SECULAR ORDER OF DISCALCED CARMELITES
England, Wales and Scotland

News reaches me of an event this Summer which will be of great interest to Carmelites everywhere.  Here is the announcement: ‘ MYSTICISM: PARADISE LOST OR PROMISED LAND. John of the Cross Saint and Doctor of the Church John of the Cross was canonized on December 27, 1726. Two hundred years later, on August 24, 1926, Pius XI proclaimed him a Doctor of the Universal Church. The year 2026, therefore, marks a double centenary for the holy doctor of the Teresian Carmel. For this r

In the Office of Readings (two-year cycle) we have been thinking about the first Joseph, the Old Testament hero who was so murderously treated by his brothers.  It’s hard for us to conceive how these men could have developed such a hatred of the little brother that they should have zealously protected.  But their jealousy of their father’s affection for him seems to have burned them up.  One thing I have learned in my life is the power of this jealousy, and of course it can s

On this Feast Day of Our Lady of Lourdes, it is worth remembering that the strong link between the Carmelites and Lourdes. The last apparition of Our Lady took place on the feast of Our Lady of Mt. Carmel, 16th July 1858. Bernadette recalled that Our Lady looked more radiant and beautiful than ever. Due to the crowds the authorities barricaded the grotto.  Therefore, the apparition took place in the meadow on the opposite side of the River Gave. There is now a Carmelite Conve

The news I reported in yesterday’s blog that the paper version of Mount Carmel is ceasing publication and the publication is being migrated online is just another illustration of the cultural shift to the internet.  This has impacted my own life profoundly.  Right up to the beginning of this century my only real hobby (apart from following a bit of sport) was second-hand bookshops.  This dated right back to my youth, when there was one of them in the middle of our town where

I have received this news about our house magazine, 'Mount Carmel'. 'After 73 years in print, Mount Carmel magazine opens digital access to all Carmelite magazine launches new website in partnership with DigiCarmel archive.   Mount Carmel will become a digital open access publication in early 2026. Established in 1953, the magazine has circulated for over 70 years as a print journal among a limited number of subscribers. For the first time, the new web portal ( MountCarmelMa

Today is the Feast of St Dorothea and I was surfing the net to find more about her, because I know that Sister Lucia of Fatima fame spent a period with the Sisters of St Dorothea.  By chance I then came across an interview with a Sister Dorothea OCD who is a Carmelite in the convent in Christchurch, New Zealand.  She explains how she became a Carmelite nun.  Here is an extract:  She recalled: 'I was at a huge... Black Sabbath rock concert... the music was pounding into me and

Somebody lent me a copy of a book called Manual of the Holy Face.  The Holy Face devotion was promoted by a Carmelite Sister, Marie de Saint Pierre of the Holy Family, who made her profession in the convent of Tours in 1841.  This book contains various materials relating to the devotion including a short life of Sister Marie de Saint Pierre.  What struck me initially in it is that it contains juxtaposed pictures of the face on the Veil of Veronica in Rome and the face on the

We don’t hear enough about the earlier Carmelite saints, in my opinion.  I came across this beautiful story about our Carmelite saint of today – St Andrew Corsini (1302-1373).  Andrew was a member of a noble Florentine family. ‘ Rather dissolute as a youth, he repented when he at seventeen his mother told him of a strange dream she had before his birth. She dreamt she had given birth to a wolf that became a lamb on entering a Carmelite church.’  That was some dream!    Andrew

We have had a ‘Going Deeper’ group in our parish for several years, but it has not flourished.  We have a couple of very devoted members who do get a lot out of it but that is not really sufficient.  We do a ninety-minute shortened version of a Secular meeting – Evening Prayer, study of a Carmelite text, silent prayer.  I thought the ‘going deeper’ title would encourage people to come who wanted to draw closer to God, to learn more of the beautiful riches of our faith, but th

One piece of good news about the internet - which of course is regularly blamed for all kinds of evils - is that it is drawing so many together for prayer.  I hear of Carmelites and others meeting online to say the rosary together, and I think that is marvellous – especially for anyone housebound, but in general for absolutely anybody.  Speaking as someone living on his own, I know how easy it is to let disciplines like the rosary slip, but if I am committed to a meeting at a

