< ~ >

Who has not found herself lost for words to express some deeply held value or truth; yet, not for its subtlety but for its overwhelming simplicity. It is that way with prayer. And in the end, the truth of prayer escapes words altogether, for to be really known it must be lived.

When you pray, go into a room by yourself . . . and pray to your Father who is there in that secret place. Matt. 6

Many and varied are the ways in which everyone . . . may live a life of dedication to Jesus Christ . . .(and) be unswerving in the service of their Master. The Rule

And this is what Carmel is all about, really, a very simple thing. Its aim is the aim is the life of prayer. In Carmel, the Christian pilgrim sets out on the solitary way of unceasing prayer. Her goal is the Father, fullness of the Christ-life; of that life which was given a seed-gift of the Spirit in Baptism. This goal is the destiny of every Christian and the way of Carmel is but a single way to it; chosen, however, in answer to a personal call.

Prayer in my opinion is nothing else than an intimate friendship, a frequent heart to heart conversation with him whom we know loves us. St. Teresa

Seeking by love,
I will head for the mountains and watersides
I will not gather flowers
Nor fear wild beasts;
I will go beyond strong men and frontiers.
St. John of the Cross

The spirit of Carmel is the life of prayer in secret. It lives not in books or buildings or places, but in the hearts of men and women who have sensed it as a personal invitation and responded with the consecration of their lives.

The lineage of Carmelite solitaries reaches back some 800 years to the wilderness near Mt. Carmel, in the Holy Land. A small group of laymen (mostly ex-Crusaders from Europe) in search of a solitary place for prayer, settled here, and finding that they shared the same ideal, threw in their lot together. In utter simplicity, they organized themselves into a little commune, each one abiding alone in his own small cave or hut where he spent his time in prayer or work, only leaving his solitude to join the others for the celebration of the Eucharist.

Around 1209, they asked their bishop, Albert of Jerusalem, to draw up for them an official code of life based on the manner of living that had evolved there in the desert, which they might then keep as a guide for themselves and for those who would come after them. This he did, and the little treatise he composed is what we now have as the Primitive Rule of Carmel. It is a brief document of some twenty-four short paragraphs, homely and relatively un-polished and yet, for all that, not without great beauty. For it sets forth the life of solitary prayer with a striking clarity and compelling precision that speak to the heart already possessed by this ideal, like the irrepressible echo of its own desire . . . like deep calling to deep.

The first hermits on Mt. Carmel erected an oratory and dedicated it to our Lady. In an age when the pilgrimage itself was almost a life style, this Church became a place much visited by pilgrims. Largely through them, the life of the brothers on Mt. Carmel became known and closely associated with our Lady whose Church they tended. This was the beginning of a Marian tradition that has continued and developed through the centuries. Indeed, today, Carmel is known as Our Lady's Order.

The Mother of God and all things are mine... because Christ is mine and all for me. St. John of the Cross

With the increase of hostilities in the Holy Land, some of the brother hermits began migrating to Europe around 1239. There they founded new communities modeled after the one on Mt. Carmel. In the next 300 years, Carmel grew and spread throughout most of Europe, passing through the manifold ups and downs of fervor associated with the religious life of these turbulent times. By the sixteenth century there were numerous communities of both men and women living according to St. Albert's Rule, although by this date the Rule had undergone a few minor changes.

As the 16^th century dawned upon Europe, Christendom found itself facing an internal crisis of dogma and discipline unprecedented in its extent and gravity. Before the first quarter had passed, the Protestant Reformation was a fact and by 1545 the Council of Trent was convoked, launching the Church's great counter-reformation which continued for many years, well beyond the Council's termination in 1563. Amid the social and political upheaval unleashed by these events, the new religious consciousness of a new age was struggling for life and the whole Christian world suffered the inevitable anguish of its coming to birth.

