SECULAR ORDER OF DISCALCED CARMELITES
England, Wales and Scotland

Preparing to go on retreat next Monday to Friday at Belmont Abbey near Hereford. The blog will be suspended during the week for obvious reasons. As a Carmelite, I know I should love retreats and I have many friends who do, but something in me rebels against the idea of withdrawing from active life even if only for a week. The annual retreat is part of our rule so I know I must go. I think that part of the problem is that I lead a fairly quiet and even eremitic life anyway

A friend was talking to me recently about the Litany of Humility, composed by Cardinal Merry del Val, who was the Secretary of State to Pope Pius X and well known back in the day. St Teresa of course placed a very high value on humility, and indeed there’s nothing more destructive than pride and inflated egos in communities. I am reminded of a visit to Italy’s beautiful Lake Maggiore many years ago. We took a boat excursion and the boat let us out onto a little island with

The other day in a Carmelite group we were discussing wisdom. Today I found this quote from St John of the Cross: ‘Wisdom enters through love, silence, and mortification. It is great wisdom to know how to be silent and to look at neither the remarks, nor the deeds, nor the lives of others.’ Wisdom cannot be learned through courses like other subjects. Perhaps we can be helped to learn it in part through books. But John reminds us of the essentials. I like his emphasis on

Today we have the funeral of Mervyn Leach, two of whose daughters are Seculars. I was reflecting this morning that it is not that common to see siblings in Secular Carmel. I can recall just one or two cases. Siblings can be so very different, as I know from my own experience, being one of five boys. It must be a great grace when two are called to Carmel together. Continuing on the theme of the family, I heard recently about a convert whose mother was drawn to the Church

Some time ago the late Sister Margaret, a Presentation Sister who used to be based in our parish, was talking about her work visiting the local prison. At one point she remarked ‘I’m a prisoner!’ - and that has stuck in my mind ever since. I didn’t have the opportunity to ask her to elaborate but I have turned it over in my mind many times. All Catholics are prisoners of love – we can’t just do what we want, we are obedient to the Lord, to the Church, to the needs of those

I found this about St Juliana Falconieri (1270-1341, feast day today), a tertiary like us, though not in Carmel. ‘At 15 Juliana refused her family’s plans for her to marry and soon after became a Servite tertiary. She continued to live with her mother and followed the rule given her by the prior general of the Servites, St. Philip Benizi, practising charity, chastity, mortification, penance, and prayer. Her mother was so impressed with her conduct that she eventually also p

On this day 17 June in 1941 the Servant of God Sister Françoise-Thérèse (Leonie) Martin – one of the sisters of St Therese - died at around 1:30 in the morning. ‘She suffered from eczema throughout her lifetime with painful flare ups. She experienced the untimely deaths of three of her younger siblings, resulting in lasting anxiety. She drove her mother and her father to their wits’ ends by her behaviour, which might be classified as ADHD today along with violent emotional o

We are hoping to establish a new OCDS group in Cambridge. The elements of it seem to be coming together, and we can plan maybe to start in the Autumn. But our groups are God’s groups and we stay attentive to the intimations of the Holy Spirit. We hope to make our home in the parish of St Philip Howard, where a new church as recently been built with new facilities. How the wheel turns: by coincidence (!) I was a parishioner there myself for four years some time ago, when m

Out of the blue, I have been invited to Finland to speak about St John of the Cross. I am wondering what to make the theme of my talk. I often ponder the graces of Providence when I think of this great saint. I did a first degree in Modern Languages and I determined to keep up my hard-earned linguistic skills by reading French books. My only real hobby was second-hand bookshops, and one day I came across a French translation of The Ascent of Carmel. I was an Anglican cle

‘Today we celebrate the Solemnity of the Most Sacred Heart of Jesus. While devotion to the heart of Christ can be traced back to the 11th century, it was not until 1670 that the first formal Feast of the Sacred Heart was celebrated by a French priest, Father Jean Eudes. Saint Jean Eudes (1601–1680) was a French priest, ordained in 1625 as a member of the Congregation of the Oratory of France. He became a renowned preacher and confessor, travelling extensively across Normandy

