Provincial Delegate's fall report

My dear Carmelites, We have had a devastating end of summer event with Hurricanes Katrina and Rita dealing a double blow to our members on the Mississippi Gulf Coast and in New Orleans. I had been keeping track of developments on my Katrina Hits Carmel blog. For those of you with computers, and high speed hook-ups, for there are many pictures which take forever to download on slow dail-up connections such as we have out here in the boondocks of Arkansas, I offer my blog address at http://oklahomaocdsviewnewsl.blogspot.com/

Louisiana

The Lafayette community split on Sunday August 21. This was an event without precedent in our province, inspired by number VII of our Statutes which reads: “Communities are encouraged to limit their size in order to maintain a strong sense of intimacy within the community. The more the members know one another and share with one another, the greater the opportunity to love one another.” Assistant, Fr. Conley Bertrand OCDS, helped facilitate this split by offering to give two conferences each month. The Christian Brothers monastery, down the street from our Nuns, offered to host the new community while the old will continue meeting at our Nuns. The Lafayette Council met with our Provincial Council in New Orleans on 25-Jun-05 [photo] to work out details of how to split this community which numbered 78 active members. The provincial council held an interesting debate on how to handle this situation since all our guidelines and rules for forming an OCDS community apply to a mother community founding a new one. But this was not a foundation; it was a split. Like the proverbial baby offered to Solomon, the community was split in half: right down the middle --half the council, half the novices, and half the membership, with exceptions made for the sick and elderly.

On 24-Aug-05, I appointed Elizabeth Boggess director of formation in Vidalia, [shown here with aspirant Camille Durkin] and former director of formation Anna Calhoun appointed councillor. Together with president Kot Morris, this gives our Vidalia Study Group a three member council. Anna’s resignation was submitted to Provincial Councillor Pascal Alfano during visitation on 30-Jul-05. She has been either director of formation or president there for almost thirty years, and kept this little group together.

Father Paul, assistant in Vidalia, was transferred to another parish in the diocese of Alexandria. Our Carmelites attended a farewell reception for him on 26-Jun-05.

The situation of our community in New Orleans remains still a mystery to this day, a full month and a half after Hurricanes Katrina and Rita hit the city. The two dealt this below-sea-level city a double whammy. The first flooded the city when the levee broke. But just as the water had been pumped out of the main sections and the Major planned to let residents back in to examine their property and retrieve their belongings, Rita brushed past New Orleans on its way to landfall in Port Arthur, broke the weakened levees, and re-flooded the city. Carmelite President Bruce Weaver urges members who have been displaced to attend meetings of Carmelite communities near their place of refuge. Of this community of 34 active members, I have only heard from or about ten. Marion Stearns drowned in Chalmette. She did not evacuate before Katrina flooded the city. Provincial Councillor Pascal Alfano’s home in Chalmette had water up to the roof line. “People in St. Bernard Parish lost everything and are living in someone’s garage somewhere on the North Shore or their family is two states away. St Bernard parish is uninhabitable.”

On September 27, a month after the first hurricane hit, our friars were able to get back into our House of Studies to clean up and haul out the refrigerator and freezer. Without drinkable water in our section of the city, it is hard to determine when we might be able to move back in. The two priests and two students, including our Fr. Provincial, are temporarily housed with our Nuns in Covington. Our seminarians have resumed classes in Covington while Notre Dame Seminary prepares their New Orleans campus for a January resumption of classes.

Texas
Hurricane Rita forced temporary evacuation of our Carmelites from Houston where we have both Nuns and four Secular Order groups. It took our nuns 23 hours to make a normal three hour drive from New Caney to San Antonio. Ernesto Mendoza helped evacuate our Missionary Carmelites of St Theresa from Deer Trail. Secular members took refuge with family members living in safer towns in the interior of Texas. Evacuation of our nation’s fourth largest city was no small task. Fortunately for Houston, Rita slowed from a category 5 hurricane to a 3 by the time it came ashore, and slammed into Port Arthur and Beaumont rather than Houston.

