SECULAR ORDER OF DISCALCED CARMELITES
England, Wales and Scotland
Stories
A Carmelite without knowing it
I was born in Lyon, France, on the feast of Saint Elizabeth of the Trinity, a Carmelite Saint. I don’t know if she asked Our Lady of Mount Carmel to intercede because, when I was only a few months old, my family moved to a house on the land of a Carmelite convent, a few miles from St John Vianney’s birthplace. The priest who had baptised me told my dad: ‘You cannot bring up a third child in a one bedroom flat.’ and found a place for us. My neighbours were Carmelite nuns. We shared the same high walls. I lived there for 10 years. Life was mostly spent in fear of our dad’s authority. ‘Papa’ or ‘Père’ became ‘Mon Père’, a title reserved for priests. Unlike Elizabeth, famous for her tantrums, I learnt very early to not be heard. I also learnt to listen, observe and ponder on things.
I left for Tahiti, a French Polynesian island in the South Pacific, with my parents and three brothers when I was 10 years old. After a few years, Mum died there, suddenly and unexpectedly. I was 13. I observed Love at its best from my teachers and school friends, but especially from the Little Canadian sisters who would regularly arrive at our house in their white clothing, bearing huge smiles and equally large dishes of peanut caramel. I also observed how, as soon as they left, the light went out. Mum’s name was not to be mentioned, no tears allowed, and dad announced after a few weeks that it would be best for all of us if he became a priest (which he did eight years later). At that moment darkness descended even more intensely than before but I had no words to express it. In my heart, in silence, I pondered.
Aged 17, back in France, at Paray le Monial, in the Chapel where Our Lord had revealed His Sacred Wounds to Saint Marguerite Marie Alacoque, I poured out my heart to Him, repeating again and again: ‘I only want to love and to be loved’. I have often wondered if it was Our Lord speaking. Perhaps it was Our Lady of Mount Carmel who interceded for me because it was around the time of her feast day (16 July). Even before I opened my heart to God, He had already put everything in place to help me and free me. I was shown in an instant all the main events where my dad had interfered with my choices, and I was given the understanding that things could remain the same forever, or… (there were no words, just silence, but I understood the difference). I don’t know if the starting point was when I had announced to my classmates during our philosophy lesson on freedom: ‘I am not free, I belong to God,’ but within one year, I had left my country, my home and my family for good and came to live in England where I married and had two sons.
Aged 30, my dad ended his life. That afternoon, the priest in my then parish came to find me 3 times in the church grounds where the summer fete took place. Each time he said: ‘If you ever need me, come and find me’. This was totally out of character, so I took note. That evening, my eldest brother called with the news. I understood that these words were from God. In that moment, God became My Father. Perhaps it was Our Lady of Mount Carmel who interceded for me once again because it was around the time of her feast day. The words found on a prayer card in my mother’s missal given to her by our Carmelite neighbours became true: ‘We have known God’s love for us…and we believed’. All the years of listening, observing and pondering were awakened at once. I started to look for God with the help of a spiritual director. After the first meeting I thought to myself ‘this is a bit of a waste of time’ but nevertheless turned up for the second session, the next day, when she asked me to tell her about my dad. When I had finished talking, she (to my mind, the Holy Spirit) shouted: ‘Your dad should never have been a priest!’ It completely liberated me from what I had felt aged 13. Someone believed me, I had been right! The cloud of profound darkness which had descended when he had abandoned his children for the priesthood lifted. I came out of that room an inch taller and told anyone who would listen.
Aged 40, our then parish priest brought me to Boars Hill to hear about Edith Stein. Fr Matthew Blake asked if I would like to join the Secular Carmelites. Thinking it was a prayer group for old ladies I said ‘No, thank you’. It is quite unfathomable how the Holy Spirit uses my own mouth to utter so many untruths within myself. Others followed. We had a break in of our shed. I told my spiritual director: ‘The sinner’s at my back door.’ Within one year, with my arms full of clean washing just picked off the line, I fell on my nose at my backdoor, not wanting to let go of my washing. I knew it was me. I went to my room and closed the door, and I cried and cried and cried. Despite being a cradle catholic, I had not understood that Christ died for me. I went to the bottom of the pit and learnt that the grain of wheat did have to die! Up to that point, I had little or no self-love, no self-knowledge and no boundaries.
