Carmel Clarion
Spring 2020 Volume XXXVI, No. 2 Carmel Clarion
CONTENTS
2 From The Provincial Delegate 6 The Vision of the Carmelites Fr. Salvatore Sciurba, O.C.D. Beginnings of the Carmelite Tradition and Efforts to Renew
The Carmelite Way: 19 The Flaming Arrow An Ancient Path for Today's Pilgrim An Early Plea to Return to the Desert To The Carmelite Family 25 False Selves and False Gods John Welch, O.Carm. According to Teresa of Avila and John of the Cross
The Carmel Clarion is a Catholic Publication of Change of Address: Please notify us in advance the Washington Province Discalced Carmelite by using the form found on the ocdswashprov.org Secular Order, Inc. website. Independent subscribers: please write us with your new address. OCDS Main Office 2131 Lincoln Road, NE A U.S. subscription is $20.00 a year. Extra copies Washington, DC 20002-1101 are $4.00 (if available) plus shipping and handling. Clarions are not forwarded. Phone: 202-269-3792 International Clarion subscriptions are no longer Email: [email protected] available due to high postage costs.
Editor: Mary E. Rodriguez-Harrington, O.C.D.S. For an independent subscription use the form found at: http://www.carmelclarion.com [email protected] Official website: Washington Province Discalced Provincial Carmelite Secular Order, Inc. Delegate: Fr. Salvatore Sciurba, O.C.D. http://www.ocdswashprov.org
Regional Assistants: http://www.flowerofcarmel.org/clarion-index.htm Northeast: Fr. Leonard Copeland, O.C.D. for Clarion Subject Index. Mid-Atlantic: Br. Robert Sentman, O.C.D. Permission to copy is granted for individual articles if not for profit. It is not granted for duplication of the entire issue. From the ProvincIil DelefJIte
hile it is beneficial for us to recall God's past The spirituality of Brother Lawrence is one of the W blessings, if we stay in the past we may present moment. He teaches us to ask God for the struggle with regret. While we must reflect on the grace we need at the very moment. He advises us future to discern God's unfolding will, if we live in to be sensitive to the promptings of the Spirit and the future we might find ourselves anxious about make whatever prayer we are inspired to offer here what we cannot predict or control. We have only and now. Lawrence's approach leads us to live in the present moment, and it is here that we will find the presence of God. God is not distant. He is with God. us. We need only learn to turn to him and converse with him as our heart directs us. If we fail, we simply Brother Lawrence of the Resurrection promotes the reopen the conversation. Practice of the Presence of God. He tells us: "The holiest and most necessary practice is that of the St. Thérèse likewise appreciated the value of presence of God. It consists in taking delight in, the present moment. She states that not three and becoming accustomed to his divine company, minutes went by without her thinking of God. speaking humbly and conversing lovingly with him She also admits that she experienced no insights, all the time" (p. 105). no consolation during her periods of prayer. God gave her the graces she needed at the moment Brother Lawrence, recognizing God's presence she needed them. Nothing was given in advance. within our hearts, teaches us to turn inward Nonetheless she remained faithful to the practice of frequently and maintain brief conversations with prayer even though dark and dry. God. "It is not necessary to be in church all the time to be with God; we can make of our hearts an Thérèse states: "I noticed many times that Jesus did oratory where we can withdraw from time to time not want to give me provisions. He nourished me to converse with him there. Lifting up the heart is at every moment with a completely new food. It is enough, a brief remembrance of God, an inner act Jesus himself hidden in the depths of my heart who of adoration (p. 107). These conversations foster our gives me the grace of acting in me, and making me awareness of God's presence. think of all he wants me to do at the very moment" (Ms A 760.
2Carmel Clarion Spring 2020 ..• .'.. I
In his book "Chemin de priere avec Thérèse de REFERENCES Lisieux," Father Victor writes that Thérèse knew the present moment to be the very expression of God's Brother Lawrence of the Resurrection will, whatever its form or content (p. 76). Thérèse Writings and Conversations on realized that we attain God in each event. Each The Practice of the Presence of God moment is an experience of God. Translated by Salvatore Sciurba, O.C.D. ICS Publications Fr. Victor continues: "If the Lord asks us at a particular Washington, DC, 1994 moment to be in a particular place accomplishing a particular action, it's because he is waiting for us Chemin de priere avec Thérèse de Lisieux there. We encounter him at this precise point and if Victor Sion we are looking for him elsewhere, we will miss him. Les Editions du Cerf He is waiting for us there to give himself to us" (p. Paris, 2012 77, translation mine).
Brother Lawrence gives us an approach to prayer that makes us more mindful of God's presence. St. Thérése reminds us that God reveals and communicates himself to us in each event. May we learn from them to find God in the present moment.
Fr. Salvatore, O.C.D.