Eileen Mitrowski, professed 29-Jan-00, made her definitive Promise 29-Mar-03, passed away on 28 September at 2:00 am very peacefully. Eileen had suffered greatly for the past few months, but is now resting in God's loving arms. She is to be cremated, but the children are planning a memorial service at St. Luke's. Rebecca will be in contact with Matthew about the details - you'll hear from her with the details. Her example as a Carmelite has given all of us a great example of grace and love and the desire to always seek God's will in her life.

Georgia
Ingrid Close [photo] transferred to our province from Eugene Oregon and has been working with me to revive our Savannah Study Group which transferred to Hilton Head South Carolina when Director of Formation Doris Hadden’s health no longer permitted her to travel to Savannah each month. With the help of the new Prioress of our nuns in Savannah, Sr. Jo Ann Gartner, Ingrid found a Nigerian priest Missionary of St Paul, who is pastor of St Benedict the Moor church to Assist. Father’s name is Desmond Ohankwere MSP. They had their first meeting at our Nuns on October 1 with seven attending. Fr. Desmond said Mass and gave a conference. I will be making visitation there on Saturday, 12-Nov-05, and hope to be able to profess members clothed in 1999 and 2002.

Missouri

What a delightful event it was to see so many of you at the national congress in St. Louis. Representing Texas were from Dallas: [pictured left to right: Jeanne Kamat, Katherine “Katy” Bready, Betty Turicchi, Estella Aleman, Wanda Anderson from Big Spring & president Ann Dawson], Ana Veronica Canek, Sylvia Cardenas, Lorraine Coleman, Celine Cozad, Birdie & David Ehrenfeld, Ileana Flores, Maria Garcia, Mary Giles, Dorothy Goodman, Dc. Steven Griesmyer, Gloria Guajardo, Oscar Hudson, Susan King, Maria Martinez-Lolita, Ernest & Anita Mendoza, Margaret Nunez, Natalie Ocansey, Victoria Rivera, Randy Scott, Jeannice Theriot, Pat Thompson, Georgina Torres, Catherine Varella, Mary Velez, Mirtala Villareal & Margaret Yong.

From Alabama, Steven Orleans, Paul Schubert & Carol Busma from Mobile, Thias Forrest, Marian Furman, Donna Lowe from Madison, Kathryn Ney & Ann Power. Representing Arkansas were Mary Armstrong, Giner Crews, Tricia Cromwell, isolates Carol Reuter, Edith & Joan Dore; Mary Howard & Anne Raney. From Georgia: John Eanes, Joe & Caroline McMahon, Rose Rabianski & Mary Shusta.

From Iowa were: Carmen Baumgartner, Martha Burchard, Michael Crane, Bernita Hanel, Tom & Martha Hanley, Roseann Hayek, Melissa Kuefler, Cindy Larkin, Andrea Liu, Mercedes Reyhons, Roxann Sorenson, Lavetta Vamosi & Amelia Wilken, From Kansas: Marian Ganser, Deborah Newton & Diana Scamman from Topeka.

From Louisiana were Assistant Fr Conley Bertrand from Lafayette; Beth Boggess, Camille Durkin & Kot Morris from Vidalia; Debbie Didier, Cynthia Fails, Terri Hebert, Cecile Jeanmard, Danithza Kufoy from Deridder, Mona Mayeux, Andy Ringle, Stephen Van Cleve & Anita Trahan.
From Oklahoma: Katherine Payne, Gary & Lolita Rodgers. From South Dakota: Agnes Gamiere & Lynda Healy. From Tennessee were Kathy De Wine, Missy Depersio, Jan Hicks & Jeanne Parella. And of course all our good hosts from the community of St. Louis. Special thanks to congress chairperson Joan Bohac [pictured here at planning of national council in 2004], to president Rita Tueth, to Sharon Schulte, to Lisa Johnston and to former president, Bob Albrecht who accepted the awesome task of hosting a national congress three years ago.

