Mount Carmel is a biblical place where the prophet Elijah dwelt. \u00a0It rises 1,742 feet above sea level and towers above Israel\u2019s Mediterranean coastline. \u00a0It was here where Elijah prayed to God for the salvation of Israel, which was suffering a terrible drought at the time. \u00a0He continued to pray and sent his servant up the mountain several times to look for rain. \u00a0On the seventh try, Elijah\u2019s servant returned with good news.\u00a0 \u201cBehold a little cloud arose out of the sea like a man\u2019s foot\u201d (1 Kings 1:44). \u00a0Soon thereafter, torrential rains fell upon the parched land and the people of Israel were saved.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n
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Elijah saw the cloud as a symbol of the Virgin mentioned in the \nprophecies of Isaiah (Isaiah 7:14). The hermits who lived on Mount \nCarmel followed Elijah\u2019s example and prayed for the advent of the \nmuch-awaited Virgin, who would become the mother of the Messiah. The \norigins of the Carmelite Order can be traced back to Elijah and his \nhermited disciples.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
ST. SIMON STOCK<\/strong><\/h3>\n\n\n
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In the 13th century, during the Crusades, St. Simon Stock joined a \ngroup of hermits on Mount Carmel during a pilgrimage to the Holy Land. \n In 1247, he was elected the 6th superior-general of the Carmelites at \nthe first chapter held in Aylesford, England. However, the order had \ndifficulty gaining general acceptance and suffered much persecution and \noppression from secular clergy and other orders which prompted the monks\n to have recourse to the Blessed Virgin in the year 1251. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
On Sunday July 16th, 1251, as Simon Stock knelt in prayer, Our Lady \nappeared to him, holding the Child Jesus in one arm and the Brown \nScapular in the other. She uttered the following words: \u201cHoc erit tibi et cunctis Carmelitis privilegium, in hoc habitu moriens salvabitur\u201d <\/em>(This\n shall be the privilege for you and for all the Carmelites, that anyone \ndying in this habit shall be saved). On January 13, 1252, the order \nreceived a letter of protection from Pope Innocent IV, defending them \nfrom harassment. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
St. Simon Stock lived a holy life for 100 years and died in the Carmelite monastery at Bordeaux, France on May 16, 1265.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
ST. JOHN OF THE CROSS<\/h3>\n\n\n\n
St. John of the Cross, Spanish San Juan de la Cruz, original\nname Juan de Yepes y \u00c1lvarez, (born June 24, 1542, Fontiveros, Spain\u2014died\nDecember 14, 1591, Ubeda; canonized 1726; feast day December 14), one of the\ngreatest Christian mystics and Spanish poets, doctor of the church, reformer of\nSpanish monasticism, and cofounder of the contemplative order of Discalced\nCarmelites.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
John became a Carmelite monk at Medina del Campo, Spain, in\n1563 and was ordained priest in 1567. St. Teresa of \u00c1vila, the celebrated\nmystic, enlisted his help (1568) in her restoration of Carmelite life to its\noriginal observance of austerity. A year later, at Duruelo, he opened the first\nDiscalced Carmelite monastery. Reform, however, caused friction within the\norder and led to his imprisonment, first in 1576 and again in 1577 at Toledo,\nwhere he wrote some of his finest poetry. Escaping in August 1578, he later won\nhigh office in the order, becoming vicar provincial of Andalusia from 1585 to\n1587. Near the end of his life, the Discalced Carmelites were again troubled by\ndissension, and he withdrew to absolute solitude.<\/p>\n\n\n
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John schematized the steps of mystical ascent\u2014a self-communion\nthat in quietude leads the individual from the inharmonious distractions of the\nworld to the sublime peace of reunion between the soul and God. John\u2019s\nschematization combines a poetic sensitivity for the nuances of mystical\nexperience with a theological and philosophical precision guided by his study\nof St. Thomas Aquinas. By virtue of his intense poems\u2014\u201cC\u00e1ntico espiritual\u201d\n(\u201cThe Spiritual Canticle\u201d), \u201cNoche oscura del alma\u201d (\u201cThe Dark Night of the\nSoul\u201d), and \u201cLlama de amor viva\u201d (\u201cThe Living Flame of Love\u201d)\u2014he achieves\npreeminence in Spanish mystical literature, expressing the experience of the\nmystical union between the soul and Christ.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
In \u201cNoche oscura,\u201d perhaps his best-known work, he describes\nthe process by which the soul sheds its attachment to everything and eventually\npasses through a personal experience of Christ\u2019s Crucifixion to his glory. The\nlyric consists of eight stanzas \u201cin which the soul sings of the fortunate\nadventure that it had in passing through the dark night of faith\u2026to union with\nthe Beloved.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Though John reaches peaks of lyricism, he also presents the reader with considerable difficulties because his approach is rigorously intellectual. The same word may recur twice within four lines of a poem with a different symbolism on each occasion.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
