Secretary's letter

Dear Sisters and Brothers,

We are celebrating the centenary of Blessed Elizabeth of the Trinity. When I first began my Carmelite journey, she was one of the Saints that I was so attracted to. The book, "Light, Love, Life" was a favorite, and I especially appreciated the pictures and her quotes that spoke so eloquently of her love for the Trinity, for her solitude, and for everything Carmelite. It was like "taking a walk with her through her cloister." She is such an inspiration to me.

"Abandonment -that is what surrenders us to God. I am quite young, but it seems to me that I have suffered much sometimes. Oh, then, when everything was dark, when the present was so painful and the future seemed even more gloomy to me, I closed my eyes and and abandoned myself like a child in the arms of this Heavenly Father. We look at ourselves too much, we want to see and understand, we do not have enough confidence in Him who envelops us in His love. We must not stop before the cross and regard it in itself, but recollecting ourselves in the light of faith, we must rise higher and think that it is the instrument which is obeying divine Love.

"One thing alone is necessary; Mary has chosen the better part and it shall not be taken from her." This better part, which seems to be my privilege in my beloved solitude of Carmel, is offered by God to every baptized soul. Believe that His whole desire is to lead you ever deeper into Himself. Surrender yourself and all your preoccupations to Him."

We are so blessed to have the writings, the teachings, and the examples of these great lovers of Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.

Recently, in going through my "growing" files of papers, I ran across this, which was generated by the Second International Congress held in Mexico in August of 2000. It was the Dallas Community's response to the discussion question: "What does a layperson receive by belonging to the Secular Order?"

· A deeper awareness of the divine life within each of us; deeper knowledge of the will of God.
· Development of the practice of the presence of God and the detachment it entails; the art of meditating; carrying the sense of the presence of God into our daily lives, our work, our families, our apostolates; our play.
· Development of a love relationship with the Trinity
· Community; sharing the spiritual journey with others; receiving support; being part of a family
· A rule of life that guides and nourishes one's quest for holiness
· A desire to serve
· The desire for union with God.

Some information about the Flos Carmeli:

For ailing or elderly members who are no longer able to attend the meetings, but wish to have the newsletter; I normally send it to them as requested by the Community. If the Community can pick up the fee, well and good. (The fee for the newsletter would be $16; they are no longer charged the full amount of dues). If communities do not feel they can handle that, I will mail the newsletter directly to the ailing/elderly member without charge.

For indigent members who are still attending meetings; the community pays their Provincial dues and payments of community dues are at the discretion of the community.

May I close this letter to you with one more quote that I love from Bl. Elizabeth: "...you can be a Carmelite... for Jesus recognizes the Carmelite from within her soul..."

I pray that she be our special friend, companion, and teacher as we journey through this year.
Your sister in Carmel,

Pat Darby, ocds
Provincial Secretary

Sites of Interest
In 2006 we celebrate the Centenary of the death of Blessed Elizabeth of the Trinity. Information about her can be found @
http://www.ponybit.org

Blogspot for Oklahoma Province:
http://oklahomaocdsview.blogspot.com

Friars of our Province:
http://www.carmelitesok.org

Seculars of our Province:
http://www.geocities.com/korvesem/Province/oklahoma province.htm

Discalced Carmelite Generalate (Rome):
http://www.ocd.pcn.net

OCD/Ocarm Joint Generalate:
http://ocarm-ocd.org

St Louis OCDS
http://www.stl-ocds.org

2007 Seattle Congress
http://congress.ocds.info

Council Report

OCDS Legislation Books are ready!!!

After some delay, the Provincial Council is delighted to announce that we have published a book containing the OCDS Legislation for the Oklahoma Province. This book contains the Rule of St Albert, OCDS Constitutions, Oklahoma OCDS Provincial Statutes, and the OCDS Ritual.

The book is available in two formats.

The softcover, coil bound version which also contains the provincial forms and costs $ 9.15 plus shipping and handing.
The hardcover version (does not contain the forms) is available for $18.75 plus shipping and handling.

