SECULAR ORDER OF DISCALCED CARMELITES
England, Wales and Scotland

We are now in the year of St John of the Cross; it began in Segovia (where his tomb is) on 13 December last, the day before his saint’s day.  This year we celebrate the three hundredth anniversary of his canonisation and the centenary of the conferment of his doctorate.  I am hugely grateful to this amazing saint, for I came across The Ascent of Carmel in my twenties and it was definitely one of many signposts pointing me to the Catholic Church a few years later.  It wasn’t t

New Year’s greetings to all who are following the Carmelite way!  We are now more than a quarter of a century into the ‘new’ millennium.  Many of us can remember the first day of that millennium.  The New Year not only marks a fresh start but it also offers a reminder of the swiftness of the passage of time.  C S Lewis made an observation along these lines:  the very fact that we are so conscious of the passage of time, of the shortness of our earthly existence, suggests that

Delighted to discover the beautiful and inspiring website of an enclosed community of Carmelite friars in Wyoming in the USA.  It is good to end the calendar (natural) year on a positive note.  I quote from their website: ‘The Monks of the Most Blessed Virgin Mary of Mount Carmel is a monastic, cloistered Roman Catholic community founded in the Rocky Mountains in the Diocese of Cheyenne, Wyoming. In the solitude and silence of the mountain wilderness, the Carmelite monks of

I like this quote from Fr François de Sainte-Marie, a twentieth-century French Discalced Carmelite who was a prolific author and editor.  ‘Jesus continues to be born, to grow, and to die in the course of history, according to the very rhythm of the liturgical year, which takes up and gives voice to all the aspirations, the sufferings, the joys, and all the love of his own. And the Virgin, beside her Son, continues her watch of love through the souls who are devoted to her.’  

Great and encouraging news from Australia!  The Aleteia website informs us of a new Carmelite monastery in New South Wales – the Carmel of Elijah: ‘Cardinal Mykola Bychok of Sydney and Bishop Columba Macbeth-Green of Wilcannia-Forbes will preside over the groundbreaking of a new monastery for an order of Discalced Carmelite nuns on January 10, as the order officially establishes a presence in the town of Mathoura, New South Wales, Australia.  The Discalced Carmelites arrived

Christmas greetings to all readers. Although I have visited Carmel City in California, I have never been to the city of Carmel, Indiana, but you might like to know that they claim to have 'the best Christmas Market in the US'! Wikipedia says ' this town, founded in 1837, was originally called 'Bethlehem'. A post office was established as "Carmel" in 1846 because Indiana already had a post office called Bethlehem .  The name Carmel is a reference to 1 Samuel 25:2 mentioning

Below is a poem appropriate to the season by Jessica Powers (Sister Miriam of the Holy Spirit OCD). ‘Come is the love song of our race and Come our basic word of individual wooing. It lifts audacious arms of lowliness to majesty’s most amiable undoing, to Godhood fleshed and cradled and made least. It whispers through closed doors a hurry, hurry to Tierce and fiery feast. The liturgy of Advent plucks its bud from the green shrub of love’s compendium: O Wisdom, Adonai, Root of

I found this on a Carmelite website about a rather beautiful custom that the Sisters have: ‘One of the most treasured customs of our sisters is the Carmelite tradition of picking a day to spend in silence and solitude with the Infant Jesus statue in our cell. Each sister draws from a set of cards the particular day she will have as her “Hermit Day” during Advent. She will prepare her cell in any creative way she desires in order to welcome the special Guest. After vespers the

Some years ago I started a ‘ Going Deeper ’ monthly meeting in my parish.  My purpose was to encourage those members of the congregation who were ready to go deeper into their faith and prayer life and give them food and advice for the journey inwards.  The food and the advice were to come from the writings of our great Carmelite saints.  Our meetings - lasting ninety minutes - have been structured on the pattern of OCDS meetings with Evening Prayer said together, discussion

