Blog by-the-Sea

Elijah and John the Baptist as Precursors of the Hermits

This post is taken from part of an e-mail that I sent a couple of month ago to someone who wrote to me about the Catholic view of celibacy.  He was apparently a Protestant.  The lives of St. Elijah and St. John the Baptist came up in the course of the e-mail exchange, as part of the Biblical foundation for monasticism.  He asked me where the Bible says Elijah was a hermit or that Elijah didn't have a wife.  I have revised and added a few things here to my response.

St. Edith Stein, in an article titled "On the History and Spirit of Carmel (in The Hidden Life, ICS Publications), wrote, "Elijah stands before God's face because all of his love belongs to the Lord."  It is a reference to I Kings 17:1 ("As the LORD the God of Israel lives, before whom I stand, there shall be neither dew nor rain these years, except by my word.")  Scripture does not mention his parents, a wife, or children. 

The Catholic Encyclopedia page on Hermits mentions St. Elijah, St. John the Baptist and Jesus as precursors of the hermits of the Early Church.  St. Elijah and St. John the Baptist, of course, were precursors of Jesus, and the hermits' lives imitated the life of Jesus first and foremost.

I Kings 17 describes the Lord telling Elijah:

"Leave here, go east and hide in the Wadi Cherith, east of the Jordan.  You shall drink of the stream, and I have commanded ravens to feed you there.  So he left and did as the LORD had commanded. He went and remained by the Wadi Cherith, east of the Jordan.  Ravens brought him bread and meat in the morning, and bread and meat in the evening, and he drank from the stream.  After some time, however, the brook ran dry, because no rain had fallen in the land.  So the LORD said to him:  "Move on to Zarephath of Sidon and stay there. I have designated a widow there to provide for you."

Elijah was alone in the Brook of Cherith.  God provided a widow to provide for him in Zarepath, rather than a wife.

From there, he went to Mt. Carmel (I Kings 18).  There, we read:

"So Obadiah went to meet Ahab and informed him. Ahab came to meet Elijah, and when he saw Elijah, said to him, "Is it you, you disturber of Israel?"  "It is not I who disturb Israel," he answered, "but you and your family, by forsaking the commands of the LORD and following the Baals."

Elijah mentioned the people and their families who followed the Baals, so families were not being left out of the writing.  But there is no mention of Elijah having a family.  He is always described as alone.  At Mt. Carmel, after the prophets of Baal were slain, we read, "But the hand of the LORD was on Elijah, who girded up his clothing and ran before Ahab as far as the approaches to Jezreel."  Again, this would be a difficult environment for him to have traveled with a wife and children.

In I Kings 19, after Jezebel threatened Elijah, we read:

"Elijah was afraid and fled for his life, going to Beer-sheba of Judah. He left his servant there and went a day's journey into the desert, until he came to a broom tree and sat beneath it. He prayed for death: "This is enough, O LORD! Take my life, for I am no better than my fathers."

So, Scripture specifically mentions that he left a servant, but does not mention a wife or children.  If he had had a wife with him, it would have been natural there for Scripture to say that he left his servant and family.

Also, in I Kings 19, Elijah is sleeping alone in the desert and eating what God provides.  "He looked and there at his head was a hearth cake and a jug of water. After he ate and drank, he lay down again."  Then, "he walked forty days and forty nights to the mountain of God, Horeb."

Matthew Chapter 3 describes St. John the Baptist in a similar vein: 

"In those days John the Baptist appeared, preaching in the desert of Judea (and) saying, "Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand!" It was of him that the prophet Isaiah had spoken when he said: "A voice of one crying out in the desert, 'Prepare the way of the Lord, make straight his paths.'" John wore clothing made of camel's hair and had a leather belt around his waist. His food was locusts and wild honey."

Like Elijah, John the Baptist was "crying in the desert", wearing what God provided and eating what God provided.  The description of both of them in Scripture is similar to the lives of the hermits of the Early Church.

In their poverty, they foreshadowed Jesus's own way of life.  In St. John's Gospel Chapter 1, people asked John the Baptist if he was the prophet Elijah returned to life, and he said he was not.  The prophecy said to have been fulfilled by John the Baptist is from Isaiah 40:3: "A voice cries out: In the desert prepare the way of the Lord."  Luke 9:58 tells us that Jesus said of himself, "the Son of man has nowhere to lay his head."  Jesus was never married.  Luke 6:12 speaks of Jesus going into the mountain and spending all night in prayer.  He spent 40 days in the desert, tempted by the devil.

