From August 8-29, the XX Ordinary General Chapter of the Hermanas Carmelitas del Sagrado Corazón de Jesús was held at their motherhouse in Limonar, Málaga, Spain.

This Institute was founded by Servant of God Asunción Soler Gimeno (1882-1959) on May 13, 1924 in Spain. Her goal is to live, according to the spirit of Carmel, in and with the people. She was particularly interested in helping the poor and needy.

While diocesan approval was granted in 1938, the Institute was affiliated to the Carmelite Order on June 7, 1947.

The sisters commit themselves to the education of the youth, social action, and to the sick, as well as to the needs of the Church. Their presence has greatly increased in Spain, Portugal, the Dominican Republic, Cuba, Venezuela, and Mozambique.

The following sisters serve on the new General Council:

General Superior | Superiora General | Superiora Generale:
Hna María Teresa Delgado Aguado, HCSCJ

Councilor-Secretary | Consejera-Secretario | Consigliera-Segretario:
Hna Luz Marina Materano Perozo HCSCJ

Councilor | Consejera | Consigliera: 
Hna María Lopes Nivurucha, HCSCJ

Councilor | Consejera | Consigliera: 
Hna Mercedes Espinal de Jesús, HCSCJ

Councilor | Consejera | Consigliera: 
Hna María del Rosario González Domínguez, HCSCJ

Councilor-Treasurer | Consejera-Ecónoma | Consigliera-Economa: 
Hna María Dolores Calvo López, HCSCJ

Fr. Timothy Radcliffe has been speaking to the members of the General Congregation, giving them some ideas to be discussed together regarding the core of the gathering’s theme: The Radical Witness of Consecrated Carmelites in the World of Today.

The General Congregation began on Monday, September 5 and continues through next week.

Fr. Radcliffe was the master general (superior) of the Dominican Order from 1992-2001. He is a member of the English Province. He taught scripture at Oxford and has become a popular speaker and author. He addressed the 2007 General Chapter of the Carmelite Order.

Here we summarize what he has been speaking about during his presentations:

These meetings [General Congregations, Chapters, etc] are a time, in my experience, for us to rediscover together just how liberating is our mad way of life. It really is a way to happiness and freedom. I also believe that religious life speaks to our world.  We are friars, fratres, brothers, and we have sisters too. The world is desperately in need of living symbols of fraternity.

Pope Francis wrote Fratelli Tutti, ‘All brothers’, because our world is in danger of losing the old dream of universal brother and sisterhood. Now we see war in Ukraine, and China flexing its muscles. For the first time for sixty years, there is the threat of nuclear war. Millions of people are on the move trying to escape violence and poverty. Everywhere walls are going up to keep strangers at bay. The world order into which I was born seems to be crumbling. Many fear that we are entering a time of chaos.

In the face of this disintegration, we friars embody something wonderful and desperately needed:  brotherhood. These are the oldest Christian titles and the only important ones: brother and sister. Not just brothers and sisters of each other in the Order, but as living symbols of the human family, children of Our Father, gathered into Christ’s kinship.

It is also of immense importance for the Church. Pope Francis is summoning us to leave behind stifling clericalism. Most Carmelites are priests. But how can we be priests without being clericalist? We friars can embody just what the Church is looking for, a brotherly way of being a priest. It was in hearing confessions that I began to embrace priesthood. Here I was beside people in their sorrow, one of them. If I had not committed their sins, I had probably thought of doing so. I was their brother.

But what about the brethren who aren’t priests? When I became a Dominican, a third of the brethren were lay brothers. Now they are a tiny minority. In recent chapters we have constantly sought to recover the vocation of the lay brother as an intrinsic part of our life. We have endlessly discussed their identity. What does it mean to be a brother in a clerical institute? I have always argued that the real question is the other way around: What does it mean to be a priest in an order of brothers? What does it mean to a priest in “the Brothers of the Blessed Virgin Mary of Mount Carmel.”

So I wish to open up a discussion of the pillars of our religious life, our vows, and search for how they may be live with joy and freedom. I will begin with obedience, then look at chastity, how we live our sexuality. Then leadership. I will not devote a special lecture to poverty. This is because religious orders have such deeply different ideas of poverty. I confess that I have no idea as to what is a Carmelite understanding of poverty!

