Spring 2006

Dear Carmelites,

Most of the fall visitation reports have now been processed by our provincial council, and are ready to be sent out. This includes Waco, San Antonio, Knoxville, Atlanta and Lawrenceville. I have just begun the report from Mobile. We have given permission for a number of novices to make their Promise, esp, in the new groups of Atlanta and Lawrenceville. The main reason we require our Groups to secure permission prior to profession, is so we may assist the local council in their important role of discernment of Carmelite vocations. Please be patient as we work out the kinks in this process of “discerning the discerners.” We realize the deficiencies of getting to know the novices through what they write about themselves. Some are more literary than others, and we realize that the personal contact the local councilors have with those in formation is far more valuable than what written record the provincial council may receive about them. But certain red flags are raised from time to time. This is when we try and work things out with the local council. Remember the provincial council is not created to interfere in the local government, only to assist them the best we can.

I am in the process of switching my e-mail address to g-mail. It’s free and Bill Gates has enough money already without my sending him an additional 25 bucks a month fee for my msn connection. So please change my e-mail address in your computer’s address book from jmpocd@msn.com to my new address @gmail.com This is the best way to reach me. I am terribly slow in writing letters the traditional way, and never answer the telephone. Any study groups needing my signature on profession forms may fax me the appropriate page of the form at 1-501 888-3080 and I will fax you back my signature. Former issues of our provincial newsletter, Flos Carmeli may be found archived below. Links to my other blogs, including our friars’ provincial newsletter can be found at the end of my personal profile at the very top of this blog to the right.

Alabama

Provincial Councillor Nancy Thompson is planning visitation of Mobile in July. Elizabeth Roberts has moved from Birmingham to Mobile and was accepted into the Mobile OCDS Group in February. My sincere apologies to all in Mobile for placing them in Georgia in my last Flos report ! Father obviously needs lesson 101 in geography.

Louisiana

On April 1st, I had the joy of celebrating the certification of our province’s newest canonical community in Lafayette. We began a day of reflection at the Christian Brothers where this new community holds their monthly meetings. Conferences were all related to Elizabeth of the Trinity whose centenary year this is. Blessed Elizabeth died a hundred years ago on Nov 9th in Dijon France. Patron saint of the new community is St Joseph, Guardian of Carmel. Their canonical status was given in Rome on Christmas day. President Anita Trahan holds the banner, and Pat Colbert-Comier (hidden behind banner) and formation director Datie Cespiva lead the procession into our nuns chapel to celebrate the certification of their canonical status. Both OCDS communities in Lafayette report benefits of having a smaller community at their monthly meetings since the split. They have more opportunity now to know better the other members of their community. Elections were held in January. Karol D. Meynard was elected president of the original community replacing Anita Trahan who moved to the new community. Vicki Guilbeau is the new Formation Director 337 667-6046 with Councillors Mona Mayeux, Millie Dufrene and Marla Seré. Officers elected for the new community are Anita Trahan, president; Datie Cespiva, formation 337 839-8436; Loretta Glod, Claudette Stelly & Pat Colbert-Cormier, councillors.

With appointment of Father Daniel Torres, pastor at Saint Joseph's Church as Assistant to DeRidder, this Group in Discernment becomes an official OCDS Group. The provincial council has decided to grant them Study Group status. Dani Kufoy is our choice for president, and Jeannette LaRosa as councilor. Sue Fontenot has agreed to be their Director of Formation. For the present the Mother of Grace community of Lafayette will monitor their development.

Fr. Jerome Earley conducted the retreat to our community in Alexandria this spring.

Texas

On 01-Feb-06, I appointed Christopher Wood president of our new group that has met at St Theresa’s church in Houston, Texas, since the summer of 2003. Some members recently transferred from New Caney. Once I receive a membership roster, we will straighten out their Group status. Christopher has also volunteered to be chairman of our next provincial Congress in 2008. Rita Tueth, president of St Louis, has sent Christopher money to begin a Congress fund.

The annual retreat of the Georgetown Study Group was held this spring at Cedarbrake in Belton. Retreat Master was Fr. Jerome Earley from Dallas. Our Dallas community joined our Austin community at the end of March for their annual retreat at Cedarbrake led this year by Fr. Raphael Kitz of Marylake.

Georgia
I appointed Anita DeRouen president of Lawrenceville on February 8, 2006. Anita has been serving as secretary to this Study Group. Former president, Stephen Ramsay is moving to Nebraska this summer at the end of the academic year.