ST. TERESA OF AVILA<\/h3>\n\n\n
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St. Teresa of \u00c1vila, also called Saint Teresa of Jesus,\noriginal name Teresa de Cepeda y Ahumada, (born March 28, 1515, \u00c1vila,\nSpain\u2014died October 4, 1582, Alba de Tormes; canonized 1622; feast day October\n15), Spanish nun, one of the great mystics and religious women of the Roman\nCatholic Church, and author of spiritual classics. She was the originator of\nthe Carmelite Reform, which restored and emphasized the austerity and\ncontemplative character of primitive Carmelite life. St. Teresa was elevated to\ndoctor of the church in 1970 by Pope Paul VI, the first woman to be so\nhonoured.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Her mother died in 1529, and, despite her father\u2019s opposition, Teresa\n entered, probably in 1535, the Carmelite Convent of the Incarnation at \n\u00c1vila. Within two years her health collapsed, and she was an invalid for\n three years, during which time she developed a love for mental prayer. \nAfter her recovery, however, she stopped praying. She continued for 15 \nyears in a state divided between a worldly and a divine spirit, until, \nin 1555, she underwent a religious awakening.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
In 1558 Teresa began to consider the restoration of Carmelite life \nto its original observance of austerity, which had relaxed in the 14th \nand 15th centuries. Her reform required utter withdrawal so that the \nnuns could meditate on divine law and, through a prayerful life of \npenance, exercise what she termed \u201cour vocation of reparation\u201d for the \nsins of humankind. In 1562, with Pope Pius IV\u2019s authorization, she \nopened the first convent (St. Joseph\u2019s) of the Carmelite Reform. A \nstorm of hostility came from municipal and religious personages, \nespecially because the convent existed without endowment, but she \nstaunchly insisted on poverty and subsistence only through public alms.\n <\/p>\n\n\n\n
John Baptist Rossi, the Carmelite prior general from Rome,\nwent to \u00c1vila in 1567 and approved the reform, directing Teresa to found more\nconvents and to establish monasteries. In the same year, while at Medina del\nCampo, Spain, she met a young Carmelite priest, Juan de Yepes (later St. John\nof the Cross, the poet and mystic), who she realized could initiate the\nCarmelite Reform for men. A year later Juan opened the first monastery of the\nPrimitive Rule at Duruelo, Spain.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Despite frail health and great difficulties, Teresa spent\nthe rest of her life establishing and nurturing 16 more convents throughout\nSpain. In 1575, while she was at the Sevilla (Seville) convent, a\njurisdictional dispute erupted between the friars of the restored Primitive\nRule, known as the Discalced (or \u201cUnshod\u201d) Carmelites, and the observants of\nthe Mitigated Rule, the Calced (or \u201cShod\u201d) Carmelites. Although she had\nforeseen the trouble and endeavoured to prevent it, her attempts failed. The\nCarmelite general, to whom she had been misrepresented, ordered her to retire\nto a convent in Castile and to cease founding additional convents; Juan was\nsubsequently imprisoned at Toledo in 1577.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
In 1579, largely through the efforts of King Philip II of\nSpain, who knew and admired Teresa, a solution was effected whereby the\nCarmelites of the Primitive Rule were given independent jurisdiction, confirmed\nin 1580 by a rescript of Pope Gregory XIII. Teresa, broken in health, was then\ndirected to resume the reform. In journeys that covered hundreds of miles, she\nmade exhausting missions and was fatally stricken en route to \u00c1vila from\nBurgos.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Teresa\u2019s ascetic doctrine has been accepted as the classical exposition of the contemplative life, and her spiritual writings are among the most widely read. Her Life of the Mother Teresa of Jesus (1611) is autobiographical; the Book of the Foundations (1610) describes the establishment of her convents. Her writings on the progress of the Christian soul toward God are recognized masterpieces: The Way of Perfection (1583), The Interior Castle (1588), Spiritual Relations, Exclamations of the Soul to God (1588), and Conceptions on the Love of God. Of her poems, 31 are extant; of her letters, 458.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
ST. THERESE OF THE CHILD JESUS<\/h3>\n\n\n\n
St. Th\u00e9r\u00e8se of Lisieux<\/strong>, also called St. Teresa of the Child Jesus<\/strong> or the Little Flower<\/strong>, original name Marie-Fran\u00e7oise-Th\u00e9r\u00e8se Martin<\/strong>,\n (born January 2, 1873, Alen\u00e7on, France\u2014died September 30, 1897, \nLisieux; canonized May 17, 1925; feast day October 1), Carmelite nun \nwhose service to her Roman Catholic order, although outwardly \nunremarkable, was later recognized for its exemplary<\/a> spiritual accomplishments. She was named a doctor of the church by Pope John Paul II<\/a> in 1997.<\/p>\n\n\n
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