But I think that the other vows each imply a profound poverty. The vow of obedience invites us to a more radical form of poverty than not just owning things. We do not own our lives. With chastity we learn not to own other people. And leadership is a sort of dispossession of oppressive power. So I hope that we shall see how poverty certainly includes a simplicity of life, but it is also much more radical than. It is a poverty of spirit. ‘Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the Kingdom of heaven’. (Matthew 5.3).

Loss, recovery & celebration
(Luke 15:1-32)

The three parables which form the Gospel this week share a common pattern: loss, finding, celebration. 

Jesus tells these parables in the context of a shared meal with the ‘tax collectors and sinners’. The scribes and Pharisees complain about Jesus welcoming sinners and eating with them. Jesus tells these parables to explain his actions and to invite the scribes and Pharisees into a new understanding of God’s love and mercy.

The parables of the lost sheep, the lost coin and the lost sons share a common theme: that the mercy of God breaks through all human and religious restrictions about how God should act toward sinners.

They are stories of lavish and undeserved love and mercy. What shepherd in his right mind will abandon ninety-nine healthy sheep to go after a lost one? What woman will spend all day turning the house upside down to find a coin of little value? What father will joyfully welcome home a wasteful and disrespectful son? What brother will do the same? Scribes, Pharisees and we ourselves may not, but God will. 

The Gospel offers not just the hope of God’s mercy and forgiveness but the certainty of it. 

These three parables are also an invitation to the scribes and Pharisees, and to us, to join in Jesus’ mission of mercy; to behave as God behaves towards our brothers and sisters – with mercy and forgiveness – and welcoming all to the Great Feast.

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The General Congregation of the Order began on Monday, September 5 at the Villa Aurelia, a retreat/conference center near the Vatican. The theme of this year’s meeting is Gift and Mission: The Radical Witness of Consecrated Carmelites in the World of Today. “By This Everyone Will Know that You Are My Disciples” (Jn 13: 35).

These meetings are held three years before a General Chapter. Forty-three members plus “experts” are participating in the meeting. The priors provincial and those provincial commissaries and general delegates who have at least twenty voting members (solemn vows) in their reality have the right to vote.

In an interview before the start of the meeting, the prior general, Fr. Míceál O’Neill, expressed his hope for the two-week gathering. “My principal interest is for this to be a kind of extended general council in which we get a chance to share leadership, information, and responsibility with those who are leaders in the various provinces.”

The first week is dedicated to the topic of the consecrated life. The former master (superior general) of the Dominican Order, Fr. Timothy Radcliffe, OP, will address the group of the topic of consecrated life. Fr. Timothy, a noted speaker and author, had previously addressed the 2007 General Chapter of the Order. These first days will also be facilitated by Mr. Danny Curtin who will help guide the work of the participants.

Topics to be covered in the second week include reports from each geographical area of the Order as well as the various entities that are the responsibility of the general council (there is a commission or a delegate responsible to the general council) including CISA; the Carmelite nuns; the Institutum Carmelitanum; the archives; aggregated congregations; communications; Lay Carmelites; postulation; Carmelite youth; Justice, Peace, and the Integration of Creation; new foundations; and liturgy and prayer. 

Other topics to be discussed include the Carmelite NGO, which affiliates the Carmelite Family to the United Nations; synodality; financial self-sustainability; integral ecology; safeguarding minors and vulnerable adults; and formation.

The congregation will conclude with a message to the Carmelite Family, discussed and approved by the gathering in its final days.

The gathering officially opened with a Eucharist on Monday, September 5, celebrated by the prior general of the Order. This was followed by an opening address from Fr. Míceál to set the tone for the meeting. He offered a reflection on leadership and mission. In the second part of his address, the prior general highlighted areas of concern, the issues the general council is dealing with and have been shared with the provinces. The third part was an overview of the four geographical areas (the individual general councilors will give a more in-depth report of each area in the second week). The prior general concluded his remarks with some indications of areas the group might focus on going forward as leadership.

The General Congregation will conclude on Friday, September 16.

The General Congregation of the Order will take place from Monday, September 5th until Friday, September 16. This year the meeting will be held at Villa Aurelia, near the Vatican in Rome. The theme of the gathering is Gift and Mission: The Radical Witness of Consecrated Carmelites in the World of Today. “By This Everyone will Know that Your are My Disciples” (Jn 13: 35).

a) assisting the prior general and his council in their task of governing and animating the Order;

b) fostering communication and contact between the General Curia and the various areas of the Order;

c) ensuring the implementation of the decisions and decrees of the previous General Chapter; to assess the effectiveness of the directions proposed; to make decisions and issue decrees, which shall be valid only until the following Chapter;

d) assisting in the preparation of the next General Chapter, and to advise the prior general concerning the venue of the Chapter;

e) to discuss the financial matters of the Order.

