Carmelite CharismJesus Christ gave his
disciples the gift of the Holy Spirit and the
mission to proclaim salvation to the whole
world.
To live out the full
dimension of this command is to pursue the
"spiritual life." The Church is called by the
Holy Spirit to embody and proclaim union with
God because the Church is the Body of Christ: a
Body that is still in the process of formation, and sees its
fullness in the future. The spirituality of the
Church is many-faceted because the Church is
composed of countless persons and groups. While
each person receives the spirit of Christ, that
spirit is lived out in various ways. The truth
about Jesus which Carmelites are called to live
out is Christ's prayerful union with His Father
while in the midst of the world.
l-r: Fr. Garth Eversley, O. Carm.; Rev. Bro. Hasely King, O. Carm.; Fr. Gerard Tang Choon, O. Carm.; Fr. Vincent (Sunny) John, O. Carm
Carmelite Spirituality
Strictly contemplative
orders are characterized by their emphasis on
the inner life: the life of prayer and physical
solitude. They imitate the hidden,
inner life of Christ's union with His Father.
Thus, the Rule of Carmel
commands us to "meditate day and night on the
law of the Lord." The external precepts of the
Rule are attempts to show how this continual
state of contemplation can be achieved: through
finding a suitable place to live; through
silence; through prayer and celebration of the
Liturgy; through poverty and detachment; through
living out the virtues and through work. If our
Carmelite presence in the world is to reflect
Christ's union with His Father, then the primary
task of the Carmelite is to realize this
presence of God within himself. This is acquired
through what is called "inner solitude."
Inner Solitude
For centuries Christians have resorted to
solitude in order to find the presence of God
within. The desert, the cave, the lonely
uninhabited places have offered themselves to
those who yearn to leave all things to find God.
In the Old Testament, the prophet Elijah, our
spiritual father, went to the wilderness of
Horeb to find and speak with his God.
It was in his footsteps
that the first Carmelites gathered on Mount
Carmel over 800 years ago. Ultimately, the heart
is the desert, the wilderness
that must be entered in order to find God. And
it is the solitude that the Carmelite recognizes
in order to live with God.
In
the Midst of the World
Christ did not come into the world to be a
solitary mystic. The world was created in order
to find and love God. So, too, the Carmelite is
called, not only to the simple private life of
contemplation, but to share that experience of
God with a world that is blindly seeking His
face in all the wrong places. In so doing, the
Carmelite testifies to the boundless love God
has for the world. Prayer is not undertaken as a
private task of personal meditation, but solely
to reflect and share the God which he finds
living within himself.
Active religious orders, on the other hand, are
called to imitate Christ's concern for people,
especially the poor and defenseless. Their
spirituality is founded in their authentic call
of service in Christ's name.
The Carmelite is called to live amid the tension
of these two ideals: the abiding presence of
God, and the call to be present in the world.
Our life is not simply one of service, but
especially a presence in prayer. Not only did
Jesus come to serve the world, but he make His
Father present wherever He was present.
Thus, the Carmelite
disposes himself to the service of the Church.
Our Rule does not specify what work the
Carmelite shall do, for any form of service
fulfills the vocation of Carmel if it is lived
in the presence of God. The Rule does not
restrict or limit how or where the Carmelite
serves the Church, because his vocation is
precisely to share that contemplation with the
world.
The spirituality of Carmel is a dynamic,
life-giving tension. Neither private prayer not
public service by themselves fulfill the Rule of
Carmel. Rather, to be present to God in the
midst of His people, to bring to the world
flames from the divine fire burning within our
hearts, is the Carmelite vocation and
spirituality.
Meet the Members of Our Community:
From Trinidad and Tobago:
Fr. Garth Eversley, O. Carm. (residing in the United States)
Fr. Gerard Tang Choon, O. Carm. -:- Local Prior, Formation Director, Vocations Director
Rev. Bro. Hasely King, O. Carm.
Bro. Nigel Ali, O. Carm.
History of the Carmelites, Province of St. Elias
The first hermits lived on
Mount Carmel in Israel in the time of Elijah the
Prophet, hundreds of years before Christ. Later,
many Crusaders went to the Holy Land to free
such holy places as Bethlehem, Nazareth and many
other sites associated with the Life of The Lord
Jesus, from the Muslims. After they achieved
their task of freeing the Holy Land, many of
them stayed on Mount Carmel; a mountain range
which juts out into the Mediterranean Sea near
the present city of Haifa, along the southern
border of present-day Lebanon.
We can read about the
Prophet Elijah in the First and Second Books of
Kings. There were also Jews and Moslem Hermits
on Mount Carmel dedicated to the life of Elijah
the Prophet. This all took place between 1190
and 1206. The first written document of the
Carmelites, our RULE, dates to 1206. The
Christian Hermits from Mount Carmel went to the
Patriarch of Jerusalem, St. Albert, (not of
Trapani) and asked for a Rule of Life. That was
the official beginning of the Carmelites. In
1245, the Muslims recaptured much of the Holy
Land. They massacred most of the Carmelites.
Those who escaped returned to their home
countries of Italy, France, England and Germany.
It is from these 4 countries in Europe that the
Order spread throughout the world. Today, there
are 5200 Carmelites of all Branches of the
Order, male and female, throughout the world.
The North American Province
of Carmelites was named after the Prophet
Elijah, or "St. Elias". We were founded by the
Irish Carmelites in 1889. Our first foundation
was in Manhattan where we worked as chaplains in
Bellevue Hospital. Across the street from
Bellevue was our first Church, Our Lady of The
Scapular of Mount Carmel. It was from this place
that the Province spread to the Bronx, Brooklyn,
Westchester and Orange Counties, Massachusetts,
Pennsylvania and Florida.
Our Province also
established the first Carmelite houses in
California. We worked on the foreign Missions in
Zimbabwe in Africa for many years, and have one
of our priests in Rome, one in Colombia and one
in France. Recently we have taken on two new
Missions in very different climates; Trinidad
and Viet Nam. (April '97 Chapter)
Carmelites arrived in
Middletown, New York in 1912 and established the
parish of Our Lady Of Mount Carmel. The "new"
Church is behind Mt Carmel School. There were
five mission churches attached to Mt Carmel. (In
1969, one became a diocesan parish. In 1998 two
other missions were transferred to the
Archdiocese of New York, as well.) In 1917 the
Carmelites purchased the property on which the
National Shrine now stands, for the purpose of
introducing seminarians to Carmelite
Spirituality. From 1917 to the present there has
always been some form of seminary training on
this property: Pre-Novitiate, Novitiate, High
School Seminary, College Program and today it
again houses the Novitiate Program for the two
North American Provinces.
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