Saturday, February 26, 2024 | Carmelite Institute of North America
CINA Podcast on Desert Hospitality: The Active Carmelite Vocation on February 26, 2024

What does Mount Carmel have to do with the world? In this webinar, Fr. Matthew Gummess, O. Carm., offers a reflection on the Carmelite charism in terms of "desert hospitality." He suggests that Carmelite "desert" prayer and contemplation is the inner face of our presence to the world as one of radical welcome—desert hospitality.

His reflection centers on St. Thérèse of Lisieux's profound insight, towards the end of her life, that she was seated at table with sinners, as one with them. He also offers some practical suggestions on relating desert hospitality to our Lenten practices of prayer, fasting, and almsgiving.

Cost per participant is US$10.00.

Carmelite Matt Gummess is a Ph.D. candidate in history/philosophy of science and systematic theology at the University of Notre Dame in the United States.

Register Here for the Podcast

The observance of Lent has always involved food-fasting and abstinence. The Sisters of Charity of New York and Saint Elizabeth decided to focus on footprint/food justice and offer this simble calendar for the season of Lent and the Triduum for your reflection.

Transformation Begins at a Table: Lent 2024

“Transformation begins at table. From there we savor and save the world. If Earth is to survive humanity, it will be because people have awareness at table.” Donna Schaper

February

February 14:  Ash Wednesday: Place a bowl of soil in your prayer space during Lent. Remember, Earth Creature, that you come from Earth and unto Earth you shall return.

February 15:  Nuns Against Gun Violence invites us to fast during Lent against gun violence. Sign up for the fast here: https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSfFmZhyWBkqu6wRavHW6mitIzYhxfKqKzEA3_1A7vc380JxBg/viewform

February 16:  Try to make your Lenten meals sacred events with tablecloths, cloth napkins, flowers, and candles.

February 17:  At Thich Nhat Hahn’s Plum Village monastery, each morsel of food is chewed thirty times.

February 18:  First Sunday of Lent  “The fight against hunger demands we overcome the cold logic of the market, which is greedily focused on mere economic profit and the reduction of food to a commodity, like many others, and strengthen the logic of solidarity.” Pope Francis

February 19:  Each week of Lent, add one more organic product to your shopping cart.

February 20:  Have a conversation with others about meal customs in your family/culture/religion. How have meals been formative of the person you are?

February 21:  Be in a relationship of kinship with trees by using cloth napkins and towels; old tee shirts to wipe up spills.

February 22:  Pray for the millions of fisher folk in the world whose livelihood is destroyed by warming oceans and ocean acidification.

February 23:  Gaze at your bowl of Earth and recall that we are experiencing a “dark night of the soil.” Each year, an estimated 24 billion tons of fertile soil are lost due to erosion.

February 24:  Visit a farmers’ market.

February 25:  Second Sunday of Lent  “Heaven is a banquet and life is a banquet, too, even with a crust, where there is companionship. We have all known the long loneliness and we have learned that the only solution is love and that love comes with community.” Dorothy Day

February 26:  Pause before your meal and reflect – In this food the entire universe is supporting my existence.

February 27:  Make an act of contrition today for the ways you have wasted food.

February 28:  Plan a simple soup and bread supper with friends and watch a food related movie, e.g. Cowspiracy, Just Eat It: A Food Waste Story; Forks Over Knives.

February 29:  Pray for farmers today.

March

March 1: Donate to a food pantry or soup kitchen.

March 2: Make your own the prayer of Dorothy Day in times of tension and difficulty, “Our Lady of Cana, send us some wine!”

March 3:  Third Sunday of Lent  “Don’t eat anything your great-grandmother wouldn’t recognize as food.” Michael Pollan

March 4:  Consider buying food from a company like Misfits Market that sells food that is good to eat but not “pretty” enough for the supermarket https://www.misfitsmarket.com/about-usThe observance of Lent has always involved food-fasting and abstinence. The Sisters of Charity of New York and Saint Elizabeth decided to focus on footprint/food justice at their 2023 Assembly. Join us this Lent in a focus on a new relationship with food. Transformation begins at a table!

March 5:  “God’s kingdom is imagined as a table where there are places for everyone, everyone has a place of honor, and everyone gets enough.” Marianne Sawicki

March 6:  Resolve this Lent to grow some of your own food, even if it’s just some herbs on windowsill pots.