1 September Optional Memorial

Saint Teresa Margaret Redi was born in Arezzo on 1st September 1747 into the noble family of Redi. In 1764, she entered the monastery of the Discalced Carmelites in Florence, changing her baptismal name of Anna Maria to that of Teresa Margaret of the Sacred Heart of Jesus. 

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Real reality
(Luke 14:25-33)

There is very little that is real in so-called ‘reality TV’. 

We know that, in fact, situations and circumstances are highly contrived and rather artificial. People are deliberately set up to fail, tensions are fuelled and contestants often exploited emotionally and physically. 

Today’s Gospel contains a rather heavy dose of real reality about what is required in order to be a disciple of Jesus. 

The words of Jesus have to be read against the background of the Kingdom life God is inviting us into and the central message of Jesus that we need to place God in the centre of our hearts. 

The language about hating family members and even our own lives comes from a Semitic idiom which expresses preference. If you prefer one person or thing over another you are said to ‘love’ the first and ‘hate’ the second. The Gospel is not calling us to hate either our relatives or ourselves.

When we let the presence of God flood our hearts and minds all other aspects of our lives, including our relationships, find their proper place. Relationships become more genuine and less exploitive; possessions have less hold over us and we begin to share them more generously, our need for power and status fades. 

To do this, however, is no easy thing. It requires many daily decisions, choosing to see with God’s eyes, to feel with God’s heart and to act according to God’s vision for human life: to choose love over hate, generosity over hoarding, to let go of power and status and be of real service to our sisters and brothers. That is what ‘carrying the cross’ is all about. 

Jesus warns that this is a difficult and demanding way, and that a disciple needs to be clear-eyed and ready to take up the task.

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The XVII General Chapter of the Congregation of the Corpus Christi Carmelites was held August 15-26, 2022, at the Generalate/Novitiate in Tunapuna, Trinidad.

Pictured above (left to right) are Sr. Marcella Ali, Sr. Geraldine George, Sr. Katrina Charles, Sr. Clare Marie Nero, Sr. Joanne Browne.

The following sisters were elected to the new Leadership Team:

General Superior | Superiora General | Superiora Generale:
Sr. Katrina Charles, O. Carm.

1^st Councilor  | 1ª Consejera | 1ª Consigliera
Sr. Joanne Brownie, O. Carm.

2^nd Councilor | 2ª Consejera | 2ª Consigliera: 
Sr. Clare Marie Nero, O. Carm.

3^rd Councilor | 3ª Consejera | 3ª Consigliera: 
Sr. Geraldine George, O. Carm.

4^th Councilor | 4ª Consejera | 4ª Consigliera: 
Sr. Marcella Ali, O. Carm.

The prior general and his council made the appointments for the leadership of the Institutum Carmelitanum until the next General Chapter. Renewed for a new term as president of the Institute is Giovanni Grosso of the Italian Province. He will be assisted by Kuba Walczak (Poland) as secretary and Mario Alfarano (Neapolitan) as librarian of both the Carmelite library and the CISA house library.

Also appointed were the members of the scientific board of the Institutum. Members until 2025 are Simon Nolan (Ireland), Rico Ponce (Philippines), Edimar Fernando Moreira (Paraná), Edison Tinambunan (Indonesia) and Dr. Elizabeth Hense of Radboud University. Dr. Hense is an editor of the multi-volume series of the collected words of Titus Brandsma in English.

The Institutum Carmelitanum is the scientific research and educational arm of the General Curia of the Carmelite Order. It was instituted in November 1951 by then prior general Kilian Lynch. The Institutum focused on Carmelite themes in the fields of Mariology, the spiritual life, history and bibliography. In 1954 the Institutum's official journal, Carmelus, was initiated. Other activities of the Institutum include collaboration with articles for dictionaries and encyclopedias, as well as scientific magazines, contact with other research institutes, and the organization of congresses and conventions. Within the Carmelite Family, the Institute is a resource for commissions, formation courses, and conventions.