SECULAR ORDER OF DISCALCED CARMELITES
England, Wales and Scotland

Here are a few lines I found on the net about today’s saint, French Carmelite nun St Elizabeth of the Trinity (1880-1906). From reading St. Paul, her great scriptural mentor, Sister Elizabeth discovered her vocation. She would be a ‘Praise of Glory‘ or Laudem Gloriae, praising God dwelling within her offering a ceaseless Sanctus. ‘God dwells within you, do not leave Him so often,‘ she advised. To another she wrote, ‘It is wonderful to recall that, except for the vision of s

I discover that today is the feast of All the Saints of Ireland – a country to whom Catholics in the UK owe so much for the Irish people’s steadfastness in the faith over the centuries. I was looking over a list of their saints and I paused at Blessed Columba Marmion (1858-1923), whose classic Christ the Light of the Soul still inspires many. I find that he was Spiritual Director to the Carmelite nuns at Louvain for a while, visiting them every week and giving spiritual con

Late back from the Manchester OCDS meeting last night – motorway jams due to roadworks. There is something very special about this group – apart from anything else, it keeps growing every month, which is very unusual in my experience. I received an excellent lesson on the way home. I always think that we make our struggles worse by thinking about what could be the case. We lead a second imaginary life in which things might be better – especially in regard perhaps to illne

I have cherished today’s saint Charles Borromeo (1538-1584), Archbishop of Milan, a contemporary of St John of the Cross (b.1542), ever since I first discovered him. Not least because he himself cherished our country as it struggled in the throes of the Reformation. He was a great friend of the English College in Douai, and his personal confessor was Dr Griffith Roberts, a Welshman. Dr Roberts was with him when he died. St Charles 'had a devotion to the English martyred bi

Something quite unusual happened yesterday – it turned out that two inquirers who approached us entirely separately are from the same parish, and they have now discovered their mutual interest in Carmel. Perhaps it happens more often in large city parishes, but these souls are from a very rural area. It is one of my great privileges to serve as the gateway to Carmel for individuals who come to us through our website – meaning that I have the responsibility of directing them

We had our first meeting of the new Internet Carmel yesterday evening. The difference between this and the well-established and much appreciated Virtual Carmel is that the Virtual Carmel is a Carmelite Spirituality Group open to all Catholics while the Internet Carmel will function like an OCDS group. We have set the new group up in response to inquirers who want to progress into Carmel as Seculars but who can’t access a physical group owing to health problems or the remot

When I read about today’s saint – the Spanish Jesuit Alphonsus Rodriguez (1532-1617), my thoughts turn towards our French Carmelite Brother Lawrence of the Resurrection (1614-1691), for they had similar humble vocations in the Church. Here he worked as a door-keeper but also devoted himself to prayer and penances. Both were unassuming lay brothers in unspectacular positions – Brother Lawrence as cook and sandal-maker, Brother Alphonsus as doorkeeper - but both exercised imme

We have had a ‘Going Deeper’ meeting in our parish for some years, we say evening prayer and then read a text and share our thoughts about it, finishing with a period of silent prayer. We are just starting on Teresa’s Interior Castle, and last night I felt the extraordinary power and beauty of her depiction of the human soul as a castle of diamond. I am always overwhelmed by the thought of my soul as a thing of such beauty – it’s very hard to take in. As Catholics I guess

This Feast Day of SS Simon and Jude reminds me of the O.Carm National Shrine of St Jude in Faversham, Kent, a part of the world I have never yet visited. Reading about the Shrine I was struck by the figure of Adam Kossowski (1905-1986), an artist who did a great amount of work for the Carmelites and indeed for the Catholic Church in England. Before coming to these shores he was a prisoner of the Soviets from 1939 to 1942. In the depths of his suffering he had promised God

I heard during my weekend in Helsinki about the recent centenary of the Act on the Freedom of Religion passed in Finland in 1923 after centuries of troubles for Catholics since the Sixteenth-Century Reformation. This reminded me that we Catholics have in the UK a big anniversary coming up before too long – the bicentenary of Catholic Emancipation in 2029. For all the troubles of our church in this country, we are so blessed to live in a time when we are free to practise our