The Desert Fathers of the Early Church were known for following Christ's way of life in many ways.  St. John the Baptist, Elijah, and the early desert hermits were linked together by the Early Church at least as far back as the Fourth Century.   John Cassian mentions it in writing about the Desert Fathers in the fourth century.  In Chapter IV of his Conferences, John Cassian wrote:

"This practical life then, which as has been said rests on a double system, is distributed among many different professions and interests. For some make it their whole purpose to aim at the secrecy of an anchorite and purity of heart, as we know that in the past Elijah and Elisha, and in our own day the blessed Antony [St. Anthony of the Desert] and others who followed with the same object, were joined most closely to God by the silence of solitude." 

In Chapter VI, Cassian wrote:

"So then there sprang from that system of which we have spoken another sort of perfection, whose followers are rightly termed anchorites; i.e., withdrawers, because, being by no means satisfied with that victory whereby they had trodden under foot the hidden snares of the devil, while still living among men, they were eager to fight with the devils in open conflict, and a straightforward battle, and so feared not to penetrate the vast recesses of the desert, imitating, to wit, John the Baptist, who passed all his life in the desert, and Elijah and Elisha and those of whom the Apostle speaks as follows: "They wandered about in sheepskins and goatskins, being in want, distressed, afflicted, of whom the world was not worthy, wandering in deserts, in mountains and in dens and in caves of the earth."

Early monasteries and groups of hermits were established early in Church history in the places associated with Elijah.  St. Catherine's Monastery (Orthodox Church) on Mt. Sinai is near the place where Elijah is said to have spent 40 days and 40 nights communing with God.  Christian Hermits began to settle there in the third century.

There was a group of them on Mt. Carmel by 570 a.d., when they were mentioned in writing, and probably much earlier.  The well of Elijah on Mt. Carmel was also the location of a much later church by Latin-speaking hermits who settled there during the Crusades (the beginnings of the Catholic Church's Carmelite orders).

So, I told the person who wrote to me about celibacy, that marriage is a calling, and that celibacy is also a calling, and it is honorable and just as natural.  To say that either is natural does not mean that it is easy.  Both require the Holy Spirit's power, and neither works well if limited exclusively to what is "natural.

A Collection of Posts on Elijah

Today is the feast day of Elijah the Prophet.  This blog has a whole category page on The Mantle of Elijah.  Here are links to some earlier posts from that category and elsewhere for his feast day:

John Cassian on Elijah and the Early Hermits

The Mantle of Elijah

"Zeal for Thy House Has Consumed Me." 

Elijah as the Father of Carmel

Carmel, Living Water, and the Mantle of Elijah

St. Gregory of Nyssa on Elijah and Mt. Carmel as Prefiguring Baptism

John Cassian on Elijah and the Early Hermits

July 20 is the memorial of St. Elijah, a feast day in the Discalced Carmelite liturgical calendar.  To remember Elijah, here is a chapter from the Conferences of John Cassian (Part III, Conference XVIII, Chapter VI). John Cassian's memorial falls on July 23.  Cassian's writings were read by St. Teresa of Avila and thus influenced the 16th century Discalced Carmelites' understanding of the lives of hermits.  In this chapter, Cassian wrote about the hermits of the Early Church and how they imitated such saints as Elijah and Elisha:

Out of this number of the perfect, and, if I may use the expression, this most fruitful root of saints, were produced afterwards the flowers and fruits of the anchorites as well. And of this order we have heard that the originators were those whom we mentioned just now; viz., Saint Paul and Antony, men who frequented the recesses of the desert, not as some from faintheartedness, and the evil of impatience, but from a desire for loftier heights of perfection and divine contemplation, although the former of them is said to have found his way to the desert by reason of necessity, while during the time of persecution he was avoiding the plots of his neighbours.

