Angelus was born in Florence or near there; the year is unknown but it was before 1386. He was the first member of the reformed observance of Our Lady of the Wood, was many times prior of various houses and noted for his work in preaching the Word of God. He died in Florence in 1438.
Bartholomew Fanti was born in Mantua: the year is unknown, but in 1452 he was already a Carmelite priest of the Congregation of Mantua. For thirty-five years at the Order's church in Mantua he was spiritual father and rector of the Confraternity of the Blessed Virgin Mary, for which he composed a rule and statutes. He is especially remembered for his love of the Eucharist. He died in 1495.
Frances was born in 1427, probably in Thouars in France. She was the wife of Peter II, Duke of Britanny. After his death, and under the direction of Blessed John Soreth, the prior general, she took the habit of the Carmelite Order in the monastery she had previously founded in Bondon. Afterwards she transferred to another foundation in Nantes, also erected by her, where she held the office of prioress and nourished the sisters with wise teaching. She is considered the foundress of the Carmelite nuns in France. She died in 1485.
Hilary Januszewski was born on 11 June 1907 in Krajenki (Poland). In 1927 he entered the Order of Carmel and was ordained on 15 July 1934. In 1939, Poland was occupied by the Germans and one year later, Fr. Hilary decided to present himself in exchange for an older and sick friar. He was sent to Dachau, where he was a model of prayer life, encouraging others and giving hope for a better tomorrow. He died from typhus on 25 March 1945, a few days before the liberation of the concentration camp. Fr. Hilary Januszewski was beatified by John Paul II on 13 June 1999.
Bl. Jacques Retouret was born at Limoges in France on 15th September 1746 to a merchant family. He was a serious young man, a lover of books and greatly gifted. At fifteen years of age, he entered the Carmelite house in his native city. After ordination, his zeal and learning were widely admired and large crowds of people were attracted by his way of preaching.
The French Revolution did not spare him. Like the majority of his fellow clergy, Jacques refused to accept the civil law, unilaterally introduced by the state. He was arrested and condemned, together with many other priests and religious, and sentenced to exile in French Guinea in South America. Jacques died at Madame Isle on 26th August 1794 at the age of 48 years. He was beatified, together with 63 other priests and religious, as martyrs for the faith, on 1st October 1995 by Pope John Paul II.
Mother Euphrasia was born on October 17, 1877. Her pious mother taught her to pray the rosary and to participate in the Holy Mass. She had a vision of Mother Mary at the age of nine and she offered her virginity to God eternally. Her father was opposed to her entering the Convent but eventually gave her permission to go to the Carmelite Convent in 1888. For the rest of her life she was immersed in prayer, in contemplation or praying the Rosary. People began to call her “The Praying Mother.” She was most devoted to the Sacred Heart of Jesus and had a great longing to be with the Eucharistic Lord and participate in the Holy Mass and adore the Blessed Sacrament. She was canonized by Pope Francis on November 23, 2014 in Vatican City.
Saint Kuriakos Elias Chavara, co-founder and first prior general of the congregation of the Carmelites of Mary Immaculate, was born at Kainakary in Kersala, India, February 10, 1805. He entered the seminary in 1818, and was ordained priest in 1829. He made his religious profession in 1855, in the congregation he founded. Throughout his life he worked for the renovation of the church in Malabar. Above all, he was a man of prayer, zealous for the Eucharistic Lord and devoted to the Immaculate Virgin Mary. He died at Koonammavu in 1871. Kuriakose Kathanar was beatified on February 8, 1986 and canonized on November 23, 2014.
Born about 1305 in southern Perigord in France, Peter Thomas entered the Carmelites when he was twenty-one. He was chosen by the Order as its procurator general to the Papal Court at Avignon in 1345. After being made bishop of Patti and Lipari in 1354, he was entrusted with many papal missions to promote peace and unity with the Eastern Churches. He was transferred to the see of Corone in the Peloponnesus in 1359 and made Papal Legate for the East. In 1363 he was appointed Archbishop of Crete and 1364 Latin Patriarch of Constantinople. He won a reputation as an apostle of church unity before he died at Famagosta on Cyprus in 1366.
Raphael Kalinowski was born to Polish parents in the city of Vilnius in 1835. Following military service, he was condemned in 1864 to ten years of forced labor in Siberia. In 1877 he became a Carmelite and was ordained a priest in 1882. He contributed greatly to the restoration of the Discalced Carmelites in Poland. His life was distinguished by zeal for Church unity and by his unflagging devotion to his ministry as confessor and spiritual director. He died in Wadowice in 1907.