Ten years later, aged 50, I was asked again by my spiritual director if I would like to join the Secular Carmelites. The night before, another prayer card, also from our Carmelite neighbours, presented itself before my face in a sort of dream, floating in mid-air. In the morning I looked at it. On the front, it showed Our Lady of Mount Carmel with the words: ‘I have chosen her as my life’s companion’ (Book of Wisdom). I wondered who chose who. On the reverse of the card: ‘Pray to the Lord of the Harvest since the harvest is great but the labourers are few’. I said yes to my spiritual director and just to be sure, a few months later, on the Feast of St John Vianney, I organised an all-day event in my parish with prayers, Mass, talks and a meal in his honour.
Now aged 67, I am a secular Carmelite leading a secular Carmelite community called Blessed Marie Eugene. How did this come about? Nearly nine years ago I was driving to work when the thought came into my mind that very few men and women world leaders cause so much suffering to so many. So I offered myself as a holocaust. When I got to my office and while setting up for the day ahead, I panicked at my arrogance and asked the Lord if He accepted my offering. Deep within myself I heard the reply: ‘Of course I accept it, because it comes from Me.’ Perhaps I will find out one day what that has to do with my being inspired to found a new Secular Carmelite community and to leave my existing one. Perhaps I am in a waiting room, being perfected further, but with my bags packed nevertheless, and praying daily for a Spirit of repentance and renewal for these few men and women, as well as the whole world, and everyone in Purgatory.
So, apart from sharing a Feast day with Elizabeth or, like her, losing a parent at an early age, living near Carmelite sisters, or owning a significant prayer card or two, I do not exactly know how she helped me. Nor do I know how God communicates Himself to me. All I know is that I am unable to doubt that He does when I need it most, and that the map of my life has been clearly drawn with its own mission and a multitude of helpers along the way. And so, to Elizabeth’s invitation to “let yourself be loved” I would reply: ‘Why would I not love to be loved by God?’
And to finish, as Fr Matthew Blake often says, if you are a Carmelite, you have always been one, even if you don’t know it for a very long time. I agree.
Hello, I am Michael Green, a quite ordinary family man who feels very privileged to have made Final Promises in the Secular Order of Discalced Carmelites, and to be joining such a wonderful group of sincerely devout, spiritually enlightened and conscientious travellers on the pilgrimage of Faith. I have 3 major passions in my life: God, Family and Coffee, and my whole life revolves around those passions in that priority order.
My journey in Faith that is leading me in this direction covers a very ordinary and mundane existence interspersed with significant supernatural events that have convinced me of the existence of God, the Truth of our Catholic Faith, and the Hope of a future wrapped in God’s Love. I was baptised just after birth and then grew up without much faith input until my mother survived breast cancer when I was a teenager, the experience of which led her to have a profound conversion back to God and returning to her Catholic faith with an admirable enthusiasm and devotion. She shared this with my sister and myself and we both returned to the Church with our mother with great enthusiasm, discerned whether we were called to a religious life, and then realised this was not what God wanted for us, instead both settling down with families.
Part of my mother’s reconciliation to her Catholic Faith involved the cultivation of a deep devotion to Our Lady and to Divine Mercy, which she shared with us. However, after my mother’s early death, whilst my sister continued to deepen her faith, I was becoming lukewarm and almost dropped my faith entirely apart from that I retained a deep love of the Eucharist and Our Lady, which helped retain a basic faith for many years.
Then some years ago, during a time of deep personal crisis, I was gifted with a profound religious awakening that led me to experience the Love of God in such an intense and wholehearted way that I quite literally transformed overnight and have been faithfully practising my Faith ever since. I believe sincerely that this transformative process is continuing; in fact I am pretty sure that it has hardly begun! But, one major feature of my transformation is how much deeper has become my devotion to, and love for, the Eucharist and Our Lady, bound up in an increasing appreciation of the depth of God’s Love through Divine Mercy. One of the first things I did following this spiritual awakening was to entrust myself to Our Lady using the Saint Louis de Montfort formula as interpreted by Fr Michael Gaitley of the Divine Mercy Fathers, an Entrustment which I informally renew daily, and formally annually on the feast of the Assumption.
So how does this lead me to Mount Carmel? As part of my increasing devotion to Our Lady has been my great love of saying the Rosary and particularly pondering the mysteries through reflection on scriptural verses whilst saying the Rosary. This beautiful method of prayer allows me to ‘live’ the Rosary mysteries (essentially the Gospels) through using my vivid imagination, to follow the mysteries in my mind as if I were a bystander in the actual Gospel scenes. For the final mystery, The Coronation, I imagine myself walking behind our Lady as she slowly moves in Heaven towards the throne prepared for her, where the Godhead is waiting to Crown her; in Spring 2020 on one such meditation I was fully surprised when Our Lady turned to me in my reverie and spoke to me, ”Michael, I want you to join Carmel”, then next to her I saw Saints’ Teresa of Avila, Thérèse of Lisieux, and Teresa Benedicta, and Our Lady said to me “These will help you”.
