The elective chapter of the Monastery de la Anunciación in Porlamar, Venezuela, took place on September 23, 2022.

The monastery was founded on January 7, 1983, by four nuns from the Barcelona monastery, one from Tarrega and one from Vilafranca del Penedés. Permission had been obtain from the Congregation for Religious and Secular Institutes on November 18, 1982. The monastery now has 7 nuns with three from Porlamar.

The results of the elective chapter were as follows:

Prioress | Priora | Priora:
Hna Norma del Carmen Sánchez, O. Carm.

1st Councilor | 1ª Consejera | 1ª Consigliera:
Hna Mariela del Carmen León, O. Carm.

2nd Councilor | 2ª Consejera  | 2ª Consigliera: 
Hna Ludys Emilia González, O. Carm.

Director of Novices | Maestra de Novicias | Maestra delle Novizie
Hna Mariela del Carmen León, O. Carm.

Treasurer | Ecónoma | Economa: 
Hna Ludys Emilia González, O. Carm.

Sacristan | Sacristán | Sacrestana:
Hna Roselys del Valle López, O. Carm.

The elective chapter of the Monastery of the Purísima Concepción in Utrera, Spain, took place on September 28-29, 2022.

The monastery was founded in 1580 by the nuns of the Ecija monastery. In 1956, nuns from the Utrera monastery founded a monastery in Kakamega, Kenya. Although that monastery closed, seven sisters left to found a new community in Machakos, Kenya, in 1999.

The results of the elective chapter were as follows:

Prioress | Priora | Priora:
Sor María de Lourdes Lario Reverte, O. Carm.

1st Councilor | 1ª Consejera | 1ª Consigliera:
Sor Rosamaría Nduku Mbithi, O. Carm.

2nd Councilor | 2ª Consejera  | 2ª Consigliera: 
Sor Ana María Reina Jiménez, O. Carm.

3rd Councilor | 3ª Consejera | 3ª Consigliera:
Sor María Lucía Mutio Mbithi, O. Carm.

4th Councilor | 4ª Consejera | 4ª Consigliera:
Sor María Paulina Mumbua Ngotho, O. Carm.

Director of Novices | Maestra de Novicias | Maestra delle Novizie

Sor Rosamaría Nduku Mbithi, O. Carm.

Treasurer | Ecónoma | Economa: 
Sor Ana María Reina Jiménez, O. Carm.

Sacristan | Sacristán | Sacrestana:
Sor María Lucía Mutio Mbithi, O. Carm.

The General Congregation of the Order of Carmelites, meeting in Rome since Sept. 5, traveled to the Basilica of St. Bartholomew on the Island (San Bartolomeo all’Isola) on Friday, September 16, the final day of the meeting, to deliver an autographed letter from St. Titus Brandsma. The relic from the new saint was placed in the Sanctuary of New Martyrs in the church.

The Sanctuary of New Martyrs (Santuario dei Nuovi Martiri), was established following the Jubilee Year of 2000. The year before the jubilee, St. John Paul II established a "Commission of the New Martyrs" to investigate Christian martyrdom in the 20th century. The commission worked for two years on the premises of St. Bartholomew's Basilica, collecting some 12,000 files.

Andrea Riccardi, founder of the Community of Sant'Egidio, says, "I entered the great archive of the New Martyrs Commission, where letters, reports, memoirs are collected that, in recent years, have arrived in Rome from all over the world. I began to leaf through them. They were official letters from bishops' conferences around the world. But also memoirs from simple groups of religious. I read and got hooked. There were thousands of stories of contemporary men and women: Christians who had been killed as such."

The pope wanted the basilica to become the Memorial Site of the New Martyrs. The proclamation was solemnly celebrated on Oct. 12, 2002. The Orthodox Patriarch of Romania, Teoctist, witnessed the placement large icon dedicated to the Witnesses of the Faith of the 20th century was placed on the high altar.

On April 7, 2008, Pope Benedict XVI honored the memory of the Witnesses of the Faith of the 20th and 21st centuries with a visit to the Community of Sant'Egidio on its 40th anniversary. The six altars, the pope explained, "Remember the Christians who fell under the totalitarian violence of Communism, Nazism, those killed in America, in Asia and Oceania, in Spain and Mexico, in Africa. We ideally retrace many painful events of the past century. So many fell while fulfilling the Church's evangelizing mission: their blood mingled with that of native Christians to whom the faith had been communicated."

In his role as spiritual director of the National Union of Catholic Journalists, Brandsma encouraged publishers to oppose the publication of Nazi propaganda in Catholic newspapers. The refusal of Catholic newspapers to print Nazi propaganda sealed Titus's fate.

He had agreed to personally deliver to each publisher a letter from the Catholic bishops. This letter instructed the publishers not to comply with a new law requiring them to publish official Nazi announcements and articles. Titus met with fourteen publishers before being arrested by the Gestapo in Nijmegen on January 19, 1942.

Interned in Scheveningen and Amersfoort, Holland, he was deported to Dachau in June of that year.