The President and Director of Formation from our Gulf Coast community had to cancel. I have not heard from eight of our members down there. The whole region was practically wiped off the face of the map by Hurricane Katrina, with our members who survived, losing their home and all belongings except for the three day supply of clothes they took in evacuating. Nancy Murphy drowned in Bay St Louis. For news of the effects of the hurricanes, check out my blog, Katrina Hits Carmel at http://oklahomaocdsviewnewsl.blogspot.com/ The sole representative from the state of Mississippi was Dorothy Ashley [photo], president of Jackson, although members of our Vidalia LA group live in Natchez.

Secretaries
A reminder to the secretaries of all our groups and communities. In the spring issue of Flos Carmeli I asked you to include in your community membership rosters, the birthdates (including the year, ladies!) 1st Promise and Definitive Promise dates for all professed members, and clothing dates for all novices. I think this plea went un-noticed since it was somewhat hidden under the title “Georgia.” I promise not to publish the year of your birth as long as you are alive! But I need that year for our records. It can be found on your initial application form. I fear we may have lost the records of many of our members in the recent hurricanes. It is important to have these vital statistics in our central records. Thanks to Alexandria, Covington, Oklahoma, St Louis, Cedar Rapids, Mobile and Little Rock for sending me this information. I still need it from the rest of you. Thanks.

New Groups
OK, everybody. Here’s our memory lesson for today. Memorize the following sentence:
“Individuals do not start new communities, councils do.” So you have an isolate attached to your community. She wants to start an OCDS community in her town. Repeat (before she writes to me or to the provincial council):

“Individuals do not start new communities, councils do.” If your council decides there is a need for a new group in her area, then that’s their project, not “Mother Foundress” project. Too many of our groups have tried to start from what I call “spontaneous combustion.” The Provincial Council is ready to assist the local council in discerning the need for beginning a new group, but we prefer working with the local council, rather than individual would-be founders.

Fr. John Michael OCD, prov. delg.

F.A.Q.

Frequently Asked Questions

Q: Dear Fr. John Michael, After returning home and having an opportunity to assimilate the information from the Congress, I had a few questions regarding the changes occurring in the OCDS. I know I am not a member of your Province. I hope you don't mind me addressing these questions to you.

Conversations and comments I heard at the Congress from secular members and a review of the Statutes approved for the Oklahoma Province indicate to me a general trend in the OCDS toward self-governing and independence from the Friars... Can you tell me whether the origin of this trend is from secular members, from the Provincial Delegates, or from higher up in the Order? What is the final goal of this trend? Is the purpose to relieve the Friars of unnecessary burdens in management of communities, while still retaining authority? Or, is it a movement toward total autonomy? Will the OCDS remain juridically dependent on the Friars?

Julie Payne, pres., Flint MI

A: Dear Julie, There is absolutely no movement whatsoever toward making the OCDS independent from the Friars. As number 41 of our Constitutions states quite emphatically: “The Secular Order is juridically dependent on the Discalced Carmelite Friars.” The footnote to that comes from the code of canon law. If there has been any movement at all from the old OCDS Rule of Life to the new Constitutions, it is precisely in the opposite direction. The new constitutions put into law what was only presumed in the old Rule of Life. That the OCDS was under the friars. This number was put into the constitutions precisely because many of our Secular Carmelites had drifted away from the friars in areas of the world where none of the friars were available to minister to them. Also many were taking direction from our nuns, who with the best of intentions, were not always careful to keep the friars informed. Now to the other half of your area of concern.

The question of self-government should not be seen as synonymous with independence from the Friars. It should rather be viewed as part and parcel of the same package. Seculars should govern themselves within the framework of the Constitutions approved by the Holy See and provincial Statutes approved by the Friars. This is nothing new. The trend toward self government began when the old OCDS Rule of Life was approved back in 1979 where the Spiritual “Director’s” role was changed to that of an “Assistant.” He was “normally a priest of the Order”, but had no right to vote in the local council. [article 21] That article went on to state that the Assistant was “the Order’s representative” to the local community.