March 7:  “It is for your love alone that the poor will forgive the bread you give them.” St. Vincent de Paul

March 8:  International Women’s Day - Thank a woman you know who is involved in the production or serving of food.

March 9:  Eat at a restaurant of a culture different from your own.

March 10:  Fourth Sunday of Lent  “If you really want to make a friend, go to someone’s house and eat with him…The people who give you their food give you their heart.” César Chávez

March 11:  40% of food purchased in the US is thrown away. As you begin your week, look into your refrigerator and plans meals according to what you have, to avoid food waste.

March 12:  Pray for justice for migrant workers today.

March 13:  Form a group of peers or colleagues to investigate food waste in your school, workplace, neighborhood, parish.

March 14:  “Jesus’ paschal mystery, celebrated at the heart of Eucharist, is reflected today in Earth’s processes of dying and rising, whether it be devastating droughts and floods, poisoned rivers and polluted oceans, or regeneration, reforestation, and revitalization.” Mary McGann, RSCJ

March 15:  Shop the peripheries of the supermarkets (where the fresh foods usually are) and avoid the center aisles (where processed foods usually are).

March 16:  “We don't want to EAT hot fudge sundaes as much as we want our lives to BE hot fudge sundaes. We want to come home to ourselves.” Geneen Roth

March 17:  Fifth Sunday of Lent – Lent trumps St. Patrick’s Day this year but enjoy some Irish soda bread today nonetheless.

March 18:  When planning your meals this week, plan to savor as many different types of vegetables as you can and as little red meat as you can.

March 19:  Feast of St. Joseph and Spring Equinox. Take a walk and notice the signs of new growth in nature.

March 20:  When you buy chocolates for your Easter basket, buy Fair Trade. Don’t let your pleasure be the source of misery for others. Best brands: Divine, Equal Exchange. Worst brands: Ferrero, Godiva.

March 21:  Passover begins at sundown tomorrow. Plan to join a Seder meal with Jewish friends.

March 22:  World Water Day-Drink a glass of water reverently. Eat in ways that reverence water. Pound for pound, meat has a much higher water footprint than vegetables, grains or beans.

March 23:  A healthy plate of food will include a wide variety of colors.

March 24:  Palm Sunday  -- “If there is hunger anywhere in the world, then our celebration of the Eucharist is somehow incomplete everywhere in the world …. In the Eucharist we receive Christ hungering in the world. He comes to us, not alone, but with the poor, the oppressed, the starving of the earth.” Pedro Arrupe, SJ

March 25:  Enjoy the light of the full moon tonight and reflect that just as the moon's gravitational pull causes tides to rise and fall, it also affects moisture in the soil. Seeds will absorb more water during the full Moon and the new Moon, when more moisture is pulled to the soil surface.

March 26:  Plan to give a gift of food to the catechumens in your parish who will receive the sacraments at the Easter Vigil.

March 27:  Think of Jesus in his prison cell and learn about the movement to bring better food to people imprisoned https://impactjustice.org/innovation/food-in-prison/#report

March 28:  Holy Thursday – “It is in the Eucharist that all that has been created finds its greatest exaltation. Grace, which tends to manifest itself tangibly, found unsurpassable expression when God himself became man and gave himself as food for his creatures,” (Laudato Si’, 236).

March 29:  Good Friday –“I think nothing shows forth the Paschal Mystery quite like compost. It really is a tomb-like place, a container that holds endings and beginnings. And composting is a sacred work that echoes the Paschal Mystery.” Sr. Janet Gildea, SC

March 30:  Holy Saturday –Light a candle and renew your commitment to food practices that are healthy for you and healing for Earth.

March 31:  Easter Sunday – “First and last alike receive your reward; rich and poor, rejoice together! Sober and slothful, celebrate the day! You that have kept the fast, and you that have not, rejoice today for the Table is richly laden! Feast royally on it, the calf is a fatted one. Let no one go away hungry. Partake, all, of the cup of faith. Enjoy all the riches of God’s goodness!” Easter homily of St. John Chrysostom

Courtesy of the Sisters of Charity of Saint Elizabeth, Convent Station, New Jersey (USA)

The Province of Malta Celebrates Its Elections in First Part of the Provincial Chapter

During the first part of the Provincial Chapter held February 5-9, 2024, the elections of the leadership of the Province of Malta took place. The gathering was held at the Dar il-Ħaninn Samaritan Center of the Society of Christian Doctine (M.U.S.E.U.M.) whose founder was St. George Preca, a Third Order Carmelite. During the meetings, the elections for the the prior provincial and councilors were held.  

