O.Carm
Prior General's Schedule for September 2026
Fr. Desiderio García Martínez, O. Carm., the prior general, has the following schedule planned for the month of September 2026:
August 31-September 3: Triennial Chapter of the Neapolitan Province
September 7-11: Retreat-Planning -- General Curia -- Nocera Umbra, (Italy)
September 21-25: Elective Chapter of the Commissariat of Paranà -- Brazil
Celebrating At Home - 23rd Sunday in Ordinary Time
A Family Formed By Forgiveness
(Matthew 18:15-20)
Chapter 18 of St Matthew’s Gospel is often referred to as the Sermon on the Church. It contains the teaching of Jesus about the life of the Christian community.
Today’s reading details a procedure for dealing with differences and disputes. It follows the Parable of the Lost Sheep which is concerned with seeking out and bringing back the one who gets lost.
In the same way, resolving disputes is not about being right and punishing an offender, but about conversion and reconciliation.
The three-stage process moves from individual dialogue to a small group trying to sort things out, to the whole community being involved in discernment and decision.
Traditionally, we have understood the words, ‘if he refuses to listen to the community, treat him like a gentile or a tax collector, to mean that the person should be expelled or excommunicated from the community.
However, Jesus was notorious for sharing meals with tax collectors and sinners and he called one of them, Matthew, into his inner circle of disciples. At the end of the Gospel, Jesus instructs the disciples not to reject the pagans but to invite them to become children of God. Excommunication doesn’t seem to fit, either, with the sentiments in the Lord’s prayer about forgiveness.
The parable of the Lost Sheep immediately before this passage seems to indicate that the church, following Jesus’ example, should never give up on any of the sheep, especially the lost ones. It has a responsibility to try to win them back.
The next verse about ‘binding and loosing’ extends to the community the power of authoritative decision-making given to Peter and the disciple-leaders in the Gospel of two Sundays ago. This decision-making follows community discussion and discernment about what is to be done. If members of the community pray and discern together about how to win back the lost one, their prayer will be heard, even if only two pray. Jesus reminds them that whenever members of the community gather in his name he is present with them.
We share a common responsibility for the lives and faith of one another and for our community as a whole. Our presence, example and prayer encourage and confirm the faith and life of Jesus among us.
Chapter of the Carmelite Sisters held in Málaga
The XXIst Ordinary General Chapter of the las Hermanas Carmelitas del Sagrado Corazón de Jesús was held in Málaga
The 21st Ordinary General Chapter of the Hermanas Carmelitas del Sagrado Corazón de Jesús began on August 2 and concluded on August 22, 2026.
The Chapter took place at their Motherhouse / Madre Asunción School in El Limonar (Málaga) under the theme of the Chapter Year: Anchored in the Heart of Jesus Christ, Forgers of Hope.
During these three weeks, representatives from communities in various countries evaluated the progress of the Congregation and discerning the organizational steps for the coming years.
The Chapter Assembly elected the Superior General and her Council, who will guide the life and mission of the Congregation over the next four years.
The General Council is composed as follows:
Sr. Ma Teresa Delgado Aguado
Superior General
Sr. Lus Marina Materano Perozo
Vicar General
Sr. Lucía María Frois Colaco
Delegate Councilor for the Africa Zone
Sr. Mercedes Espinal de Jesús
Delegate Councilor for the Caribbean Zone
Sr. María José Medina Alguacil
Delegate Councilor for the Iberian Zone
Sr. Ma Dolores Calvo López
General Treasurer
Lectio Divina September, 2026
Opening Prayer
Almighty God,
every good thing comes from You. Fill our hearts with love for You, increase our faith, and by Your constant care protect the good You have given us.
We ask this through our Lord Jesus Christ, Your Son, who lives and reigns with You and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.
Saint Teresa Margaret Redi (OCD), Virgin
1 September Optional Memorial
St. Teresa Margaret Redi, OCD., was recognized as an intensely spiritual religious with a profound devotion to the phrase "God is love." She was also noted for her humble service to the sick.
One of the girls who had graduated from the boarding school several years before approached one of Anna Maria’s teachers to thank her for the education and the Christian formation, as she was entering the Carmelites. Anna Maria saw the deep joy on this young woman’s face and instantly knew that she, too, desired to enter the Carmelites.
In the spring of 1764, she applied to the Monastery of St. Teresa in Florence and was admitted in November. She took the name Teresa Margaret of the Sacred Heart and professed her vows in March of 1766.
Teresa was assigned the role of community nurse, and she tenderly cared for the suffering sisters in her care, particularly those experiencing mental illness. Teresa devoted herself to caring for her fellow sisters and cultivating her robust interior life. As a Carmelite sister, Teresa maintained the disposition of joy that drew her to the Order, despite rebukes and harsh treatment.