Now the trend toward self-government increased in the 2003 Constitutions, where the Assistant’s powers and authority over the local canonical community were further reduced. Not only was he not expected to preside over the council meeting as was not expected in the old rule either, but now the council did not even need to invite him to attend their meetings. As number 44 states: “He may attend without right to vote,” and “the council may consult him.” But the local council made up exclusively of Seculars has ultimate authority under the general law to govern its own members. This was recognized in the old rule, but further strengthened in the new Constitutions. A most notable statement left out of the new Constitutions was the statement that the Assistant was the order’s representative to the secular order. The reason this was omitted from the new law was a statement of identity: “The Secular Order... is... an integral part of the Discalced Carmelite Order. It is essentially lay in character.” [Constitutions # 37] If our OCDS members are full members of the order, they don’t need anyone to be their representative to the order. And if they are essentially lay in character, it stands to reason that they should be governed by members of the laity, not members of the clergy or from religious life.

The province of Mexico seems to have set the pace by incorporating into their provincial statutes that Seculars could make visitations of local communities. When our provincial council was formed, they read the statutes of Mexico and other provinces who had written statutes to see what they had done, so we didn’t have to re-invent the wheel. We decided to follow Mexico’s lead and Rome approved. Five times as many visitations are being made today in our province than was possible before when only the Provincial or his delegate was making visitations of our secular communities. Many do not like the idea of being visited by their own. I suspect it is because one of their own knows them better than a religious priest. Ignorance is often bliss. You can get away with a lot more, the less the visitator knows you.

What the future holds, we cannot foresee. All Rome is telling us now is that the friars are here to assist you in governing yourself. The friars are handing over authority to you. We only take on our authoritative role granted by that juridical dependence I quoted at the beginning, when local order breaks down or has yet to develop. Our Statutes give the Provincial Council and Provincial Delgate authority to step in when the local community is developing. In the case of our groups who are just starting out and haven’t enough personnel to achieve canonical status, that is to say they can’t yet enjoy all rights given by the Constitutions, then either the PC or the PD appoints local officers that a canonical community would normally elect. The same applies to canonical communities who have lost so many functioning members that they are no longer able to self-govern themselves. Again the higher authority steps in to assist. But I assure you, we do you no favors by playing our authoritative trump card when you are capable of governing your own life.

Q: Dear Fr. Aloysius, If you have time would you please check out my response to this lady to see if anything in it needs corrected before I publish it as a frequently asked question in our newsletter.

Fr. John Michael

A: Dear Father, your response to the question about the dependence of the OCDS on the OCDs is right on target. I am myself preparing something for the blog [www.ocd4ocds.blogspot.com] on that phrase "juridically dependent on the Carmelite friars" because of a number of questions and observations I have been getting in emails and in person. Your answer is right in line. I am happy that you are going to publish it.

Aloysius Deeney, Rome

fall council report

REPORT FROM THE PROVINCIAL COUNCIL

These past three months have been rather tumultuous for the Provincial Council. First, Gerald had triple by-pass surgery. That same day, Pascal fell and shattered his heel. So, things slowed down for us while we awaited their recovery but then, just 10 days later, Katrina hit. Pascal evacuated New Orleans and for a good week or so we worried until finally he turned up in Ft Worth before moving on to Monroe, LA to an empty home made available to he and his family. His home was flooded with 10 ft of water so he's lost everything but is otherwise doing well.

Katrina held the attention of the Provincial Council as much as everyone else as we worried over our friars, nuns, and especially our seculars in the areas hit. We still have not heard from many of our New Orleans community nor from many of our Gulf Coast, MS community. And we were terribly saddened to learn of two deaths among our seculars in those areas, Marion Sterns of New Orleans, and Nancy Murphy of Bay St Louis, MS.