CHRISTOPHER O’DONNELL, O.Carm. — a member of the Irish Province — was senior lecturer in systematic theology at the Pontifical Milltown Institute, Dublin, and a member of the Institutum Carmelitanum in Rome. Fr. O’Donnell wrote widely on ecclesiology, spirituality and Mariology including the well-received Love in the Heart of the Church: The Mission of St. Therese and Ecclesia: A Theological Encyclopaedia on the Church. He lectured extensively in Britain, Italy, the United States of America, and Zimbabwe. CITOC
The following articles by Father O’Donnell about Mariology and Carmelite Spirituality are available online:
https://www.ocarm.org/it/item/1837
Advent is with us once again. It comes around so soon. Like all liturgical time it is complex. In its simplest expression it is a season of preparation for Christmas. Christmas itself come about through a double process. It was a Christian substitution for the sun feast, natalis solis invicti, established by the Emperor Aurelian in 274, which celebrated the sun’s triumph over the winter solstice. It would also seem to have been a influenced by a Jewish idea that all great events m a cycle occurred on the same day, e.g. the birthday of all the patriarchs was the same. Since from about the time of Hippolytus it was believed that... continued
https://ocarm.org/en/item/5955-elizabeth-of-the-trinity-and-st-paul
On November 8 the Carmelite Order celebrates the Memorial of St. Elizabeth of the Trinity. Elizabeth had been reading St. Paul more and more from the beginning of 1903, the time of her profession. Her former novice mistress, Sr. Marie of the Trinity, would say that, from that time on, Elizabeth grounded herself in two authors: John of the Cross and St. Paul. With regard to the former, Elizabeth had begun by dipping into John’s works, and it was only in 1902 that she started to read him with depth and thoroughness. It was a similar case with St. Paul, who at first nourished her mind with occasional quotations like... continued
https://www.ocarm.org/en/item/3064
It has long been my conviction that the main crisis facing the Church is not a crisis of faith, but a crisis of religious experience. It is not that people do not believe, but they do not see the point of faith. And they drift away. Despite the enormous commitment of the Catholic Church to the renewal of liturgy, there has not been a renewed Church. One may say that the liturgical renewal is patchy and at times very defective. But those of us old enough to remember the pre-Vatican II Mass can only be struck by the contrast today of participation by the... continued
https://ocarm.org/it/item/3065
The Carmelite Mystics. In a discussion at the Carmelite general chapter in 1989, someone asked if the Church would have been much the poorer if the Carmelite Order never existed. My immediate instinct was to feel that of course the Carmelite Order, small as it is, is important for the Church; but the question niggled, did we really make any big difference? I pondered the question for weeks and months, and it gradually became clear in my mind something of the nature of the Carmelite contribution to the Church... continued
https://www.ocarm.org/it/item/3066
Mary and the Carmelite Mystics. In the extensive writing about the Carmelite mystics there is, I think one major lacuna. Not nearly enough attention has been given to the place of Mary in the mystical journey. On its coming to Europe in the mid-13th century, the Carmelite Order developed over a period of about 300 years several images of the Virgin. Firstly, she was Patron. The hermits chose her on Mount Carmel as their Patron by the medieval symbolism of dedicating their first church to her... continued
https://www.ocarm.org/en/item/3072
A very easy question to ask, but a difficult one to answer is, what is the Church? Even more difficult is, what is the Church for? Try answering the first one, by completing the sentence, “The Church is...” What did you come up with? It is relatively effortless to come up with a name for the Church, such as the People of God/the Body of Christ. It is much more difficult to come up with a statement that locks into the heart of the Church.... continued
https://ocarm.org/it/item/3073
Manifested in the Paschal Mystery. In the Annunciation we have the revelation of God’s promise of an outpouring of Trinitarian love and Mary’s response. The implementation of this revelation and promise was the Paschal Mystery of the eternal Son of God. The term “Paschal Mystery” became common after Vatican II to speak about the redemption, the Eucharist and about our life in Christ. It is the mystery enacted at the Christian Passover. The word “Passover” comes from the two interconnected incidents in the Old Testament: the blood of the Paschal Lamb on the doorposts of the Israelites saved them from the destroying angel; the people could then “pass over” from the... continued
https://www.ocarm.org/en/item/3074
Celebrated in the Eucharist.Where is the heart of the Church? It is not in its institutions, however prestigious, even necessary. Vatican II teaches us that the “source and the summit” of the entire Christian life, and hence of the Church is the Eucharist (see Church 11). In the Eucharist we have all that is essential to the Church: we come to acknowledge that we are sinners; we hear the Word of God and respond to it; we make intercession; we share in the Paschal Mystery of the Lord’s death and glorification; we enter into intimate union with him; we are sent out to proclaim the good news and to share the love we have received.... continued