We buried my good friend Richard yesterday.  I had known him for more than thirty years but I did not realise how very fond I was of him until he left us.  I found myself thinking – how does Carmel help us to cope with death and bereavement?  There are many ways of answering this question, but I recall reading somewhere that as Catholics and Carmelites we have already died in this life because we have pledged to go beyond the ties which bind us to this earth.  We have declare

Today I came across the story of Blessed Agnes of Jesus (1602-1634), a French Dominican nun who is particularly remembered in connection with prayer for priests - which of course is an important part of our Carmelite vocation. I have lifted the following information from a Dominican website, telling of a miraculous instance of prayer for priests: ' At the cloister in Langeac, Agnes gave herself fully to the religious life, burning with an ardent love for Christ crucified an

I shall be travelling to help celebrate some birthdays over the next few days, so the blog will be suspended till Wednesday 17th December (when I have to attend a funeral!)

Yesterday evening my own Secular Group was able by coincidence to be present when the body of the late Joy Smith OCDS was received into St Gregory and St Augustine church in north Oxford prior to her funeral.  For many years Joy had been the Parish Secretary.  Although our paths had crossed a few times, I did not know her well, but I could not fail to be impressed by the warmth with which people spoke about her beauty of character.  Even when she was already very sick, she wa

Today we remember a modern Spanish Carmelite saint not well known in these islands, St Maria Maravillas.  I have borrowed this summary of her life from a Carmelite website.  ‘ Maria Maravillas was born at Madrid in 1891. She entered the El Escorial Carmel, Madrid on 12th October 1919. In 1924 she was inspired to found a Carmel at Cerro de los Angeles, alongside the monument to the Sacred Heart of Jesus. From this foundation followed nine others in Spain and one in India. She

I was discussing St John of the Cross with a fellow Carmelite yesterday and she used an extraordinary word to describe him, saying that she finds his words ‘soothing’.  I can identify with that, because although his emphasis on darkness and nothingness can make him seem quite forbidding, the message at the heart of his thought is that nothing matters more than God.  But if nothing matters more than God - and we know that God is unchanging and his love our ultimate resource –

The Office of Readings is such a gift – an extraordinary range of offerings.  Most are from the Church Fathers but some come from later writings and even – as today – from the twentieth century, the Vatican II document Lumen Gentium.  This chronological depth is a reminder of the vast history of the Church, a history going back even before Christ to the saints and the wonders and the wisdom of the people of Israel.  In committing myself to Carmel, I had a secret fear that I w

Today’s Feast of the Immaculate Conception reminds me of my attitude as a born-again Christian before I came into the Church.  In those days such doctrines (the Assumption being another) seemed to me and my peers to be gratuitous additions to Bible teaching by an ecclesial body out of control.  The Catholic hierarchy had developed an obsession with Mary which distracted people from the centrality of Jesus, the Redeemer of humanity.  Entering then into Holy Mother Church mysel

I need do little more today than reproduce an extract from today’s Office of Readings, which seems to me to be perfect for a Carmelite.  Not to mention that it was written by a man who served in these islands for the last fifteen years of his life as Archbishop of Canterbury - St Anselm of Aosta (1033/4-1109 ):  ‘Flee your preoccupations for a little while. Hide yourself for a time from your turbulent thoughts. Cast aside, now, your heavy responsibilities and put off your bur

In our new Manchester OCDS group somebody mentioned the name of Pedro Ballester, previously unknown to me, as a potential Manchester saint.  I did some research and discovered that he was Pedro Ballester Arenas (1996-2018), engineering student and member of Opus Dei, who died in 2018 in Manchester from bone cancer.  According to one website ‘ He had an ordinary life, which left an extraordinary mark.  On one occasion Pedro felt nauseated by the treatment he was receiving at t

The latest issue of Communicationes, the bulletin sent out from Rome by the General Curia of the Teresian Carmel, contains an item that triggers memories for me.  It is a report of the visit of the relics of St Therese of Lisieux to the Carmelite Monastery of Our Lady of Grace and St Therese in Carmel, California, on the occasion of the centenary of the foundation of the monastery.  Two memories in particular.  First, some years ago I was privileged to visit the chapel of thi