Category: Introduction

Introduction: Adaptations

4/10/2016

For whom is the Rule written? For those who find in it a Way that is worth devoting their life to in the pursuit and desire to love and live a life of love in Christ. Beyond the cloisters and beyond the brothers and sisters of vowed consecrated life, this Way of Life has profound meaning and can be lived in the midst of the secular world--as the thousands of Third Order members and millions of Christian lives have witnessed to.

Here, this series diverges in two directions: exploring the Rule in its fullest expression within the vowed Order and leading adapting its wisdom and inspiration to life outside the Order. The original reflections, written during the desert experience within the Order, are reflections on the Rule for life as a vowed member of the Order, and specifically within the context of the American province of the Order of Carmelites. It should also be pointed out that these thoughts are within the ancient observance of the Order, and not the Discalced Carmelites. While I firmly believe that our observances are equal, as are the various Rites within the Church, I also know that there are those who like to label one over the other and may so disregard things they do not want to hear. This Way of Life, however, is not so easy, that we can lay aside those difficult and uncomfortable things as more appropriate to another Order. There is but one Rule to which we have professed a vow of obedience to, and our question is: What is the Rule saying to us in this Western, 21st century.

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Introduction: For Whom is the Rule Written?

4/4/2016

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In reading the Rule and trying to transfer it into a contemporary context, there remains a very significant question: For whom is the Rule written? Is it written for cloistered monks, hidden away from public ministry and the concerns and temptations of modern life; for vowed religious with the supports and structures of a common community life? Was it written solely for the brothers living in the caves of Mt. Carmel, or for the mendicant friars as they moved into European cities and away from the primitive seclusion of the desert? Was the Rule specifically written for life in the 13th Century, a time before industry, digital technologies, and even the printing press, when one lived on food and water that the land provided, when travel was mostly by foot and seclusion into the cell could not be interrupted by the internet, televisions, radios, telephones or text messages?
The opening of the letter is addressed to the hermits “who live near the spring on Mt. Carmel.” This is a very important point. The Carmelite Rule is the only Rule in the Roman Catholic tradition that is addressed to a particular place. There is no mention of those who wish to follow a particular founder; only reference to a Brother B. as a leader of the brothers who first had written to St. Albert and to whom he is responding. Rather than being founded by an individual and Rule Giver, the Carmelites were founded according to a place and named accordingly: the Brothers of the Blessed Virgin Mary of Mt. Carmel.

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Introduction: Reflections from the Desert

3/28/2016

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One of the more unique features of the Novitiate year for the Carmelite Order is the Desert experience of Lent. While silence and prayer are the intention of the Carmelite Life, the season of Lent, like the days that Our Lord himself spent in the desert, is marked as a particularly intense time. The entire house goes into a deeper silence. There is the physical silence: brothers speak with one another only during supper; the television and radios are turned off; cell phones are also limited to necessary use, such as for a family emergency or if needed for a brother's regular ministry. Today, we also have to consider an electronic silence: computers, tablets and social networks are shutdown. Many of the brothers also refrain from reading magazines and newspapers. They are also to stay home. There are no daily trips to the coffee shop, or going out to the movies or a ballgame. This is the Novitiate Desert, a time that is meant to be as close as we can come to the desert hives of the hermits who began our Order on Mt. Carmel.

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Introduction: Adaptations

Introduction: For Whom is the Rule Written?

Introduction: Reflections from the Desert

Carmel's Way...

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