The Holy Father referred to our great Carmelite saints at the start of his visit to Spain, which ends tomorrow. Addressing authorities and the diplomatic corps at the Royal Palace in Madrid, ‘The Pope recalled St. John of the Cross and St. Teresa of Ávila, whose passion for the divine Mystery brought them together as friends. He recalled that the two prominent figures from Spain enriched the life of the Church and the spiritual journey of many for five centuries, even beyond

I met up with another Secular yesterday and we got to discussing how groups can fail to thrive. If the numbers in a group dwindle and it has to close, there may be mutterings about insufficient prayer. The thought is that if we pray enough or believe enough in prayer, a group must thrive. Is this really true? After all, we don’t know the will of God. Sadly, we know that many convents and monasteries have closed in recent years, including Carmelite ones – can we conclude

I love doing research on the net. I was looking at who might be the saint of today for the purposes of this blog and I came across another blog by a fellow lay Carmelite, an American lady called Amanda Evinger. In the course of writing about the Italian wife, mother, and mystic Blessed Anna Maria Taigi (1769-1837), Amanda tells us in striking terms about herself. ‘I spent nearly four years living in a convent, but I had to leave the religious life due to a serious health c

​The World Meeting of Secular Carmelites will soon be taking place in Avila (23-26 July) and we are asked to pray a given prayer for God’s blessing on this meeting. ‘Oh God, in your infinite mercy, you have called us to follow you in the family of the Teresian Carmel in allegiance to Jesus Christ; through the intercession of the Blessed Virgin Mary, St Joseph and all the Carmelite saints, we ask that the 2026 OCDS World Meeting in Avila may reaffirm our vocation and help us

​We were looking at Chapter 18 of Teresa’s Way of Perfection in an OCDS group last night. I find this a very rich and indeed extraordinary chapter. Our saint issues a solemn warning: ‘God gives contemplatives much greater trials’. Indeed she baldly states that ‘the trials God gives to contemplatives are intolerable’. But then she connects the severity of the trials with the gift of contemplation, telling us that we are given the food of contemplation ‘with its delights’ t

​I was interested to discover that the motto of the Italian St Francis Caracciolo (1563-1608) whose feast day is today was ‘zeal for your house has consumed me’. This saying comes from Psalm 69 and it was remembered by the Disciples in connection with the expulsion of the money-changers by Jesus (John 2, 17). St Francis was co-founder of the Clerics Regular Minor (or Adorno Fathers) whose charism – like ours - combines the contemplative and the active. The motto (which is

​The latest issue of OCDS Communicationes has arrived. This is the Regular Bulletin containing news of what is going on in the Teresian Carmel globally. All OCDS members should receive it online. I noticed an interesting item about Germany. They have an annual Provincial Week when Friars and OCDS members meet, and it took place in April this year. The report says that ‘the days were filled with liturgical celebrations, moments of silence, spiritual sharing, formation ses

On this day in 1945 Father Jacques de Jesus OCD died in a German hospital after terrible sufferings in Mauthausen Concentration Camp where he had been sent for hiding Jewish pupils in the school where he was head master. 'Born in France in 1900, he was ordained a priest in July 1925. As a diocesan priest Lucien gained the reputation of being a fine preacher and teacher. He was a very kind, generous, hard working, and self-giving man, which resulted in his students referring

This day in 2008 saw the beatification of Sr Maria Giuseppina of Jesus Crucified OCD, (1894-1948) in Naples, Italy. 'Born into a noble family, as a young child she showed great affection for the poor and most needy, giving money to them. She helped to care for two lonely old women. She was especially devoted to Our Lord in the Eucharist and to Mary, praying the Rosary often. From an early age she was convinced that Jesus was calling her to Carmel. Overcoming the opposition

I was discussing the ritual of making the Carmelite Promises in a formation session yesterday and we were talking about the sentence we have to say when we make our Promises that reads ‘The experience of the period of formation has confirmed us in the certitude that the Lord is calling us to live the Gospel of Jesus Christ in the world in union with Mary, Mother of God, and under her protection, as Secular members of Carmel.’ That word ‘certitude’ struck me because so much