In 1557, Teresa de Ahumada was 42 years old. She was living at this time in the Convent of the Incarnation, in Avila, Spain, where she, along with the other sisters there, followed the Rule of Carmel in its so-called 'mitigated' form. But about this time, a profound religious experience jolted her to a renewal of fervor in her own personal life and not long afterwards led her to begin the work of restoring the precise life-style of Carmel as it was described in the Rule, without any mitigations. Her idea, as it evolved, was to found small communities where she (and those sisters caught up by her enthusiasm) could live just as the first hermits on Mt. Carmel had lived; for she was deeply convinced that by a life wholly given to prayer, she and her companions would be serving her beloved Master, Christ, and helping his beleaguered Church. Indeed, this boundless love for Christ and for his people is central to all Teresa was and did not only as the source of her inspiration, but also because it is the secret of her amazing energy, resourcefulness and courage during all the stormy events of the following years.

For opposition, disappointments, intrigues and troubles of all kinds there were, but none that could crush her spirit. Together with St. John of the Cross, and others whom she won over to her vision, she persevered in her work with unfailing good humor and startling success. In 1582, at the age of 67, Teresa died, but not before seeing the reform of Carmel well begun, and not without leaving the indelible imprint of her colorful personality on what is surely one of the most colorful pages in Spanish history.

The whole manner of life we are trying to live is making us not only nuns but hermits like the holy fathers, our predecessors. St.Teresa

They said I was scandalizing people and introducing new ideas...All may desire was that (the) Rule should be observed with all perfection. St. Teresa

Teresa's reform re-established the Rule of Carmel as a viable life-style in 16^th century Spain, and today, more than 400 years later, some 19,000 men and women following her lead, observe that same Primitive Rule, taking it as the lodestar of their pilgrim way to the Father.

People say this is a new Order and accuse us of inventing new things. Let them read our Primitive Rule for what we follow is simply the Rule. St. Teresa

The way of Carmel is solitary but it is not aimless or untrod for here Christ is the Way. It is Christ who calls, it is Christ who leads and it is for his Body, the Church, that the contemplative makes over to him the love-gift of her prayer.

Our greatest help and blessing . . . is the most sacred Humanity of our Lord Jesus Christ. For the Lord himself says that he is the Way; the Lord also says that he is the Light and no once can come to the Father save by him. St. Teresa

The person of Jesus Christ stands at the beginning and the end of the Carmelite Rule and pervades the thought of Teresa like a continual fragrance. Indeed, we have her to thank for confirming the central place of Christ in the contemplative life. This she insists upon, even in the loftiest mystical experiences. Moreover, she brings to full consciousness the Church-centered motivation of the contemplative life, for in her, as in every contemplative, union with Christ is inseparable from an abiding solicitude for his people, a solicitude that deepens as love for him deepens. She makes clear beyond all doubt that it is Jesus Christ who fills the solitude of Carmel and makes of it a great people.

Carmel is solitary, but not lonely, for it is in Christ and in the fellowship of community that the Carmelite hermit embraces and fathoms the aloneness of her own existence. A paradox perhaps. But paradox is needed to express the delicate blend and balance of solitude and fellowship which go to make up the life-style of Carmel.

You are all to have separate cells . . . but in such a way that you will be able to eat . . . in a common refectory. . .

you are to gather every morning to hear Mass . . . those who know how to say the Canonical hours . . . should do so . . .

On Sundays . . . or other days in necessary you should discuss matters to do with discipline and your spiritual well-being . . . The Rule

The Carmelite Rules calls the brother hermits together for three specific functions - the daily celebration of the Eucharist and liturgical hours, a weekly spiritual discussion and the common meal. St. Teresa later extended the common meal by a time of informal relaxation, thus completing the simple structure of community life in Carmel. In this wise balance the members of the community meet and share on every level of life, developing as persons and rooting their solitude in the strength of warm, life-giving relationships.

The celebration of the Eucharist and liturgical hours holds the place of excellence in Carmelite community life. For here is the source and summit of Christ's life in their midst and of their shared life in him. It daily asks of each one the deepest personal response, but in return, transforms their gift into a communion of life in Christ.