I am not blessed with many spiritual experiences and so this was quite extraordinary to me and, since I am entrusted to Our Lady, I took this as a direct request from her that I immediately react to. Fortunately, I knew of a fellow Parishioner (Sandra Buck) who had made her Final Promises as an OCDS, and having contacted her, was able to enter on this journey to Mount Carmel. This has led me to become involved with an amazing group of fellow Pilgrims discerning their Path to God through following the Carmelite way guided by our Blessed Mother. I also feel very strongly the support that I am receiving from the great Carmelite saints in helping me discern God’s Will for me, and in helping me in my continuing journey as a Pilgrim, both personally, and in Community.
St Elizabeth of the Trinity and the healing of a Secular Carmelite
During the years in which she was ill, a Belgian professor named Marie-Paul Stevens, forced to turn from a vigorous, physically active life to that of an invalid, entered the Secular Order of Discalced Carmelites in Belgium. “Very active, I became semi-contemplative,” she recalled. She made her profession in 2000 and continued along the way of the Cross. Two years later, as she was thought to be dying, she made a pilgrimage to the Carmel of Flavignerot, successor to the Dijon Carmel, to thank Elizabeth of the Trinity, to whom she had been devoted since her adolescence, for accompanying her throughout her illness. For a patient in her condition, the journey was risky and hard. But it was there, resting in the parking lot after praying in the chapel, that she was suddenly cured.
On the trip to Flavignerot, Marie-Paul was accompanied by her friend Leen Melkebeke, leader of the Secular Carmelite group of which Marie-Paul is a member, who witnessed the miracle. "I saw with my own eyes that the healing was complete,” Leek explained. “Since then, Marie. -Paul has become a bomb of energy. So much so that she tires me out sometimes! For me, it is clear that God intervened in her physical and spiritual life. "
The two women were driven from Belgium to Flavignerot by Sylvain Verbeek, a 65-year-old gentleman from Zonderhoven, whom the Vatican called to testify about the miracle. He said that before her illness “Marie-Paul sang like a nightingale. But because the disease completely dried up her body, she had a hoarse voice.” He recalled the journey, saying “I remember well how badly it went with Marie-Paul at that time. At first she wanted to drive herself, but soon she had to let me take the wheel while she rested, stretched out on the back seat. “In Dijon, the two friends joined Marie-Paul in praying to Blessed Elizabeth for her healing. “But the return trip was even more impressive,” Sylvain continued. “Marie-Paul drove in one go from Dijon to Zanderhoven. Even when I met her after the trip, she felt better than ever. She could walk well and could again sing beautifully.”
Marie-Paul’s former colleague, Henri Thimister, a deacon who teaches science in Stevelot, also observed her recovery. “Miracles, the healing of some and not others, are an obstacle to the faith of some persons,” he observed. “But the fact that these events give us the opportunity to rediscover through Elisabeth the mystery of the Trinity, that is what delights me.”
Freelance artist Holly Rodriguez had been an atheist all her life and never thought about God or considered joining a religion or even going to church, but one day …
It was December of 2016, I had woken up one winter morning wanting nothing more than my usual cup of coffee. I had been an atheist all of my life. I had never thought about God and certainly never considered joining a religion or going to church. However on that day, for no reason at all, I felt a sudden desire to go to church. There was nothing unusual going on in my life to bring about this sudden change of heart. I had been living a fairly normal, quiet life as a freelance artist in a small seaside town in Kent, England.
I searched for the closest church that was open that day and found a Roman Catholic church within walking distance. That was a surprise. Although I had passed that area many times, I had never noticed a church there before. It’s amazing how blind we are to the presence of God, and how near He is to us, when we walk the path of life with a closed heart.
I phoned the church and a kind lady answered the phone. She introduced herself as the parish secretary and I asked her some questions which she was happy to answer. She told me the church was Catholic and that she would let the priest know I had phoned and we said our goodbyes. I was shy and didn’t know what to expect. I’ve always been one of those people who likes to know everything about a situation before making a decision. I didn’t know what a Catholic Church was, and had never met a priest before. I decided to take the day off work and learn about the Catholic faith, so did a lot of reading on Wikipedia for a few hours.
