SECULAR ORDER OF DISCALCED CARMELITES
England, Wales and Scotland

I was always fascinated by the Italian Conventual Friar St Joseph of Cupertino (1603-1663, feast day today). He had something in common with our St Teresa – the experience of levitation. ‘He was accused by his fellow Franciscans of deception and fraud and they forbade him to say Mass in public or take any part in public ceremonies. But people came to consult him and, although wonders seemed to surround him, he felt God had deserted him. … Even on his deathbed, when he hea

Just back from a splendid retreat run by the American-based Coming Home Network. They exist to help converts struggling to find their way in the Catholic Church or inquirers about the Church. They have organised retreats in the US for many years but they have garnered so many contacts in the UK through their podcasts and their presence in the media that they decided to organise retreats for us over here. The retreat was held at the Ladywell Franciscan Centre in Godalming, S

I am off today to a mini-retreat for convert Catholics run by the Coming Home Network. This society based in the USA has been receiving so many contacts from the UK that last year it launched a UK retreat at Ampleforth Abbey in Yorkshire, which I attended. This year's is at Ladywell Franciscan Friary in Godalming. The CHN website hosts numerous podcasts and videos helpful for Catholic Apologetics. Back Wednesday, so I will resume the blog on Thursday.

Yesterday in a Secular Community we were discussing Pope Leo’s recent Encyclical Magnifica Humanitas. This is talked about as if it were ‘about AI’ but it’s about much more than that – there is a substantial portion on the development of Christian Social Doctrine before he tackles recent issues in the arena of artificial intelligence. In the second part of the Encyclical the Holy Father hints at the enormous differences between machines and humans (upon which books could be

Last night I was talking to a lady taking her first steps into Carmel and she spoke about something or someone ‘pulling’ her in that direction. This is a good word, a powerful word for our experience as we sense an inward longing – surely the Holy Spirit – to go deeper and draw closer to God. It's almost like the power of the magnet over the metal close to it. To us in Carmel that longing is fostered and encouraged by our acquaintance with our saints in their writings. The

Today’s saint, Peter Claver SJ (1580-1654), was born two years before St Teresa of Avila died. He devoted his life to the service of slaves in what is now Colombia. The slaves were brought from Africa in horrendous conditions, so bad that many died on the way. It is little known that Popes condemned this slave trade. The city magistrates in Cartagena where he was based regarded him as a nuisance for his persistent advocacy on behalf of the slaves, and ‘in the last years

Today on Our Lady’s birthday – the birthday of the Mother of Carmel - I will content myself with sharing a text to be found on catholicireland.net. ‘The origin of the liturgy of this feast can be traced to the consecration of the church in Jerusalem in the 6th century that has been traditionally known as the Basilica of St. Ann, the mother of Our lady. The original church built in the 5th century was a Marian basilica erected on the spot known as the shepherd’s field and tho

In an OCDS group I was in recently the eternal question of distractions came up. One of the members reported a lovely expression she had heard in a talk. When we are distracted during silent prayer or liturgical worship by extraneous thoughts of family issues or the news of the day or whatever is stressing us at the time, and then we come back to focus on God, we can say ‘Thank you Jesus, for bringing me back!’ Another helpful thought about distraction is to remember what

In an OCDS group we were studying Chapter 19 of St Teresa’s Way of Perfection, and our saint seems to be fascinated by the paradox of water and fire, by which I mean that God’s indwelling Spirit is present in us at the same time as both (purifying, cleansing, nourishing) water and (inspiring, invigorating) fire. How can this be? I confess I had never thought about it, but it reminds me that our faith is full of paradoxes – seeming contradictions which coexist. Starting wit

We were studying St Teresa’s Life in a Secular Group recently and it occurred to me that one of the precious aspects of this book is that in it we learn principles of prayer and the spiritual life at the same time as we are taken into the heart and soul and experiences of a beautiful and deeply spiritual person. This book is the very opposite of a manual, it takes us into the heart of a lived experience of God as we move with the author along the path of her inner growth and