Put on righteousness as your breastplate and it will enable you to love the Lord your God with all your heart and soul and strength and your neighbor as yourself. The Rule

Weekly spiritual discussions give the solitaries time for an on-going exploration into the meaning and direction of their life together. In the Rule this weekly meeting is offered as an opportunity for building up one another's faith, for the renewing of enthusiasm and for growing as people.

To get to know God's friends is a very good way of 'having' God; as I have discovered by experience this is most helpful . . . St. Teresa

With the common meal and a time for relaxation, the community meets at still another level of life. For St. Teresa it was a time of enjoying and giving joy and, as history records, she never failed to make the most of it.

This is very important for nuns: the holier they are, the more sociable they should be with their sisters. St. Teresa

The specific vocation of every celibate religious group in the Church is to live out the unity wrought by Christ in the Eucharist, allowing their life together to develop into the incarnate sign that the love commanded by Christ in the Gospel is indeed possible. In the Carmelite Rule, community life rests on this Gospel precept of the Lord. For Teresa, too, love was the beginning and the end of life in her convents. She envisioned an ideal of fellowship, where, the numbers being few, a human, family-like spirit could flourish and where all might be friends. In an age when the membership of most religious houses was unlimited and often reached over the hundred mark, Teresa's desire for small communities was a novel insight, one, which in fact, leaps the centuries to a very modern perception of human nature.

In this house . . . all must be friends . . . love each other, be fond of each other and help each other. St. Teresa

Thus, between fidelity to prayer in secret and commitment to the up-building of community in Christ, there flows a current of mutual creation and dependence that goes to make up the life style of Carmel. Doubtless, there is here a demanding ideal, an ideal constantly outreaching fulfillment, but not without its joyful seasons of foretasted fruition.

There is always more concord and tranquility where the numbers are few . . . St. Teresa

The first hermits on Mt. Carmel had very definite ideas about their life. Like the early Christians, they resolved to hold all their material possessions in common and, far from operating on a system of strict equity, were accustomed to share whatever they had according to the age and personal needs of each. A less than tidy sort of organization, perhaps, but one very close to the Gospel ideal of love.

you are to possess everything in common; and each should receive whatever befits your age and needs . . . The Rule

However, one of their more novel ideas was the early decision to earn their own livelihood by whatever work they could do. Obvious as it might seem today, this option for self-support represented, at the time, a real protest against the common practice of other monastic communities. Far more usual was the situation in which large monastic communities owned and operated vast tracts of land in typical medieval style - that is, through the industry of vassals and serfs. These monks frequently found themselves feudal lords, occupied with all the duties (and much of the intrigue) associated with this elevated status. All this the hermit brothers on Mt. Carmel deliberately rejected in favor of a life simple enough to be maintained by their own work. They were determined to safeguard the time and quietude for prayer and remain independent of social pressures and conventions. For experience plainly confirmed that infringement on the leisure for prayer and loss of a healthy independence from society led only too often to the compromise of basic religious values.

You must give yourselves to some work . . . The Rule

In the 16^th century when Teresa appeared on the scene full of fire to restore the Primitive Rule, she did not miss its ideal of poverty. And thus, even in the face of opposition and ridicule, she maintained the value of productive work in her first foundations. Her own experience of some 20 years in the widespread degenerate atmosphere of religious life at that time, convinced her that for a truly contemplative life, one must be free from crippling want on the one hand and emasculating luxury on the other. A religious poverty expressed in simplicity of live and maintained by the community's own means seemed to steer a middle course through these shoals. Regrettably, the economy and culture of her times were not ready to support the full realization of this ideal although Teresa herself remained convinced of its basic merit. In today's world, however, it emerges again as both practical and possible and enkindles the enthusiasm of many in Carmel as a worthy goal.