Then my phone rang. On the other line was a kind voice—a priest who introduced himself as Father Mark. He was very friendly and enthusiastic which came as a shock to me. I had never in my life met someone so eager to meet me and welcome me. We scheduled a time for me to visit the church the next day. When I had arrived, Father Mark was there in his cassock to greet me. It was the first time I’d seen a priest in person and I remember being really fascinated by his cassock. I guess I’d never thought about what a priest looks like. I had only seen the Pope briefly on the television news occasionally, but never anything beyond that.
Father Mark sat with me and we talked for a couple of hours, then he invited me to join the “RCIA” classes. He also suggested that it was a good idea to start going to Mass right away, so I did. I can recall the first Mass I ever went to. It was Gaudete Sunday and I sat in the very front pew, absolutely clueless as to the etiquette. Everyone around me was standing and then sitting and then standing again and sometimes kneeling, and reciting the creed and other prayers. I was new and found this a bit intimidating, but also fascinating and intriguing. I followed what everyone else was doing to the best of my ability. The priest was wearing a beautiful rose vestment that looked very ornate and delicate. He chanted at the altar and I watched and listened closely as incense filled the chapel. It was a very beautiful English Mass, and from then on I knew I’d come back.
I liked it so much that I kept going back every weekend and even started attending daily Mass. My love for Jesus grew at every encounter. During my first Christmas Eve Mass, the priest tenderly carried the Christ Child statue, wrapped in his ivory satin cope the way that priests hold a monstrance.As he processed around the chapel with the Infant Christ to the crib, accompanied by the chanting of prayers, I was moved to tears. I thought that was so lovely. Never in my life had I seen anything like it before.
As I prepared to be received into the Catholic Church, I spent a lot of time reading at home, especially from the catechism given to me by the priests of the parish. A week before my baptism I was told I’d need to choose a Saint for my confirmation. There were thousands of Saints however, and didn’t know how I’d choose from them all. I knew nothing about them except for Saint Philomena because the priest did a homily on her one Sunday morning. By divine providence I came across a fascinating book, “Interior Castles” while I was volunteering in the parish café. It was written by a Spanish Saint I’d never even heard of before—the Carmelite nun, Saint Teresa of Avila. Since my family is of Spanish heritage, I chose her as my patron although I didn’t know much else about her.
Finally, during the Easter vigil Mass on April 15th 2017, I was baptized and confirmed into the Catholic Church. I was so excited that I could now receive the Blessed Sacrament at the altar rail instead of a blessing that I was up bright and early on Easter Sunday to sing with the choir at the main Mass. Soon after, I joined the Legion of Mary and began praying the Rosary, making Rosaries and doing mission work around the town to bring the lapsed Catholics back to Mass and pray the Rosary with people at home.
Saint Teresa remained a guiding influence in my life, teaching me to love Jesus more and more, but I had no idea who the Carmelites were until I joined our parish on a day pilgrimage to the shrine of Saint Simon Stock at Aylesford Priory, a historic home of the Carmelite friars.
I kept receiving gifts from the Saints which were leading me to Carmel. One day, I was entranced by a bright pink rose growing out of the cement. Later I discovered that it was the birthday of Saint Thèrése of Lisieux who said that she would send people roses as a sign from Heaven. That same day, I was in a secular incense shop when I came across a box of pretty rose scented incense sticks with an image of St Thèrése of Lisieux on the box. These little signs helped plant seeds of vocation and seeds of faith.
As I write this, I am about to celebrate my 6th anniversary as a Catholic and preparing to enter the sacred garden of Our Lady of Mount Carmel. Accepting this vocation to be a cloistered nun, if God wills it to be so, I spend my life praying for the Church, for the world, and for priests. It has been a long journey, and I have met so many wonderful people along the way.
Saint Thèrése of Lisieux referred to Carmel as her desert where Our Lord spent forty days in contemplation and prayer, but for me it is the garden of Gethsemane where Our Lord sat among the olive trees in agony. I join Him in His agony with unbridled love, and walk with Him on the Via Dolorosa. Together we suffer for souls and offer the world our love.'
Read how Elliott Cannon was drawn to the Carmelite novitiate in a monastery in Derry via the Secular Carmelites.
When I was young, I lived next to the old MG Rovers factory in Birmingham though it soon went out of business. It had been sold off to some big Chinese conglomerate. Since then, the site has been turned into a retail park yet there's a sign that still recalls its past. It reads: "YOU WERE RULED BY THE TRACK.” All in bold black letters and it always catches my eye whenever I pass it. The MG workers would stand at their stations as the assembly line moved the car parts to them. Each worker would be designated a particular task that had to be completed before it moved on but the trick is that it never stopped, it was never satisfied, so came the saying "YOU WERE RULED BY THE TRACK.” There’s something almost nihilistically crude about the statement. ‘You were ruled by the track’ I guess that's how I would describe the first 16 years of my life.