So then there sprang from that system of which we have spoken another sort of perfection, whose followers are rightly termed anchorites; i.e., withdrawers, because, being by no means satisfied with that victory whereby they had trodden under foot the hidden snares of the devil, while still living among men, they were eager to fight with the devils in open conflict, and a straightforward battle, and so feared not to penetrate the vast recesses of the desert, imitating, to wit, John the Baptist, who passed all his life in the desert, and Elijah and Elisha and those of whom the Apostle speaks as follows: “They wandered about in sheepskins and goatskins, being in want, distressed, afflicted, of whom the world was not worthy, wandering in deserts, in mountains and in dens and in caves of the earth.” [Hebrews 11:37-38]

Of whom too the Lord speaks figuratively to Job: “But who hath sent out the wild ass free, and who hath loosed his bands? To whom I have given the wilderness for an house, and a barren land for his dwelling. He scorneth the multitude of the city and heareth not the cry of the driver; he looketh round about the mountains of his pasture, and seeketh for every green thing.” [Job 39:5-8]

In the Psalms also: “Let now the redeemed of the Lord say, those whom He hath redeemed from the hand of the enemy;” and after a little: “They wandered in a wilderness in a place without water: they found not the way of a city of habitation. They were hungry and thirsty: their soul fainted in them. And they cried unto the Lord in their trouble and He delivered them out of their distress;” [Psalm 107:2, 4-6] whom Jeremiah too describes as follows: “Blessed is the man that hath borne the yoke from his youth. He shall sit solitary and hold his peace because he hath taken it up upon himself,” [Lam. 3:27-28] and there sing in heart and deed these words of the Psalmist: "I am become like a pelican in the wilderness. I watched and am become like a sparrow alone upon the house-top." [Psalm 102:7-8]

The Mantle of Elijah

July 20 is the feast day of the prophet Elijah, a Carmelite feast day. 

A short description of the Carmelite view of "our Father Elijah" appears in Terrye Newkirk, OCDS's article "The Mantle of Elijah: The Martyrs of Compiègne as Prophets of the Modern Age", which can be read online at the webpage of ICS Publications' archives; The main article from the pamphlet by the same name, copyright 1995 by ICS Publications: 

"The double dimension, mystical and prophetic" is the essence of the Carmelite charism: according to ancient tradition, the order traces its origins to a community of hermits gathered near the fount of Elijah on the slopes of Mount Carmel, forever linked in Scripture with the memory of the great prophet. It was only natural, then, that from the beginning Carmelites should see themselves as the spiritual heirs of Elijah, living in his power and spirit; the feastday of Saint Elijah is still celebrated with solemnity in Carmelite monasteries throughout the world.  It is certain that since Elijah, carried off like a flaming whirlwind in a chariot with fiery horses, a prophetic spirit has not ceased to breathe on the family of Carmel."

The Scripture reference is II Kings 2:1-14:

"Now when the LORD was about to take Elijah up to heaven by a whirlwind, Elijah and Elisha were on their way from Gilgal.  And Elijah said to Elisha, 'Tarry here, I pray you; for the LORD has sent me as far as Bethel.'  But Elisha said, 'As the LORD lives, and as you yourself live, I will not leave you.'  So they went down to Bethel.  And the sons of the prophets who were in Bethel came out to Elisha, and said to him, 'Do you know that today the LORD will take away your master from over you?'  And he said, 'Yes, I know it; hold your peace.'

"Then Elijah said to him, 'Tarry here, I pray you; for the LORD has sent me to Jordan.'  But he said, "As the LORD lives, and as you yourself live, I will not leave you.'  So the two of them went on.  Fifty men of the sons of the prophets also went, and stood at some distance from them, as they both were standing by the Jordan.  Then Elijah took his mantle, and rolled it up, and struck the water, and the water was parted to the one side and to the other, till the two of them could go over on dry ground.

"When they had crossed, Elijah said to Elisha, 'Ask what I shall do for you, before I am taken from you.'  And Elisha said, "I pray you, let me inherit a double share of your spirit.'  And he said, 'You have asked a hard thing; yet, if you see me as I am being taken from you, it shall be so for you; but if you do not see me, it shall not be so.'  And as they still went on and talked, behold, a chariot of fire and horses of fire separated the two of them.  And Elijah went up by whirlwind into heaven.  And Elisha saw it and cried, 'My father, my father! the chariots of Israel and its horsemen!'  And he saw him no more.

"Then he took hold of his own clothes and rent them in two pieces.  And he took up the mantle of Elijah that had fallen from him, and went back and stood on the bank of the Jordan.  Then he took the mantle of Elijah that had fallen from him, and struck the water, saying, 'Where is the LORD, the God of Elijah?'  And when he had struck the water, the water was parted to the one side and to the other; and Elisha went over."
 