Teresa died at the age of twenty-three, on March 11, 1770, in the midst of an outbreak of a disease in the monastery. She continued caring for other ill nuns until she reached her deathbed. Teresa’s body, swollen from disease, at the time of her funeral, had miraculously been restored to its healthy form.
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Blessed Jacques Retouret, Priest and Martyr
26 August Optional Memorial
Excerpts from the Homily of St. John Paul II at the Beatification of 110 Victims including Carmelite Jacques Retouret
Martyrdom is a special gift of the Holy Spirit: a gift for the entire Church. It finds its culmination in today’s liturgy of Beatification, in which we give special glory to God: “Te martyrum candidatus laudat exercitus.” God, who through a solemn act of the Church—Beatification—crowns their merits, at the same time reveals the gift of grace bestowed upon them, as the liturgy proclaims: “Eorum coronando merita, tua dona coronas” (Missale Romanum, Praefatio de Sanctis I).
The new Blesseds, faced with the choice of abandoning the demands of the faith or dying for it, strengthened by God’s grace, placed their own fate in His hands. The martyrs renounced defending themselves not because they held life in low esteem, but because of their total love for Jesus Christ.
9. This morning, dear Brothers and Sisters, our thoughts turn to the sixty-four French priests who died along with hundreds of others on the “pontoons of Rochefort.” As Saint Paul exhorted Timothy, they “fought the good fight of the faith.” They even endured a long ordeal for having remained faithful to their faith and to the Church. They died because they remained steadfast to the very end in affirming their close communion with Pope Pius VI.
In profound moral solitude, they were committed to maintaining a spirit of prayer. “Tormented” by hunger and thirst, they uttered not a single word of hatred toward their tormentors. Slowly, they allowed themselves to be identified with the sacrifice of Christ, which they celebrated by virtue of their ordination. Here they are, then, presented to our gaze as a living sign of the power of Christ at work in human weakness.
In the depths of their distress, they retained a sense of forgiveness. The unity of the faith and the unity of their homeland appeared to them as more important than anything else. We can therefore joyfully echo the words of Sacred Scripture: the souls of these righteous ones are in God’s hands. “They seemed to perish. Their departure was regarded as a misfortune, but they themselves are at peace.”
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Blessed Angelus Augustine Mazzinghi, Priest
17 August Optional Memorial
Bl. Angelo Mazzinghi was a noted preacher, prior, and reformer, teacher of theology and was known for his pious devotion to the Holy Eucharist, the Blessed Virgin Mary and the Carmelite Rule.
The exact date of his birth is unknown but was certainly before 1386. He is sometime referred to as Angelo Agostino but Agostino is his father’s name. He was received into the Carmelite Order in 1413.
He was the first member of the reformed observance of Our Lady of the Woods (S. Maria delle Selve) and served as the prior of several of the Carmelite communities. Around 1415 he was already ordained and was assigned to preach at the Selve in the years 1435-1430 and 1437 and then he was prior at Florence in the years 1435-1437.
He taught theology in both Florence and Frascati but was noted for his preaching. On one particular occasion of preaching, according to fellow Carmelite Nicholas Calciuri who was a witness, roses and lilies poured from Angelo’s mouth, which two angels wove into a crown. In his iconography, he is often shown with flowers falling from his mouth as he preaches.
Before his death he retired to a Carmelite house where he spent the remainder of his life in contemplation and meditation. Bl. Angelo died in Florence in August 1438 at the age of 53. He was buried in Santa Maria del Carmine in Florence. His relics were moved to the Brancacci Chapel in 1739 and to the main altar in 1930.
Pope Clement XIII approved of his devotion and beatified Blessed Angelo on March 7, 1761. The Florentines called him “Blessed Angiolino.”
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Blessed Isidore Bakanja, Martyr
12 August Optional Memorial
On the surface, Bakanja was a simple, unassuming boy from one of many Congolese villages. But he stood out for his goodness of character. Those who knew him, like Remacle Linganga, the labor leader of Coquilhatville, remembered him as a very affable and sweet person, who did not like unnecessary disputes, friendly with anyone regardless of color, and devoid of malice. However, he was by no means just an accommodating person. For he was intelligent and knew what he wanted, what was good to accept and what was to be avoided. He was loyal and of good character, a real man despite being still very young. Without getting lost in idle chatter he willingly dialogued with other workers from whom he learned many things. Above all he was sure to listen especially when talking about useful and interesting things.
There was one topic that particularly captured his attention, and that was when the talk refered to the God of Jesus. He would listen, reflect, and ask questions. So he learned that those speaking about this Jesus were men called missionaries, who had come from Belgium. Bakanja already had a faith of his own but it was somewhat confused. Wanting to better understand who this God these missionaries came to talk about is, he decided to go to them in Boloko-Nsimba, a village quite close to Coquilhatville. The missionaries gave quite satisfactory answers to his questions, answers capable of giving a new and decisive turn to his life.