Under that harsh regime, his health deteriorated rapidly and he was transferred to the camp hospital as early as the third week of July. He was subjected to chemical experiments before being killed by lethal injection on July 26, 1942. On the day of his death, the Dutch bishops published a pastoral letter strongly protesting the deportation of Jews from Holland.

Before his execution, Titus had prayed that God would help the nurse who would give the injection to repent of her actions in the camp. He also gave her his rosary beads, although she protested, saying she was a non-practicing Catholic. A few years later, the same woman went to a Carmelite priory to ask for forgiveness and was a witness in the beatification trial, which took place in Rome, Nov. 3, 1985.

Brandsma was canonized by Pope Francis in St. Peter’s Square on May 15, 2022.

St. Titus’ letter is on loan to the church.

1 October Feast

Saint Thérèse was born at Alençon in France on 2nd January 1873. Her parents were Louis Martin and Zélie Guérin. After the death of her mother on 28th August 1877, Thérèse and her family moved to Lisieux. 

Read more

9th Day Novena to St. Therese of Child Jesus

Watch here

The Canonization Process of St. Thérèse of Lisieux

Watch here (in Italian with English subtitles)

St. Thérèse of the Child Jesus and the Holy Face promised, “I will send down a shower of roses from the heavens; I will spend my heaven doing good upon the earth.” Many thousands of people recall receiving roses after praying to St. Thérèse for some intercession. It may have been actual roses, a card with a rose, or the scent of roses. It does not matter. Each is taken as a sign of St. Thérèse’s hearing the person prayer.

The Blessed Rose Petal Project run by members of the Flos Carmeli Choir at the Monastery of Our Lady of Mount Carmel is an attempt to recall that promise of St. Thérèse. The choir provides music at the monastery’s midday Mass on Wednesdays and feast days. They volunteer in various other ways at the monastery.

They noticed that after big celebrations, the flowers in the chapel would be unceremoniously discarded in the garbage. Around 2018, Carmelite priest Chris Kulig, who occasionally celebrates the Mass, began collecting the old flowers, drying them out, and putting them in bags as a remembrance of Thérèse promise to shower roses down from heaven. As the demand for the rose petals grew so did their volunteer list. Mt. Carmel supplied the little bags. The people supplied the flowers. The Flos Carmeli folks provided the finger power to fill the bags.

Soon it was not enough. “We just ran out of rose petals,” said Yolanda Bartley, one of the steady volunteers. But someone, while driving through nearby St. Catherine, noticed a field of roses at a wholesale of rose bushes. They were willing to sell roses at a discounted price for use at the monastery. Then they discovered three fields belonging to another wholesale plant nursery. They supply rose bushes to large stores like Cosco and Walmart.

After a conversation with the sales manager and the sales manager’s conversation with the owner, choir members were told they could have “all the roses we could pick,” said Angie Walledor, another member of the choir. After securing permission to park in a nearby non-Catholic church lot (the choir is very ecumenical in its work!), the members descended on the fields. Of the three fields, the smallest has about 30,000 plants.

“They grow in rows like corn,” said Angie. The fields bloom every second year as the nursery rotates through the fields to maintain a large number of plants to sell each year.

“It is St. Thérèse and Mother Mary at work,” said Yolanda. “It isn’t a shower of roses anymore. It is pouring roses.”

The small packages of roses are ready for the crowds expected to come to the Monastery of Mount Carmel in Niagara Falls for the October 1 celebrations. But after the crowds have gone back home, there will be more roses to pick, remove the petals, dry the petals, and then put in the small bag. It is all done with love in an effort to recall St. Thérèse’s magnificent promise to continue to do good works on earth.

A long-time partnership between the Province of the Most Pure Heart of Mary and the Society of the Little Flower has been of great benefit to both. With a branch in the United States and a branch in Canada, the Society promotes devotion to St. Thérèse of Lisieux. She is also known by her religious name Thérèse of the Child Jesus and the Holy Face.

For the saint's feast on October 1, thousands of people from around Canada are expected to visit the campus of the Monastery of Mount Carmel where the Canadian Society of the Little Flower is located. A variety of events and opportunities are scheduled so that members of the Society and friends of the Saint will spend the feast day in a prayerful way.

Due to the Covid pandemic, 2022 is the first celebration of the feast day on this scale since 2019.

The feast day features a blessing of roses in the beautiful monastery chapel. This is followed by a Mass celebrated in the gymnasium, with ample space to accommodate the crowds. Following the Mass, there will be a blessing of a new outdoor statue to St. Thérèse. The statue, a gift from the members of the Society, is made of Italian marble.

Following these formal events is an opportunity to enjoy the grounds as well time at the Shrine of Our Lady of Peace, a parish church with tradition of pilgrimage for peace dating back to the civil war in the nearby United States. The Our Lady of Peace community hosted the delegates and their families of the ABC Peace Conference to avert war between the United States and Mexico in 1914.

Relics of the French saint will also be accessible throughout the day in the main chapel of the monastery. Later in the day a second mass will be celebrated in the gymnasium.