Visitation is being planned for Thomasville when local Councillor Rosemarie Borja returns from the Philippines.

Mississippi
Grace Toyer, secretary to our New Orleans community when Katrina flooded the city, has relocated to Meridian MS. Meridian is 60 miles from Jackson, and I think Grace chooses to be isolated as she does not feel up to a 120 mile round trip each month. She will decide, with the help of the provincial council, which community to be associated with in order to complete her formation according to article 56 of our Constitutions.

Jackson will have visitation by Provincial Councillor, Amelia Wilken, June 23-24.

Bl. Elizabeth’s Centennial

On the feast of the Holy Trinity, June 11, our order begins a solemn commemoration of our Sister in Carmel, Blessed Elizabeth of the Trinity. This year on her feast day of Nov 8, we will celebrate the 100th anniversary of her death in the Dijon Carmel. She entered the infirmary towards the end of March 1906, and received “Extreme Unction” as the sacrament of anointing was called back then, on April 8, which this year marks the beginning of Holy Week with First Vespers of Palm Sunday. Her health improved somewhat after that anointing, but deteriorated with a serious attack on May 13. She spent the “cenacle days” on Pentecost in silence. She wrote Heaven in Faith during the first half of August, her Last Retreat at the end of August, and is confined to bed on the evening of October 30. She receives the sacrament of anointing again on October 31, and makes her last Communion on November 1. She died on the feast of the dedication of the pope’s parish church, St John Lateran, on November 9, 1906, and was buried on the 12th. I urge you all to read Elizabeth’s writings during this centennial celebration. ICS Publications in Washington DC has published her Major Spiritual Writings in volume 1 of her Complete Works, and her Letters from Carmel in volume 2 of that series. Volume 3 will include the letters of her youth, her Diary, and Personal Notes, the most famous of which is Personal Note No. 15: “O My God, Trinity Whom I Adore” which is also included at the end of volume 1.

I look forward to the publication of that last volume, but must admit its delay has afforded me ample time to ponder her letters which I judge to be rich treasures of the church as well as of our own order. Elizabeth lived her life in deep union with the Trinitarian presence in her soul while she kept in constant contact with those she knew living in the world. Her Carmelite cell was a place of rendez-vous where God came into intimate contact with Elizabeth and those in the world whom she loved. Her call from the grave is a call to interior recollection. My dear Carmelites, if you but delve into the writings of our saints you will find there wholly substantial nourishment, and have no longer need to dabble in the sensuality of the visionaries nor the loquaciousness of those who claim to have updated messages from on high.

--Fr. John Michael ocd, prov. delg.

Agnes May obit

Agnes May of the Holy Face ocds, of the Dallas Community, was born on October 1, 1923, and died December 24, 2005. She left active participation in the Community ten years ago due to family concerns, but was a devoted member for a long time. She was clothed October 1, 1965.

Provincial Council Report

It sure feels like we’ve been busier than this report will make it sound. Basically, we’ve been doing many things that are behind-the-scenes. Elizabeth has been working on putting together our legislation book. Amelia has been trying to pull together an up-to-date and accurate list of our isolates although every couple of weeks, we seem to hear from someone new changing her list. Nancy and Gerald have been working on a brochure (based on samples provided by a few different communities) which our communities can use for letting people know about OCDS. And Pascal continues to mostly pray for us as he continues putting his life back together after Katrina. The good news is that he’s received his insurance money which has enabled him to sign for building a new home.

And there was that brief aside of dreaming going to Dijon to reflect upon how to best celebrate this 100th anniversary of the death of Elizabeth of the Trinity. The vote however, went in favor of holding off until next year to visit Mt Carmel in celebration of 800 years of the Rule of St Albert. Now if only we could find some generous benefactor to cover the expenses of our dreaming!

We have some great news to share. Our Father General, Fr. Luis Aróstegui Gamboa will be making a fraternal visit of our province in early October. Even though we are all eager to see each other, we’ve decided to postpone our annual Provincial Council meeting and hold it during his visit since our Provincial, Fr. Gregory Ross, has indicated that we should meet with the Father General. We are very excited to be given such an opportunity and look forward to what will be a special event for us. Details of the Father General’s schedule have not yet been worked out but hopefully there will be some opportunities for some of our OCDS to meet him.

We are gearing up for another year of visitations. None were made in these past few months as we’ve been busy contacting the communities and study groups which we’ll visit this year. We will be revisiting a few of our younger study groups and visiting many communities and study groups for the first time this year. And next year, we’ll complete our three year cycle during which all our communities will have received a visit.

