Feast of St. Teresa of Avila

Thursday, October 20, 2011

Feast of St. Teresa of Avila

Happy Feastday
St. Teresa of Avila
Doctor of Prayer

Some Reflections...

A Way of Being

Contemplation begins with desire – not our desire for God, but his desire for us. The first and greatest commandment may be to love God with every fibre of our being, but there is something still more fundamental: the realisation that we are loved first. Every contemplative makes this discovery, and in fact bases his/her life on it: that our God is a pursuing God. The whole Carmelite tradition is clear: our desire for God is first awakened by his desire for us. This is the message of our great saints and mystics. The Dark Night and The Spiritual Canticle of John of the Cross, Teresa of Avila’s Interior Castle – together with every other spiritual classic – celebrate this divine pursuit: the Lover and the beloved seeking each other in the light and the darkness of love’s turbulent ways.The hungers of the heart and the longings of the spirit are the result of God first desiring us and coming to us in love. This is what Iain Matthew, one of our most popular Carmelite writers, calls ‘the impact of God’: a God who is not a bystander waiting for us to find him but a restless God seeking to make space for himself in our lives. The challenge, of course, for all of us, is to let ourselves be loved, as the young French Carmelite, Elizabeth of the Trinity has said, and allow the reality of this love to change our hearts. It often comes as a surprise that Carmelite writers speak so little about ways and methods of prayer. Instead, they go straight to the heart of what prayer is all about: exposure to this selfsurrendering God. Their concern does not consist in the knowledge that we are saved, but in the assurance that we are loved. For them, the focus is clear and what they seek most of all is to awaken the heart to the presence within. ‘No matter how much you think you are searching for God’, John of the Cross reminds us, ‘he is searching for you much more.’ (By: Eugene McCaffrey, OCD)

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CM CORNER: WHO ARE WE?

"OUR LIFESTYLE IS CENTERED ON PRAYER, FRATERNAL COMMUNION AND MISSION."

Carmelite Missionaries
Francisco Palau Province
1956 - Foundation in the Philippines
1860 - Founded in Spain

FOUNDER: Blessed Francisco Palau y Quer, OCD

General House - Rome
Mother House - Barcelona, Spain
Provincial House - Q.C. Manila
First foundation - La Paz, Iloilo City

Number of sisters: as of May 2020

CM sisters in the world - 1,317

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Europe: Spain, Italy, Romania, Poland, France, Portugal.

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Africa: Ivory Coast, Kenya, Nigeria, Malawi, Tanzania, Cameroon, Guinea Equatorial, Congo.

Oceania: Australia.

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We welcome you to this site of the Carmelite Missionaries Center of Spirituality, Tagaytay City, Philippines.

Three days before the feast of Our Lady of Mt. Carmel this CMCS blog was born, July 13, 2008.

Nestled in a quiet and cool air of Tagaytay City, the Carmelite Missionaries Center of Spirituality (CMCS)is both a retreat and a conference center for Spirituality located at Iruhin West, Tagaytay City. CMCS Center offers a place of encounter with God and a sense of renewal. It is surrounded by a serene environment of natural beauty where one may seek clarity of spirit and renewal without distraction, be it for a planned program to nourish his or her spiritual growth, or for a time spent alone in quiet, prayerful atmosphere in order to listen more deeply to what what the Lord is saying.

St. Teresa of Avila

St. Teresa of Avila - October 15-Saint Teresa of Ávila, also called Saint Teresa of Jesus, baptized as Teresa Sánchez de Cepeda y Ahumada (28 March 1515 – 4 October 1582), was a prominent Spanish mystic, Roman Catholic saint, Carmelite nun and author during the Counter Reformation, and theologian of contemplative life through mental prayer.Feastday: October 15 Patron of Headache sufferers, Spanish Catholic Writers Birth: March 28, 1515 Death: October 4, 1582 Beatified By: April 24th 1614, Rome by Pope Paul V Canonized By: March 12th 1622, Rome by Pope Gregory XV

St. John of the Cross

Feast: December 14 -John of the Cross (Spanish: San Juan de la Cruz; 1542[1] – 14 December 1591) was a major figure of the Counter-Reformation, a Spanish mystic, a Roman Catholic saint, a Carmelite friar and a priest, who was born at Fontiveros, Old Castile. John of the Cross is known for his writings. Both his poetry and his studies on the growth of the soul are considered the summit of mystical Spanish literature and one of the peaks of all Spanish literature. He was canonized as a saint in 1726 by Pope Benedict XIII. He is one of the thirty-six Doctors of the Church. Saint John of the Cross was born Juan de Yepes y Alvarez, in Fontiveros, Avila, Spain in 1542. His father was employed by wealthy family members as an accountant, but they disowned him when he married a poor woman from the lower class. As a result of his family's poverty, John's family suffered greatly.Feastday: December 14 Patron of Contemplatives, mystics and Spanish poets Birth: 1542 Death: December 14, 1591 Beatified By: January 25, 1675 by Pope Clement X Canonized By: December 27, 1726 by Pope Benedict XIII

