayers go seemingly unanswered—God is at work.  Sometimes he invites us to act.  Sometimes he asks others to act and be Christ for us.  Sometimes, he simply wants us to wait.  And very often it is hard to understand or appreciate this while we are in the midst of the struggle.  We are not all blessed like Joseph to have dreams in the middle of the night that assure us of His activity.  But we have a life of prayer and meditation that allow us to step back and see the grander design of God for us.

In Advent, we are invited to do this reflecting, remembering the nativity of Christ as part of the grand design of salvation for humanity.  We are also invited to reflect on how God includes us personally in this great design, how he has worked in even the seemingly broken areas of our lives for our good and the good of all.

Lay CHua Tu Nhan.. Xin Lang nghe

I live in an area where many tourists pass by every day.  In my neighborhood, there are also many restaurants that make a good business of feeding these hungry people.  At lunch and dinner, the owners and servers stand outside inviting all those passing by to come in and buy some of their tasty dishes—with the exception of one man.  Rather than telling people how good his food is, he stands outside with a tray of fresh hot samples, so that all those passing by can actually taste what he has to offer.  It is no surprise then, that he has so many customers, because once they’ve tasted the food, they almost always enter in and purchase something.  And later, when they return home, they share their experience about the generous and friendly owner and his delicious food with their family and friends.

Metaphorically, this is similar to the experience of John the Baptist’s disciples in the Gospel today.  In the story, these disciples come to Jesus on John’s behalf and ask if he is the one to come.  Rather than giving them a straightforward answer of “yes” or “no” and leaving them with a mere intellectual answer, Jesus invites them to have a personal experience.  He tells them to go and tell John what they themselves hear and see.  He wants them to not simply transmit an answer or reply, but to bear witness themselves, to be able to say, “ I believe that Jesus is the one who is to come because I have experienced him for myself.”  He wants them to be able to share a memory experience because he wants them to know that God is not an abstraction, thought, or idea, but He who is alive and active in human lives.  This is the point of the Incarnation of the Word that we will celebrate in the Christmas season: not merely that the Son came to redeem us, but that he came so that we might know God personally and experience him really, for "he became flesh and truly lived among us." 

This recognized experience of the active living God, this experiencing and remembering is what we do each time we come to Mass.  Each time, we encounter Christ in our personal interaction with the priest and with one another.  We tell the stories of the God experience through our Liturgy of the Word, reading out the lived experience of God at work in our human history. We remember his saving actions and his abiding presence through the Eucharistic prayer.  We recall his great gifts as we carry out and receive the sacrament he instituted.    

And in this season of Advent, we are invited to continue this experiencing and remembering, because our God is alive and active and ready to be encountered.  Indeed, our Christian faith is not simply an accumulation of theological ideas or merely the words on the pages of our bibles.  It is also a personal encounter and relationship with Christ.  How has Christ touched you personally?  In what ways have you “heard and seen” him in your own life?

Fr. Emiel Abalahin, O.Carm.

The Carmelite Order is delighted to announce today, 8th December 2010, that the Holy Father, Pope Benedict XVI has nominated bishop of the Territorial Prelature of Itaituba, in Brazil, Fr. Wilmar Santin O.Carm., of the Commissariat of Paraná of the Upper German Province. Fr. Wilmar was born at Paranavaí in Brazil, on 21st October 1952. Following his profession in the Order on 2nd January 1973, he was ordained priest on 8th December 1979. Among his many responsibilities in the Order, from 1990 to 1995 he served as Commissary Provincial, from 1995 to 2001 as General Councillor and from 2005 to 2008 as Prior of the Centro Internazionale S. Alberto (CISA) in Rome. During these past few years he has worked in Parish in Manaus and has taught Church History at the "Instituto de Teologia, Pastoral e Ensino Superior da Amazônia".

To Fr. Wilmar we offer our warmest congratulations on behalf of the whole Carmelite Family.

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On 3rd December last, in the course of a reception given by the Portuguese Embassy to the Holy See, to which various Portuguese clergy present in Rome, the ambassadors of the Portuguese speaking nations, Spain, and Poland, as well as some Carmelites attended, the Postulator General, Fr. Giovanni Grosso, O. Carm., received from the hands of the Portuguese Ambassador to the Holy See, S. E. Manuel Fernandes Pereira, the honor of "Grão Oficial do Ordem do Infante Dom Henrique ("Grand Officer of the Order of Prince Henry"), which the President of the Portuguese Republic, S.E. Dr. Aníbal Cavaco Silva, wished to grant in recognition and gratitude for his work done on the occasion of the canonization of St. Nuno of St. Mary. Fr. Giovanni graciously recieved the honor, considering it a credit not so much to himself, but to the Order, and in particular to Fr. Felipe Mar ia Amenós Bonet, who worked at length on the cause together with the Vice-Postulator, Fr. Francisco Rodrigues.