The friars are making progress on setting up a website for themselves. Soon we hope to transfer our OCDS provincial webpages to that site.

We wish everyone a blessed and happy Easter!!

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

Reflections on Formation

Some Reflections on Doing the Formation Readings
by Elizabeth M Korves OCDS

For all levels of formation, from aspirancy all the way through to on-going formation, we are asked to do some reading each month. Some months that reading is brief, taking only an evening to get through. Other times its lengthier and may take several evenings to get through the amount given for a particular month.

How should we approach these formation readings?

First, it is important to recognize that we are not approaching these in a purely academic sense. As persons becoming familiar with and deepening our understanding of profound spiritual writings, we become informed of them, learning the basics so we are able to accurately begin to understand them, and we become formed by them. It is not "either – or." We can look to our formation readings, according to Fr Aloysius Deeney, as "the process whereby, with the help of others, we attempt to deepen our understanding of the relationship with God in the light of Catholic and Carmelite doctrine." (1)

How do we do that?

We do that approaching our readings with an eye to questions such as:

how does this fit with what I already have learned on this topic?
how do I relate to this topic in my own experience?
how does it give me insight into my own spiritual life?
how can this help me grow in my relationship with God? with my community?
with my family and friends and coworkers? with the Church?
what questions came up for me from this reading?
how does this help me grow in the apostolate?
how does this help me fulfill my Promise?
how does this strengthen my vocation?
how does knowing this help me grow in my prayer life?
how do I grow in perseverance in the virtues by applying this principle?
how can I integrate this reading into my daily life? how can I live it?
what might be obstacles to my living this?

Another approach sometimes used by one Formation Director I know involves asking each person to come in with three things they took out of the reading for that month. The three things can be insights, questions that came up for them, something they didn't understand, something they disagreed with. She then uses those three things as the starting points of the discussion and sharing. She also finds that it helps give her a better feel for how well each person is relating to the readings and how they are progressing in formation.

In some ways, these especially open ended questions are more difficult and require different strategies of the reader than doing a word search for just the right answer. We can't simply look up these answers in the book. Instead, we have to spend some time truly listening at a deeper level to what the reading is saying to us. This deeper, formational reading is the kind that might lead us into prayer over something we've gotten out of the reading. It will most certainly lead us to greater spiritual growth. It builds a bridge between the ideas in the reading and our lives, forming us always in Carmel.

These kinds of formational questions also lead us to greater sharing when we gather in our formation or ongoing groups to discuss the readings of the month. Who among us has not been left in awe over what [8-9] someone in our community gleaned from their reading of the material that we had not seen? Or how often has a precious insight shared by another in the community, brought clarity to things which we didn't quite understand ourselves? Many times we come home from a meeting feeling inspired to pray and reflect more upon the topics of that month's study, based on what others shared from the readings we were assigned.

Fr Aloysius Deeney touches upon these aspects as well. He reminds us that this way of formation reading is much more challenging:

The challenges are first, the desire to deepen the understanding of the relationship with God. That can be very demanding... in fact, it is a lot easier to memorize Saint Teresa!

A second challenge is that you need others to help you and you need to help others. Also, not so easy.

The third challenge is that it is based on Catholic and Carmelite teaching, not just on the way I think about it all. (2)

It is also important to realize that if we truly have the vocation to Carmel, we will be reading much of this material again and again. We can lay aside perfectionism and the worry about mastering everything the first time we read it. In initial formation, we may read something fairly quickly, getting that introductory exposure to it and then later in on-going formation and again in our own personal reading, we go back and go through a particular work at a slower pace. Have you ever had to read something over and over before it finally sinks in? I certainly have and find new things each time I re-read one of our saints. And sometimes, I am reminded again of something I've known all along but which had slipped into the background.

This summer I will be celebrating 20 years since I was clothed and when I look back at the formation readings I did during initial formation and those that I continue to do as part of the on-going formation in my community, I am amazed and humbled to see how God has worked through them and through my community to bring me closer to Him, and hopefully to form me in ever more closely following His will for me. I have been blessed with formation directors and fellow community members who always call me and each other back to that deeper level of reading and those questions which can't be answered by looking it up in the book but rather by having to look it up in my heart.

(1) Deeney, Aloysius, OCD, Study and the Carmelite Secular, posting to OCDS yahoo group, article now available at
http://www.geocities.com/korvesem/Province/BestPractices/Formation/formationBP.htm

(2) Study and the Carmelite Secular, ibid.