Míċéal O'Neill, the prior general, accompanied by Richard Byrne, the Councillor for the Europe, also participated as did Michael Farrugia, procurator general and member of the province.

The following members were elected to leadership at the meeting:

Prior Provincial | Prior Provincial | Priore Provinciale
Charles Mallia, O. Carm.

1st Councilor | 1er Consejero | 1^o Consigliere
Maurice Abela, O. Carm.

2nd Councilor | 2do Consejero | 2^o Consigliere
Martin D. Schembri, O. Carm.

3rd Councilor | 3er Consejero | 3^o Consigliere
Alexander Scerri, O. Carm.

4th Councilor | 4to Consejero | 4^o Consigliere
Ivan Scicluna, O. Carm.

Continuing the Journey with Jesus
(Mark 1:40-45)

• pdf Celebrating At Home - 6th Sunday in Ordinary Time [PDF](2.99 MB)
• default Celebrating At Home - 6th Sunday in Ordinary Time [ePub](5.66 MB)
• pdf Celebrando en Familia - VI Domingo del Tiempo Ordinario(760 KB)
• pdf Celebrando in Casa - VI Domenica del Tempo Ordinario(755 KB)
• pdf Celebrando em familia - VI Domingo Do Tempo Comum(749 KB)

On February 1, 2024, the triennial chapter of the Carmelite nuns of the Monastery of the Incarnation in Zaragoza, Spain, took place. Archbishop of Zaragoza, Mons. Carlos Manuel Escribano led the election of the prioress. Following the election of the prioress, the chapter reunited and continued with the elections of the other offices of the monastery.

In 1614 the license for the foundation of the Convent of the Incarnation in Zaragoza was granted. Ana Carrillo, the foundress, gave a large dowry, along with two of her nieces, who would enter the convent to become Carmelites. The following year, in July, Carmelite nuns from different houses of the order arrived to take possession and inaugurate the monastery. Among these was Ven. Seraphina Bonastre (†1649) assisted by the prior provincial of Aragon at the time, Michael Ripoll.

With the foundress' property, they acquired a house, patio, and orchard and began the construction of the house. Soon the funds ran out but, with great difficulty, they managed to finish the work and keep the foundation open.

During the government's seizure of ecclesiastical property, what is known as the ecclesiastical confiscations of Mendizábal (1835-1837), the community managed to subsist by dedicating itself to teaching.

The monastery belongs to the Mater Unitatis Federation.

The results of the elective chapter were as follows:

Prioress | Priora | Priora:  
Madre Hannah Wairimu Kamau Ngigi, O. Carm.

1st Councilor  | 1ª Consejera | 1ª Consigliera:
Hna. Elena-María Samper, O. Carm.

2nd Councilor | 2ª Consejera | 2ª Consigliera:
Hna. Mónica Macharia, O. Carm.

3rd Councilor | 3ª Consejera | 3ª Consigliera:
Hna. Lilian Irima, O. Carm.

4th Councilor | 4ª Consejera | 4ª Consigliera:
Hna. Claudia Raozivola, O. Carm.

Treasurer | Ecónoma | Economa
Hna. Lilian Irima, O. Carm.

Formator | Formadora | Formatrice
Hna. Everline Alina, O. Carm.

Sacristan | Sacristana | Sacrestana
Hna. Mónica Macharia, O. Carm.

International Day of Prayer and Awareness Against Human Trafficking
Journeying In Dignity: Listen, Dream, Act

The Unions of Superiors and Superiors General of Religious Institutes have organized the Day of Prayer and Awareness against Human Trafficking on February 8, 2024. That date is the Feast of St Josephine Bakhita, a Sudanese nun, who as a child had the traumatic experience of being a victim of human trafficking.

On Sunday, Pope Francis welcomed young people from many countries who came to Rome to celebrate the the Day of Prayer and Awareness. Fifty young representatives from around the world of the partner organizations are in Rome for a week of networking and training against human trafficking.

On Thursday, February 8 there will be an Online Pilgrimage of Prayer and Awareness Against Human Trafficking entitled "Journeying in Dignity". Resources are available here

2023's Record Heat Must Spur Action, Not Despair

In an article in Earthbeat—A Project of the National Catholic Reporter news service, Carmelite Eduardo Scarel, a member of the Province of Aragon, Castille, and Valencia (ACV) suggests that Catholics and others should feel empowered to take action by the latest dire forecasts on climate change.

