Carmelite

“ You bare-footed Carmelites do well to mortify the flesh in youth, by which you escape the pains of a decreasing power. One like you can have few wrongs of his younger days to repair?"
"We are none of us without sin," returned the monk, crossing himself. "He who would flatter his soul with being perfect lays the additional weight of vanity on his life."
"Men of my occupation, holy Carmelite, have few opportunities of looking into themselves, and I bless the hour that hath brought me into company so godly. ”

“ But after that, he could recall nothing more until the time he woke up and found Carmelite shaking him and calling him names, and talking so loud that Pinkey and Soongy came out and pitched into him, before he could get his right presence of mind and keep them from over-coming him, the same as if he was chillun.
Why they carried him out-doors and dumped him in the street, he couldn’t understand to save his soul. Carmelite must have some grudge against him, and was mad because he came to the raffle. ”

“ I have seen a great deal of these monks lately, and it is only they who preserve some of the old spirit of the old ideal. To enter the Carmelite Chapel in Kensington is to step out of the mean atmosphere of to-day into the lofty charm of the Middle Ages. The long straight folds of habits falling over sandalled feet, the great rosaries hanging down from the girdles, the smell of burning wax, the large tonsures, the music of the choir ”

“ Suddenly there arose from the depths of the chapel, from behind the inexorable grating, a sound that drew his attention from the altar—the sound of a strange, lugubrious chant uttered by women's voices. It began softly, but it presently grew louder, and as it increased it became more of a wail and a dirge. It was the chant of the Carmelite nuns, their only human utterance. It was their dirge over their buried affections and over the vanity of earthly desires. ”

“ I will take my oath that we shall find a good Carmelite there, who will give the Spanish gentleman Christian burial in a grave somewhere on the gardener's premises."
"You are too much of a Huguenot, Adamas," said Monsieur d'Ars. "The Carmelites are not such dissolute fellows as you imply."
"I say no evil of them, messire; I am speaking of a single one, whom I know, and who has nothing of the monk except the frock and the paternosters. It is Jean le Clope, who followed monsieur le marquis to the war, and for whom monsieur le marquis procured admission to the convent as a disabled veteran." ”

“ The Discalced Carmelites spread rapidly all over Catholic Europe, and then to Spanish America and the East, especially India and Persia, in which lands they have carried on to this day extensive missionary undertakings. Both observances suffered severely from the various revolutions, but they both still exist, the Discalced being by far the most numerous and thriving. There are in all some 2000 Carmelite friars, and the nuns are much more numerous. In England and Ireland there are houses, both of men and of women, belonging to each observance. ”

“ The historical origin of the Carmelites must be placed at the middle of the 12th century, when a crusader from Calabria, named Berthold, and ten companions established themselves as hermits near the cave of Elias on Mount Carmel. A Greek monk, Phocas, who visited the Holy Land in 1185, gives an account of them, and says that the ruins of an ancient building existed on Mount Carmel; but though it is likely enough that there had previously been Christian monks and hermits on the spot, it is impossible to place the beginning of the Carmelite institute before Berthold. ”

“ It remained in the family until the beginning of the eighteenth century, when it came into the hands of a learned Carmelite, Fray Alonso de la Madre de Dios, who presented it to the Alba monastery on April 15, 1705. ”

“ The Oratorians and the Jesuits, naturally enemies and adversaries, joined together at first in a common cause to remove the Carmelite friars from the direction of these nuns; but no sooner had they succeeded, than they began to dispute with each other.
The austere order of the Carmelites, which spread but little in France, obtained its importance as the beau idéal of penitence, a sort of religious poetry. The enthusiastic spirit of Saint Theresa still animated them. There it was that the most violent converts came to seek refuge ”

“ During the 15th and 16th centuries various attempts at reform arose, as among other orders, and resulted in the formation of semi-independent congregations owing a titular obedience to the general of the order. The Carmelite friars seem to have flourished especially in England, where at the dissolution of the monasteries there were some 40 friaries. (See F.A. Gasquet, English Monastic Life, table and maps; Catholic Dictionary, art. “Carmelites.”) There were no Carmelite nunneries in England, and indeed until the middle of the 15th century there were no nuns at all anywhere in the order. ”