https://ocarm.org/es/item/3075
Shared with the Church. Finally, we come to that dimension of the Church which is outreach. The Church has a mission to all, so that as Pope Paul VI could state that evangelization belongs to the very nature of the Church. Indeed, as we have already seen, we are sent forth at each Mass in love, service and evangelization. Here too Mary is our icon. The story of the Visitation shows both dimensions (Luke 1:39-55). After the annunciation Mary sets out immediately, St Luke tells us “with haste” to visit her cousin, Elizabeth whom she has just learned is pregnant. Now just as there was a remarkable greeting from Gabriel to Mary, so Mary’s... continued
https://ocarm.org/es/item/4156
A phrase like “Marian Spirituality” is enough to make some people uneasy. Is there not just one spirituality, namely Christian? The issue is naot only extremely important but also somewhat complex.... There is a growing literature on the theme of Mary and spirituality.[1] But we need to be alert to several approaches and aspects of the theme. Spirituality is a word that has become quite chameleon:it takes on a different hue when used about various schools or movements identified by a period, place, or institution (e.g. desert, medieval, Dominican, French spiritualities). It is applied to the appropriate response of various... continued
https://www.ocarm.org/en/item/2443
A pilgrimage is a journey to a holy place. The great medieval pilgrimages were to the holy places where Jesus walked: Rome sanctified by the apostles Peter and Paul, and Compostela the shrine of the apostle James. In modern times we have pilgrim places like Lourdes. Mary’s pilgrimage took her to two most holy places: Calvary, the site of her Son’s sacrifice and death; and the Upper Room, where she and the early church received the Holy Spirit.... continued
https://www.ocarm.org/en/item/1272
In Catholic liturgy the place to look for the meaning of a feast or a season in the prefaces of the Mass. In the first Lent preface we address the Father in these words: Each year you give us this joyful season when we prepare to celebrate the paschal mystery with mind and heart renewed. You give us a spirit of loving reverence for you, our Father, and of willing service to our neighbour.... continued
https://www.ocarm.org/en/item/3149
In a previous presentation we have seen our Carmelite calling sketched in broad terms. From the general call to all Christians to live in allegiance to Jesus Christ, we are called in a vowed life to following the inspiration of Mary and Elijah our models with a life-style identified as a contemplative fraternity in the midst of the people.... continued
https://ocarm.org/en/item/4147
On the 25 March in 1858 the twelve-year old peasant girl, Bernadette Soubirous felt drawn to the grotto where a beautiful lady had been appearing to her frequently since 11 February that year. Bernadette asked her who she was, and the lady in white said in the local dialect, “I am the Immaculate Conception.” It would be difficult to say how much that statement might have meant to the barely literate Bernadette. The clergy knew its significance. Only four years earlier Pius IX had defined the Immaculate Conception as a dogma of faith.... continued
https://ocarm.org/en/item/2005-st-joseph-a-saint-for-our-time
In a lovely little booklet on St Joseph, Cardinal Suenens wrote: “It has been said that the worst thing we can do to the saints is to put them on pedestals. In Joseph’s case, we might criticise not only the pedestal, but also the image of him with which we are all too often presented.” Another contemporary French writer A. Doze speaks of “misinformation” about him, and says that to misinform is to spread false rumours the better to lead people astray.... continued
https://ocarm.org/it/item/2003
Why are eggs associated with Easter? Why are they such a powerful symbol of resurrection? The word needs some care. It is not resuscitation, as if Jesus were simply brought back to life, like Lazarus or the widow’s son at Nam (see John 9 and Luke 7:11-15). Resurrection is transformation. The symbols of resurrection are many. So then, why eggs and Easter? An egg is totally changed. What is yellow and white liquid becomes alive with feathers and a chirp. If you look at... continued
https://ocarm.org/en/item/2007
Wonder.There is a special revelation of God’s majesty in the helplessness of a child. It is a revelation of love, the same love that would leave Jesus no less helpless on the Cross. It is in part the depth of God’s love, shown in his costly involvement with humanity that is a new and radiant vision of his glory. The verb used in the preface ‘caught up’, is not precise, nor should it be. Christmas is not a matter of cold reassuring but most profoundly a matter of wonder, amazement and awe..... continued
...are your words to my taste,
sweeter than honey to my mouth!
Psalm 119:103
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