Spring 2020 Carmel Clarion 3 To The cin'nwlite Fiunhly
'Pra1e me, sad, fnw rup 1art trip ins, know rntp tIau. ee if &nip waip 14 craoLd, tGn e€i rite in tfe ancient ('Pa&n 139)
Introduction A tradition of spirituality is like an ancient path. It is shaped over the course of time and well-worn by This work attempts to distill recurring themes in the travelers. People continue to take the path because Carmelite tradition. Its purpose is to make available it has proven to be reliable. Today's traveler trusts the spiritual wisdom of this eight hundred-year-old its contours because of others' testimony. religious community. The Carmelite tradition is just such an ancient Carmelites are a Christian religious community born path. The first tracings of the path were begun by in the early 1200s on Mount Carmel in Palestine. a practically anonymous band of men in a wadi, a Originally hermits, they soon joined a fast-growing canyon on Mount Carmel. But slowly, as pilgrims movement in Europe and became one of the found it a way which aided their journey, the mendicant orders of the Middle Ages. Today the original faint traces deepened, widened, and the lives of Carmelites still blend these eremitical and path became more distinct and sure. It can now apostolic roots. be found on most maps which chart regions of the soul. Over the intervening centuries the attempt of the Carmelites to follow Christ has woven a large and A Christian spiritual tradition is a telling of the gospel colorful historical tapestry. Most Carmelites are through the images and language of a particular relatively unknown to history, including the first group of Christians. Their telling of the story is Carmelites. But some have become revered figures shaped over time as they attempt to respond to whose determined search for God has become an the challenges of the gospel. They eventually find inspiration for countless others. Among these are their own expressive way of giving an account of Peter Thomas, Andrew Corsini, Mary Magdalene the paschal mystery, the dying and rising of Christ, de' Pazzi, Teresa of Avila, John of the Cross, John present in their own lives. of St.-Samson, Elizabeth of the Trinity, Thérése of Lisieux, Titus Brandsma, and Edith Stein. Each tradition establishes an atmosphere. The words, the images, the history and the biographies
4 Carmel Clarion Spring 2020 of the community, all create a spiritual environment A pilgrim has expectations of a tradition. It should for the seeker. A tradition develops a soul language. be able to offer a compelling Christian vision for It creates a land where God's spirit and the human life's journey. It should identify a goal, and warn of spirit may meet. difficulties and problems to be encountered on the way. It must provide a map for traveling the way, This meeting with God takes place in our human and offer resources for overcoming its difficulties. experience. A religious tradition provides a horizon A tradition also needs to be able to tell a story of within which our ordinary experience is opened victory over apparent defeat, and celebrate, in to its spiritual depths. In this way a tradition anticipation, a goal not yet reached. mediates the transcendent and allows us to attend Such expectations structure this present work. to God's presence and call. The tradition also This interpretation of the Carmelite tradition is provides a particular language for interpreting and one Carmelite's perspective. Any one perspective communicating our experience of God. will necessarily be uneven. The principal sources for this work are the documents and history of the The Carmelite tradition tells the story of God's early Carmelites, and the writings of the sixteenth- presence to us through images and language which century Carmelite mystics, Teresa of Avila and John are particularly, but not exclusively, Carmelite. of the Cross. While other Carmelite figures are Over their long history Carmelites have shown a included in the work, Teresa and John remain the preference for certain images and themes from the best exponents of the Carmelite tradition. Christian tradition; they have also drawn from their own imagination to add to the Christian thesaurus. John Welch, O.Carm.
The Carmelite telling of the story cannot be anything more than, nor should it be anything less than, the Christ story of the gospels. It is the gospel told in the language of a particular community of Christians called Carmelites.
Spring 2020 Carmel Clarion 5 Chapter One The following is a brief account of the beginnings THE VISION OF THE CARMELITES of this community, and succeeding efforts by Carmelite men and women to take responsibility Beginnings of the Carmelite Tradition for their order and its vision. and Efforts to Renew The First Carmelites It is one matter to have a vision of life's possibilities, The path of Carmel begins in a place of attentiveness it is another to give it concrete shape, and it is a to God, a mountainous ridge jutting out into third matter to sustain the vision This process is the Mediterranean Sea. Mount Carmel forms the necessary whether for an individual or a community. southern boundary of the bay of Haifa in Israel. Here The longer the vision mustbe sustained the greater between heaven and earth, sea and land, people the possibility of it becoming dimmed, and, gathered in prayer, among them the prophet Elijah. concomitantly, the greater the need to renew and He would be identified with the path which would reinvigorate the original vision. be Carmel.
The Christian community calling itself Carmelite In the late twelfth century C.E. the original has attempted to sustain a vision for almost eight Carmelites gathered on the mountain and in its hundred years. The fact that the vision still energizes canyons in order to escape their former lives, to and challenges people is testimony to its power. But be free of the pressures and expectations which it is a vision necessarily incarnated in human beings imprisoned them, and to set straight their priorities. whose faithfulness to the vision suffers the vagaries Probably most were from other countries, choosing of human existence. In other words, the Carmelites to begin again in an unknown land. have frequently let themselves and others down, and have had to remorsefully pick themselves up. They were from the west, Latins, living in a crusader- The history of the Carmelites, from one perspective, protected area called the Kingdom of Jerusalem, is a lesson about the danger of human hubris and or the Latin Kingdom. Under the crusaders, all of the consequences of neglecting essential values; it Palestine was known as the Kingdom of Jerusalem. is also a testimony to the human spirit, which has But Saladin, at the battle of Hattin in 1187, defeated the capability of going once more to the well of its the crusaders and restored most of the land to imagination and drawing up an image of what once Muslim control. Richard the Lionheart recaptured was and what still could be. Acre in 1191 and entered into a treaty which gave the crusaders control over a thin strip of land on "Nor is it in any way good," wrote the Carmelite the coast of Palestine, the remnant of the Kingdom Teresa of Avila, "for persons to complain if they of Jerusalem. This coastal land included Mount see their order in some decline; rather, they should Carmel. It is most probable that the first Carmelites strive to be the kind of rock on which the edifice may began living on Mount Carmel sometime after this again be raised, for the Lord will help toward that."' period. Perhaps some of the hermits were from The story of Carmel is the story of just such people other eremitical locations in Palestine and Antioch, stepping forward, time and again, to call others to now untenable. 2 a renewal of the original vision, at the same time reminding them of their own deepest desires.