(the sisters) must provide for themselves . . . by the work of their hands . . . If they expect no more and are content to have no comforts, they will not lack enough to support life . . . St. Teresa

Our arms are holy poverty . . . these arms must appear on our banners and at all costs we must keep this rule as regards our house, our clothes, our speech and, (which is much more important) our thoughts . . . St. Teresa

The life of prayer is an on-going challenge to the whole person, a rugged journey to the very frontiers of love and beyond. A particular discipline for this lifelong adventure is thus basic to the fiber of Carmel's daily life.

Solitude itself, permeated by that silence which springs from peace, is not to be taken for granted but grown to and learned like a fine art. For Carmel's aloneness is not isolation and its quiet is not deafness; rather they form together the environment of presence, of listening, of response. When they are authentic they are not limited to external place and sonic vibrations, but have become a way of being.

She lived in solitude And now in solitude has built her nest And in solitude He guides her He alone who also bears In solitude, the wound of love. St. John of the Cross

The Rule of Carmel gives much attention to silence and solitude as values which contemplatives have traditionally and cherished. They go to make up the human dimension of inner space where the person of prayer meets the divine and realizes the human, and where her own spirit thrives and expands in answer to both.

. . . your strength will lie in silence and in hope . . . The Rule

Fasting, humility, obedience and work, each in their measure, also have their place in Carmel. For practiced in a spirit of moderation as the Rule counsels, they are useful in developing and maintaining a robust fitness of both mind and body.

You must always act with moderation . . . for so must every virtue be tempered. The Rule

But there is no influence more fundamental or more vital to the formation of the contemplative spirit that the Word of God, pondered in solitude and celebrated in the liturgy. Returning to the ancient sources of the monastic life, (indeed, of the Christian life itself), we find the psalms and the other books of scripture as the daily bread of the first Christian monks and hermits. For God is dynamically present in his Sacred Word, and his presence is the substance and plenitude of all prayer's seeking. And so the Rule reminds the brother hermits, always and everywhere to immerse themselves in the scriptures, letting the Word of God abound in their mouths and hearts; to go on listening day after day, season upon season as God speaks anew in this Word, forming in them the very mind of Christ. For thus it happens that his Spirit comes to pervade the mind and heart like sunshine and air, giving birth at last to the new person who breathes with her breath and sees by her light.

The sword of the Spirit, the Word of God, must abound in your mouths and hearts; let all you do have God's Word for accompaniment. The Rule

One's own spirit testifies from within - 'It is no longer I who live but Christ who lives in me', the one Christ who draws all things to himself and lives to the glory of the Father.

I have always been fond of the Gospels and have found more recollection in them than in the most carefully planned books. St. Teresa

Christians are an Easter People which is to say that the Easter Mystery of Christ's dying and rising is the source of their identity; they are a people marked by the sign of his cross. but it is a glorious cross and therefore a sign of contradiction; a scandal to some, a stumbling block to others.

When you pray, say:
'Father! Thy name be hallowed; thy kingdom come. Give us each day our daily bread. And forgive us our sins, for we too forgive all who have done us wrong. And do not bring us to the test . . . ' Luke 11

Rooted in Christ and in the Church, Carmel shares no less in this happy Christian taint of scandal and contradiction, for both logic and pragmatism are frustrated when they ask the meaning of a life of prayer. Yet perhaps such frustration is to be expected where love is at work, since love (as human experience will attest) compels us to paradox and finally to silence. And without doubt, love is at work here; in Jesus Christ who calls, in the men and women whose faith leads them to respond and in the Spirit whose prayer in them embraces all people even as it reaches out to the Father. Carmel exists simply for this prayer-life; and flesh and blood people, inspired by love, make it live in the every-day-ness of our world.

* * *

A word about this book . . .

The text was written by Sister Laureen Grady, O.C.D. and the original art was don in a combination of nature block prints, photography and scratchboard by Sister Marie-Celeste Fadden O.C.D.

The type was set in Helvetica Roman, the paper is an opaque book vellum and the cover of Strathmore Americana stock.

The entire project was sponsored by the Carmelite Communities Associated.