Dr. Arie G. Kallenberg

In the lifetime of Jesus and for a long time after His death, the cross was considered an instrument of shame by which criminals were executed. For early Christians however, the cross soon became a sign of blessing and redemption.

At the beginning of the fourth century, the cross was accepted all over the Roman Empire as a sign of triumph. The reason for this acceptance was, according to legend, a dream of the Roman Emperor, Constantine the Great. In the year 312, on the night before an important battle against his enemy Maxentius, Constantine saw in a dream a trophy of the cross in the heavens, arising from the light of the sun and carrying the message, In Hoc Signo Vinces (“In this sign, you will conquer”). Christ, who appeared to Constantine in the same dream, told him to make a standard, the labarum, in that form for his army. The sign was to be a Chi (X) traversed by Rho (P): These symbols represented the first two letters of the word Christos, which is the Greek spelling of name of Christ. According to the same legend, the next day Constantine ordered that all of his soldiers should fit the labarum symbol on their shields.

Because of this memorable victory, the persecution of Christians stopped, and the Cross began to be considered as a symbol of triumph, from which our salvation derives and on which Christ reigns as King.^[i] For centuries the Holy Cross remained a symbol of triumph. Around 1200 there was to be a dramatic change in the Western view of the cross. As a result of the influence of Bernard of Clairvaux (1090-1153) and Francis of Assisi (1181/1182-1226), the view of the cross underwent a decisive change. The focus on Jesus as a human began to be central. No longer was the focus on the crucified Christ as the conqueror of death, but on the earthly, suffering Christ who died on the cross. By means of a literal interpretation of Matthew 10:38 and 16:24 concerning the bearing of one’s cross in imitation of Christ, the identification with the suffering Christ came to be central. The living Christ who triumphed on the cross of glory made way for the suffering Christ who underwent a painful death on the cross.[ii] This vision remains to this day. To become convinced of this, it is enough to look at the crosses which dominate our churches.

In 1238 the Carmelites began to migrate to Europe. Precisely what happened to their liturgy in the period between their arrival in Europe and the publication of Sibert de Beka’s Ordinal in 1312 is not entirely clear. In any case there are no signs that the suffering Christ began to play a role in their liturgy, in contrast to that of the Dominicans, where on May 4, the Feast of the Crown of Thorns can be found in a calendar for the year 1255.[iii] There is not a trace of this feast either in a thirteenth century Carmelite ordinal found in Dublin or in the ordinal of Sibert de Beka. On the contrary, in the liturgy of the Carmelites the Feast of the Crown of Thorns and that of the Holy Lance were mandated only at a very late stage.[iv] Whereas, after the twelfth century, popular devotion and some liturgical rites focused increasingly on the Man of Sorrows as he manifested himself on the cross and inside the tomb, the liturgy of the Carmelites focused on the Risen One: Christ who rose from the tomb, never to die again.

[i]      Louis van Tongeren, Exaltatio crucis, cfr p. 159.

[ii]    Ibid., 270.

[iii]   Kallenberg, Fontes, 292.

[iv]   Idem, op. cit., 56.

Is there a relation between Carmelite Liturgy and Carmelite Spirituality? In order to find an answer to this question, it is necessary to go back to the early days of the Order, to a time between 1206 and 1214, when Albert Avogrado, Patriarch of Jerusalem, proposed a way of life to a group of hermits. The hermits were living on Mount Carmel in Palestine, near the fountain of Elijah, and they had requested St. Albert to prepare a rule of life for them. The way of life which Albert wrote out for the hermits has inspired many people, religious and lay, male and female. Throughout the centuries and down to the present time, it has led them to an intimate contact with God. Not only was Albert Avogadro Patriarch of Jerusalem, he was also a member of the Canons Regular who lived according to the Augustinian Rule. As such, he was familiar with religious life.

From ancient times, there were two churches in Jerusalem, both erected on sacred sites: The Basilica of the Martyrs at Golgotha and the Anastasis Rotunda which was built over the tomb of Jesus, and was therefore also sometimes called the Church of the Holy Sepulchre or the Church of the Resurrection.[i] In this church the liturgical services were conducted by the Canons Regular of St. Augustine, who originated in France and had accompanied the crusaders.[ii] Their rite was originally Roman, the rite which was in use in almost all Western European regions. It is understandable that the presence of sacred sites, especially the Tomb from which Christ arose, should exert a strong influence on the liturgy of the canons. For this reason, the liturgy of the Holy Sepulchre did not celebrate the tomb of Christ as the place of burial, but as the place of resurrection. “From this tomb the Lord arose,” as we read in a liturgical manuscript used by the Canons Regular of St. Augustine in the Church of the Holy Sepulchre,[iii]

