I have been asked to write something about the O. Carm. Third Order as we are today and to focus on our particular expression of the Carmelite vocation as lay people.
First, a little bit about myself:
I have been a member of the Third Order for over 30 years, and during that time I have been blessed to experience the vocation in two distinct ways. I started out as an ‘isolated’ member, guided initially by letters written to me in answer to any questions I had (I had quite a few!) from a mentor who, although I never met her in the flesh, was a great inspiration and help to me in that early stage. After my profession I was on my own, apart from attending a retreat when I could, and nourishing myself with a great deal of reading. After about fifteen years of that, I was invited to join the National Consultative Body, which was an appointed group of members who would meet regularly and whose aim was to help steer the reforms that were being implemented with the intention of revitalising the Third Order and Lay Carmel in general.
From having had almost no experience of community, I now found myself within one, and when I was asked to take on the role of National Secretary, my community expanded vastly yet again, to take in all the members of the Third Order in Britain.
Saint Peter’s in Rome has statues of the founders of the religious orders which, as far as I remember, line the central aisle of the basilica. Elijah stands there as the founder of the Carmelites. Although he is certainly not viewed as such today, for Carmelites he remains a powerful patron, a prophetic and contemplative figure who ‘stands in the presence of the Lord’ and is full of zeal for the God of Hosts. He is the source of our inspiration and charism, along with Mary, who is venerated as the Lady of the Place, our Patron and Sister, who ponders the word of the Lord in her heart. We may no longer be settled on Mount Carmel, but with our honouring of these two figures, we carry Mount Carmel with us, wherever we happen to be.
The last twenty years have been years of change and re-organisation for our Lay Carmelite family. The need for reform was urgent and focused mainly on three specific issues: formation, fraternity, and outreach. Formation was seen to be necessary because what was already in place lacked breadth and depth. Fraternity and Community were also urgent concerns because the Chapters were not really relating to each other. There was a certain insularity of attitude, with no mixing between the various groups. Even within the groups there might not be a great deal of opportunity to talk and share. Outreach was the obvious fruit of a life of renewed contemplation and prayer.
Chapters were asked to make their meetings occasions where good Carmelite content and formation could be shared, where there was space for some social interaction, and where the practice of Lectio was given pride of place. Formation modules, prepared by individual lay Carmelites, were written and incorporated in the book Climbing the Mountain. Gradually these ideas took root and through the medium of regular three-yearly National Gatherings the members of the Third Order began to know each other better, to share ideas and make plans for outreach. ‘Prayer, Community and Service’ became a sort of guiding principle, along with the understanding that our Contemplative inner life was the overarching source of these three.
Vatican II urged the Religious Orders to return to their original inspiration, so reconnecting with the Rule of St Albert, and considering how this can be applied in our lay Carmelite vocation has been a fruitful exercise. In a way there was a powerful tension in the lives of the first hermits on Mount Carmel, between the interior, solitary life of the cell, and the communal gathering for prayer and meals. Along with this, the hermits would no doubt have been visited by pilgrims to whom they ministered and perhaps depended upon to some extent. This tension is also true of lay Carmelites today. We meet in community once a month, but the rest of the time we are solitary as Carmelites despite our usually busy lives. And I think there probably beats within every Carmelite heart a sort of endless tug of war between the desire to be alone with God, and our natural human need for activity and human contact. This has a particular relevance in how we are meeting the challenge of our increasing number of distance members.
We are finding that we are having a greater and greater number of distance members (we abandoned the slightly depressing term ‘isolated’, some time back). These are people who live too far away from a Chapter or Group or are prevented by other reasons from attending monthly meetings with any regularity.
Over the last couple of years, we have devised a sort of online community which meets every six weeks or so, for distant members, enquirers, and anyone else who would like to come. The format is simple and mirrors as much as possible what takes place in an actual meeting: a brief talk based on a subject announced in advance, followed by moving into small groups for discussion, ending with a shared half hour or so of Lectio Divina. It isn’t quite the same as a regular meeting, with all the attendant drawbacks of Zoom meetings, but nevertheless it seems to be a useful step. We also link our distant members to an actual group which is their ‘home’ as it were, and we are increasing our pool of those willing to act as ‘buddies’, guides and formators, so that no one is actually without support. The aim is to help our distant members with two of their most pressing challenges: how to live as part of the Carmelite Community and how to maintain the necessary energy to persevere in their sometimes-lonely state.
I have used the title Green Shoots and Blades of Wheat for this article as it seems to describe the natural process of growth, life and harvest, and then perhaps a dying away of certain things. That process, it seems to me, reflects what happens in our individual lives, but also in the years of my experience with the Third Order.
I have used the title Green Shoots and Blades of Wheat for this article as it seems to describe the natural process of growth, life and harvest, and then perhaps a dying away of certain things. That process, it seems to me, reflects what happens in our individual lives, but also in the years of my experience with the Third Order.
