Ten members of the Institute of Carmelite Studies contribute to this volume honoring their Carmelite brother and colleague, Father Kieran Kavanaugh, OCD on his fifty years as a Catholic priest. The ten essays and their respective authors are as follows: Jesus Christ, Friend and Liberator: The Christology of St. Teresa of Avila by Daniel Chowning, OCDFair is Foul and Foul is Fair: An Interpretation of Chapter Fourteen of Book One of The Dark Night of St. John of the Cross by Marc Foley, OCDJerome Gratian's Constituciones del Cerro: An Example of Teresian Humor by Michael DoddThe Holy Spirit, Mary, and Thérèse of Lisieux by Emmanuel Sullivan, OCDBlind Hope in Divine Mercy, by Charles Niqueux translated by Salvatore Sciurba, OCD"Something Surprising:" Reflections on the Proclamation of St. Thérèse as "Doctor of the Universal Church" by Steven Payne, OCDTwo Concentration Camp Carmelites: St. Edith Stein and Père Jacques Bunel by John Sullivan, OCDLearning How to Meditate: Fifty Years in Carmel by Kevin Culligan, OCDThe Contemporary Influence of the Carmelite Mystical School by Denis Read, OCDAfterword: The Third Millennium: St. John of the Cross and Interreligious Dialogue in Asia by William Johnston, SJThe Bibliography of Kieran Kavanaugh, OCD Compiled by Regis Jordan, OCD Through his translations of the works of Saints Teresa of Avila and John of the Cross and his other writings and ministries, Kieran Kavanaugh has been a a major proponent of the Carmelite heritage in the English-speaking world. In his honor, his brothers offer spiritually enriching essays on Teresa of Avila, John of the Cross, Thérèse of Lisieux, Edith Stein and Père Jacques Bunel. In his afterword, William Johnston, SJ, an internationally recognized authority on mysticism, stresses the importance of Saint John of the Cross for the future of interfaith dialogue in Asia. Readers of this volume of this tenth volume of Carmelite Studies will find nourishment for their souls and a deeper appreciation of the Carmelite tradition.
Eight hundred years ago, Albert of Jerusalem gave the hermit-penitents of Mount Carmel a way of life to follow. Since then, this rule has inspired and formed mystics and scholars, men and women, lay and ordained to seek the living God. In The Carmelite Tradition Steven Payne, OCD, brings together representative voices to demonstrate the richness and depth of Carmelite spirituality. As he writes, Carmelite spirituality seeks nothing more nor less than to 'stand before the face of the living God' and prophesy with Elijah, to 'hear the word of God and keep it' with Mary, to grow in friendship with God through unceasing prayer with Teresa, to 'become by participation what Christ is by nature' as John of the Cross puts it, and thereby to be made, like Thérèse of Lisieux, into instruments of God's transforming merciful love in the church and society." The lives and writings in The Carmelite Tradition invite readers to stand with these holy men and women and seek God in the hermitage of the heart. Steven Payne, OCD, of the Washington Province of Discalced Carmelite Friars, is a member of the Carmelite Friars' formation team at the Monastery of St. John of the Cross near Nairobi, Kenya, and director of the Institute of Spirituality and Religious Formation (ISRF) at Tangaza College, a constituent college of the Catholic University of Eastern Africa (CUEA) in Nairobi. He is the past editor of ICS Publications and of Spiritual Life magazine and the author of several works in philosophy of religion, theology, and Carmelite spirituality. He is a member of the Carmelite Forum and of the Carmelite Institute in Washington DC, of which he is a past president. "
Reading St. John of the Cross’s Dark Night can be daunting; living the dark experience of purification it describes can be much more so. The description of the dark nights (yes, there is more than one!) which St. John presents seems so stark and painful that one might be tempted to just close the book and stop reading. On top of that, both the process St. John describes and the language he uses can be confusing and intimidating. The language of 16th-century scholasticism is not easily understood by 21st-century readers living in a completely different culture and context. Perhaps even more challenging is that fact that our modern lives, filled with the non-stop clutter of social media and technology, as well as comfort and ease, do not prepare most of us well to honestly look into our own depths to see who we are and who we are intended to become as fully alive human beings. Fortunately we now have this helpful book to guide us to that full life which St. John invites us to in The Dark Night. Father Marc Foley here combines his own theological and psychological background, as well as his experience as a spiritual guide, to help modern readers understand the experiences, challenges, and graced events of the purifying nights of sense and spirit. In addition to exploring certain key terms that John uses in Spanish and their meaning in the saint’s time and today, Father Marc includes pertinent selections from a wide range of writers, ancient to modern, that illustrate the themes he covers. Each chapter concludes with insightful questions for personal reflection or group discussion. The book has a comprehensive and fully linked index. WHAT THEY'RE SAYING... The Dark Night: Psychological Experience and Spiritual Reality by Father Marc Foley, OCD, isn’t just an excellent commentary on The Dark Night by St. John of the Cross, it’s a practical spiritual guide for anyone—even if you never intend to read the work upon which it expounds. The book offers some of the best descriptions I’ve read about stages of prayer and progress in the spiritual life, offering straightforward examples that allow the reader to view his or her life in a clearer way. In fact, Foley’s explanations of the imperfections of beginners are so vivid, I felt like the Samaritan woman who said, “Come see a man who told me everything I have done.” Foley made me realize, for example, how much time I’ve spent working on “spiritual projects” when God was calling me to spend more time in prayer or serving my family. I particularly appreciate the book’s use of stories from literature and the author’s personal life. Whether it’s examples from Charles Dickens’ A Christmas Carol, Mark Twain’s The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn or others, Foley’s use of stories makes the book a quick and enjoyable read. I wish this book had been around when I was younger, as it would have helped me avoid many misconceptions about my own spiritual life. Not that I would have understood all aspects of the book, but Foley provides an excellent framework to guide our progress toward union with our Creator. Some of the concepts are immediately useful while others, I suspect, will unfold in my life over time. I especially recommend The Dark Night: Psychological Experience and Spiritual Reality to beginners and those discerning a call to Carmel. While the book is engaging, it is also challenging. Foley writes, “Just as self-knowledge is painful, so too is change. And the change native to the dark night is excruciatingly painful because it involves modifying or eradicating deeply ingrained habits that have taken root within us over a lifetime.” The Dark Night: Psychological Experience and Spiritual Reality is a great aid for the journey, and a book I will read more than once. One last thought: The Dark Night: Psychological Experience and Spiritual Reality is a good companion to Foley’s earlier book, The Ascent of Mount Carmel: Reflections, which explains St. John of the Cross’ work of the same name, using similar techniques and examples. Reading the books back to back would help reinforce some of the concepts, and at just more than 200 pages each, is easily accomplished. —Tim Bete, OCDS, is a member of the Our Mother of Good Counsel Community in Dayton, Ohio, and a published author of three books.