It was no small point for him to learn that God, creator of heaven and earth and everything that exists, cared for human creatures, without exception, regardless of race or color, and that, moreover, he sent his Son Jesus for them. It was even amazing, almost unbelievable, that God even cared for him, just for him, and that God loved him personally, that Jesus his Son became man out of love for human creatures.
Soon Bakanja literally fell in love with Jesus and also with his Mother Mary. He was just delighted with everything he was learning. His state of mind was like that of one who had discovered a treasure. The treasure he discovered was greater-than anything he could have imagined, so it was worth striving for. It was Jesus himself who compared the Kingdom of God to a treasure whose discovery filled those who find it with joy to the point that they are willing to leave everything else behind in order to possess it. Then, and this was the best discovery, Bakanja was able to discover that he himself was God's treasure, because Jesus gave his own life even for him.
Isidore Bakanja lived his faith simply, but with great intensity and joy. He cultivated it with catechesis that made him discover on an ever more profound level the great things of God. Christianity, taken seriously, gives the right flavor to life. Isidore cared deeply about knowing God and also about praying to him. After all, praying, for Bakanja, is nothing more than being in a relationship as friend with his Lord with whom he knows himself to be heard, and with his mother Mary whose garment he wears. The faith of this adolescent seeps out from the serenity that pervades him and his desire to share it; he decided that the gift he received is not only for himself, but is for others as well, perhaps for everyone. The mother of Jesus, through her scapular, will be like a flag pointing to the treasure she carries in her heart. For, in truth, it is too great to keep only for herself.
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Celebrating At Home - 18th Sunday in Ordinary Time
The Kingdom of God in Everyday Life
(Matthew 14:13-21)
This week’s Gospel is the beginning of a new section of St Matthew’s Gospel which talks about the Kingdom of God on earth and the Church as a visible sign of the Kingdom.
The Kingdom is found where human beings are. It is deeply enfolded and immersed in the world of human experience: hunger, fear, disease, the sound of sheer silence, celebration, joy, hope, forgiveness, mercy, justice, in hearing and keeping the word of God. The kingdom is made present especially when human needs are responded to and transformed with the life of God.
In today’s Gospel, we encounter several human situations: Jesus’ own need to grieve the death of John the Baptist; a large group of distressed people who search him out; a large group of hungry people; a group of disciples in training.
Jesus is moved with compassion for the crowd in spite of his own grief. As evening approaches, the disciples want to send the people away, but Jesus wants to feed them. He invites the disciples into a moment of reflection, training them to have confidence, to show initiative, to be leaders.
Jesus uses the common Jewish meal ritual of blessing, breaking and giving to feed the crowd with just five loaves and two fish. By working with Jesus and entrusting him with the little they have, the huge crowd is fed. What, at first, seemed so inadequate became more than enough.
Like Jesus, the disciple has to learn how to touch the world of human need with the transforming life of God.
Like the huge crowd we can be oblivious to God’s action revealed in the goodness of other people.
Sometimes we, too, need to lift up our heads to see what is really happening and recognise how many times in the ordinary circumstances of life God favours us with moments of grace. God continually invites us to see what is really going on and how extraordinary the ordinary can be when we see with God’s eyes.
St. Mary of Jesus Crucified (OCD), Virgin
25 August Optional Memorial
Selection from the Homily of Pope Francis for the Canonization of Mariam of Jesus Crucified Baouardy
The Acts of the Apostles have set before us the early Church as she elects the man whom God called to take the place of Judas in the college of the Apostles. It is has to do not with a job, but with service. Indeed, Matthias, on whom the choice falls, receives a mission which Peter defines in these words: “One of these men... must become a witness with us to his resurrection”, the resurrection of Christ (Acts 1:21-23). In this way Peter sums up what it means to be part of the Twelve: it means to be a witness to Jesus’ resurrection. The fact that he says “with us” brings us to realize that the mission of proclaiming the risen Christ is not an individual undertaking: it is to be carried out in common, with the apostolic college and with the community.
An essential aspect of witness to the risen Lord is unity among ourselves, his disciples, in the image of his own unity with the Father. Today too, in the Gospel, we heard Jesus’ prayer on the eve of his passion: “that they may be one, even as we are one” (Jn 17:11). From this eternal love between the Father and the Son, poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit (cf. Rom 5:5), our mission and our fraternal communion draw strength; this love is the ever-flowing source of our joy in following the Lord along the path of his poverty, his virginity and his obedience; and this same love calls us to cultivate contemplative prayer. Sister Mariam Baouardy experienced this in an outstanding way. Poor and uneducated, she was able to counsel others and provide theological explanations with extreme clarity, the fruit of her constant converse with the Holy Spirit. Her docility to the Holy Spirit made her also a means of encounter and fellowship with the Muslim world.
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