As a baby I was nominally baptised a Catholic thanks to the presence of my Catholic Nan but within my household faith was non-existent. It was just never talked about. Maybe God existed or maybe He didn't but it doesn't matter either way. And it wasn't much better at my secular school either and so my life progressed along the same 'track' that the majority of young people take today, into a vague and distant agnosticism.
In my teenage years the culture of the world really took hold where the greatest possible achievements were to have a girlfriend and to get drunk at parties. However, I always found that this left a bitter taste in my mouth (literally!). It never satisfied me and so I looked for other ways of nullifying my innate desire for God like acting out and playing the fool. And as I journeyed from ‘station to station’ down the ‘assembly track' I found that my mental health was following on the cart behind, despite my best efforts to forget it. The further you go on this journey the emptier you realise it is and so the more you have to fill the gap. At my lowest point my Nan spoke out like a candle in the dark, "why don't you try praying?" and I was so desperate that I did. Now I didn't have an epiphany nor did I go into ecstasy but I did strangely feel called back to it the next day as if I had done something that I should have done a long time ago.
This continued to be the case for the next year but I remained for the most part the same. Prayer was more of a superstition for me, a get out of jail free card if you like, but the idea that the Gospel should radically change my life hadn't quite dawned.
Until one day the next year I got a job working on cars (not at MG!) at a garage not far from my house. So apprehensively I turn up and one of the mechanics introduced himself, his name was Jordan. Over the next few months working in the body shop with Jordie, respraying cars in this boiling hot cramped garage converted into a make shift paint shop, he slowly preached the Gospel to me not in a proselytising way but in a way that came from his very being, he was a Christian. "Here is a man without deceit!" (Jn 1:47) a man who had managed to get off the “TRACK” and I was fascinated. Where does he get his joy despite the fact that he had given up so much in pursuit of being a Christian? Yet it is this Biblically bitter irony that permeates the Gospel, "Those who want to save their life will lose it, and those who lose their life for my sake will find it." (Mt 16:25) And he was calling me to join him.
"You should go to Mass" he would say and to be honest I knew he was right. I decided to go at Christmas which was only a few weeks away. So I went and I had a similar experience to the one I had when I began to pray, no epiphany, no euphoria but a sense that I was where we are all made to be. Yet my understanding of God deepened In the Mass. It was not just me who spoke but God spoke to me: in the hymns, the readings and especially in the Eucharist. The “TRACK” no longer ruled me.
"Late have I loved Thee, O Beauty so ancient and so new; late have I loved Thee! For behold Thou wert within me, and I outside and in my unloveliness fell upon those lovely things Thou hast made... Had they not been in Thee they would not have been at all... Thou didst breath fragrance upon me, and I drew in my breath and do now pant for Thee." St Augustine aptly puts how I felt during the next nine months. I began to pray more and read the Bible more, I was in awe. I found the Carmelites too, I read Teresa and Therese there they taught me the truth that “Thou wert within me”.
The time approached for my Confirmation and first Holy Communion and providentially my priest advised me to take John of the Cross as my Confirmation Saint. Although I knew almost nothing about him, I felt that I should choose him. Afterwards I began to look into his teaching and delved deeper into Carmelite spirituality. At the same time, I got a job working for the Diocese of East Anglia doing youth ministry and so I moved to Norwich. I lived just opposite the Cathedral and I heard that there was a community of Secular Carmelites that gathered there. I was sold and asked where I could begin.
Kindly I was invited to join the meetings and the book club they ran. Before, I had read about the Carmelites and their spirituality here I saw it put into action. How they followed the call "to live in allegiance to Jesus Christ through friendship with the One we know loves us." It was this Vocation to friendship with God that had called me from the very beginning, right back when I first began to pray to this present moment, and I hope that it will continue to resound in my heart to the end. I now live in our Priory in Derry, training to be a Friar of the Order and I am immensely grateful for the love and inspiration that the Secular Carmelites instilled in me and for the support they still continue to provide me. Deo Gratias!
"I marvel now that I did not remain where I was, and I praise the mercy of God, who alone gave me His hand. May He be blessed for ever. Amen.”
*St Augustine’s Confessions Book X
*Constitution of the Secular Order No 3. (2003)
*St Teresa’s Book of Life VII