The Charisma of Carmel is a reality that has as many expressions as there are members of Carmel
The post-synodal document Vita consecrata emphasizes that religious are an integral part of the Church and that God's people expect from them various forms of witness to the radicality and absolute nature of the Gospel (1). However, the religious life is primarily a gift to the Church, a gift that reveals the core of holiness and the mission of the Church.
Currently, there is a high appreciation of this dimension of religious life, relating to the life of the whole Church. Rightly so, as religious families strive primarily to be what the Church expects of them. Conversely, the Church has the right to expect that in religious families it will find that radical self-giving (to God and to the service of His people) for which it has been confirmed by its authority. Religious are aware that God's people primarily ask them for this testimony of the radicality of the Gospel.
This factor has a significant feedback effect on the spirituality of all religious families. It often means a lesser concentration on those aspects that were previously considered typical for a particular religious family, and a greater emphasis on the ecclesial dimension of their spirituality. Let's take one example – Marian devotion in the Carmelite family. Today, it emphasizes less the scapular and more the biblical, liturgical, and ecclesial dimensions of Marian devotion, which are more or less common to all Catholics.
This inspiration of the Spirit, transforming religious life, does not mean a misunderstanding of the diversity and multiplicity of religious families. Without downplaying the specific mission of each religious family, the Second Vatican Council rather emphatically highlights the strengths of various religious orders. "It is to the benefit of the Church that societies have their own distinctive character and task. Therefore, it is necessary to faithfully understand and preserve both the spirit of the founders and their intentions, as well as the healthy traditions; all this constitutes together the family heritage of each society" (2). Vita consecrata goes so far as to state: religious life must not be absent in the Church, but rather is a fundamental element that defines and expresses the very essence of the Church as an extension of Christ and Christ's mission (3). The Holy Father gratefully recalls that God's Spirit has inspired a wealth of historical forms of religious life throughout history. "They are like a tree with many branches, whose roots are in the Gospel and in every era brings a rich harvest to the Church" (4). He emphasizes the continual presence in the Church of a great number of holy men and women, founders who have decided to follow Christ in the radicality of commitment to religious life. Thanks to the multifaceted service of religious, the consecrated life reveals the unity of the commandment of love in the inseparable connection of love for God and love for neighbor (5).
The family spirit that characterizes religious life is also what distinguishes families from one another. The means of holiness are the same for all, but the ways in which they are concretely lived, how they are emphasized, and their mutual relationships allow for an amazing diversity that enriches the Church. The inheritance of religious societies and their specific field of activity then gives them their characteristic spirituality.
To list some Christian values that Carmel particularly seeks to live intensely and fully does not aim to isolate these values, but rather to recognize them as partial elements of a single whole of family spirit. The Charisma of Carmel is a reality that has as many expressions as there are members of Carmel. Besides the basic elements shared by all Carmelites, there exists a wide range of life forms into which Carmelite principles are embodied: from cloistered contemplative nuns to laity associated with Carmel, including tertiaries, who today are experiencing surprising growth; from the brothers (the so-called first order) to the sisters of active congregations, who have embraced the gift of introducing Christ's merciful love into all human needs.
How could Carmel not be grateful for having given the Church two masters of spiritual life – doctors of the Church: Saint Teresa of Jesus and John of the Cross? And how could it not be grateful for the powerful waves of voices from the entire contemporary Catholic world requesting the declaration of St. Therese of Lisieux as a Doctor of the Church, i.e., officially recognized teacher of the spirituality of the Church? (6) Furthermore, it has been blessed with such simple souls as the "little Arab" blessed Miriam Baouardy (the first Palestinian blessed since the early centuries of the Church's existence), and Saint Teresa Margaret Redi, who was simply overwhelmed by the mystical revelation of the fact that "God is love." Carmel has been blessed with such intellectual giants as blessed Edith Stein, such tireless workers as Titus Brandsma, such hidden yet eloquent and Gospel-focused souls as blessed Elizabeth of the Trinity, and ordinary brothers and shepherds of souls like Saint Raphael Kalinowski. However, this wealth and diversity of individual forms of the Carmelite charism produces a fundamental common spirit that unites them into a single religious family.
The aspects of Christian spirituality that are characteristic of Carmel can be enumerated and formulated in various ways. With the risk of oversimplifying, I would like to categorize them into four categories:
a) loving contemplative experience of God;
b) experience of the desert;
c) the making present of Christ's love for his mother Mary;
d) service among the people.
(1) Vita consecrata, art. 3;
(2) Perfectae caritatis, art. 2;
(3) Vita consecrata, art. 29;
(4) Vita consecrata, art. 5;
(5) Vita consecrata, art. 5;
(6) This lecture took place on May 2, 1997, in Prague; on October 19 of the same year, Pope John Paul II officially declared Teresa of Lisieux a Doctor of the Church.
Excerpted from the book: Carmel in the Czech Church
Author: Redemptus Valábek, OCarm.
Published by: KNA
