Born in Trapani, Sicily, during the 13th century, Albert was distinguished for his dedication to preaching and by his reputation for working miracles. In 1280 and 1289, he was in Trapani and afterwards in Messina. In 1296 he was appointed Provincial of the Carmelite Province of Sicily. He was known especially for his great desire to lead a holy life and for prayer. He died in Messina, probably in 1307. He was the first saint whose cult spread throughout the Order and, as a result, he is considered its patron and protector or "father", a title he shared with the other saint of his time, Angelus of Sicily. In the 16th century it was decided that every Carmelite church should have an altar dedicated to him. Among the many with a devotion to this saint were Saint Teresa of Jesus and Saint Mary Magdalene de' Pazzi.

Saint Albert was born towards the middle of the 12th century in Castel Gualtieri in Emilia, Italy. He entered the Canons Regular of the Holy Cross at Mortara, Pavia, and became Prior there in 1180. In 1184, he was named bishop of Bobbio, and the following year he was transferred to Vercelli which he governed for twenty years. During this period, he undertook diplomatic missions of national and international importance with rare prudence and firmness: in 1194, he effected a peace between Pavia and Milan and, five years later, also between Parma and Piacenza. In 1191, he celebrated a diocesan synod which proved of great value for its disciplinary provisions which continued to serve as a model until modern times. He was also involved in a large amount of legislative work for various religious orders: he wrote the statutes for the canons of Biella and was among the advisers who drew up the Rule of the Humiliates.
In 1205, Albert was appointed Patriarch of Jerusalem and a little later nominated Papal Legate for the ecclesiastical province of Jerusalem. He arrived in Palestine early in 1206 and lived in Acre because, at that time, Jerusalem was occupied by the Saracens. In Palestine, Albert was involved in various peace initiatives, not only among Christians but also between the Christians and non-Christians and he carried out his duties with great energy. During his stay in Acre he gathered together the hermits on Mount Carmel and gave them a Rule. On 14th September 1214, during a procession, he was stabbed to death by the Master of the Hospital of the Holy Spirit, whom Albert had reprimanded and deposed for his evil life.

Born in Florence at the beginning of the 14th century, he entered religious life in the Carmelite house in his native city. He was appointed Provincial of Tuscany in 1348 by the General Chapter meeting in Metz and the following year he was named bishop of Fiesole, near Florence. He governed his diocese well, becoming a model of charity and an eloquent preacher. He was distinguished by his zeal for the apostolate, his wise judgement and his love for the poor. He was admired and appreciated by everyone. Many people, rich or less well endowed, came to him as peacemaker after the many years of in-fighting and quarrelling which had ruined their families and their cities. He died on 6th January 1374 and was canonised on 29th April 1629.

Angelus is thought to have been one of the first Carmelites to return to Sicily from Mount Carmel and, according to a long-standing tradition, he was murdered in Licata during the first half of the 13th century.
Venerated as a martyr, a church was built soon after his death at the place where he died and his body was interred there. Only in 1662 were his remains transferred to the Carmelite church in Licata.
The cult of Saint Angelus spread throughout the Order and among ordinary lay people. Angelus and St Albert of Trapani are considered the "fathers" of the Order because they were the first two saints to have a cult in the Order and, as a result, they are frequently found in medieval Carmelite iconography alongside the Virgin Mary.
In Sicily, there are many places which have adopted Saint Angelus as their patron and the people there turn to him when in need, with great love and affection.