“ The Contemplatives are contributing it every day, and all day long. Each, in her case, behind her grille, is forever giving something immeasurable, except by God, to the transcendent quality of the Catholic Church. This may be, and mostly is, unsuspected by almost all her fellow-creatures; but not unfelt by quite all. A Carmelite's convent is mostly in a great city; countless human beings pass its walls. They cannot help, seeing them, saying to their own hearts, 'In there, human creatures, like me, are living unlike me. ”

“ The most useful of all was the Carmelite scapular, impenetrable by bullets, impervious to daggers, rendering falls harmless, stilling stormy seas, quenching fires, healing the possessed, the sick, the wounded, etc.―The Benedictines had no scapulars, but they had Benedict-medals, from which they drew a rich revenue. ”

“ It is on our free English ground, in one of our simplest and prettiest English villages, that the austerities of a Carmelite convent are now most resolutely practised, and the seclusion of a Carmelite convent most vigilantly preserved, by the nuns of Mawgan! They are at present twenty in number: two of them are Frenchwomen, the rest are all English. They are of every age, from the very young to the very old. The eldest of the sisterhood has long passed the ordinary [Pg 222] limits of human life—she has attained ninety-five years. ”

“ When news is brought to the superioress of the death of a parent or relation of any one of the sisters, the bereaved one is not told of her loss, but it is announced that "one among us has lost a member of her family;" and Masses are offered for the departed without any further mention of him or her. Again, there is a Carmelite convent in Rome, I forget where, in which a miraculous crucifix has been preserved for about fifty years—a strange image, which seems instinct with life and expression, seems to speak to and look at you, fascinates the gaze, and stirs the least impressionable heart. ”

“ Oh, dear Mother, how beautiful is our vocation! We Carmelites are called to preserve "the salt of the earth." We offer our prayers and sacrifices for the apostles of the Lord; we ourselves ought to be their apostles, while they, by word and example, are preaching the Gospel to our brethren. Have we not a glorious mission to fulfill? ”

“ The materials for a modern editor are to be found, not in the documents left by P. Andrés, but in such Carmelite archives as still exist, and in the National Library of Spain, to which many Carmelite treasures found their way at the beginning of the last century.
The work sent by P. Andrés to his superiors was kept in the archives of the Discalced Carmelites, but no new edition was prepared till a hundred and fifty years later. In the nineteenth century such a task was made considerably more difficult by religious persecution ”

“ Carmel. The Basilians in reply alleged that the costume of the portrait was no innovation of theirs, and they were not responsible for it at all. The work, they said, was a faithful copy of an ancient painting that had hung for six hundred years, unquestioned and uncomplained of, in their former monastery, and that they could not give up the ancient traditions and relics of their institution; and they were especially unwilling to consent that the prophet Elijah should be represented in their church in a Carmelite dress, since that would prejudice the ancient claims of the Basilian order. ”

“ NECTON or NECHODUN, HUMPHREY (d. 1303) , Carmelite, was a native of Norfolk according to Leland, of Suffolk according to Bale. He joined the Carmelite order while it was new in England. Devoting himself to study, he went to Cambridge in 1259, and was the first Carmelite who took the degree of doctor of theology there. ”

“ A Carmelite nun already in 1536, she devoted the rest of her laborious life to founding convents and thoroughly reforming her Order and to the composition of her devotional and mystical works (El Camino de la perfección—El castillo interior, etc.) . She is one of the greatest of the Spanish mystics, and is in every way an attractive figure. Cf. Biblioteca de autores españoles, vols. ”

“ Those who die wearing the Carmelite scapular have papal assurance, resting on a revelation granted to John xxii., that they will be delivered on the next Saturday after their death by the Virgin Mary from Purgatory and conveyed straight to heaven. ”