In the midst of all this, Nancy had some medical problems come up with her son and Amelia had family visiting so Provincial Council work slowed to a temporary crawl while we all dealt with those things that life throws at us.

We did manage to put the last finishing touches on our provincial formation guidelines and submit them to be added to our statutes and they were approved at the Sept meeting of the General Definitory. Very soon we will be publishing a book with all our current legislation so that everyone in our province will have a copy of the Rule of St Albert, Constitutions, Statutes, and Ritual.
The Provincial Council was also able to review profession requests from a few of our study groups and we continue to make visitations of our communities and study groups. Pascal's visitations that were schedule have been postponed until either another Provincial Councilor can make them for when Pascal is able to turn his attention once again back to provincial matters.

At the end of September, Elizabeth, Nancy, and Amelia were able to attend the OCDS National Congress in St Louis (Gerald and Pascal had to cancel). Elizabeth and Nancy attended the National Council meeting prior to the start of the Congress. On Friday, we had the Plenary Council where Elizabeth gave a State of the Province report (included in this Flos Carmeli) and representatives of all our communities had an opportunity to express any concerns to the provincial leadership. The possibility of a Spanish speaking OCDS group in Houston was raised as well as some concern over an increase in bureaucracy in light of the Constitutions and Statutes. On Friday evening, an opportunity was provided for everyone from our province who was in St Louis to meet the Provincial Council and many good questions were asked. Elizabeth, Nancy and Amelia certainly did enjoy the opportunity that the Congress gave for us to meet so many members of our province.

We wish everyone a blessed feast of St Teresa and we continue to hold in our prayers all those impacted by Hurricanes Katrina and Rita.

--Provincial Council:
Pascal Alfano, Gerald Alford, Elizabeth Korves, Nancy Thompson, and Amelia Wilken

Study Group info

Profession Request Procedure for Study Groups

As an individual is approaching the time for First Promise or Definitive Promise, we ask that you have them write a letter addressing the questions included below. These questions have been provided by one of our canonical communities who uses them as part of their discernment process and the hope is that they will aid both the individual and the council.

It is best if the reflections on these questions are written and submitted to the LOCAL council prior to an interview. We do ask that you, as the Local Council, interview each candidate.

Then, a summary report of the interview as well as the letter should be sent to the Provincial Council. If at all possible, they should be in electronic format (Word files or text in emails) which will enable us to easily post the report and letters for review by the full Provincial Council. We can handle hardcopies if necessary but electronic files will make things much easier.

We need approximately six weeks to do this. We know that sounds like a long time but we seem to always have several things on our agenda and so it may take a few weeks for requests to reach the top of the list of things to look at. We'll make them a priority but ask your patience as more pressing matters sometimes have our attention.

Once we've voted on the candidates, we will get back to you. If all are approved, we'll simply drop you a quick email. If we don't approve someone or have some concerns where we think someone's formation period should be extended first, then we'll actually call either the president or the formation director to discuss in person what those concerns are.

The Provincial Council

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

First Promise

After reflecting and pondering your spiritual journey of the past two years, as well as prayerful reflection on the Constitutions, consider carefully what you are promising to do and write for us a description of:

how has your experience of God changed?
what has changed or developed in your prayer life?
how has Carmel been involved in these changes?
why do you feel that God is calling you to this decision?

The length of the letter will vary from person to person depending on how much you are able or willing to share with the council. We pray that writing it out will be helpful in discernment both for you and for the council.

Definitive Promise

After reflecting and pondering your spiritual journey of the past two years, as well as prayerful reflection on the Constitutions, consider carefully what you are promising to do and write for us a description of:

how has your experience of God changed?
what has changed or developed in your prayer life?
how has Carmel been involved in these changes?
why do you feel that God is calling you to this decision?
how has the experience of living the Promise these past three years confirmed continuing
this commitment for the rest of your life?

The length of the letter will vary from person to person depending on how much you are able or willing to share with the council. We pray that writing it out will be helpful in discernment both for you and for the council.