Saint John was born, probably in 1540, in Fontiveros, near Avila in Spain. His father died when he was very young and he had to move with his mother from one place to another, while he tried as best he could to continue his education and, at the same time, to earn a living. In Medina in 1563 he was clothed in the Carmelite habit and, after a year's novitiate, was given permission to follow the unmitigated Carmelite Rule. He was ordained priest in 1567, after studying philosophy and theology at Salamanca, and, in the same year, he met Saint Teresa of Jesus who, a little while before, had obtained permission from the Prior General Rossi to found two communities of contemplative Carmelite Friars (later called the Discalced) in order that they might help the communities of nuns that she had established. A year later - during which he travelled with Teresa - on the 28th November 1568, John became part of the first group of Reformed Carmelites at Duruelo, changing his name from John of St. Matthias to John of the Cross.
He occupied many different positions within the Reform. From 1572 to 1577 he was general confessor for the monastery of the Incarnation in Avila (not then reformed but where Saint Teresa was Prioress). In carrying out his duties, he became involved in an unpleasant dispute within the monastery, a dispute for which he was considered in some way responsible. As a result, he was seized and spent about eight months imprisoned in the Carmelite house in Toledo, from where he escaped in August 1578. During his time in prison, he composed many of his poems for which, later on, he wrote commentaries in his celebrated spiritual masterpieces.
After Toledo, he was appointed superior in a succession of houses, until, in 1591, the Vicar General, Nicolas Doria, (the Reform having, by this time, gained a certain autonomy) dismissed him from all his positions. In the final years of his life, this was not the only "trial" which came to him who had given everything to the Reform, but he bore all his trials as a saint. He died between the 13th and 14th December 1591 in Ubeda, aged 49 years.
He communicated his spirituality essentially by word of mouth and it was only written down as a result of persistent requests. The central theme of his teaching, which has made him renowned both within and without the Catholic Church, concerned the union through grace of man with God, through Jesus Christ: he described a spiritual journey from the very beginning up to the most sublime level, which consists of the stages of the purgative way, the illuminative way and the unitive way or, in other words, the stages for beginners, for the proficient and for those who are close to perfection. As Saint John says - in order to arrive at the All which is God, it is necessary that man should give all of himself, not like a slave but inspired by love. Saint John's most celebrated aphorisms were: "In the evening of your life you will be judged by your love" and, "Where there is no love, put love and then you will find love". Canonized by Pope Benedict XIII on 27th December 1726, he was proclaimed a doctor of the Church by Pius XI on 24th August 1926.

Mary Magdalene bore the surname of the noble family of Pazzi in Florence. Already by the 15th century, the Pazzi family exercised great political power. She was born on 2nd April 1566, given a good education and, from her childhood, she had a deep sense of the presence of God, a great love for the Eucharist and a longing to live a penitential life. Contrary to the usual practice but, with the consent of her confessor, she was allowed to make her first communion at the age of ten years. When she was seventeen years, she was accepted by the Carmelite nuns of Saint Mary of the Angels in Florence, her native city. During her novitiate, she had a serious illness which lasted for two months and brought her close to death. As a result, she was allowed to anticipate her profession. However, she recovered and for three years she was assistant mistress of novices, then sacristan, and, for a further six years, mistress of novices. Also, for a period, she had charge of the junior professed and in 1604 she was elected subprioress. Her continuous physical sufferings and severe spiritual trials were a great burden but she was enriched by God with extraordinary graces. She died on 25th May 1607. She was beatified in 1626 and canonised on 22nd April 1669.
In addition to her deep spiritual life, she observed conscientiously her religious vows and led a hidden life of prayer and self denial. She was filled with a burning desire for the renewal of the Church: keenly aware of the urgent need for reform, yearning to see it spread, and offering herself so that the "anointed ones" (i.e. priests) would once again be a witness to the world and that the lapsed would return to the Church. "The central theme in her spirituality (although not thought out in a fully systematic fashion) is love; we are created by God with love and by love, and such is the means by which we must turn to him; love is the measure of how far the soul has returned to God. The principal function of love is to unite the soul to God. The spiritual life is like a circle, inspired by love, which in God has both its point of departure and its moment of arrival." Saint Mary Magdalene de' Pazzi had also a great devotion to Our Lady and she was a significant inspiration in the development of Carmelite Marian devotion to the "Most Pure Virgin", claiming that the beauty of Mary lay in her purity, which was what had made her one with the Word in her divine maternity.
Her mystical experiences were written in five "original manuscripts", that is the notes which were written by her nuns recording all that she did or said during her ecstasies and her "overflowings of divine love". These notes were later revised by the saint herself. They are entitled: Forty Days, Conversations, Revelations and Understandings, Trials and Renewal of the Church, together with her Sayings and Letters.

