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In this Year of Faith, we, the members of the two
General Councils OCarm. and OCD, came on pilgrimage to Aylesford, England. This
is a significant place for the entire Carmelite Family. In fact, in this place,
where we are writing this message to you on the feast of St. Simon Stock, are
the remains of the ancient Carmelite house which was founded in 1242 by some of
the pilgrim-hermits from Mount Carmel. Their return to Europe from the Holy
Land, their gradual move from an eremitical life to a mendicant one, their
experience of God and above all, their humble and fraternal trust in Mary in a
period of cultural crisis, were for us all a source of inspiration. They also
gave us pause for thought in rethinking our mission for today’s world – the
topic to which we devoted most of our working sessions. In these we were guided
by Father Benito De Marchi, a Comboni Missionary.
At Aylesford we were the guests of the local
community of OCarm. friars, to whom we wish to express our heartfelt thanks for
their warm and attentive welcome. This was a time of prayer, of brotherhood, of
meditation, during which we also experienced two significant ecumenical events.
We celebrated First Vespers of Sunday with our Anglican brothers in the ancient
cathedral of Rochester (founded in 604 ad). The second event was a meeting in
Cambridge with Lord Rowan Williams, emeritus archbishop of Canterbury, a subtle
theologian and very considerable expert in Carmelite spirituality and saints.
These two meetings in prayer and theological reflection helped us to understand
that mission today has to be carried out in close co-operation with other
Christian groups, in a spirit of ecumenical openness.
From our pilgrimmage to the origins of Carmel in
Europe has emerged the humble conviction that this epoch, characterised by
globalisation, by mobility in all directions, by the eruption in our lives of
the “other”, by the affirmation of the value of the “subject”and by the loss of
a sense of God, requires a new missionary spirit. That is, it needs a heart
which is more evangelical and less sure of itself. In fact what we wish to share
with others is not the world views nor the attitudes of our old self, but a new
humanity which the Father has given to us as a gift, through his Son who died
and rose and which is constantly shaped by the Holy Spirit. In his much
appreciated address to the Synod of Bishops in October 2012, Rowan Williams
referring to Saint Edith Stein, called this new humanity “contemplative”.
Taking up this expression, with its typically
Carmelite flavour, we tried to describe in our reflections a humanity which
forgets itself, in silence and is free from the tiring search for personal
satisfaction and from the claim to make others happy by imposing our ideas and
projects on them. This new humanity, turned towards the Father, can see all
people, and especially the poor, the marginalised and the suffering, with eyes
full of compassion. This is a welcoming humanity, ready to undertake a continual
pilgrimage together with women and men of our time in order to find the way that
brings us more deeply into the heart of Trinitarian life.
It is impossible for us to imagine this new
humanity without “freeing the charism for a new lease of life” (Benito De
Marchi). That is, without freeing its contemplative and missionary potential
from all shallowness, hubris and selfishness, which prevent it from seeing
Trinitarian love and close inside a self-referential cycle.
On a more positive note, freeing the charism
means experiencing the Trinitarian relations of the fraternal and community life
more vividly. It means rediscovering evangelical joy and enjoying the taste of
unity and simplicity which exist between the Father, the Son and the Spirit. In
this way we can bear witness to them in every time and place, in every context
where we are sent.
In all this Mary the Mother of God, and our
Mother, accompanies us. For Carmelites she is a sublime model of humanity
listening to the Word and of contemplating the living God. She is the supreme
contemplative, who nonetheless approaches each one of us to be a pilgrim with
us. She embraces us with her maternal and fraternal love and lights in our
hearts the flame of love. Poor and humble, with the simple sign of the scapular
she protects this flame in our fragile human bodies and changes it into burning
passion for evangelisation and mission. Her discreet but eloquent presence in
our life means that those who wear the scapular are called to commit themselves
to loving their neighbour. In this sense the Virgin of Carmel has been called
“Missionary to the people”. (Oscar Romero)
Dear brothers and sisters, we leave Aylesford
with a renewed awareness of the gift of our vocation and of the mission that is
connected to it. The Risen Lord invites us not to be afraid of the difficulties
we will meet and not to be discouraged when faced with the inevitable trials and
possible failures. There is in all of us, insignificant and poor as we are a
stronger force which has conquered the world. It is the force of the Father’s
love for us, the force of his Word and his Spirit which drives us towards the
world and opens us to all those that the Lord puts in our path. Many women and
men are waiting for us, expecting that the family of Carmel will show our God’s
tenderness to them. May the Lord help us not to dash their hopes!
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