Through prayers and donations, the Canadian friends of St. Thérèse are partners with the Carmelites, making a difference in people’s lives in Canada and throughout the world according to the Society’s website. Members of the Society join with the Carmelites in the ministries of the Gospel and the education of young men studying to be Carmelites, fulfilling Thérèse’s mission to “make God known and loved to the ends of the earth” in the most concrete ways of charity and justice.

The Society of the Little Flower continues to pay a significant portion of the costs of the Most Pure Heart of Mary Province’s formation program. Young men wanting to become Carmelites and ordained ministers in the Church study in four countries throughout the Americas: in the United States with pre-novitiate, novitiate, and theology program; in Mexico with a pre-novitiate program; a pre-novitiate and theology program in El Salvador; a pre-novitiate, novitiate, and theology program in Perú.

Just six years after the cause for sainthood of St. Thérèse was introduced in Rome, the Carmelites in Chicago conducted the first Little Flower Novena service at St. Cyril Church in 1912. One of the Carmelites, Fr. Albert Dolan, a renowned preacher and writer, introduced the Little Flower to millions. To ensure that the work would continue, he founded the Society of the Little Flower in 1923. Fr. Dolan’s work of promoting devotion to St. Thérèse and her spirituality of the spiritual childhood is continuing almost 100 years later.

Titus Brandsma Congress
October 3-7, 2023 | Radboud University | Nijmegen, Netherlands

The organization committee of the Titus Brandsma Conference to be held at Radboud University in Nijmegen, Netherlands on October 3-7, 2023, is happy to announce that five grants for participation in this conference are available. The grants cover the travel and accommodation costs as well as expenses for lunch, dinner, coffee / tea, and participation in the program of the conference.

Those who wish to apply need to send their application in accordance with their provincial via email to Dr. Elisabeth Hense: Questo indirizzo email è protetto dagli spambots. È necessario abilitare JavaScript per vederlo.

Grants can be awarded for those

• who cannot receive financial support for participation from their provinces (Asia, Africa, South America), and
• wish to actively spread Titus Brandsma’s body of thought and his spirituality in their countries and therefore will organize a Titus Brandsma activity in their own country and language reaching out to a group of interested people (students, pupils, members of the Carmelite Order, members of a parish, etc.). The activity might consist in a lecture, (series of) lessons, a publication, the formation of a reading and discussion group, liturgical celebrations, a retreat program, a societal activity etc. A concrete plan for the activity in mind (described in 200 words) should be included in the application.

The deadline for applications is December 1, 2022.

Does God listen?
(Luke 17:5-10)

“Are you listening, God?” That’s the cry of the prophet Habakkuk in the first reading for this Sunday.

Everyone can resonate with the Habakkuk’s feelings of frustration and anger at the appalling injustice he witnesses. ‘Why is God so slow to act?’, he complains.

God’s response to Habakkuk is a call to greater trust and faithfulness. God will answer, but not, perhaps, as quickly, or in the manner, Habakkuk would like.

The idea of faithfulness links the first reading with the today’s Gospel and the apostles asking Jesus to increase their faith.

What disciples on the ‘way of Jesus’ need more than anything is a deepening faith in the God of Jesus Christ who can and will rescue them from opposition and other destructive forces.

Jesus says that even a small amount of faith can bring about quite unexpected and seemingly impossible things - like uprooting a mulberry tree and planting it in the sea!

Essential to the faithful following of Jesus is letting go of the ego needs for power, wealth and position and living a life of faith in God and faithful following of Jesus which is expressed in true ministry to others.

Faithful disciples work diligently as servants of the Kingdom, not for rewards and honours, but keenly aware of God free graciousness to them and the need to extend that graciousness to others.

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On September 21, 2022, the Feast of St. Matthew, Apostle and Evangelist, the Carmelite community of the Monastery of St. Peter in Osuna, Seville (Spain) convened for its triennial elections. The elections were presided over by the Vicar for Consecrated Life of the Archdiocese of Seville, D. José Ángel Martín Domínguez and with the presence of the President of the Federation Mater et Decor Carmeli as co-visitor, Sister Mª Dolores Domínguez Pérez.

The results of the elective chapter were as follows:

Prioress | Priora | Priora:
Sr. Mª DEL CARMEN DONADO SEVILLA, O. Carm.

1st Councilor | 1ª Consejera | 1ª Consigliera:
Sr. SONIA SEVILLA ORTIZ, O. Carm.

2nd Councilor | 2ª Consejera  | 2ª Consigliera: 
Sr. CAROLINA ZAMORA BRAVO, O. Carm.

Director of Novices | Maestra de Novicias | Maestra delle Novizie:
Sr. CAROLINA ZAMORA BRAVO, O. Carm.

Treasurer | Ecónoma | Economa: 
Sr. SONIA SEVILLA ORTIZ, O. Carm.

Sacristan | Sacristán | Sacrestana:
Sr. VIVIANA Mª ESPITIA MEJÍA, O. Carm.