Born in Perigod, France, around 1305, Saint Peter Thomas joined the Carmelite Order when twenty years of age. He was Procurator General of the Order at the Papal Curia at Avignon and also an official preacher to the Curia there. In 1354, he was appointed bishop of Patti and Lipari. He acted as papal legate to the kings and emperors of his time, seeking to promote peace and to re-establish unity with the Eastern Churches. He was translated to other episcopal sees: in 1359 to that of Corinth in the Pelopennese with the role of papal legate in the East; then to Crete as archbishop in 1363 and finally to Constantinople in 1364 as Latin Patriarch. His efforts for the unity of the Church make this fourteenth century saint a precursor of ecumenism. He died in 1366 at Famagusta in Cyprus.

Raphael of St. Joseph (in lay life: Joseph Kalinowski) was born at Vilna to a Polish family on 1st September 1835 and died at Wadowice on 15th November 1907. Graduating in engineering at the Academy of Military Sciences at St. Petersburgh, he was appointed to the fortress at Brest Litowski and later promoted to be Chief of Staff in the Russian Army. In spite of his desire to leave the military life, he took part in the rising against the Czarist occupying forces in Poland, accepting the position of Minister of War in Vilna. The night of the 24th March 1864, he was arrested and put in prison where he was condemned to death but the sentence was later commuted to ten years forced labour in Siberia. He was freed in 1874 and returned to Poland. Being forbidden to live in any of the main Polish cities, he took up a post as tutor to the young Prince Augusto Czartoryski who spent most of his time in Paris. In 1877, Raphael joined the Carmelites. He was ordained priest in 1882 and began an apostolate centred on the confessional, in the giving of spiritual direction and being full of enthusiasm for ecumenism, he worked strongly for unity in the Church. A great devotee of Our Lady, he revived the Discalced Carmelite Order in Poland. He was canonized by Pope John Paul II on 17th November 1991.

As far as can be ascertained from the earliest references, Simon Stock was an English Prior General, known for his holy way of life, who died about 1265 in Bordeaux in France. After his death, miracles were recorded by those visiting his tomb and during the 14th century a local cult developed in Bordeaux.
Around 1400, a separate legend emerged in the Low Countries of a "holy Simon" who had a vision of Our Lady, in which she appeared to him bearing the scapular and promised: "This is a privilege for you and your brethren: whoever dies wearing it, will be saved." Within a few years, the two accounts had been merged and Simon Stock, the Prior General, was credited with having the vision of Our Lady. The combined account quickly became elaborated with imaginary biographical details of Simon's life, such as his birth in Kent, his living for some years as a hermit in the trunk of a tree and his authorship of the Flos Carmeli, a beautiful Carmelite hymn to Our Lady (which is, in fact, found in the 14th century and hence predates the legend).
The cult of Saint Simon Stock and the scapular devotion spread rapidly throughout the 15th and 16th centuries and increasingly large numbers of lay persons were enroled in the scapular. Artists from all over the world have portrayed the scapular vision and examples are preserved in Carmelite churches throughout the Order. In the 16th century, the cult of Saint Simon Stock was made a part of the liturgical calendar for the whole Order, his feast being usually celebrated on 16th May. The feast was omitted in the recent reform of the liturgical calendar after Vatican II but has been now reintroduced.
Although the historicity of the scapular vision is rejected, the scapular itself has remained for all Carmelites a sign of Mary's motherly protection and as a personal commitment to follow Jesus in the footsteps of his Mother, the perfect model of all his disciples.

