Happy new year! And after-Advent reflections

it is the twilight of 2021. I am thinking about spiritual new year’s resolutions (and maybe writing an article about it) and simultaneously enjoying the Christmas season and reflecting on Advent.

During December, I took a small, four-part online class on Carmelite spirituality through Sacred Heart Major Seminary. I knew nothing about Carmelite spirituality going into it, and am convinced it is a deep, deep well that will require much more exploration.

There are of course parallels to other orders and forms of spirituality; the emphasis on mystic prayer reminded me of the Jesuits, for example. So I need to learn more to understand what makes it different and unique, because I know there is something to it. There wouldn’t be so many great saints to come of it, if not (St. Theresa of Avila, St. John of the Cross, Edith Stein, and so on).

Below are some of the takeaways, or really items of interest that made me pause (and want to know more):

• Carmelites pray “on behalf of the world” - the Carmelite is to stand proxy for sinners through voluntary and joyous suffering. “Missionary contemplation.” Idea of responsibility for the other

• Spirituality rooted in “zeal for the Lord in handing over one’s life to God”

• “The desert of the soul is the very place of God’s communication.”

• Soul = precise locale of communion with God.

• We are unfamiliar with our souls and how they relate to God.

• Contemplative prayer helps us with these questions: what is the soul? How does the soul relate to God? What does God desire for my soul?

• Further: the soul as Heaven itself

• Carmelites live lives both outwardly active and interiorly contemplative - always available in service to others, while also always seeking interior conversation with God through prayer. And open to the Holy Spirit’s “interruptions”

• Contemplative love is a Carmelite’s apostolate

• 5 stages of prayer: vocal, mental/meditation, prayer of recollection, prayer of quiet, prayer of union (I don’t feel I know enough about each to accurately summarize here)

• The common human vocation is to become mother or father (not always in the literal biological sense)

• All are called to enter into a mystical way of being in the world!

There was also a good deal about the way we are to imitate Mary, the ultimate contemplative mystic (yes), and also about Mt. Carmel itself, and the ascent thereof, which I did not understand. More to learn on that and many fronts!

Merry Christmas and happy new year!