Teresa de los Andes

St. Teresa de los Andes (Chile), July 13-Saint Teresa of Jesus (13 July 1900 – 12 April 1920) - born as Juana Fernández Solar - (Spanish: Teresa de Jesús de Los Andes) was a Chilean professed religious from the Discalced Carmelites.[1] Fernández Solar was a pious child but had an often unpredictable temperament for she could be prone to anger and being vain but could also demonstrate her charitable and loving nature; she seemed transformed when she decided to become a nun and her character seemed to change for her sole ambition was to dedicate herself to the service of God.[2] But her time in the convent was cut short due to her contracting an aggressive disease that killed her - she knew she would die but was consoled knowing she would be able to make her profession before she died.Her canonization process opened on 23 April 1976 under Pope Paul VI and she became titled as a Servant of God. The confirmation of her life of heroic virtue on 22 March 1986 allowed for her to be titled as Venerable. Solar was beatified on 3 April 1987 in Chile after a miracle attributed to her from her native land cleared her for beatification while another miracle coming from Chile saw Pope John Paul II canonize her as a saint on 21 March 1993 in Saint Peter's Square.Feastday: July 13 Patron of young people Birth: 1900 Death: 1920 Beatified By: Pope John Paul II Canonized By: Pope John Paul II

Edith Stein

St. Benedicta of the Cross (Edith Stein), August 9Saint Teresa Benedicta of the Cross (Edith Stein)Virgin and Martyr Edith Stein, born in 1891 in Breslau, Poland, was the youngest child of a large Jewish family. She was an outstanding student and was well versed in philosophy with a particular interest in phenomenology. Eventually she became interested in the Catholic Faith, and in 1922, she was baptized at the Cathedral Church in Cologne, Germany. Eleven years later Edith entered the Cologne Carmel. Because of the ramifications of politics in Germany, Edith, whose name in religion was Teresa Benedicta of the Cross, was sent to the Carmel at Echt, Holland. When the Nazis conquered Holland, Teresa was arrested, and, with her sister Rose, was sent to the concentration camp at Auschwitz. Teresa died in the gas chambers of Auschwitz in 1942 at the age of fifty-one. In 1987, she was beatified in the large outdoor soccer stadium in Cologne by Pope John Paul II. Out of the unspeakable human suffering caused by the Nazis in western Europe in the 1930's and 1940's, there blossomed the beautiful life of dedication, consecration, prayer, fasting, and penance of Saint Teresa. Even though her life was snuffed out by the satanic evil of genocide, her memory stands as a light undimmed in the midst of evil, darkness, and suffering. She was canonized on October 11, 1998.-

JUANA GRATIAS - FIRST CARMELITE MISSIONARY

Dear Sister Juana, A world so widely interconnected places within our reach the opportunity to know and share the diversity of cultures and religions. This requires me to strengthen my personal and vocational identity by deepening on the understanding of our congregational charism, which one day I accepted as a Carmelite Missionary; a charism that is a legacy of our Founder, Fr. Francisco Palau y Quer. Immersing myself into the roots of our congregational history has led me to recognize you as a key in the transmission of the palautian charism. The first link in this chain of the Carmelite Missionary family continues to this day. Behind a fragile and petite appearance you hid a firmness and energy capable of displaying an unwavering determination in a timely manner, and that at your 21 years of age, you were desirous of reorganizing your life in a radical following of Christ. You were led to leave Gramat. The French people who saw you grow and you were enriched with the serenity of their fields and a balance of a Christian family environment. Your vocational journey soon crossed with the strong and sober personality of Fr. Palau, then exiled in France, as he passed by the diocese of Montauban. His austere spirituality fully impacted you, and since then, you accepted his directives that would set forward your vocational path, forging your spirit in freedom, prudence, generosity, spirit of sacrifice and trust in divine providence. You knew how to perfectly respond to the trust placed in you by Father Palau. You were undoubtedly his most faithful collaborator and confidant in the foundational venture. And, as in all human relationships, your connection with Father Palau knew their hours of crisis; the bond that was tied then did not break ever. You showed it through a tested, permanent and unbeatable fidelity

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Thursday, October 20, 2011

Feast of St. Teresa of Avila

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