When we think about the different expressions of daily life in Carmel, it is likely that the daily life of a Carmelite professor and scholar does not come immediately to mind. Yet Carmel has a rich tradition of scholars, beginning with our celebrated Doctors of the Church: Teresa of Ávila, John of the Cross, and Thérèse of Lisieux. The academic life of the Order continued into the twentieth century in which our two saints, St Titus Brandsma and St Edith Stein, were scholars (future Doctors of the Church?). This tradition has continued in the lives of Roland Murphy, Romeus O’Brien, Christian Ceroke, Jack Welch, Constance FitzGerald, Ernest Larkin, Keith Egan, Leopold Glueckert, Eamon Carroll, James McCaffrey, Quinn Conners, Patrick McMahon, Patrick Mullins, John Sullivan, Christopher O’Donnell, Kieran Kavanaugh, Steven Payne, Iain Matthews, Julen Urkiza, Simon Nolan, Emmanuel Nnadozie, Nicholas Madden, and so many others. These Carmelites lived the daily life of a Carmelite scholar, many as professors within university departments, although obviously this is not the only context in which a life of scholarship can be pursued. 

The biblical scholar Roland Murphy was an inspiration for me. His fidelity to research and study, along with his participation in Carmelite community life, was noted by so many of us who lived with him at Whitefriars Hall in Washington DC. He wrote groundbreaking articles on the Song of Songs (or Canticle of Canticles) before the Second Vatican Council — the council that gave us the innovative document Dei Verbum on the Word of God in the life of the Church. This research set Roland on a path to international recognition.

Because Roland had anticipated new avenues in biblical studies, he was well prepared in the post–Vatican II Church to bring these new approaches to Catholics who were hungry for the teachings of the Council. He recorded classes on vinyl records — those discs that those of us over fifty years old used to listen to — allowing for a wide dissemination of Vatican II’s teaching on the Bible into parishes and religious communities. Catholics could learn about the new historical-critical approach to Scripture (what Protestants had been doing since the nineteenth century). Roland had the gift of making these new insights available on a pastoral level. Thus, part of his daily life as a scholar involved reflecting on how to bring the Bible to everyone.

Roland’s example has shaped my own academic life in profound ways. I try to imitate him in my life as a university professor and biblical scholar. My daily academic life includes three major components: research, guiding dissertations, and teaching. There is also a fourth component: pastoral work with the Bible, in imitation of Roland. For thirty years I lived in the parish of San Martino in Rome, where I had the opportunity to preach daily and lead groups in Lectio Divina. There is a tremendous thirst among the people of God for a deeper understanding of Scripture. But preparing to communicate enthusiastically about the Word of God to the people of God takes time.

Different from Roland’s time, today computer‑assisted research is an essential component of my study of the Bible. I spend a good deal of time at a computer with multiple screens. My primary focus at present is the new critical edition of the Hebrew Bible, known as the Biblia Hebraica Quinta. I work in a team of over twenty people — Jews, Protestants, and Catholics. While each of us works individually, we come together periodically to discuss specific biblical verses and the challenges they present for the edition. Future biblical translators will use this edition of the Hebrew Bible to translate Scripture into various modern languages. The internet allows us immediate contact with one another as we seek solutions for difficult passages. I see this intense work as a way of observing our Carmelite Rule to study God’s Word day and night.

Roland would later collaborate with two other great scholars of the post‑conciliar period, Raymond Brown and Joseph Fitzmyer, to create The Jerome Biblical Commentary in 1968. This volume introduced pastors to the post–Vatican II approach to the Bible. Its 889 pages in double columns found their way onto every Catholic teacher’s and pastor’s desk. Roland’s life as a Catholic scholar involved the painstaking review and editing of this huge volume — a task that required the silence of one’s room, die ac nocte. The Carmelite scholar seeks this quiet life in her or his study to reflect, write, rewrite, and sometimes rewrite again before editing and proofing contributions that are both pastoral and academic.

Roland’s daily life witnessed to his dedication to the Word of God — a very Carmelite vocation. He was constantly meditating on that Word at his desk, in his reading chair, or in the chapel. At the height of his academic life, he wrote commentaries on the Song of Songs (Hermeneia, 1990) and Proverbs (Word Biblical Commentary, 1998). Near the end of his life, Roland even learned how to use a personal computer. In his later years, he focused on writing books for a broad audience, such as Responses to 101 Questions on the Psalms and Other Writings (1994). It remains a great read today. All his writings express his Carmelite vocation: a dedication to the Word of God.

Another critical aspect of the daily life of the Carmelite professor is guiding doctoral students through their groundbreaking research and assisting them as they compose the first drafts of their arguments, which then develop into their dissertations. Their work is eventually published and contributes to the academy. This requires intense collaboration, since brilliant younger scholars require the support and assistance of their dissertation directors as they engage in new research and learn how to articulate a cogent argument. The professor’s role is to read and reread their work, offering suggestions and corrections. Again, this task is done in the silence of a Carmelite’s study, and it is of critical importance for the continuation of the theological enterprise today. Eric and Carol Meyers (the archaeologists who excavated Sepphoris^[1]) arrived at Duke University when Roland was an established scholar there and have told me about his profound dedication to his students, especially his doctoral candidates.

Roland once said to me that the scholar’s life is never boring; there is always something new to discover. That has been true for me. Roland was constantly updating himself by reading recent publications. He was writing abstracts of recent biblical publications for Old Testament Abstracts on the Monday and died on the Friday (20 July 2002, the Feast of Elijah). When I went into his room after his death, there beside the chair was a stack of books awaiting his careful reading and abstracting for other scholars who might not know of the book and might have time only to read the abstract and not the volume itself (this was all before the emergence of online periodicals, such as our own Mount Carmel magazine).

The life of a Carmelite scholar reflects a concrete expression of our Rule, which teaches us to meditate on the Law of the Lord day and night. Those of us who specialise in biblical scholarship are quite literally immersed in the Bible so that, as the Rule teaches, everything we do will be done in the Word of the Lord. In this way, our scholars’ desks become another place of encounter — a quiet cell where the Word is pondered, served, and shared.

^[1] See ‘Sepphoris’ (last edited 6 February 2026). https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sepphoris