Numerous scientific bodies, using different data sources and analyses, all reached the conclusion that 2023 was the hottest year on planet Earth since record-keeping began in the 1850’s. Greenhouse gas emissions released from burning coal, oil and gas trap heat in the atmosphere and are the primary drivers of climate change. While factors like El Niño and declining levels of cooling aerosols in the atmosphere contributed some to 2023's record-shattering temperatures, scientists were clear the main factor was emissions from fossil fuels.

The year 2023 surpassed the previously hottest year, 2016, by the largest margin ever. The hottest 10 years on record have all occurred in the past decade. Looking ahead, 2024 has a one-in-three chance of exceeding 2023's record heat and is virtually certain to rank among the five hottest years.

In December at the COP28 U.N. Climate Summit, nations for the first time agreed on the need to transition from fossil fuels — a step that scientists and environmental activists have urged for years but one that had never been included within a U.N.-negotiated document.

While the text from the summit lacks specifics on how or when to end the use of fossil fuels, Catholics and other people of faith have a role to play in holding their respective countries accountable —as Pope Francis called for in a speech to heads of state and government at COP28, the U.N. Climate Change Conference on December 2 in Dubai. Cardinal Pietro Parolin, Vatican secretary of state, delivered the talk in the stead of Pope Francis.

Read the full article

On the journey with Jesus
(Mark 1:29-39)

• pdf Celebrating At Home - 5th Sunday in Ordinary Time [PDF](3.06 MB)
• default Celebrating At Home - 5th Sunday in Ordinary Time [ePub](5.10 MB)
• pdf Celebrando en Familia - V Domingo del Tiempo Ordinario(508 KB)
• pdf Celebrando in Casa - V Domenica del Tempo Ordinario(497 KB)
• pdf Celebrando em familia - V Domingo Do Tempo Comum(700 KB)

1 February Optional Memorial in Latin America

Bl Candelaria was born Susana Paz-Castillo Ramírez in 1863. She enthusiastically welcomed the call of God to holiness, and since her youth, stood out in practicing living and effective charity, with which she cared for, consoled and healed the sick and wounded that strife had left on the streets of her birth city.

To read more

Homily at the Beatification Mass for Bl Candelaria 
Cardinal José Saraiva Martins

1. Listening to the words of Jesus in the Gospel just proclaimed, the stupendous reflections of St. Augustine come to mind, when he affirms that if, unfortunately, because of a fire the four Gospels were destroyed and only the words "God is love" were saved, the substance would have remained intact. In what religion is love everything, as in Christianity? The Christian faith is an act of love, as Benedict XVI reminded us in his first encyclical. The exordium of today's Gospel passage is emblematic: "Jesus says to his disciples: 'If you love me, you will keep my commandments.'" In this "if you love me" is the synthesis of Christianity.

He who loves does everything out of love, even the impossible things, without being weighed down by them, because he observes the interior law, which is more demanding than any external discipline. And because the language of love is not words but the union of the one who loves with the beloved, in the seven verses of this Sunday's Gospel Jesus speaks seven times of union. Indeed, to be in: expresses the fascinating verb of supreme and total union: the disciples are "in" Christ and Christ "is in" the Father.

2. The Church's liturgy, with wise pedagogy, is preparing us for the great Solemnity of Pentecost. The first reading, taken from the Acts of the Apostles, presents us with the Holy Spirit, received through the imposition of the hands of the Apostles. The Gospel, on which we are meditating, also speaks of the Holy Spirit whom the disciples will receive as the Paraclete: which in Greek sometimes means Comforter, sometimes Advocate, or both. St. John insists in his Gospel on the title Paraclete, since historically the Church, after Easter, had a living and strong experience of the Spirit as consoler, defender, ally in internal and external difficulties, in persecutions and in everyday life. In the first centuries, when the Church is persecuted, she has the daily experience of trials and condemnations; it is then that she sees in the Comforter the divine advocate and defender against her human accusers. The Comforter is experienced as the one who assists the martyrs and who, before the judges, in the tribunals, puts on their lips the word that no one is able to refute. After the era of persecutions, the accent shifts and the predominant meaning is that of comforter in the tribulations and anguish of life.

In contemplating the Paraclete we feel the strength to honor and invoke the Holy Spirit, and to be ourselves other "paracletes," "comforters," in the full sense of the word, according to the divine measure. If it is true that the Christian must be alter Christus, another Christ, it is also true that he must be alter Paraclitus, another consoler.