Both books can be ordered online from www.lulu.com. Do a search for "OCDS" and it'll pull up both books. A search using "Carmelites" (use the plural version) should pull up both books as well.

Please pass this news along to the members of your community. You might find you can save money on the shipping if you place one order for the full community. And we ask that those with internet access please help order for our members who do not have internet access. We also recommend that each community have a copy (or even a copy of each version) for their library.

We hope all the members of our province will find it useful to have all our legislation available together in one book and we appreciate everyone's patience with the delay we had in actually getting it published.

The Provincial Council
Pascal Alfano, Gerald Alford, Elizabeth M Korves, Nancy Thompson, Amelia Wilken

P.S. Note our clothing ritual requires us to present each candidate with a copy of the Constitutions. So your Director of Formation will need to have copies of this together with a scapular for each candidate as they are admitted into formation by this rite. [Fr. John Michael]

REPORT FROM THE PROVINCIAL COUNCIL

- July 2006

We had to wait a few months for approval for a small change we made in the Provincial Statutes (Sec. 2d), but as soon as we got word on that, we were then able to move forward with publishing a book of the legislation for our province. That took a few more weeks while waiting for the samples to be sure they look OK and now the books are ready for purchase. They've been a hot selling item with over 100 copies sold in less than a week. See the notice elsewhere in this issue of the Flos for how to order the books (emails were also sent out to all community/study group presidents).

Aside from that, we have mostly been making visitations. Gerald visited the Houston study group at St Therese's parish and the New Caney community in May. Upon returning home, he began planning a trip with his lovely wife, Betty, to Rome later this year. Elizabeth visited our study groups in Amarillo and then Lubbock, also in May. In Amarillo, she played a bit of golf for the first time (although needs lots more practice before going pro). This visitation photo shows the Amarillo members from left to right: Rita Hardesty, Director of Formation Margie Drummond, Deacon Jim Ambs seated, founding member Carol Gonzalez, and president Irene Robel.

June found Nancy visiting Georgetown and then Waco. In between, Nancy stayed with Elizabeth who treated her the one night to views of Mars, Jupiter, Saturn and other nocturnal wonders through the telescope where Elizabeth works.

Pascal is making good progress on rebuilding his life after Katrina. The new house is well underway and recently he passed along that he and his wife, Myra, will be able to move into the new house probably within the next month.

And Amelia?? She's been busy working out in her yard while the weather in Iowa is nice. When not out digging up plants, she continues to try to make heads or tails of who is an isolate and who is not. At the end of June, she'll also be hitting the road to make visitation to the Jackson and then Covington study groups.

Plans are under way for our annual meeting in October. We're very happy that we'll be together for the feast of St Teresa. We'll be meeting at the Mount Carmel Center in Dallas and will have the opportunity to meet with the Father General as he completes his visit with the friars of our province. The Dallas OCDS are planning to host a pot luck for us while we're there as well. We've also received an invitation for a meeting in early November at Holy Hill of the three Provincial Councils within the US as well as our National Council.

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

Rest in Peace

Ruth DeLeon

The Central Office received the following letter from Marcos DeLeon:

"Please accept this small donation in memory of my Mother, Refugio "Ruth" DeLeon who passed away on May 14, 2006. In 1971, my Mother was professed into your order in Kansas City, KS.

To show her faith, she was dressed in the Carmelite attire she had purchased over 30 years ago. God bless!."

Thank you, Marcos, for your donation and we will remember your Mother in our prayers.

Dolores Gauthier

Dolores Carcara Gauthier, 62, of the Community of the Prophet Elijah and Blessed Mary of Jesus Crucified in Alexandria LA, died Sunday, March 26. Dolores was clothed on November 15, 1994, made her First Promise on November 2, 1996, and her Final on November 5, 2000. Her devotional name was Gemma Therese of the Crucified Christ. Because of her illness, Dolores had been inactive for quite some time.