Elijah as the Father of Carmel

As mentioned by Pope Benedict XVI in his words at the praying of the Angelus this past Sunday, the history of the Carmelite order traces its roots to the contemplative devotion of hermits living in Mount Carmel as far back as the prophet Elijah.  I am going to do a few posts looking at some of the interesting stories of Mount Carmel reflected in the writings of St. Teresa of Avila, and looking at how much history lies within the stories of Carmel.  This is the first such post.

Mount Carmel is by the Mediterranean Sea, roughly 20 miles from Jesus' boyhood home of Nazareth, and 30 miles east of the Sea of Galilee.  It is a hill, 1,742 feet high, which is the one headland of the coast of Palestine.  A present day map can be found online here.   The Protestant ATS Bible Dictionary describes it as abounding in caves, some of which have been enlarged "and fitted for human habitation", and calls it the "most beautiful mountain in Palestine."

Hermits have lived on Mount Carmel going back to the time of Elijah and Elisha in the Old Testament, and Elijah is credited with being the original founder of the hermits of Carmel.  In fact, Elijah may not have been the first.  As stated in The Catholic Encyclopedia:

"The sacredness of its heights was well known in ancient Israel. Apparently long before Elias' time -- how long before cannot now be made out -- an altar had been erected in honour of Yahweh on Mt. Carmel, and its ruins were repaired by that prophet as soon as this could be done with safety (1 Kings 18:30)."

In his Introduction to Volume 3 of The Collected Works of St. Teresa of Avila, Kieran Kavanaugh, O.C.D., summarizes some of the legends and history.  He quotes a sermon preached in Avignon, France in 1342 expressing the thinking still common when St. Teresa wrote, including this about Elijah that Father Kavanaugh quotes from that fourteenth century French sermon:

"Trustworthy histories of Elijah and Elisha tell us how these two often dwelt on Mount Carmel, three leagues distant from Nazareth, the city of our Lady.  And saintly men continued to live there in solitude, until the time of our Saviour."

Fr. Kavanaugh adds:

"Not included in this little summary was the legend behind the nuns, which went so far as to say that the wife of Elijah founded a similar institute for women."

As for what we actually know to be true, Father Kavanaugh adds:

"[A]fter Teresa's times, the order of Carmel, without a critical sense of history or a definite founder, got caught up in the challenge to prove its age-old traditions. . . .  Later, in 1725, when the Carmelite order triumphantly installed in St. Peter's in Rome its celebrated statue of Elijah as the order's founder, its apologists considered themselves the winners.

"What can be affirmed historically is that there was a school of prophets on Carmel, that the prophet Elijah undoubtedly had an impressive impact on the hermits and monks of the early Church, and that Christian hermits resided on Mt. Carmel from a very early date."

The shield of the Carmelite Order takes as its motto Elijah's words, "Zelo zelatus sum pro Domino Deo Exercituum" ["I have been very jealous for the Lord God of hosts", I Kings 19:10].  It was on Mount Carmel that the prophet Elijah challenged Ahab and said to the people, "How long will you go limping with two different opinions?  If the Lord is God, then follow him; but if Baal, then follow him."  (I Kings 18:21).  There, according to I Kings 18:19-20, Elijah gathered all of Israel and the 450 prophets of Baal to defend the Lord, and Ahab gathered the prophets together there.

Moreover, Elijah is not the only Old Testament prophet associated with Mount Carmel.  In II Kings 4:25, the Shunammite woman went to Mount Carmel to speak to the prophet Elisha.  Isaiah mentioned Mount Carmel in Isaiah 33:9 and 35:2.  The prophet Amos, at Amos 9:3, mentioned people hiding themselves in the top of Mount Carmel.  Jeremiah mentioned Mount Carmel in Jeremiah 46:18 and 50:19 ("I will restore Israel to his pasture, and he shall feed on Carmel and Bashan, and his desire shall be satisfied on the hills of Ephraim and in Gilead.")  Nahum prophesied about it at Nahum 1:4 ("He rebukes the sea and makes it dry, he dries up all the rivers; Bashan and Carmel wither, the bloom of Lebanon fades.")

Mount Carmel is not specifically mentioned by name in the New Testament.  Yet it is only about 20 miles from Jesus' childhood town of Nazareth, such that it is likely that Jesus spent time there.  It would have been near the boundary between Galilee and Samaria.