To be consolers, paracletes, is a quality that all the saints have had in general: like the Good Samaritan, they have worked to soothe the wounds of so many brothers and sisters with the balm of mercy and the oil of Christian hope. With a soul full of joy today, contemplating the life and example of the new Venezuelan Blessed, and her charism that is transmitted in her work, through her daughters, the Carmelite Sisters of the Third Carmelite Order in Venezuela, we observe that a true "art of consoling" stands out as a dominant characteristic. In her simplicity, Mother Candelaria lived and proposes to us, with all its actuality, a true theology of consolation. This explains the facts of her daily life that, even with a simple word or gesture, always lived with her constant and ardent prayer and a lively and deep faith, she was able to get close to so many sick people. Certainly, it was God who "consoled" through her.

In the testimonies collected for her cause of beatification, it is striking to note how her love for God was intimately united to her love for her neighbor. In fact, from a very young age she dedicated herself to the service of others, in the care of the sick or in the catechesis of young people and adults, with her maternal attention to the sisters of her congregation. A life consumed by spending hours and hours at the bedside of the sick, to the point of starving herself to be able to feed the sick in a hospital and to make hard journeys to find money for the hospitals.

And so, year after year, always - and perhaps this is one of the most attractive characteristics of Blessed Candelaria–with great simplicity, without drama, always serene and ready to listen, without ever complaining about the people who made the life of Christian service difficult for her. A charity that reached the heroism: like being left without a bed to sleep in, for having given it to a sick person; preferring to take care of the most contagious sick or people who were enemies of the faith; assisting with maternal gentleness the lost women who were hospitalized. Her total dedication to her neighbor was such that even the most unbelieving doctors were amazed by the generous dedication of this small and simple sister.

4. The Blessed whom we venerate today testifies, with her entire life, that supernatural love is the basis of existence, that only love can change the life of human beings according to their deepest needs and that love consists in the gift of self, overcoming resistance and individualism in order to carry out the divine will.

The present beatification, manifesting this aspect of Blessed Candelaria's spirituality, invites us too, with docility to the Holy Spirit, to be dispensers of God's "consolation."

Blessed Candelaria accompanies us and invites us to take care of the terminally ill, of those suffering from AIDS, to concern ourselves with alleviating the loneliness of the elderly and the difficulties of so many different forms of poverty, to dedicate the necessary time to visiting the sick in hospitals. And how can we fail to think of those who dedicate themselves to helping children, victims of all kinds of abuses? We must also defend the rights of threatened minorities, such as some indigenous peoples of Latin America, and be the voice of the voiceless.

But her testimony, the one I am most interested in that reaches each one of us and all those who in the future will find the eloquent lesson of Blessed Candelaria, in addition to the moral values, which are great, is what is at its origin. I am referring to the living and active presence of the Risen Christ in her, which is palpably manifested in her boundless charity. In this sense, the Blessed who today has been raised to the honor of the altars belongs to that multitude of Christians who strongly manifest and show the presence of Christ in the men and women of today, pilgrims, who at times, forgetting their goal, walk without direction.

In today's Gospel Jesus tells the Apostles that he will ask the Father to send them the Comforting Spirit, so that he may always remain with them. And this "abiding" of the Spirit in our heart "transforms us into Christ," making us in the world, and in history, that is, in today's society–in the concrete environment in which we live–his living presence and credible witness. This happened in Mother Candelaria and it can happen in us. The Spirit forms Christ in us and makes us his imitators in our time and throughout our lives, as the Holy Father reminds us: "One does not begin to be a Christian by an ethical decision or a great idea, but by an encounter with an event, with a Person, which gives a new horizon to life and, with it, a decisive orientation" (Deus Caritas Est, 1).

The holiness of life of this flower of Venezuela, who is Mother Candelaria, one of the eminent fruits of the history of Catholicism in Latin America, affirms us in the experience so well described by Benedict XVI at the beginning of his pontificate: "There is nothing more beautiful than to have been touched, to have been surprised by the Gospel, by Christ. Nothing is more beautiful than to know him and to communicate friendship with him to others" (Homily, Sunday, April 24, 2005: L'Osservatore Romano, English edition, April 29, 2005, p. 7). Therefore, while we rejoice in the beatification of Mother Candelaria and give thanks to God for it, let us allow ourselves to be surprised by the Gospel and make Christ the reason for our life.