Lectio divina is a way of praying by sustained immersion into a revelatory text. While Scripture is the classic place of encounter with God, the text could also be the book of life or the book of nature. InLectio Matters, respected spiritual guide Meg Funk accompanies the reader in exploring the various levels of lectio divina as taught by the ancient church writers and by sharing her own long experience. By means of this wisdom both ancient and new, lectio divina can become our burning bush, a real encounter with the living God, in which we take off our sandals and bow our brow to the ground.
This book contains Book of Her Foundations and Minor Works. Includes general and biblical index. In 1573, while staying in Salamanca to assist her nuns in the task of establishing one of her seventeen monasteries, Teresa began composing the story of their foundation. The Book of Her Foundations comprises the major portion of Volume Three. This book not only tells the story of the establishment of her monasteries but, characteristic of Teresa, digresses into counsels on prayer, love, melancholy, virtuous living and dying, plus other teachings of the Mother Foundress. This book also has an excellent introduction, chronology, and map of Teresa's foundations and journeys. Five of her brief works, including her poetry, complete ICS Publications' third volume of her Collected Works. Includes general and biblical index.
St. Thérèse of Lisieux (1873–1897) spent the final months of her short life in the infirmary of the Carmel of Lisieux, France. Those who attended her—including three of her older sisters by birth—were living in the company of one of God's saints, one prepared for our times. This volume, St. Thérèse of Lisieux: Her Last Conversations, serves as a sequel to St. Thérèse's autobiography, Story of a Soul. It contains the intimate words of her final conversations with her three sisters during the last months of her life, especially those three critical months in the Carmel infirmary from July to September 1897. Fortunately for us, her words were written down without the awareness that eventually a great multitude of friends of St. Thérèse would hunger for her spiritual teaching. 150 years after this great saint and Doctor of the Church was born into the world, the publication of this revised edition enables us to live in her company and enjoy her holy conversations and counsels. When we read her words with faith, her presence is at our side. She speaks to us directly, sharing her human experience: her joys, her sufferings, her love for God, and especially her trust in him amid her painful ordeal. This revised edition of St. Thérèse of Lisieux: Her Last Conversations reflects the extensive 1992 French critical edition of Derniers Entretiens in two volumes. That very complete and scholarly production has been edited here into its essential elements: + The entire text of St. Thérèse's words collected by the three main witnesses, Mother Agnes (Pauline), Sister Geneviève (Céline), and Sister Marie of the Sacred Heart (Marie); + The testimony of other witnesses when this does not repeat that of the three main witnesses; + Additional words of St. Thérèse as quoted in letters written during her last three months; + Comprehensive indexes of key names, topics, and biblical references.
Edited by Mary Freiburger. Sequel to My Only Friend is Darkness, this new offering of Barbara Dent's writings brings together articles already published elsewhere and forty-one previously unpublished poems. The New Zealand author's intensely personal, experiential style gives "flesh and bones" to the notion of the "dark night of the soul" in this new book. Barbara Dent goes beyond merely generic expositions of that key concept of Carmelite spirituality to craft her own vivid witness, one that speaks always in tones of our times. This she does as a mother, writer, poustinik, and Carmelite secular order member. As she identifies the major events of her adult life in biographical pieces, both by prose and in poetry, she reveals how adept a guide she is to managing the darkness of physical suffering and spiritual progress. The reader will appreciate all the attention she pays, in line with modern renewal movements, to the resurrection as an integral part of spiritual development.
First published in 1966, this book chronicles a full eight centuries of the Carmelite tradition, from the order’s beginnings as a group of lay hermits on Mount Carmel through St. Teresa of Avila’s Discalced Carmelite Reform in the 16th century, to Carmel’s rich diversity today. Since the appearance of this work, important new discoveries in the study of Carmelite history have come to the fore. New scholarly research, for example, would call for a revision of some sections of this book, notably the account of the origins of the Carmelites and related dates and figures, as well a more nuanced picture of the beginnings of the Teresian Reform. In the meantime, Journey to Carith remains unsurpassed as a concise and readable overview both of the origins of the order and of the Discalced Carmelites in particular. It is a fascinating account of one of the oldest religious families in the Christian West, with a uniquely important spiritual tradition.