Dolores is survived by her husband of 42 years, Clayton J. Gauthier, Sr., of Alexandria, a son Clayton J. "CJ" Gauthier, Jr. and his wife, Shanna, two daughters Margaret Ann Gauthier and Colleen Gauthier Terrell; one sister Mary Constance Carcara Uildriks of Lafayette and three grandchildren. All those in our community will sadly miss her.

Ruth Rapp

Ruth Rapp, 28-Mar-08 to 04-Jun-06 was professed Martha of the Compassionate Hearts of Jesus and Mary in the Community of St. Joseph. This St. Louis community celebrates her entrance into eternal life. Ruth fittingly left this world on Pentecost Sunday. She had been unable to attend the monthly meetings for many years but kept in contact with us through prayer and donations each year.

Ruth was clothed November 15, 1953, and made her Promise on April 2, 1955. She celebrated her Golden Jubilee with the community and Holy Mass at the monastery chapel last year with many of her seven children, 33 grandchildren, 59 great grandchildren, and first great-great-­grandchild in attendance. At her funeral, Ruth had requested there be no eulogies, but the priest who gave the homily said that he believed something should be said of her exemplary life and the service she offered to her fellow sojourners on the way, even into her last years by reaching out to staff members at the center and other residents who did not have frequent visitors.

She and her husband were successful in business; she was an artist with many paintings on display in St. Louis and yet maintained a dedicated and pious prayer life. One of Ruth's lasting legacies is the unconditional love that she extended to her family, friends and those in need. As her family wrote on the register at her Mass: "What a woman to emulate. Her life with God and the Blessed Mother were as much a part of her life as was her breath."

Summer Articles

Merton’s Journal

My Life A Candle Sacrifice...

Thomas Merton destroyed his early journal written during his novitiate. In one of the fragments remaining, we find him writing on Good Friday, 1942, this prayer:

"I pray to You, my God, with every breath give me grace never to refuse you anything you ask, but to be absolutely lost in Your Will's obscurity..."

What does it mean to be lost in the obscurity of God's Will? He explains
"Not to demand that what I do should immediately show some result that I can appreciate; not to want to esteem anything that I do, or do anything because it will make me think I am something, but to only do things for love, and love alone. This is real obscurity, because the values loved by God's infinite love are absolutely incomprehensible to me... I don't even need to know precisely what I am doing, except that I am acting for the love of God."

Then he burst into prayer again:
"Jesus, I beg you, let me live for this one thing alone: Your love. Your love is Yourself. You are love."

So what does it mean to live for this love?
"If I live for love, I will ask no reward, only more love. Your love is infinite: above my understanding..." Basically, to so love is to do all with the desire and intention of doing God's Will, which is an immense obscurity. If you love me, Jesus said, you would do my will, which is the will of the Father.

All this means, Merton struggles to explain further
"..going by the way you know not, to get what you can't know. For we only go to Him in darkness of self-denial, by the way we do not know."

To strive to live our life in accord with the obscurity of God's will is to love with a love obscure to the senses. To choose to love God's will without understanding. To so love in essence is to give up everything for God. Merton observes:
"Perhaps my whole life will be devoted to nothing more than finding out what those words mean."

The struggle of it all:
"You give up everything and are happy. Then you find your happiness rests partly on something you didn 't give up because you didn 't even know you had it. You give this up and are happy... and so on, through higher and purer kinds of renunciation and happiness, to the purest renunciation, God alone, the purest joy. The interplay of the Active Nights and the Passive Nights: in the dynamite of that experience we discover that God alone can/will set us free from the hunter's snare.

The Candlemas Procession.
To see our life as a candle enlightened by the flame of Christ's sacrifice and so become a sacrifice of praise unto its consumption."

In a poem by that title, The Candlemas Procession, written about the time of these reflections in 1942, Merton compares the gift of self to God to the oblation of a candle, enflamed by Christ for the enlightenment of the world.
"Our lives, like candles, spell this simple symbol. As candles "weep" as they burn, so let my life burn and flow away to "sweeten the world with (my) slow sacrifice. And this shall be my praise: That by my glad expense my Father's will
Burned and consumed me..."

