We have been informed in the Curia of a number of significant events taking place throughout the Carmelite world in preparation for the 500th anniversary of the birth of Saint Teresa of Jesus. Our General Curia, through its International Formation Commission, will hold an on-going formation course in Spain from the 7th  - 17th of September 2014. Details of this course will be sent to the provincials, commissaries and delegates in the near future.

In the English speaking countries, the Carmelite Forum of Britain and Ireland (O.Carm./O.C.D. friars and nuns) are holding a series of important events, including conferences in London and Dublin. The former Anglican Archbishop of Canterbury, Lord Rowan Williams, is among the speakers taking part. A joint letter of the provincials and presidents of the two nuns associations can be read at www.teresaofavila.org. The Carmelite Institute in the United States has already begun a programme that will lead up to the 500th anniversary, entitled “Walking in her shoes for a day”. The will also hold a symposium on St. Teresa in Chicago in June 2015.

The Neapolitan Province held a congress in Bari on the 12th of October, 2013, with the title "Il Cielo è dentro di te" (Heaven is within you): Five lay people gave a presentation of the “Way of Perfection”, from the stand-point of lay people. The previous year, in the month of October, as always, a congress was held on "L'attualità pastorale del Libro della Vita di S. Teresa" (the pastoral relevance of the Autobiography of St. Teresa) with talks by Aniano Alvarez Suarez, O.C.D., in Bari, and Luigi Borriello, O.C.D. in Foggia.

In Portugal, a committee was set up for the Centenary. This committe includes the O.C.D. Province of Portugal, and O.Carm. General Commissariat of Portugal, and other Carmelite Congregations. The first event to be organised was a congress held in Fatima from the 17th to the 19th of October, last, on the Carmelite-Teresian school of prayer. A very good number of people from various Portuguese speaking countries attended.

Similarly, with a view to the Centenary, the publishers of the collection, Textos para un Milenio (Texts for a Millennium) published the work of Tomás de Jesus (d. 1582), the “Suma y compendio de los grados de oración” ( Summa and Compendium of the Stages of Prayer), one of the first attempts to systematise the thought of St. Teresa, as well as the "Sermones en honor de Santa Teresa de Jesús” (Sermons in honour of St. Teresa of Jesus) by the Carmelite Cristóbal de Avendaño (d. 1629). In addition, Edizioni Carmelitane in Rome, published the second edition, with many additions, of “Santa Teresa, San Juan de la Cruz y los Carmelitas Españoles” (St. Teresa, St. John of the Cross and the Spanish Carmelites) by Pablo Garrido, O.Carm.