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Home > Our People > Nuns (Sisters)
The Carmelite Nuns
The Carmelite Order traces its origins to a group of hermits who gathered
on Mount Carmel—the promontory that rises steeply and majestically 185
metres above the Mediterranean Sea in present day Israel, near the city
of Haifa.
Perhaps some of the crusaders from Christian Europe who had responded
to the various Crusades for the purpose of regaining control of the Holy
Places had remained there and given themselves over to a life of prayer.
During the later part of the 12th century, perhaps from about
1170, some gathered as hermits on Mount Carmel, that place so especially
associated in Jewish Sacred history with the prophet Elijah and his single-hearted
zeal for the glory of the Lord. The cry of Elijah on Sinai, “with zeal
I am zealous for the Lord God of Hosts” (I Kings 19:14) was adopted
as the motto of the new Order.
Between the years 1206-1214, this group of hermits under an unnamed prior
(all we have is the initial ‘B’) requested Albert, the Latin patriarch
of Jerusalem (but resident nearby, because Jerusalem had already fallen
to the Saracens) to write them a Rule of Life. The Rule of St
Albert has remained the basis of all Carmelite life for almost eight
centuries. It is the only eremitical Rule that is still operative in the
Church.
Devotion to the Blessed Virgin Mary
In the midst of the natural chalk caves on the mountain, that likely
served as their cells, the hermits built an Oratory dedicated to Our Lady.
From the very beginnings of the Carmelite Order—the Order of the Blessed
Virgin Mary of Mount Carmel—a special devotion to Mary is to be seen. The
ruins of the church are still present today, in the Wadi-es-Siah.
The hermits adopted two models—the “man of God”, Elijah the prophet,
who sought the face of God; and Mary, the model of Christian discipleship
and type of the true contemplative, who “treasured all these things and
pondered them in her heart.” (Luke 2:19)
Devotion to our Lady finds a particular external expression in the wearing
of the brown scapular, forming part of the Carmelite habit. Members of
the faithful share in this consecration by wearing the smaller Brown Scapular
as a sign of their dependence upon her loving protection and assistance.
Spreading to Europe
The Saracens slowly regained territory taken by the crusaders. As they
did, the position of the Christians became more precarious during the 1230’s.
The hermits decided in 1238 to allow some of their brethren to return to
their European homelands and establish themselves there. Hence, the Carmelites
moved to Cyprus, Sicily, England and Provence (in Southern France) and
gradually spread throughout Europe. With the change from the solitude of
Mt Carmel to the lifestyle of the towns and cities, the Order gradually
evolved from a purely eremitical[1]
and contemplative one to an Order of mendicant friars, in 1326.[2]
The Order increased rapidly, but slowly began to lose its original focus.
There were various attempts at renewal, one of the most notable being the
reforms of Blessed John Soreth, the General of the Order from 1451-1471.
He was instrumental in having groups of devout women incorporated into
the Order in 1452, marking the formal inception of Nuns of the Order. A
convent following the Carmelite Rule was established at Avila, Spain, in
1479—the Convent of the Incarnation. In 1535, this convent received its
most famous postulant, Dona Teresa de Ahumada—St Teresa of Jesus.
St Teresa of Jesus
Teresa was born in 1515; Martin Luther published his theses against Indulgences
in 1517, broke with Rome in 1520 and declared the “confession of Augsburg”—the
Rule of Faith of Lutheranism, in 1530. Thus, when Teresa in 1535 presented
herself at the Incarnation at the age of twenty, western Europe was already
dramatically divided into fiercely opposed religious and political camps.
Fierce and bloody persecutions were underway; many people were martyred
for fidelity to the ancient faith; monasteries suppressed; Churches and
the Eucharist desecrated; priests were outlawed. The Church responded in
part through the Council of Trent (1545-1563) which provoked a spirit of
reform to move through the Church—especially through the Religious Orders.
Many great saints emerged to found and reform Orders. It should be noted
however, that before reform can happen communally, it must occur individually.
When Teresa entered Carmel, the community of nuns numbered about 180—a
very large number to keep organised and to provide for. Nuns would spend
long periods with family and friends, even outside the convent, and receive
regular gifts. These factors made it difficult to live a life of prayer,
regular discipline, enclosure and separation from the world.
Teresa struggled along under these conditions for some twenty years,
aware both of the special graces of prayer that God had given her and her
own human limitations, weakness and the attractions of human friendships.
Her lasting conversion occurred around 1555, leading her to seek greater
opportunities for prayer and solitude—scarcely possible within the convent
of the Incarnation. This conversion, whilst deeply personal, also evoked
within her a great burden for a Church now deeply divided, and suffering
from increasingly violent attacks on catholic practice and doctrine.
Teresian Reform
Because of the situation, with the approval of her superiors and confessors,
and aided by a small band of companions, Teresa resolved to establish a
small monastery, limited to thirteen nuns (later increased to twenty-one)
who were to busy themselves “in prayer for those who are defenders of the
Church, and for preachers and learned men who defend her.”[3]
The basis for this new way of life would not itself be new, but a renewal
and restoration of the original spirit of the Carmelite Order, according
to the Rule of St Albert (with modifications approved by Pope Innocent
IV, in 1247)—with its focus on contemplation and perfection. No extraordinary
means were prescribed, but simply to “do the little that was in me,” in
a life of poverty, enclosure and withdrawal from the world.
The Teresian reform of Carmel was officially established with the foundation
of St Joseph’s at Avila, on 24th August 1562. Although she had
no plans for more foundations, slowly the Lord shared with her a desire
for mission. This was confirmed when the General of the Order in Rome visited
her and encouraged her to establish more monasteries, and gave her patents
to establish two monasteries of reformed friars.[4]
The reform of the Order amongst the Friars was led by St John of the
Cross, who was chosen by God (and Teresa) to be the foundation stone alongside
St Teresa. The first reformed house of the Discalced Friars was begun at
Duruelo, in 1568. The Discalced Friars are the only Order of men to be
founded by a woman.
Both Teresa and John have been declared Doctors of the Church, for their
teaching on the way of prayer and mystical contemplation. The poetry of
John is ranked among the finest in Spanish.
Mission to France and Australia
The Carmels continued to spread in the decades following the deaths of
Teresa (1582) and John (1591). The first Carmel was established in France
in Paris in 1604, by Mother Anne of Jesus, who had been received into Carmel
at Avila by St Teresa. She was highly regarded, and it was for her that
St John wrote his commentary on the Spiritual Canticle. She made
a number of foundations in France and Belgium, including Dijon, Brussels,
Amiens, Rouen, Bordeaux, Toulouse and Limoges. It was from the Carmel at
Limoges that the Carmel of Angouleme was founded in 1654. The Carmel was
suppressed during the French Revolution (in 1792) and re-established in
1854. It was from this Carmel, that the foundation in Sydney was made,
at the invitation of Archbishop Vaughan. Ten sisters, led by Mother Mary
of the Cross, made the foundation in Sydney on 30 July 1885, at Dulwich
Hill.
A brief chronology of the Carmelite Nuns in Australia
[1] Eremitical
refers to an order of hermits, or having to do with the lifestyle of those
who live alone to be with God in prayer.
[2] Mendicant
means friars, or brothers, who rely on begging and alms to support themselves,
as they travel around preaching the Gospel. The term was used of members
of the Franciscans, Dominicans and Augustinians.
[3] Teresa
of Avila, Way of Perfection, 1.3.
[4] In
fact, within twenty years, until her death in 1582, Teresa had established
seventeen more convents of the reform.
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