From the 2007 OCDS Congress: Our Carmelite History

Two of our first presentations at the Congress, just completed, covered our history from the twelfth century hermits of Mount Carmel to the present day. 

Later the same day, we were privileged to hear a presentation from Sister Sean Hennessey, a Discalced Carmelite nun about Carmelite life.  On Sunday, we had more presentations with an excellent presentation of Carmelite life and mission in our present day.  I will get to those, hopefully, tomorrow. 

I did not take notes during homilies, so the summaries are by no means exhaustive.  As a result, the posts only summarize a part of what we learned.  Also, keep in mind that these summaries are taken from my handwritten notes and could possibly contain inadvertent errors.

Father Patrick McMahon, O. Carm.
"Albert's Dream: To Win the World for Christ":

Our first speaker, Fr. Patrick McMahon, is from the other branch of the Carmelites, the Carmelite Order (O. Carm.).  He is the Praeses (president) of the Institutum Carmelitanum, the International Institute of the Order in Rome.  He has a Ph.D. in history from New York University and wrote his dissertation on the fourteenth century Carmelites of Florence, Italy.

I was very interested in hearing his presentation about the early Carmelites who lived on Mt. Carmel in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries.  He gave us a very detailed presentation about that history with a power point presentation to go with it.  The topic of his presentation was “Albert’s Dream: To Win the World for Christ.”

In 1100, St. Anselm’s work “Cur Deus Homo” placed an emphasis on Jesus becoming a person.  That led to a fascination with the humanity of Christ that changed the way people viewed Jesus.  In 1182, St. Francis of Assisi was born.  Pope Innocent III, elected in 1198, revolutionized the Church, radical in vision.

The thirteenth century was an age of the common person.  The nobility was less important, and less wealthy, than before.  A new middle class in the thirteenth century had a deep faith, and they had a fascination with the historical person of Jesus. 

Lay hermits became a phenomenon of the twelfth and thirteenth centuries.  Groups of lay hermits in Europe sought their bishops’ blessing.  They looked back to the desert monks and desert traditions – ordinary lay people were reading John Cassian’s writings about the desert fathers of earlier centuries.  Those lay people wanted a simple life inspired by the Word of God, the Gospels.

People then came from Europe to the Holy Land, seeking to live as Jesus had lived. With the third Crusade, the west had consolidated its hold on Galilee and the area around Mt. Carmel.  At that time, there were already hermits living on Mt. Carmel, but Latin hermits then began to arrive from Europe who were from the rising middle class.  They spoke European vernacular languages, and not Arabic or other middle eastern languages.  They were a group of lay hermits trying to imitate the life of Christ.

There, by the twelfth and early thirteenth centuries, they were living in an unsuccessful war zone, as the west was losing ground.  The Crusades were a failure. 

Albert, the patriarch of Jerusalem, living in Acre near Mt. Carmel, saw that.  He said that their struggle was not with flesh and blood (the Muslims), but rather with the evil one.  He counseled them to put on the armor of God.  What would win the world for Christ, he saw, would be the conversion of Christian people, and not military conquest.  Ephesians 6 became the basis for Chapters 18 and 19 of the Rule of St. Albert, followed by the European monks then living on Mt. Carmel.  St. Albert mentioned them living near the spring of Mt Carmel, following the example of Elijah, in a life of allegiance to Jesus Christ.  Albert died in 1215.  A year after his death, the Fourth Lateran Council said there could be no new religious rules.

Pat Thibodeaux, OCDS
From Medieval Reform into the New Millennium: The Development of the OCDS Identity:

Pat Thibodeax is a Secular Carmelite from the St. Elijah Community in Berkeley, California.

Pat spoke on the history of the order from medieval reform into the new millennium, and the development of the OCDS identity.  There has been a third order from at least the end of the thirteenth century, although there was no separate rule until 1455.  Often family and friends of the Carmelites were called “brothers of the order.” A rule for the secular order was written in 1452, attributed to Blessed John Soreth.  Pope Nichol V approved the third order, lay confraternities, and Carmelite nuns.  The rule was based on the Rule of St. Albert.  It stressed silence, solitude, prayer and good works.

At the beginning of the Teresian Carmel in the 16th century, there were first nuns, and friars six years later.  Pat described the developments from then until 1912, when a manual was published in Rome for a third secular order, which was approved, with adjustments, by Pope Benedict XV in 1921.

Vatican II brought changes in the role of the laity.  As a result, in 1979, the old name of “third order” was discontinued, and the lay Carmelites became known as “secular” Carmelites.  The rule for the secular Carmelites was re-evaluated, and a new constitution was approved in 2003.

Under the present constitution and statutes, Secular Carmelites are full members of the order with the same apostolic mission.  Prayer and mission go hand in hand.

Comments

[lisa]

Benedicte!

Thanks for the report from the Congress.

Please share more thoughts and stories for we Carmelites who can not attend! We would love to hear about anything and everything!