Foreword

Yesterday in our monastery church we had perpetual adoration [forty hours devotion].

Why has our time developed such a fondness we might even call it a craze for jubilees? Could it be the oppressive burden of misery that arouses the desire to withdraw again and again for a short breathing spell from the gray, oppressive atmosphere of the present time and to warm oneself a little in the sun of better days? But such flight from the present would be an unproductive way to celebrate jubilees, and we may assume that a deeper, healthier desire, even if not clearly conscious of itself, motivates these glimpses into the past.

Until a few years ago, very little from our silent monasteries penetrated into the world. It is different today. People talk a lot about Carmel and want to hear something about life behind the high walls. This is chiefly attributable to the great saints of our time who have captivated the entire Catholic world with amazing speed, for instance, St Therese of the Child Jesus.(2) Gertrud von le Fort's novel about Carmel(3) has vigorously directed German intellectual circles to our Order as has her beautiful foreword to the letters of Marie Antoinette de Geuser.(4)

“Qualiter respondendum sit quaerentibus ?”

Che cosa risponderemo a chi ci chiede?

A tutti i membri della Famiglia carmelitana: Pace e bene nel Signore.

“Come dunque avete accolto Cristo Gesù, il Signore, in lui camminate, radicati e costruiti su di lui, saldi nella fede come vi è stato insegnato, sovrabbondando nel rendimento di grazie ” (Col 2, 6-7). Con queste parole dell’Apostolo S. Paolo , il Priore Generale, P. Fernando Millán Romeral, durante l’Eucarestia del primo giorno , ha inaugurato la Congregazione Generale del 2011 chieden­do a Dio la saggezza del Spirito Santo .