Around this tomb, a number of liturgical customs originated which later developed into a special Liturgy: the Holy Sepulchre Liturgy, and later, into the Resurrection Liturgy of the Carmelites. One of these customs was that every Saturday, in preparation for Sunday, the day of the Resurrection of the Lord, a solemn procession to the chapel of the Resurrection took place, where, on Sundays, the High Mass was solemnly celebrated in honour of the Resurrection.^[iv] Throughout the entire period from Easter to Advent, the night between Saturday and Sunday was, to all intents and purposes, controlled by the commemoration of the Resurrection. Furthermore – and this was very special – on the last Sunday of the liturgical year, namely the Sunday before Advent, the Resurrection of the Lord was again solemnly celebrated as a great feast, just like Easter Sunday.

It was this liturgy that the Carmelites adopted and took along with them when they were obliged to flee from the Holy Land. In imitation of the Liturgy of the Holy Sepulchre, the early Carmelites attributed a special significance to Sunday by solemnly commemorating on that day the Resurrection of the Lord in Holy Mass and in the Liturgy of the Hours. Furthermore, during most of the ecclesiastical year, the Resurrection of the Lord was commemorated each day at the Conventual Mass and the Divine Office, and on the last Sunday of the Ecclesiastical Year the Carmelites solemnly commemorated the Resurrection of Jesus, just as in the liturgy of the Holy Sepulchre.^[v] On this Sunday, all of the texts of the Liturgy of the Hours and of the Solemn Mass were taken integrally from the formularies of Easter Sunday. It was a sort of second Easter, but now celebrated at the end of the Ecclesiastical Year.

About the year 1312, this liturgy was described and reintroduced into the Order by the famous Carmelite, Sibert de Beka, by means of an Ordinal, a sort of ceremonial for the celebration of liturgical rites. Since that time and for many centuries afterwards, the Liturgy of the Holy Sepulchre, also called the Resurrection Liturgy, was the way in which the Carmelites celebrated the Liturgy of the Hours and the Eucharist. Nevertheless, down the centuries, this Liturgy underwent many adaptations. Due to many excesses, the Council of Trent, held in the sixteenth century, felt the necessity to reform drastically the Liturgy of the Holy Sepulchre. Even so, the remembrance of the Resurrection Liturgy continued in the Liturgy of the Hours of the Carmelites until the second Vatican Council in the twentieth century.

After this Council, the Carmelites abandoned their own Liturgy and adopted the Roman Liturgy. In doing so, they renounced a part of their proper spiritual patrimony, that patrimony which had inspired the Carmelites throughout the centuries and had influenced their spirituality. Nevertheless, it is gratifying to note that, in recent years, there is within the Order an increasing interest in the Resurrection Liturgy. At the Liturgical Seminar held in Rome in July 2008, Carmelite liturgists verified that, in many parts of the Order, the Resurrection Liturgy had become the common property of all members and was seen as a part of the spirituality and identity of Carmel, with special emphasis on eschatological aspects[vi]. Before analyzing this bond with the spirituality of Carmel, it is necessary to explain how the veneration of the Holy Cross developed throughout the centuries.

[i]   Louis van Tongeren, Exaltatio crucis. Het feest van Kruisverheffing en de zingeving van het kruis in het Westen tijdens de vroege middeleeuwen; Een liturgisch-historische studie (Tilburg: University Press, 1995) 27.

[ii]   Postquam igitur (Godefridus Bullionis) regnum obtinuit (an. 1099) paucis diebus interpositis, sicut vir religiosus erat, in his quae ad decorem domus Dei habebant respectum, solicitudinis suae coepti offerre primitias. Nam protinus in ecclesia Dominici Sepulcri et Templo Domini canonicos instituitY ordinem et institutionem servans, quas magnae et amplissimae, a piiss principibus fundatae ultra montes servant ecclesiae. So we are told, at the end of the twelfth century, in the Historia Hierosolymitana by a certain William, archbishop of Tyrium. Cf. Analecta Ordinis Carmelitarum, 1 (1909-10) 64.

[iii]  ms. Barberini Lat. 659 (Rome: Biblioteca Vaticana) fol. 80.

[iv]    Edmund Caruana, The Ordinal of Sibert de Beka with special reference to Marian Liturgical Themes. An historical-liturgical-theological investigation. (Rome: Anselmian­um, 1976) 7-8.

[v]     James Boyce, “The Liturgy of the Carmelites,” Carmelus, 43 (1996) 9.

[vi]    Eschatology is a part of theology concerned with what are believed to be the final events in history, or the ultimate destiny of humanity, commonly referred as last things: death, resurrection, heaven.