In an earlier post about Elijah and the Carmelites, the topic was how St. Teresa of Avila's writings about fire and living water might have been influenced by the Scriptural account of Elijah's pouring water on the altar on which God sent fire to burn the sacrifice. 

In addition to the quotes mentioned there, there are also places where St. Teresa specifically mentioned the prophet Elijah, including these:

In The Interior Castle, St. Teresa of Avila specifically mentioned Elijah as "our Father Elijah" when she mentions his calling fire down from heaven, writing:

"Would it be good for a soul with this dryness to wait for fire to come down from heaven to burn this sacrifice that it is making of itself to God, as did our Father Elijah?  No, certainly not, nor is it right to expect miracles.  The Lord works them for this soul when he pleases . . . ." [Interior Castle VI:7:8]

Later in the same book, she again calls him the order's father:

"The great penances that many saints - especially the glorious Magdalene, who had always been surrounded by so much luxury -- performed must have come from this center.  Also that hunger which our Father Elijah had for the honor of his God and which St. Dominic and St. Francis had so as to draw souls to praise God." [Interior Castle VII:4:11, alluding to I Kings 19:10 and the order's motto quoted above]

In The Book of Her Foundations, she again mentioned Elijah as their "father":

"[O]n the first day of our journey from Malagon to Beas I was traveling with a fever and so many illnesses all together that while considering the distance we still had to travel and seeing myself in this condition I remembered our Father Elijah when he was fleeing from Jezebel, and said: 'Lord, how can I suffer this?  You take care.'  The truth is that when His Majesty saw me so weak, He suddenly took away my fever and illness." [Foundations 27:17]

"The entrance to [the monastery of our Lady of Succor]  is underground, as though through a cave, which represented that of our Father Elijah." [Foundations 28:20, alluding to I Kings 19:9-13]

Her poem "On the Way to Heaven" also mentions "Elijah, our Father", saying that he "leads, in our self-denying we follow him" as nuns of Carmel, and also expressing a wish to have "Elisha's double spirit" [alluding to II Kings 2:9-10, where Elisha asked to have a double share of Elijah's spirit].

Ana de Jesus, one of St. Teresa's most treasured "daughters", mentioned Elijah as the order's "trunk" in her description of St. Teresa of Avila, given to the Provincial of the Mitigated Friars (quoted by Brother John Bruno in Saint Jean de la Croix, as quoted in turn in Teresa of Avila by Marcelle Auclair, Kathleen Pond's translation:

"Mother Teresa could not clothe herself in camel's hair like Elias [Elijah], I grant you; but she exchanged your fine cloth and your gauze for the roughest and coursest frieze.  And she imitates the prophet as far as she possibly can: fasting, withdrawal from the world, penance and prayer.  I repeat it to Your Reverence, we would rather die a thousand deaths than separate from our trunk.  In my opinion Your Paternity and all the Calced are separated from it: such brethren do not imitate their holy Father Elias, since they seek fine clothing, society instead of the desert, and instead of unceasing prayer, the latest news."

Thus, the story that Elijah was the founder of the hermits on Mount Carmel, and the father of the Carmelite order, was one that St. Teresa of Avila believed and held dear, and she went to much effort to live by Elijah's example.  The history of the Carmelite order goes back to the twelfth century, and there is sound reason to believe that there were hermits living on Mount Carmel from the twelfth century back to the time of Elijah who followed his example.  Indeed, even Elijah may not have been the first to live and worship on that mountain. 

Very little is actually known about the connection of the twelfth century Carmelite hermits on Mount Carmel with the hermits who lived there before them, but it can be safely assumed that they knew it as the mountain of Elijah and sought to live much as the hermits before them.  Thus, there is some truth in the legend naming Elijah as the founder of the order of Carmel.

Mary: The Little Cloud above the Sea

Steven Riddle at Flos Carmelli has a post today about Elijah and Mary, speaking of how Carmelite monks and friars have viewed the cloud above the sea as symbolic of Mary, drawn from the story of Elijah in I Kings 18:42-45.

The Catholic Encyclopedia offers some insight here into the early origin of references to the sea in connection with Mary.  One of the understandings of the meaning of her name is "bitter sea", arising from something written by St. Jerome that was misunderstood over the centuries:

One of the meanings assigned to the name Mary in Martianay's edition of St. Jerome's works (S. Hier. opp., t. II, Parisiis, 1699, 2°, cols. 109-170, 181-246, 245-270) is pikra thalassa, bitter sea. Owing to the corrupt condition in which St. Jerome found the "Onomastica" of Philo and of Origen, which he in a way re-edited, it is hard to say whether the interpretation "bitter sea" is really due to either of these two authorities; at any rate, it is based on the assumption that the name miryam is composed of the Hebrew words mar (bitter) and yam (sea).