Edith Stein was born a Breslau on 12th October 1891 to German Jewish parents, and after her secondary education, she enroled in the department of philosophy in the city university. In 1913, she transferred to the University of Gotingen to study under Edmund Husserl. Until the age of thirteen years, she was in effect an atheist. She had her first serious encounter with Christianity listening to Max Scheler. In 1916, she continued and completed her studies at Fribourg where she wrote her doctorate directed by Husserl. She remained working in the university until 1921. During those years, she read the autobiography of Teresa of Avila and became aware of being called to become a Catholic; she was baptized on 1st January 1922. She made her First Communion the same day and was confirmed on the following 2nd February. After her conversion, she felt herself attracted to the religious life but circumstances forced her to delay this decision until 1933. When in 1933 she lost her teaching post as a result of the anti-Jewish laws, she entered into the Carmel at Cologne on 14th October 1933, taking the name of Teresa Benedict of the Cross. On 31st December 1938 she was moved to the Carmel at Echt in Holland so as to escape the Nazi persecution of the Jews. In 1940, the situation worsened also in Holland. When the prescriptions became more severe, an attempt was made to transfer her to the Carmel in Switzerland. While the arrangements were being negotiated for her move, the deportations of the Jews to the concentration camps began in Holland. Sister Teresa, accompanied by her sister Rosa who had also become a Catholic, was taken to Amersfort on 2nd August 1942. On 3rd August, she was transferred to Westerbork. On 7th August, she and her sister together with other deportees were locked in railway wagons and taken by train to the extermination camp at Auschwitz, a voyage which took two days.
Sister Teresa Benedict of the Cross died in the gas chamber the same day that she arrived at the camp at Auschwitz, Sunday 9th August 1942, and her body was burned in one of the crematoria there. She was beatified on 1 May 1987 and canonized on 11 October 1998 by Pope John Paul II. On 2 October 1999 the same Pope proclaimed her co-patron of Europe.

Known to her family as Teresa de Cepeda y Ahumada, she became the reformer of Carmel, mother of the Discalced Carmelite nuns and friars, "spiritual mother" (as is engraved under her statue in the Vatican Basilica), patron of Catholic writers (from 1965) and Doctor of the Church (1970), the first woman with Saint Catherine of Siena to ever receive this last title. She was born at Avila in Castile, Spain, on 28th March 1515 and died in Alba de Tormes, near Salamanca, on 4th October 1582 (a correction due to the Gregorian reform of the calendar that year, as the following day was officially 15th October). She was beatified in 1614, canonised in 1622 and her feast day occurs on 15th October.
Her life needs to be understood in the light of the plan which God had for her, with the great desires experienced in her heart, with the mysterious illness to which she was subject in her youth (and with the ill health from which she suffered throughout her life), and with the "resistance" to divine grace for which she blamed herself more than she should has. Running away from home, she entered the Carmel of the Incarnation in Avila on 2nd November 1535. As a result, partly of the prevailing conditions in the community and partly from her own spiritual difficulties, she had to struggle before arriving at what she called her conversion at the age of 39. But, benefitting from various spiritual directors, she then began to make great strides towards perfection.
In 1560, the idea first emerged of a new Carmel, where the Rule could be followed more closely, and this was realized two years later when the monastery of St. Joseph was founded without any endowments and "following the Primitive Rule": a phrase that needs to be clearly understood because both then and later it was a notion which was more nostalgic and "heroic" than practical. Five years later Teresa obtained from the Prior General of the Order, John Baptist Rossi, then visiting Spain, permission to increase the number of monasteries and a licence to found two communities of contemplative Carmelite friars (later to be called Discalced) who would be the spiritual counterparts of the nuns and, as such, able to help them. At the death of Saint Teresa, there were 17 monasteries of nuns in the Reform, and the communities of friars also quickly outstripped the original number, some founded with permission from the Prior General Rossi but others, especially those in Andalusia, established against his will, relying on the approval of the apostolic visitators, the Dominican Vargas and the young Discalced Carmelite Jerome Gracian (a close spiritual companion of Teresa, for whom she vowed to do whatever he asked her, as long as it was not contrary to God's law).
There followed a series of unedifying quarrels, made worse by the interference of the civil authorities and other outsiders, until in 1581, the Discalced were formed into a separate Province. Saint Teresa was then able to write, "Now all of us, Discalced and Calced, are at peace and nothing can hinder us from serving the Lord".
Saint Teresa is among the most important figures of all time for Catholic spirituality. Her works - especially the four best known (The Life, The Way of Perfection, The Mansions and The Foundations) - together with her more historical works, contain a doctrine which encompasses the whole of the spiritual life, from the first steps right up to intimacy with God at the centre of the Interior Castle. Her Letters show her occupied with a great variety of everyday problems. Her doctrine on the unity of the soul with God (a doctrine which was intimately lived by her) follows the Carmelite tradition which had preceded her and to which she herself contributed in such a notable way, enriching it as well as passing the tradition on, not only to her spiritual sons and daughters, but also to the whole Church which she served so unsparingly. When she was dying, her one joy was to be able to affirm that "I die a daughter of the Church".