I am sometimes amazed by the rich variety of themes that can be brought together under the banner of Carmelite spirituality.  I came across this announcement of a forthcoming workshop on the website of the Mount Carmel Spiritual Centre located at Niagara Falls in Canada (This website is well worth a visit). 'Folded in Love:  A Bookbinding Journey with St. Thérèse of Lisieux This workshop is designed to immerse body, mind and soul in the creation and use of a spiritual journal

I am involved to a certain extent in mentoring, and sometimes a person in formation will ask ‘Is it all right to read this author or that author?’ I am deeply touched by the spirit of obedience that this manifests but of course being in Carmel does not mean that your reading must be restricted to Carmelite authors.  We have a special vocation to study them, but it is not exclusive.  Spiritual food can be found everywhere, even in the most unexpected places.  Carmel is a place

As a Secular Carmelite I feel some affinity with today’s saint, the Italian Angela of Merici (1470-1540), a lay Franciscan who was a foundress.  ‘One day while Angela was sitting in the fields, her deceased sister appeared to her telling her that God wanted her to found “a company of virgins”. She became a Franciscan tertiary and formed a support group for unmarried girls in Desenzano and later she started another one in nearby Brescia, then a city suffering the chaos of war.

A person who is just embarking on the adventure of Secular Carmel in her forties was telling me just the other day that she had had a sense of connection to the brown scapular ever since she had first heard about it as a youngster.  This put me in mind of a saying of Fr Matt Blake OCD, our Delegate from the Friars.  I heard him once observe ‘You are born a Carmelite!’  In other words the aptitude for Carmel and attraction to Carmel is something that lies deep within a person;

One of the saints of today is St Emerentiana, who died around AD304.  ‘ According to the legend of St. Agnes, Emerentiana was her foster-sister. Some days after the burial of St. Agnes Emerentiana, who was still a catechumen, went to the grave to pray, and while praying she was suddenly attacked by the pagans and killed with stone s.’ [Catholic Encyclopedia] St Agnes is of course much better known.  In French the name of this little-known martyr is Sainte Emerentienne, and Bl

I am indebted to the St Paul Centre website for these thoughts about our Teresa: ‘The teachings of Teresa of Avila are a vital source of wisdom for many who seek a deeper life of prayer ... Saint Teresa unmasks the spiritual kitsch of our time because she effectively contended with it in her own. New deviant forms of spirituality are, generally, simply re-presentations of previously failed gimmicks. In her time, like the New Age movement in ours, the teachings of the Alumbrad

A fellow Carmelite sent me this prayer-poem, with which I was unfamiliar, I thought I would share it. It has a very Carmelite tone. ‘I kiss the Wounds of Your Sacred Head, with sorrow deep and true, may every thought of my mind today be an act of perfect love for You.   I kiss the Wounds of Your Sacred Feet, with sorrow deep and true, may every step I take today be an act of perfect love for You.   I kiss the Wounds of Your Sacred Hands, with sorrow deep and true, may every

We have a meeting in my parish called ‘The Going Deeper’ meeting.  I run it on Carmelite lines (Evening Prayer, discussion of a Carmelite text, silent prayer).  It has been going a few years but numbers have dropped and I don’t know if it will last much longer. These things ebb and flow.  We were meeting in a room at the church but we are switching tonight to my house – I don’t know how that will work.  It is in the hands of the Good Lord.  One of the members said she was re

Very very occasionally a person comes to an OCDS group or community and it becomes apparent sooner or later that this person does not have a vocation to Carmel.  If that emerges sooner, it generally isn’t a problem unless it is ignored by the president or formator, or unless the person in question is very persistent in not taking the hint about leaving - in which case strains and stresses may arise.  It can happen however that a person spends three or four years or even five

Some years ago I met a marvellous Carmelite lady in the Holy Land and we became friends.  One of the things that impressed me about her was that from time to time she would remind me by email ‘I am praying for you’.  She loved to stress the importance of prayer.  Gradually it dawned on me that she really thought it was the most important thing in life.  And gradually it dawned on me that this should also be a basic principle for me – only it wasn’t.  Of course I did pray, but