SECULAR ORDER OF DISCALCED CARMELITES
England, Wales and Scotland

Many Carmelites have a favourite Carmelite saint or author.  Perhaps it is the one who first introduced them to Carmel.  Perhaps it is the one who wrote their favourite Carmelite text.  That is all to the good, because people are so very different, we differ by our personalities, by our characters, by our interest, by our inclinations, and by our preferences.  I was originally introduced to Carmel by St John of the Cross and it took a while for me to grow in appreciation of S

Late home last night after a rather long journey to Manchester where we have a wonderful new OCDS group.  We talked about yesterday’s saint – Josaphat – who was born in what is now Ukraine, and we said a prayer for Ukraine.  I compare him with our St Thomas More and St John Fisher and the other Reformation martyrs, because like them he suffered martyrdom in defence of the unity of the Church with the See of Peter.  Down to this day, so many fail to understand that this is a f

Today’s feast of St Josaphat, Archbishop of Polotsk and martyr (1580-1623) draws our attention to a part of the world (Ukraine, Belarus, Russia) that is tormented by conflict at the present time.  The story of this saint is hard to follow because it involved struggles with which most of us are not familiar, but the long and the short of it is that he as an Eastern Catholic promoted unity with Rome in a part of the world dominated by the Orthodox Church and he was put to death

When you are long enough in Carmel, they start to ask you to be responsible for the formation of others, and that is a wonderful blessing.  Spiritual sharing is one of life’s magical experiences, it involves souls drawing close to one another.  It provides an opportunity for heart to speak to heart.  The Carmelite saints bring us into the depths of ourselves and enable us to get a glimpse of the depths of others.  It’s a kind of sharing that doesn’t necessarily happen much in

Carmel has influenced my life in so many ways, conscious and unconscious, Carmel has given me so many and varied gifts.  For example, it was only when I became a Carmelite that I started to follow the daily Office of Readings, and to me one of the stars of this Office is St Leo the Great (400-461), whose feast day is today.  He has a gift for clarity and vividness of expression, and to me he is one of the greatest of the Church Fathers (and not just for his writings, for his

Today we remember the Spanish priest Francisco Palau y Quer OCD (in religion Francisco of Jesus, Mary and Joseph , 1811 – 1872).  To read an account of his life is to be confronted with the challenges and conflicts that engulfed the Church in his country in the nineteenth century.  Until recently I did not realise how much persecution Catholics endured in Spain in the nineteenth century from some of their governments.  At one point he was forced to take refuge in France, wher

Yesterday we visited Buckden Towers, near Huntingdon, to evaluate its suitability for an OCDS Retreat.  The buildings are magnificent, I would call them baronial, the interiors are delightfully antique.  This is in many ways perfect for one of our retreats, it is close to the A1 and the A14 (which runs East to West and connects the Midlands with East Anglia), and rail connections with London are excellent.  Believe it or not, there are actually three chapels!  There are beaut

Going to visit Buckden Towers today on behalf of the Seculars.  We are looking for a retreat venue for 2026 because plans for another OCDS Summer retreat at Douai Abbey have fallen through.  Buckden Towers is run by the Claretians, a religious Order named after St Anthony Mary Claret (1807-1870).  Their official title is the Congregation of the Missionary Sons of the Immaculate Heart of Mary.  The premises have a long and complicated history including a long spell in the poss

As I ponder the life of today’s saint, Charles Borromeo (1538-1584), it occurs to me that his vocation paralleled that of his older contemporary St Teresa (1515-1582).  Charles set about reforming his archdiocese (Milan) as Teresa set about reforming her Carmelite Order.  They both faced opposition, Charles from his fellow priests, Teresa from her fellow Carmelites.  A hint of the state of Milan Diocese when Charles was made Archbishop is offered by the fact that he was the f

Today’s Feast Day of St Martin de Porres (1579-1639) takes me back to a time before I became a Catholic, when I was an Anglican curate in a part of London where a great number of folk from the Caribbean had settled.  The church I was serving in was St Martin’s – named in honour of the Bishop of Tours of Roman times (d. 397).  That was when I first heard about St Martin de Porres, who intrigued me because he was mixed-race.  Surrounded as I was by West Indians, I felt he was a