Saint Thérèse was born at Alençon in France on 2nd January 1873. Her parents were Louis Martin and Zélie Guérin. After the death of her mother on 28th August 1877, Thérèse and her family moved to Lisieux. Towards the end of 1879, she went to confession for the first time. Taught by the Benedictine nuns of Lisieux, she received First Holy Communion on 8th May 1884. Some weeks later, on 14th June of the same year, she received the Sacrament of Confirmation.
She wished to embrace the contemplative life, as her sisters Pauline and Marie had done in the Carmel of Lisieux, but was prevented from doing so by her young age. On a visit to Italy, during an audience granted by Pope Leo XIII to the pilgrims from Lisieux on 20th November 1887, she asked the Holy Father with childlike audacity to be able to enter the Carmel at the age of fifteen. On 9th April 1888 she entered the Carmel of Lisieux. She received the habit on 10th January of the following year, and made her religious profession on 8th September 1890. She fulfilled in a very special way all the little aspects of daily life, with humility, a gospel simplicity and great trust in God, and she tried by her example and her words to impart these virtues to her sisters, especially the novices. Discovering that her place was to be at the heart of the Church, she offered her life for the salvation of souls and for the well-being of the Church.
On 3rd April 1896, in the night between Holy Thursday and Good Friday, she suffered a haemoptysis, the first sign of the illness which would lead to her death; she welcomed this event as a mysterious visitation of the Divine Spouse. She was transferred to the infirmary on 8th July. Meanwhile her sufferings and trials intensified. She died, transported by love, on 30th September 1897. Her final words, "My God...., I love you!", seal a life which was extinguished on earth at the age of twenty-four; thus began, as was her desire, a new phase of apostolic presence on behalf of souls in the Communion of Saints, in order to shower a rain of roses upon the world.
She was canonised by Pope Pius XI in 1925 and proclaimed patron of the missions by the same Pope in 1927. On 19th October 1997, Pope John Paul II declared her Doctor of the Church. Most remarkable is her biographical account, The story of a soul. In her autobiographical manuscripts she left us not only her recollections of childhood and adolescence but also a portrait of her soul, the description of her most intimate experience.

Juana Fernandez Solar was born on 13th July 1900 at Santiago in Chile, to Christian middle-class parents. Two days after her birth, she was baptized. The example and the teaching of her parents were the foundation of her Christian education. She was confirmed on 22th October 1909 and made her First Communion on 11th September 1910. On 7th May 1919, to the joy of her parents, she joined the Discalced Carmelite nuns in the city of Los Andes, taking the name of Teresa of Jesus. She was clothed in the habit on the following 14th October and then began her novitiate. But on Good Friday, 2nd April 1920 she caught typhus. On 5th April, she received the last sacraments and on the 6th, she made her religious profession, in articulo mortis. She died on 12th April 1920 after having spent only 11 months in Carmel, as a postulant and a novice. She was canonized by Pope John Paul II on 21st March 1993 and proposed as an example for young people in today's Church.