SECULAR ORDER OF DISCALCED CARMELITES
England, Wales and Scotland

Carmelites should feel most indebted to the Spanish priest St Francis Borgia SJ (1510-1572, feast day today), for St Teresa herself tells us what a help he was to her in her spiritual journey. ‘For almost two months I was trying to resist with all my might the gifts and favours of God. In resisting these consolations and favours of God, I gained by learning something from His Majesty. For in the past I had thought that to receive favours in prayer much seclusion was necessar

I just came across a Carmelite Secular movement new to me while surfing the net: ‘ The Secular Missionary Carmel (CMS Carmelo Misionero Seglar) was established in 1994 on the initiative of Morelia Suárez, a young lay Catholic, attracted to Carmelite spirituality and the missionary dynamism of the Blessed Francisco Palau, founder of the Carmelite Missionaries. She put a proposal to the Sisters in Colombia to set up a lay association to share the Palautian charism. In 1996 the

We had a marvellous Regional Day at Boars Hill Priory on Saturday last. It was a very happy occasion and there was great joy on the faces of those who made their promises during the day. One of the highlights of the meeting was the reports from those present who had attended the World Meeting of Secular Carmelites in Avila earlier in the Summer. Their faces as they described the delight of sharing in a sense of oneness with fellow Seculars from all over the world were a si

We have our Central Region Regional Day at the Boars Hill Friary tomorrow. It reminds me that I had to make a long journey in Carmel because in my first years I was only interested in my own spiritual development. I was only interested in how my own OCDS group could help me. I heard about Regional Days, but somehow I thought of them as being for other people who ‘liked that sort of thing’. I have always distinguished between ‘being interested in spirituality/spiritual thi

We are making preparations to found a new OCDS work in Cambridge. The first meeting is scheduled for Sunday 4 October at 5.15pm. This is humanly speaking a nervous time, imagining scenarios when no-one turns up, imagining how things might 'go wrong', and so forth. All of course is ultimately God’s work and not ours, but I do know that in reality some groups come to an end and fold, so He does not always will success in human terms. The groups in Wolverhampton and Birmingh

I have always felt a deep attraction to St Pio of Pietrelcina (1887-1968, feast day today). Years ago, learning about the Catholic Church for the first time, I was fascinated by the fact that this extraordinary man was actually alive in my own lifetime, for I had assumed that saints (he seemed surely to be one) were figures from the past. Today I discover that he had more affinities with Carmel than I knew about before. ‘The word “transverberation” means a wounding of love

I visited the Spirit of Carmel OCDS community on Saturday in Preston, Lancashire. Preston was for many decades one of the most Catholic towns in the country. I was struck by the challenges the Spirit of Carmel community has faced in recent times, for they once had the support of OCD Sisters and Friars based in the town. Both have now pulled out – and that is quite a bereavement for the local Seculars. A member of the Spirit of Carmel commented that the Seculars now have t

I found this passage by a Secular Carmelite named Carmel Semple that I have excerpted for St Matthew’s day. ‘Matthew 4:11–23 is a deeply Carmelite Gospel. It recounts how Jesus spent most of his life hidden quietly in Nazareth until he was baptised in the river Jordan by his cousin John the Baptist. He then withdrew to the desert where he fasted for forty days and was tempted by the devil. … Each temptation tested Jesus’ trust, obedience and loyalty to God. In contrast, Adam

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