As the years pass, I am very aware of the power of those inner promptings of the Holy Spirit which have moved me at so many moments of my life to take life-changing decisions, and today’s Office of Readings particularly touches me.  For example the decision to go to the meetings of my Secular community, the decision to keep on going, the decision to ask for formation and then to ask for the Promises, all of these prompted by the Spirit.  In today’s Office of Readings I find t

By coincidence, today is the feast of St Winefride of Holywell.  The coincidence is that yesterday in the OCDS National Council we were discussing various Marian shrines as alternatives to Walsingham - because there is a possibility that we may not have the annual Walsingham Carmelite pilgrimage in 2026 and we are thinking about an alternative.  One of my early memories as a young teenager is of a visit to the shrine of St Winefride.  My family were on holiday just outside Ho

I found this quote from St Teresa of Calcutta on the catholicireland  website. ‘God is the friend of silence. S ee how nature – trees, flowers, grass – grows in silence; s ee the stars, the moon and the sun, see how they all move in s ilence.’ I think it is very beautiful, a commentary on something we absolutely take for granted.  Our preoccupation with silent contemplative prayer puts us in harmony with nature in a very special way. In plunging ourselves into the supernatur

On this feast of SS Simon and Jude I find my thoughts turning to the O.Carms, who built the National Shrine of Saint Jude at Faversham in the 1950s. According to their website, ‘ Carmelites try to nurture a close relationship with Christ and his family - especially Mary the Mother of God - and so perhaps it was natural that devotion to Jude, Apostle and Kinsman of Christ, should have become popular in Carmelite communities, not only in Faversham but around the world. Today th

I am looking forward to the first meeting of the new OCDS National Council on Wednesday.  Several former members of the Council retired at the Presidents’ Conference last month, including myself, but I have been retained in a new capacity.  The members of the Council have normally been the Regional Representatives plus the National President, Father Matt Blake, our Delegate from the Friars, and our National Treasurer, but this time although I have resigned as Regional Represe

I looked up today’s saint Anthony Mary Claret and discovered a long list of religious institutions associated with him and with the Claretian Order he founded, including the Carmelite Sisters of Charity.  The Carmelite Sisters of Charity is a religious institute of pontifical right whose members profess public vows of chastity, poverty, and obedience and follow the evangelical way of life in common. Their mission includes education of youth and care of the sick and aged. This

A Carmelite friend has drawn to my attention to the beautiful story of Our Lady of the Bowed Head. This story begins in Rome in 1610 when a Carmelite friar by the name of Dominic of Jesus and Mary, was charged with inspecting an old property to see if it might be suitable for conversion into a monastery. As he walked around the grounds, he passed a pile of trash. In this pile he found an old oil painting of the Blessed Virgin Mary.  He could not believe someone had thrown su

Since today is the feast day of St John Paul II, here is a quotation from an O Carm website about his love for Carmel: During the Angelus celebrated at Castelgandolfo on July 24, 1988, the Pope recalled that Carmelite mystics experienced God in their lives as "the way of perfection" and "ascending Mount Carmel" – always in the presence of Mary as Mother, Patroness, and Sister. He said that for those in Carmel and in every soul which is deeply Carmelite, a life of intense com

I spent last week in the delightful Monastery called Termonbacca which houses the Carmelite friars in Derry.  Although in the past I frequently used to visit Belfast because it was where my late wife came from, I have never been to Derry.  The monastery overlooks the river Foyle and the views are splendid.  The week was devoted to a Symposium on ‘Carmel and human and Christian development’, a topic to which many of our discussions in our OCDS groups are devoted, since we talk

My thanks are due to my fellow Secular Carmelite Vivien for this thoughtful and encouraging blog contribution. 'The Carmelite tradition has produced an extraordinary number of youthful saints. Women such as St Therese of Lisieux, St Elizabeth of the Trinity, St Teresa Margaret Redi, and St Teresa of the Andes all died between the ages of 20 to 26 in the odour of sanctity. For those of us who may feel that we are living life in the spiritual slow lane, such precocity is both