State of the Province Report

(given at the Plenary Council, 30-Sep-05 at the Sheraton Lakeside Chalet in St Louis MO, by Council president Elizabeth Korves)

First of all, on behalf of the Provincial Council, I'd like to thank everyone for coming and for the service, which you give to your community. As we make the shift from writing the Provincial Statutes into the more pastoral aspects of our duties as Provincial Council, we are very much enjoying getting to know the members of our province through the visitations and the councilor workshops offered earlier in summer. And this Congress provides us another welcome opportunity to meet the people we serve.

This report has some statistics, so I ask that you bear with me as I run through some of the numbers.

The Oklahoma Province has 19 canonical communities, 18 study groups, and 1 Group in Discernment. Associated with those communities and study groups are a total of 28 isolates.
Currently we have 862 OCDS in the province (including the isolates). There are 98 aspirants, 137 people in formation for First Promise, and another 129 in formation for Definitive Promise.

Since May 2002, 31 members have died.

Isolates

When receiving the plenary council reports from around the province, we learned that many communities/study groups have people they consider to be isolates that we on the Provincial Council have been unaware of. First, we must admit that for many years, we did not serve the isolates of our province well. It is certainly our hope that with the Constitutions and the Statutes, we have developed a better way to serve our isolates by asking that they have monthly contact with the community/study group to which they have been associated. Some communities and some isolates have been doing better at this monthly contact and some have not. We are all still very much in a time of transition and learning how to best live out our new legislation but we do hope things continue to improve in general. We refer you back to two items we placed in past issues of the Flos Carmeli with suggestions on those monthly contacts.

In touching upon isolates, I'd like to remind you that it is the Provincial Council who grants isolate status and associates an isolate with a particular community. When we first did this, we had three different and outdated lists of who the isolates in our province were. We contacted the folks on all three of those lists. As we received the plenary council reports from our communities and study groups, we found that some of them named isolates whom we were unaware of. We also had communities that listed isolates with addresses that were within easy driving distance of other communities or study groups. So we are doing some follow up on all those isolates to clarify their situation.

The reports from the communities and study groups indicate that most of our communities have been providing on-going formation in Carmelite spirituality for those who are definitively professed. However, only about half reported having spent time in the past three years studying our new Constitutions and Statutes. We encourage all our communities and study groups that have not made a study of the new legislation yet, to make such study a priority in the next year. Along side that, we encourage and ask you to also encourage all the members of our province to regularly read the Constitutions and Statutes on their own. Since we are committed to the Constitutions and Statutes by way of the obedience part of our Promise, each of us should review that legislation a few times each year.

Apostolates

The community apostolates that were reported covered quite a range. First, we'd like to remind study groups that they do not need to have a community apostolate. Many of our study groups are still young so far as being a group and they need to concentrate more on good formation and group development first. Those more established study groups may feel they are ready to undertake a group apostolate.

We'd also like to emphasize that our canonical communities should take some time in discerning an apostolate. Each community will have different gifts to draw upon and so should go through a discernment process as a community before undertaking an apostolate. This Congress is including much on apostolate that we hope will inform your discussions. We know it will take time for communities to discern what they can do by way of a group apostolate before they can be fully engaged in living out the mission of the Order. We hope our communities are creative in looking at ways to engage that mission. The primary criteria that the Statutes ask in relation to a community apostolate are - how does this share Carmelite spirituality with those outside of our community? This question should always be the guiding principle in discerning a community apostolate. While some of the apostolates named by our communities do show ways to share Carmelite spirituality, others didn't quite connect with the mission of the Discalced Carmelite Order.

The Provincial Council has begun to make visitations of our communities [beginning in March with Pascal's visitation to Birmingham. --see photo] We have scheduled visitations so that canonical communities will be visited once every three years. Our study groups will be visited more frequently based on their needs (some annually and some less often). Since the Provincial Council has responsibility for supervising study groups, we hope through more frequent visits to help them develop as communities and make good progress towards full canonical status. The Provincial Council is happy to report that the visitations seem to be going well and no major problems have come to our attention during the visits.

