Discalced Carmelites
Catholic religious order
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The third order, which is affiliated to the Discalced Carmelites, is the Secular Order of Discalced Carmelites.
The Discalced Carmelites are friars and nuns who dedicate themselves to a life of prayer. The Carmelite nuns live in cloistered (enclosed) monasteries and follow a completely contemplative life. The Carmelite friars, while following a contemplative life, also engage in the promotion of spirituality through their retreat centres, parishes, and churches. Lay people, known as the Secular Order, follow their contemplative call in their everyday activities. Devotion to the Virgin Mary is a characteristic of Carmelites and is symbolised by wearing the brown scapular.
Background
The Carmelite Order, from which the Discalced Carmelites branched off, is also referred to as the Carmelites of the Ancient Observance to distinguish them from their discalced offshoot. It was established in the 13th century in the Holy Land during the Crusades.
All Carmelites, including the Discalced, trace their roots and their name to Mount Carmel in the Holy Land. There, in the 13th century, a band of European men gathered together to live a simple life of prayer. Their first chapel was dedicated to the Blessed Virgin Mary and they called themselves the Brothers of the Blessed Virgin Mary of Mount Carmel.
The Muhraka monastery on the summit of Mount Carmel near Haifa in Israel is a historic Carmelite monastery. The monastery was erected on the place where St. Elijah the Prophet is said to have lived and vanquished the prophets of Baal.
The first Carmelites were pilgrims to Mount Carmel who settled there in solitude. These early hermits were mostly laity who lived a life of poverty, penance, and prayer. Between 1206 and 1214, St. Albert Avogadro, the Patriarch of Jerusalem, brought the hermits on Mount Carmel together into community. At their request he wrote them a rule that expressed their intention and reflected the spirit of the pilgrimage to the Holy Land and of the early community of Jerusalem. They were also inspired by St. Elijah. The words of Elijah, "with zeal have I been zealous for the Lord God of hosts" (1 Kings, 19:10) form the motto on the Carmelite coat of arms, which also depicts his arm bearing a flaming sword in reference to his defeat of the false prophets of Baal. Around 1238, within 50 years of receiving their rule, the Saracens forced the Carmelite hermits to leave Mount Carmel, and they migrated to Europe.
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Foundation of the Discalced Carmelites
A combination of political and social conditions that prevailed in Europe in the fourteenth to sixteenth centuries, including the Hundred Years' War, Black Plague, Protestant Reformation, and Humanist Revival, adversely affected the Order. Many Carmelites, including whole communities, succumbed to contemporary attitudes and conditions that were diametrically opposed to their original vocation. To accommodate this situation their rule of life was "mitigated" several times. Consequently, the Carmelites less and less resembled the first hermits of Mount Carmel.
St. Teresa of Jesus (of Avila) considered contemplative prayer to be the surest means to restore the authentic mission of the Carmelite Order. She wrote that God communicated to her the command to establish a new reformed monastery. A group of nuns assembled in her cell one September evening in 1560, taking their inspiration from the primitive tradition of Carmel and the discalced reform of St. Peter of Alcantara, a controversial movement within Spanish Franciscanism, proposed to found a monastery of an eremitical kind.
With few resources and often bitter opposition, Teresa succeeded in 1562 in establishing a small monastery with the austerity of desert solitude within the heart of the city of Ávila, Spain, combining eremitical and community life. On 24 August 1562, the new Convent of St. Joseph was founded. Teresa's rule, which retained a distinctively Marian character, contained exacting prescriptions for a life of continual prayer, safeguarded by strict enclosure and sustained by the asceticism of solitude, manual labor, perpetual abstinence, fasting, and fraternal charity. In addition to this, Teresa envisioned an order fully dedicated to poverty.
Working in close collaboration with Teresa was John of the Cross, who with Anthony of Jesus founded the first convent of Discalced Carmelite friars in Duruelo, Spain on 28 November 1568.
The Discalced Carmelites were established as a separate province of the Carmelite Order by the decree Pia consideratione of Pope Gregory XIII on 22 June 1580. By this decree the Discalced Carmelites were still subject to the Prior General of the Carmelite Order in Rome, but were otherwise distinct from the Carmelites in that they could elect their own superiors and author their own constitutions for their common life. The following Discalced Carmelite Chapter at Alcala de Henares, Spain in March 1581 established the constitutions of the Discalced Carmelites and elected the first provincial of the Discalced Carmelites, Jerome Gratian. This office was later translated into that of Superior General of the Discalced Carmelites.
Carmelite charism
The heart of the Carmelite charism is prayer and contemplation. The quality of prayer determines the quality of the community life and the quality of the service which is offered to others. Prayer and contemplation for the Carmelite are not private matters between the individual and God but are to be shared with others since the charism is given for the whole world. Therefore, there is an emphasis in the order on the ministry of teaching prayer and giving spiritual direction.
For a Carmelite, prayer is guided by the teachings and experience of Teresa of Jesus (of Ávila) and John of the Cross, as well as the saints who have followed in their steps, such as Thérèse of the Child Jesus and of the Holy Face, Elizabeth of the Trinity, Teresa of Jesus of the Andes, and martyrs such as Teresa Benedicta of the Cross, and the sixteen Martyrs of Compiegne. Other lights include Br. Lawrence of the Resurrection and Père Jacques de Jesus. Fraternity, service, and contemplation are essential Carmelite principles.
When the Carmelites were forced to leave Mount Carmel, they changed their practice from being hermits to friars. The major difference is that friars are called to serve the People of God in some active apostolate. Some congregations were founded for a specific work, but the Carmelite Order tries to respond to what it sees as the needs of the Church and the world – which differ according to time and place. Many friars work in such institutions as parishes, schools, universities, retreat centres, prisons, and hospitals. Each individual friar will serve in roles depending on the perceived spiritual needs of the people with whom he lives and his particular talents.
Each day is marked by silent, mental prayer. In addition to the daily celebration of the full Liturgy of the Hours, two hours (one in the morning and one in the evening) are dedicated to mental prayer. Communities ordinarily have a maximum of 21 members. The friars practice a broad-based discipline of study.
Bishops
Living bishops (4 archbishops, 18 bishops)
Deceased Bishops (7 cardinals, 14 archbishops, 52 bishops)
Communities of Discalced Carmelite tradition
- Byzantine Discalced Carmelites
- Carmelites of Mary Immaculate
- Monks of the Most Blessed Virgin Mary of Mount Carmel
- Secular Order of Discalced Carmelites
- Sisters of the Apostolic Carmel
- Episcopal Carmel of Saint Teresa