One of the many green shoots was the growth of our Carmelite Spirituality Groups, which seemed to spring up out of nowhere some 14 years ago. The idea was to have groups which could be understood as an apostolate of the Chapters and Professed members, which followed the same format as our regular Chapter meetings, but which were open to anyone interested in Carmelite Spirituality. The hope was that they would attract members to the Order and would also minister to the thirst that exists in today’s society. They varied from large thriving groups, such as Carmel in the City, to smaller ventures such as one held in my home village, Mawdesley. There were eight or nine of these in all, but the fact is that only Carmel in the City and Redditch have survived to this day. Is this a failure? I don’t actually think so. They produced a great upsurge in energy which resonates even where the groups no longer exist. They also provided us with a valuable learning curve in that the invariable reason for the eventual closure of those that no longer exist lay in the fact that the people who came and participated and contributed, were not able on the whole to take on the succession of running the groups, so that those who managed them eventually ran out of steam. We learnt the importance of delegating, the importance of trusting each other, and also the obligation for all to pull their weight, however large or small the community. The fact remains that the legacy of all the Carmelite Spirituality Groups, whether still operating or merely ‘resting’, has been very rich in providing a widened outlook on the part of the Third Order members. It has given us a greater feel for what is possible, and a good helping of new members have indeed come in through that channel. Another benefit is that now I would definitely say that our regular Chapters and Groups have adopted a much more welcoming and open attitude to those who want to attend meetings, but who do not necessarily feel called to become Lay Carmelites.
A singular development in the last seven years has been the movement from an appointed National Consultative Body to a fully elected council of four and an elected Moderator, replacing the system by which the Prior Provincial delegated the care of the Third Order to a Friar or a lay person.
We receive a great deal of support and encouragement from the friars of course, but we now have the autonomy to prioritise certain things, and one of these has been the Travelling Pilgrim icon, which was conceived in the mind of our first Moderator, herself a talented icon painter. For the period in which the icon was in preparation, we all shared in the patient waiting and were given the opportunity to understand the process from preparing the icon board, through making the plan and initial drawings, to the final painting as well as the spiritual searching involved. Once the icon was finished, it was blessed by the Third Order Chaplain and commissioned by the Prior General before starting on its pilgrim way, visiting all the Third Order groups along with a number of other visits to the Secular Carmelites in Kensington, Notting Hill and Quidenham and to The Leaven – the Secular Institute of Our Lady of Mount Carmel.
I think the idea of a visible Carmelite icon, which incorporates all the many Carmelite symbols, is a powerful witness and magnet. There are plans for it to continue its journeys and perhaps widen the scope of these in the years ahead. It has already made a virtual journey to Australia, where it was present in electronic form at their latest National Gathering!
Every six years, delegates of the International Third Order and Lay Carmelites have the opportunity to attend a gathering in Rome. On these occasions we understand something of the privilege of belonging not just to our own Chapters or groups, not just to our own Province, but to the whole Carmelite Order throughout the world. In September 2024, the focus of the meeting was on the apostolate, the theme being: Lay Carmelites called to set the world on fire. The conference is spread over five days, and there was opportunity to hear about the truly varied work of many of the groups, ranging from grand schemes to the simple, small gestures of everyday. Cards, showing the Travelling Pilgrim icon were distributed alongside the opportunity to give a brief presentation about it.
In our country, most Lay Carmelites are involved at some level in the service of others, whether in the parish or the home. Some are involved in supporting prisoners. We have a prisoner who has been professed in prison and has given rise to a hope that we may one day be able to establish ‘Carmel in Captivity’. Many are active in climate justice issues or contribute actively to projects in Africa or Lithuania. Whatever one does, two thoughts are there to be taken away and dwelt on: we have to make our door visible if people are to come in through it, and there is always sadness where there is an empty seat at the table.
It would be a wonderful development if there could be a shared endeavour between the Third and Secular Orders. Already there are an increasing number of chances for shared retreats, talks and discussions, and the desire for more is growing.
I realise that I haven’t said very much about prayer up to this point. Our Carmelite documents define our charism as the call ‘to live a life of allegiance to Jesus Christ in a contemplative attitude which fashions and supports our life of prayer, fraternity and service.’[1] Thus, our contemplative stance is what gives shape to our prayer. We share with all our brothers and sisters in Carmel a longing for God (a wound of love) which pulls us relentlessly towards divine intimacy.
We are so fortunate in having the guidance of the saints, Teresa of Ávila, John of the Cross, Thérèse, Brother Lawrence, Edith Stein, and Titus Brandsma, to name but a few. The Rule of Saint Albert urges us to ‘ponder the law of the Lord day and night’ and one way we do this is by praying Morning, Evening and Night Prayer from the Divine Office; another way is through meditation on the word of God in the Scriptures and allowing it to permeate into our hearts. And of course, the Rosary is a much-loved part of our prayer.
Just as the Rule urged that ‘where it can be done without difficulty, you are to gather each morning to hear Mass’, so we attend daily Mass where it is possible. In all this we have a freedom to pray as we can and where we can, but at the same time, we are urged to be faithful to the demands of daily prayer, because sometimes it is only through faithful perseverance that we learn to understand the meaning and value of what we are doing. In this way, Carmel gradually shapes us from within, drawing us more deeply into its spirit.
Looking back over these years, what strikes me most is the quiet resilience and generosity of our Lay Carmelite family. Green shoots continue to appear in unexpected places, and even where certain initiatives have run their course, they have left behind a deeper sense of communion, purpose, and possibility. The Third Order today is a living, growing body, shaped by prayer, sustained by fraternity, and drawn into service by the God who calls us. There is much to be grateful for, and even more to hope for as we continue to walk together on the way of Carmel.
[1] Section 31 of ‘Living the Carmelite Way’