This past summer, the Provincial Council offered workshops in New Orleans and Dallas for members of our Local Councils. Most communities and study groups sent at least one person to a workshop. The workshops provided a great opportunity for all to meet other members of our Province and for much sharing back and forth on issues and concerns that all Local Councils encounter. The consensus coming out of the workshops were that they provided some valuable formation for council members and should be held each triennium shortly after elections, especially to help new council members learn about how to fulfill the duties to which they've been called by their community.

Formation Guidelines Approved

The provincial formation guidelines were submitted to the General Definitory at their September meeting for approval to be added to our Provincial Statutes. We received notice on Weds, 28 Sept that they had been approved and we've now added those to our Provincial Statutes.

In an effort to be sure that all the OCDS in our province have a copy of all current legislations, we are working on printing a book, which will contain the Rule of St. Albert, the Constitutions, the Provincial Statutes, and the OCDS Ritual. We expect the cost for the book to come to under $10 and hope to have the books ready sometime in November.

In the meantime, copies can be downloaded from our provincial OCDS website at:

http://www.geocities.com/korvesem/Province/oklahoma_province.htm

This is a temporary URL until the friars get their website set up and then we'll be
transferring the pages over to that domain.

The Vocation to Chastity

The virtue of chastity therefore involves the integrity of the person and the integrality of the gift. The chaste person maintains the integrity of the powers of life and love placed in him. This integrity ensures the unity of the person; it is opposed to any behavior that would impair it. It tolerates neither a double life nor duplicity in speech.

Chastity includes an apprenticeship in self-mastery which is a training in human freedom. The alternative is clear; either man governs his passions and finds peace, or he lets himself be dominated by them and becomes unhappy. "Man's dignity therefore requires him to act out of conscious and free choice, as moved and drawn in a personal way from within, and not by blind impulses in himself or by mere external constraint. Man gains such dignity when, ridding himself of all slavery to the passions, he presses forward to his goal by freely choosing what is good and, by his diligence and skill, effectively secures for himself the means suited to this end.. "

Whoever wants to remain faithful to his baptismal promises and resist temptations will want to adopt the means for doing so: self-knowledge, practice of an ascesis adapted to the situations that confront him, obedience to God's commandments, exercise of the moral virtues, and fidelity to prayer. Indeed,, it is through chastity that we are gathered together and led back to the unity from which we were fragmented into multiplicity."

The virtue of chastity comes under the cardinal virtue of temperance, which seeks to permeate the passions and appetites of the senses with reason.

Self-mastery is a long and exacting work.. One can never consider it acquired once and for all. It presupposes renewed effort at all stages of life..

Catechism of the Catholic Church

MEMORIALS

St. Louis Community

Beatrice Karel, Mary Domatilla of the Sacred Heart of Jesus, was born December 22, 1919 and passed away August 1, 2005. Bea made her first promise May 15, 1988, and her Definitive promise on May 9, 1991. She was a quiet person and a very devout member of our Community until seven years ago when she developed symptoms of Alzheimer's disease and could not longer atten. She was a widow and the mother of either children who are all devoted to her and saddened by her loss.

Mildred Williams. May John (the Apostle) of the Trinity. Mildred was born September 7, 1915, and passed away August 6, 2005. Mildred was a chemist and was active in our Community until her health failed some years ago. She never married but had two very devoted nieces who cared for her.

Shirley Roach, Ann de Beaupre. Shirley was born October 29, 1921 and passed away September 12, 2005. She entered Carmel in September of 1978, made her First Promise October 18, 1981 and her Definitive November 18, 1984. She served our Community as Secretary, Council Member and Librarian until she became so ill and was no longer able to be with us. She was a very special gift to our Community and will be missed.

"I believe that I shall see the goodness of the Lord in the Land of the Living." Ps 27:13