Dr. Arie G. Kallenberg

For the first centuries of their existence, the Carmelites devoted much attention to the Resurrection of the Lord. The daily encounter with the Risen Lord must certainly have influenced their spirituality. The constant confrontation in the liturgy with the Resurrection of the Lord, via Votive Masses and liturgical celebrations throughout the entire year, culminating in the Solemn Commemoration of the Resurrection on the last Sunday before Advent, left no room for the idea of a static Resurrection, reported to have occurred centuries before in history. On the contrary, the dynamic encounter with the ever-Risen One was thrust upon those who celebrated the Carmelite liturgy, for Christ constantly makes Himself present in the liturgy, and He offers a daily opportunity to rise again with Himself from the lethargy of death, and even from the incapacity to rise.

Throughout the centuries, many Carmelites penetrate into the essence and spirituality of the Resurrection Liturgy. From the Reform of Touraine, a sixteenth century reform movement which inspired new life in the Order, two mystical authors are known who occupied themselves with the Resurrection Liturgy and Carmelite Spirituality. One of them was the blind friar, John of Saint Samson (1571–1636), who wrote a mystical poem about the Holy Sepulchre. The poem is a dialogue between Mary Magdalene and the empty tomb, and John’s message is that the soul, in order to possess the Supreme Beatitude, must bury herself alive in that tomb and live there dying[i].

Another mystical author from the same era, Maur of the Child Jesus († 1690), was also a Carmelite of the Reform of Touraine. In his mystical writings, he affirms that the highest degree of mystical union with God which a soul can reach in this life is the state of Resurrected Life in Jesus. These are only some examples of the influence of the Resurrection Liturgy on the spirituality of the Carmelites. Within the Order there is much interest in this theme; the last two international Carmelite Seminars, held in Rome, treated this topic extensively. In the context of this short article, it is not possible to examine the subject thoroughly.

[i]              My Soul, in this Tomb you must collect forces

               in order to hide yourself from human beings

               and from yourself;

               you must bury yourself alive and live there dying

               in order to possess the Supreme Beatitude.

During the Provincial Chapter of the Maltese Province held on 6-10 April 2015 were elected:

• Prior Provincial:  Fr. Alexander Vella, O.Carm.
• First Councilor:  Fr. Charles Mallia, O.Carm.
• Second Councilor:  Fr. Maurice Abela, O.Carm.
• Third Councilor:  Fr. Anthony Cilia, O.Carm.
• Fourth Councilor:  Fr. Alexander Scerri, O.Carm.

The Second International Meeting of the Carmelite Laity in Asia-Australia-Oceania was held at the Carmelite Missionary Center of Spirituality in Tagaytay City, Philippines, on March 18-21, 2015. The gathering had very rich discussions and sharing based on the theme of the congress: “Living The Way Of Carmel For The New Evangelization”. There were over 130 delegates, from several countries in the region, representing different TOC communities and Lay Carmelite groups. Among the main participants were Fr. Benny Phang, O.Carm., Councilor General of Asia-Australia-Oceania; Fr. Raúl Maraví, O.Carm., Councilor General for the Carmelite Laity; Fr. Christian Buenafé, O.Carm., Prior Provincial of the Philippines and Fr. Joseph Hung, O.Carm., Webmaster of the Carmelite Curia; together with other Carmelite religious and lay leaders. The congress ended with a brief tour of some historical churches in the area.

Christus resurrexit!
Resurrexit vere! AlleluIa!

In Pascha Domini
A.D. 2015

Fernando Prior Generalis
Domusque Generalis Communitas

*Image: Marko Ivan Rupnik, Discesa agli inferi e Resurrezione, Cappella Collegio San Stanislao, Lubiana

The Elective Chapter of the Carmelite Hermits of Monteluro, Italy, was held 30 March 2015. The following were elected:

• Prioress:  Sr. M. Morena Ciullo, O.Carm.
• Director of Novices:  Sr. Teresa M. Lonardoni, O.Carm.
• Treasurer:  Sr. Maria Faroldi, O.Carm.

The Elective Chapter of the Carmelite Monastery of Onteniente, Spain, was held. The following were elected:

• Prioress:  Sr. M. Magdalena Pla Tortosa, O.Carm.
• 1st Councilor:  Sr. M. Jesús Barahona Berzal, O.Carm.
• 2nd Councilor:  Sr. M. Concepción Micó Guerola, O.Carm.
• Director of Novices:  Sr. M. Magdalena Pla Tortosa, O.Carm.
• Treasurer:  Sr. M. Lourdes Font Font, O.Carm.
• Sacristan:  Sr. M. Margarita Medina Armas, O.Carm.

A video about Saint Teresa of Avila produced for the "Teresa 500" celebrations in 2014-15 by the nuns of Thicket Priory (York Carmel).