An inspirational end to the year

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 Wyoming seek to perpetuate the charism of the Blessed Virgin Mary by living the hidden Marian life in vows to the primitive Carmelite Rule and monastic observance for Carmelite men. This monastery is a public association of the Christian faithful founded “in itinere” to becoming a religious institute within the Catholic Church. The Carmelite fathers and brothers live in unwavering fidelity to the Magisterium of the Holy Roman Catholic Church and the Holy Father through the bishop of Cheyenne. With a burning love for God and a missionary zeal for souls, the Carmelite monk immolates his life in the vows of obedience, chastity, and poverty for the Holy Roman Catholic Church and for the entire world. Doing battle under the banner of Our Lady of Mount Carmel, the Carmelite monks are the Navy Seals, Green Berets, and Marines of the Roman Catholic Church in a virile, ancient and ever new tradition of prayer as contemplative monks.  Blessed with an abundance of young, orthodox, manly, prayerful vocations in a joyful community life, the Carmelite monks follow the Lord Jesus who calls souls to follow Him along “the narrow way” of traditional and ever new monastic religious life in the enclosure. The Carmelite monk may aspire to be a lay brother who sanctifies his day through manual labor in an agrarian way of life or a priest who celebrates the Sacraments, gives spiritual direction, and preaches at the monastery’s daily sung mass. Once mature in the spiritual life, a Carmelite monk may aspire to become a solitary anchoritic hermit-monk in the mountains ….’ 

Intercessions:

Cancer: Brian Davis, Bernard (and wife Angela caring for him), Jacqui, Theresa K, Fr Jon Bielowski (Plymouth Diocese), Catherine, Alex (43 with five children)

Illness: Roy Seymour, Katy Keeling

Siena, Elara – sick children

David OCDS – housebound

Sophia – blind infant

Grace – troubling ailments, job difficulties, family (deceased mother and health of father)

Lucia – Overwhelmed by weariness

Mark – brain infection

Defence of the unborn and the elderly

RIP Richard Parker, Martin Gilham, Sue Burton, Wojtek, Joy Smith OCDS