CARMELITE SPIRITUALITY
Stained glass window on our cloister walk; perhaps a Tiffany
Cheslyn Jones observes in the preface to The Study of Spirituality that the term
"spirituality" is "vague" and is "often used with no clear meaning"; yet he ventures a definition: the modes/methods of seeking for; the searching itself; and the experience of
communion with God (xxii). It, therefore, encompasses all that humans do to cooperate with "the permanent inflow of [God's] irresistible creative love" in addition to all of God's
working in individuals--"apart from [their own] put"--continually to transform them (Hein Blommestijn, O. Carm., quoted in V. M. Seelaus, OCD, 47, note 2). The Rule, the oldest Carmelite document, which was promulgated by Albert, Patriarch of Jerusalem, between 1206 and 1214, sketches a means for realizing God's indwelling, when it mandates that one "stay in [one's] cell, pondering the Lord's law day and night and keeping watch at prayer"
(Chapter VII). Prayer of all kinds*--oral, communal,lectio divina, meditation, contemplation--and solitude, then, are central to Carmelite life..
In her article "The Nun's Self-Understanding," Sr. Vilma M. Seelaus captures the essence
of Carmelite Spirituality, when she observes that"
Carmelite life focuses on the human capacity for union with God. Its Rule, Constitutions, and the writings of its mystics, all serve to facilitate contemplation and to
move the heart toward encounter with Divine Love. The Rule's enjoinder to silence, solitude, continual prayer, community life and worship, forms the ambience of Carmel's
'allegiance to Christ'. Carmelites are followers of Christ. To the extent that a Carmelite nun takes on the mind and heart of Christ, she is a good Carmelite. Christ is the one who draws, each person into mystical encounter with God. Silence and solitude, rather than practices of asceticism, are inner imperatives for the heart's relationship with God. Asceticism in Carmel is not toward self-mastery or self-determination, but toward freedom from attachments for self-transcendence. Carmel's purpose is mystical encounter with God as the ultimate source of fruitfulness for the Church. As God's overwhelming love annihilates the darkness of self-centered concerns, all things,
including structures, are seen anew through Divine Love.
(excerpted from article in The Way Supplement, "Contemporary Carmelite Women,"
(Summer 1997) volume 89, 38-47)
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*"[A] surprising feature of the writings of [St. Teresa and St. John] is that there is less specific guidance on the methods of prayer than on the Christian way of life in general. We are shown a variety of approaches to prayer. . . but our authors firmly decline to formulate any structured methods at all. 'Pray as you can,' advises Teresa, 'for prayer doesn't consist of thinking a great deal, but of loving a great deal' (Interior Castle , IV.i.7), and God can lead to the heights of contemplation one who uses no other words than those of the Lord's Prayer (Way T, xxv.1; xxx.7). The one irrefragable rule is that we must 'Never, for any reason
whatever, neglect to pray'" (E. W. Trueman Dicken, "Teresa of Jesus and John of the Cross," The Study of Spirituality, Oxford University Press, 1986) 366.
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