How shall we desire and seek to burn?
“Nor burn we now with brown and smoky flames, but bright until our sacrifice is done, (by which not we, but You, are known). And then returning to our Father one by one / Give back our lives like wise and waxen lights."
Amen.

Sam on Formation

What is Formation?

I would like to suggest that the Period of Formation is to "educate" the Carmelite candidate. I prefer to say, "educate" because to form is not to "create" a Carmelite. My experience is that a person with an authentic Carmelite vocation has what no one can give him --it comes from God. God attracts a person to interior prayer. God interests one in the Saints and spiritual writers of Carmel. God instills the desire for virtue and divine communion.

What we must do is take the Carmelite, already made by God, judge the authenticity of his basic orientation, and then educate him.

That education will build on what the person already is, already has. (Let me say that a crucial area of formation work is the discernment of a Carmelite vocation. You must direct people to stay or to leave and give them reasons why.)

The work of Formation will then attempt to communicate facts and to cultivate certain attitudes and dispositions consistent with the Carmelite spiritual tradition.

Fr. Sam Anthony Morello, OCD

Pride
PRIDE: The Negative Objective
From a "Particular Exam" by Fr. W. Robinson, CSC

Pride is at the root of every sin. It is one of the saddest consequences of original sin. There is no child of God who does not experience the workings of pride in his daily life. There are four kinds of pride and all four are present in each of us. Our problem is to discover which variety is strongest in us. The divisions of pride are not so clear cut that there cannot be cases where a man will be equally motivated by neighboring types of pride. The four types are:

Pride of domination (bossiness)
Pride of complacency (boastfulness)
Pride of sensitiveness (susceptibility to insult)
Pride of timidity (cowardice)

Thus, one man may be both domineering and complacent; or complacent and sensitive, or sensitive and timid; rarely would one be equally domineering and timid.

God has created us and has dominion over us. Pride denies this dominion. It blinds; impedes grace and diminishes merit.

Pride of timidity: The timid person is not humble but shy and fearful of what others will think of his possible failure. Through human respect, that is too great a regard for human opinion, he will omit the good he should do and do the evil he should omit, yet he feels always that he could do great things if he wanted to be the "show-off others are. Lacking the courage to act, he is bitter in his criticism of those who do act; he will not work himself, and discourages effort from others.

(This character has the advantage of a natural tendency to silence, to caution, to obedience and such virtues, which promise success in sanctification, provided the pride is recognized and fought.)

Pride of sensitiveness. The sensitive type is kindly, considerate, emotional, and sentimental; but can be jealous, easily wounded by a lack of response, given to flaming temper, followed by pouting. He is sometimes unstable, given to exaggerated enthusiasms and depressions.
(This character is naturally attracted to charity and to tender devotion. This type in saints often is raised to mystical heights.)

Pride of complacency. This is an exaggerated notion of our own good qualities coupled with a forgetfulness of God's part therein. There is a readiness to excuse failure in oneself and an unkindly readiness to see the shortcomings of rivals. Much time can be lost in daydreaming of future triumphs or in self-congratulation on past successes. Ordinarily, this type is boastful and can have a low opinion of others successes. (This character is optimistic, not too easily whipped by failure, and has a cheerfulness that makes him a good companion. He is not afraid of hard work and has a generous zeal.)

Pride of domination. Here is an overwhelming desire to command. It is argumentative, opinionated, and with a tyrannical opposition toward any lack of submission. Little sensitive itself, it easily and contemptuously wounds the sensibilities of others. Ruthlessly ambitious it is capable of the basest when necessary for advancement.
(This character is brave, unafraid of the price to be paid to reach an objective. Responsibilities and difficulties represent a challenge rather than an obstacle. Once this driving ambition has been submitted to God, you have not only a saint, but a great leader.)

In conclusion, once we discover our predominate form of pride, we should keep this as the objective of our particular Examen.. As long as we remain ourselves, we shall have to struggle to overcome that form of pride in order to move into the counter balancing good qualities that is also a part of our nature.