The name "Star of the Sea" for Mary comes from a misunderstanding of St. Jerome's work.  Rather than translating the name "Miriam" as "Stella Maris" (Star of the Sea), Jerome actually wrote "Stilla Maris" (drop of the sea).  The Catholic Encyclopedia gives the citation to Jerome's translation of the Hebrew at De nomin. hebraic., de Exod., de Matth., P.L., XXIII, col, 789, 842. 

The symbolism of the sea seems to be deep within human nature, something nearly everyone can immediately comprehend.  It appears in varied forms in Christian spirituality, corresponding to the fact that the ocean itself appears to us in varied forms.  It can be symbolic of peace and of the Trinity (the "sea pacific" in the Dialogue of St. Catherine of Siena); it can be the unfathomable depths of God's love -- "If the sea were the food of love" -- in the Sayings of St. Catherine of Genoa; it can be the unfathomable complexity of the Trinity in the scallop shell legend of St. Augustine.  It can be God in His unfathomable greatness to whom we fly in love, through Christ, as described by St. Paul of the Cross.

St. Augustine feared the sea, as was common for ancient men.  St. Jerome probably did too.  The Psalmist prayed that God would "deliver me from the many waters" (Psalm 143/144:8).  In mentioning that Psalm in one of his Wednesday general audience messages on the Psalms, Pope Benedict XVI interpreted the verse about the ocean as symbolizing "the chaos from which the divine hand saves the king." 

One of the most common images of the sea is a metaphor for the world, in the storms of our lives, the threats to the Church, with the Church or our own souls seen as a ship or a boat on the sea of life in this world.  One of many metaphoric uses of the sea in that way appears in another letter of St. Paul of the Cross in which he writes of God as holding in His hands "the tiny ship that is your soul".  In a letter of St. Basil the Great, in which he counseled a new bishop to steer his "ship" prudently, and to keep his vessel from sinking in the "bitter waves of perverse doctrine".  This, again, reflects the ancient concept of the sea as threatening and as symbolic of the Church's plight in this life, protected by God as we encounter the dangers of a journey in the world.

It is the sea as symbolic of the world that is seen in the Carmelite image of Mary as the cloud above the sea, as Steven describes it:

"Mary is the cloud that rises out of the sea. The sea is saltwater, undrinkable, a vast body of water, next to which the kingdom can still thirst and die. The sea is salty, impure, an image of fallen humanity with its admixture of sin. Mary rises out of this sea, pure and perfect, laden with the water of grace that will pour out through her to all humanity--not the source of Grace herself, nevertheless the container into which all is poured until it overflows out to all people, limitless, and life-giving. Not God, but human, Mary rises from the sea, pure and Immaculate in her conception, formed as a vessel of God's grace and a place of refuge for His people."

Although the concept of Mary as represented by the cloud above the water would be fairly recent, coming from the Carmelites, it is probably rooted in these more ancient concepts of the sea as symbolic of the world, symbolic of the threats of heresy and destruction that embattle the ship of the Church, and probably also rooted in the earlier understandings of Mary's name as drawn from images of the sea, taken from misreadings from St. Jerome.

It is about time that I started adding some structure and interpretation to my little collection of "sea" quotes in my blog's "The Sea" category.  I am thankful to Steven for mentioning this Carmelite tradition, which I can add to my collection and use as a starting point for bringing them a little more together.

Carmel, Living Water, and the Mantle of Elijah

From October 7, 2005 (originally posted on this blog's original aol blog site; modified 3-15-07):

The Carmelite Orders of priests, monks and nuns date their origin back to the twelfth century.  Then, during the Crusades, a certain group of western Europeans began to live as hermits in the Holy Land, on Mount Carmel.  They wanted to imitate the life of Christ, living where he had lived. 

One of the Old Testament figures who is particularly appreciated by the Carmelites is the prophet Elijah.  It was on Mount Carmel that the prophet Elijah challenged Ahab and said to the people, "How long will you go limping with two different opinions?  If the Lord is God, follow him; but if Ba'al, then follow him."  (I Kings 18:21 RSV). 