Today’s saint, Blessed Frederic Ozanam (1813-1853), is remembered above all as a moving spirit in the foundation of the Society of St Vincent de Paul (SVP) – which has branches in many British parishes today. He was also an academic with a great interest in showing the benefits of the Catholic Church for mediaeval society. He was buried in the church of St Joseph des Carmes (Carmelites) in Paris. This church, built by the Carmelites between 1613 and 1620, has a painful his

I was doubtful if I could make a connection between today’s Saint – Giles (640-710) known as Egidio in Italian – and Carmel, given that this saint lived so long before the first Carmelites that we know about. (I didn’t actually know until today that Egidio and Giles were the same person!). But lo and behold! I start reading about the celebrated Sant’Egidio lay association and it turns out that their headquarters in Rome since 1973 has been in a former Carmelite monastery ch

Yesterday evening I found myself talking on Zoom to a gentleman from South Africa who was inquiring about the OCDS Virtual Community. I discovered that the time in South Africa is almost the same as in the UK (unlike the time in Australasia) and we were able happily to discuss his participation in the Virtual Community. It was wonderful to be able to share experiences of life and faith with him, and it was symptomatic of this new world we live in - with such face to face co

In a prayer group of which I am a member, we have been looking at extracts from the spiritual classic entitled The Practice of the Presence of God by Brother Lawrence OCD. This is one of those rare books whose title is a treasure in itself. (Another, I like to think, is the famous mediaeval tract entitled The Cloud of Unknowing.) Isn’t each day a new opportunity for us to ‘practise the presence of God’? When we talk about what we are doing in our Carmelite groups I often

More on the remarkable Sister Clare Crockett, whom I wrote about yesterday. Members of the Sisters of the Home of the Mother were given a ‘a protector saint’, and Clare was given St Therese of Lisieux. Even before that, this saint was the patroness of Clare’s youth group in Derry. Ironically, Clare’s family prayed a novena to Therese when Clare left home to join the Servant Sisters of the Home of the Mother, asking that Clare return home. We now know that Therese had oth

I have been reading a very moving biography of Clare Theresa Crockett (1982-2016), a young girl from Derry in Northern Ireland who was converted from a life of drinking and partying while still at school. (Clare Crockett. Alone with Christ Alone, by Sister Kirsten Gardner SHM). In 2001 Clare joined the Servant Sisters of the Home of the Mother (SHM) in Spain, where she took the name Sister Clare Maria of the Trinity and the Heart of Mary. She was killed in an earthquake in

I learned something new to me yesterday about the conferment of the Church’s doctorate on St John of the Cross, and it connects him even more closely with Therese of Lisieux. As I wrote in the blog recently, it was Pope St Pius X who launched the canonisation process for Therese, but he did not live to see her beatification and her canonisation, which took place during the reign of Pius XI. After her canonisation Fr William of St Albert, the Superior General of the Teresian

Some pearls of wisdom from the much-appreciated Carmelite Sister the late Ruth Burrows who died in this month in 2023. ‘A Christian must live by faith, not feeling. My feeling is that I am of little consequence, inferior to others, not a nice sort of person; so I long to be important, someone of real worth, loved and considered precious. I tend therefore to be unhappy, rather envious of others. I am on the defensive, for I have to guard this little self which is always threa

Among the blessings we owe to Pope St Pius X (1835-1914; feast day today) is the elevation of St Therese of Lisieux to the altars. Although her actual beatification and canonisation did not take place till after his death, it was he who decided to launch the process. ‘It was 1907. Pope Pius X was sitting at his desk leafing through a Carmelite nun's diary. It was the diary of Therese of the Child Jesus, who was born Therese Martin and who died at the end of the 19th century

One of the blessings associated with guiding others in formation is the repeated contact it brings with our Constitutions. One might expect this little book to be rather dry – does it not contain a set of rules? In fact there are many spiritual gems within it. People find number 14 on ‘the evangelical counsel of poverty’ challenging, it makes them feel guilty because they don’t live on the poverty line. But this number 14 actually defines poverty as ‘the desire to live in