religious life
What does it mean to be a Carmelite? Returning from his pastoral work, Father Abednecco Wambua Peters, O.C.D. of Kenya catches a ride back to the monastery on a motorcycle taxi.
Carmelite spirituality enables God-seekers to discover new heights and depths in their own hearts and in the God who calls and loves them. by Pat Morrison
P
robably the most recognizable member of the Carmelite order is Saint Thérèse of Lisieux, popularly known as the Little Flower. Statues and pictures of this young nun in her brown habit and white mantle, usually shown holding a crucifix and an armful of roses, are found all over the world. More than a century after her death at age 24, Thérèse remains immensely popular. What many of her admirers don’t
Pat Morrison, a regular contributor to VISION, is editorial director of ICS Publications, the publishing house of the Washington, D.C.-based Discalced Carmelite Friars/Institute of Carmelite Studies. She is a vowed laywoman in the Carmelite tradition and a member of the Association of Contemplative Sisters.
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know is that when 15-year-old Thérèse Martin entered the Carmelite convent in her home town in France in 1888, she was embracing a tradition and a spirituality that had already produced and nourished God-seekers for more than half a millennium.
Who are the Carmelites? Carmelites originated in the Holy Land as a group of lay hermits some time after the Third Crusade. Jacques de Vitry, bishop of Acre in Palestine from 1216 to 1228, said that “after the example of the holy prophet Elijah [they] live on Mount Carmel—on that part of the mountain that is near Haifa, by the wadi [“spring”] of Elijah. They live as hermits” in a cluster of cells built around a church they
VISION 2013
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