In the Biblical account of Elijah's challenge to the prophets of the false god Ba'al, the prophets of Ba'al offered one bull to Ba'al, and Elijah offered another bull to the Lord, each of them laying it on the wood and putting no fire to it.  The bull offered to Ba'al did not burn.  Elijah called the people to come near to him, built an altar,  and had four jars of water poured on the offering and the altar.  And he prayed, "O Lord, God of Abraham, Isaac, and Israel, let it  be known this day that thou art God in Israel, and that I am thy servant . . . ." and the fire of the Lord fell and consumed the offering.  (I Kings 18:36)

Another story of Elijah that may figure in Carmelite thinking, perhaps including the writings of St. Teresa of Avila, is in I Kings 17.  There, God told Elijah to hide himself "by the brook Cherith, that is east of the Jordan.  You shall drink from the brook, and I have commanded the ravens to feed you there." (I Kings 17:4). There, for a while, God provided a torrent of water for Elijah in the brook, and God provided food for him each day, brought to him by the ravens. 

The brown scapular worn by Carmelites is a symbol of their ideal of intimacy with God and friendship among His disciples.  It is a sort of mantle, as when the prophet of Elijah was taken up to heaven, and his mantle fell on his disciple Elisha, passing on to Elisha the spirit of Elijah, as Elisha had asked to have a double share of Elijah's spirit (II Kings 2:9-10).  As a chariot of fire took Elijah up by a whirlwind into heaven, his mantle fell from him.  Elisha took up the mantle of Elijah and struck the water, saying "Where is the Lord, the God of Elijah?"  And the water was parted, and Elisha went over (II Kings 2:11-14).

St. Teresa of Avila became a Carmelite nun in sixteenth century Spain, where the order had lost much of its original emphasis on prayer, frugal living, and dependence upon God to provide.  She worked to reform the Carmelite order and wrote books that are still treasured for the richness of their teaching about God and prayer. 

Water is one of the images from Scripture that figures heavily in her writings, especially the living water that Jesus offered to the woman at the well, and perhaps also the brook of water from the Old Testament account of Elijah. 

The woman at the well is pictured in an enormous painting that now hangs in one of the monasteries where Teresa once lived in Avila.  The painting once hung in her parents' house near there, another building that is also still standing from the sixteenth century.  Teresa must have thought about that painting and the living water as a child growing up in that house, until it came to be symbolic to her of the abundant grace that Jesus gives as He draws us closer to Him in prayer.

From The Life:

"I call to remembrance—oh, how often!—that living water of which our Lord spoke to the Samaritan woman. That Gospel has a great attraction for me; and, indeed, so it had even when I was a little child, though I did not understand it then as I do now.  I used to pray much to our Lord for that living water; and I had always a picture of it, representing our Lord at the well, with this inscription, "Domine, da mihi aquam [Sir, give me this water]."

- The Life of St. Teresa of Avila, Chapter 30, quoting John 4:15.

In her writings, water is a symbol of the spiritual blessings that God gives as we draw closer to Him in prayer.  In her first book, The Life, she wrote about the "first water", the "second water", the "third water" (flowing from a spring or stream), and a series of waters providing for a garden, as symbolic of deeper states of prayer. 

In contemplative prayer described in The Life as the prayer of union, Teresa combined symbols of fire and water.  This fire and water is symbolic of the presence of the Holy Spirit and of the inner fire and grace of drawing close to God in contemplative prayer, and symbolic of tears of joy that can follow this prayer.  Perhaps it brings to mind the fire from God that consumed Elijah's offering although it was covered in water, thus showing the Lord to be the true God, and showing the idol Baal to be nothing. She wrote of the soul being bathed in tears of joy:

"There remains in the soul, when the prayer of union is over, an exceedingly great tenderness; so much so, that it would undo itself—not from pain, but through tears of joy it finds itself bathed therein, without being aware of it, and it knows not how or when it wept them.  But to behold the violence of the fire subdued by the water, which yet makes it burn the more, gives it great delight. "

- The Life of St. Teresa of Avila, Chapter 19

Over the coming week, I will try to choose a quotation from one of her books, a discussion of some them within them, a list of biographies and resources, or a list of weblinks about her life and works.  I won't write a biographical sketch as I have done for some other saints but will try to write more personally, some of my impressions of being in Avila and thoughts about her life and writing.