“ Men who ardently wish the same result, require few words to understand each other. The Carmelite took, intuitively, the meaning of his companion, and throwing back his cowl, a movement that exposed the countenance of Father Anselmo, he prepared to listen to the confession of the old man.
"Thou art a Christian, and one of thy years hath not to learn the state of mind that becometh a penitent," said the monk, when each was ready. ”

“ Benedict’s well-intentioned effort at reformation was fruitless, and after his death matters only became worse, if possible. Under Clement VI. vices of all kinds flourished more luxuriantly than ever. In 1351 a Carmelite, preaching before the pope and cardinals, inveighed against their turpitude in terms which terrified every one, and caused his immediate dismissal. Shortly afterwards a letter was affixed to the portals of the churches addressed to the pope and his cardinals. ”

“ That is the man, that is Brother Richard. Now, as I was busy tending the wounded, in the skirmish three days agone, this Carmelite was about the same duty for those of his party. He put into my hand a slip of paper, wherein Brother Richard commended him to any Scot or Frenchman of the King’s party, as an honest man, and a friend of the King’s. When I had read this, the Carmelite spoke with me in Latin, and in a low voice. His matter was this: In Paris, he said, there is a strong party of Armagnacs, who have, as we all know, a long score to settle with them of Burgundy. ”

“ The Carmelites, or White Friars, pretended to be of great antiquity, and were originally established at Mount Carmel, from whence they were driven by the Saracens about the year 1238. They were brought into England in 1244, and settled first at Alnwick in Northumberland, and at Ailesford in Kent.
About the date (or a little before) of our poem, the Carmelites appear to have been very active in asserting in a boasting manner the superiority of their order over the others. ”

“ Many persons of note have dwelt in this old street. No. 25 (arrondissement V) is an ancient Carmelite convent, built, tradition says, on the site of a pagan temple: an oratory-chapel dedicated to St. Michael covered part of the site in early Christian days and a public cemetery. An ancient crypt still exists. It was in the convent here that Louise de la Vallière came to work till her death, in 1710. That first convent and church were razed in 1797. The Carmelites built a smaller one on the ancient grounds in 1802, and rebuilt their chapel in 1899. ”

“ Many strange legends had gone to weave round the Convent of the Carmelites—so long the centre of fashionable Catholicism—an atmosphere of romantic mystery.
Tradition taught that the order had been founded on the summit of Mount Carmel by Elias himself. Its earliest members were the mysterious Essenes, but they were converted to Christianity by Saint Peter’s Pentecostal sermon, and built on the mountain a chapel to the Blessed Virgin Mary, she herself becoming a member of their order. ”

“ He entered the Carmelite order, and studied at Oxford, where he graduated D.D., and subsequently at Paris. In 1309, at a congregation of the order held at Genoa, he was elected provincial of the Carmelites in England and Scotland, and in 1327 was provided by John XXII to the see of Meath, and consecrated at Avignon, his temporalities being restored to him on 24 July. He held the see for twenty-two years, and died in July 1349. ”

“ She flew to him, and besought him to rescue her; and this monk, enlightened by a truly divine spirit, understood that she was born to be a victim of expiation, to atone for the insults offered to the Holy Eucharist in churches. He gave her comfort, and announced to her her vocation as a Carmelite. She set out for Antwerp to visit the Mother Anne de Saint Barthélemy, a saintly woman, who, warned of her coming by a vision of Saint Theresa, consented to receive her into the Carmel of which she was the Superior.
Then obstacles arose, the work of the Devil. ”

“ But when this is not possible, the majority of the foreign sufferers are short-lived. Thus I was informed that the average life of the Carmelite missionaries in southern Mesopotamia is only about nine years. But their premature deaths do not deter them from continuing the work of charity to which they are so devoted. As soon as one drops out of the ranks his place is immediately taken by a zealous confrère who is only too willing to serve in the cause of the Master where the trials are most severe and where the dangers are greatest and most imminent. ”