At the centre of all Christian life is the greatest and most amazing person who ever lived: Jesus Christ, in whom ‘we see our God made visible.’ Jesus was a young man, with all the energy, enthusiasm and vitality of youth. He had a fascinating appeal to the crowds who flocked to see him and hear his message. At the vigorous age of thirty-three, he was killed. But his crucifixion was only the beginning. Breaking through the impenetrable barrier of death, he rose to new life: a promise of immortality and bodily resurrection for the whole human family. This is convincingly ‘Good News’. Who is able to tell the story passionately, as it is? Who is able to show Jesus to people today as He was, and as He is? What we need are saints. They are the ones who most authentically reflect Jesus. This is the challenge Pope John Paul offered to you, young people, in the Jubilee year, 2000: you are to be the saints of the third millennium!

In the spirit of our recent Synod, we, as a community, are ‘embracing the person and message of Jesus’ by doing the Archdiocesan Lenten programme, ‘Face to Face with Jesus’. This year, too, the topic for theological and spiritual reflection from our Generalate in Rome is sub-titled ‘Following Jesus in the Teresian Carmel’. Jesus, then, is the theme for this issue of ‘Seeds of Carmel’. May we all find in Him the fulfilment of our deepest desires.

Virginia

Hi everyone. My name’s Virginia, and for the past 5 years I’ve worked in full time Youth Ministry. My job is amazingly fulfilling - helping young people become involved in the Church in some way. However, in a job that requires a lot of giving, you often get too caught up and forget to nurture yourself in your own faith. Many people involved in ministry know how easy it is to get so carried away in making sure everyone is being looked after, that you forget to take time for yourselves. The Young Carmelite Group is my way of taking time out to reconnect with my own faith.

Over the past 2 years, I’ve managed to make it to a number of days with the Young Carmelite Group at Ormiston. I always drive away feeling inspired and affirmed in my faith. The opportunity to discuss spirituality, theology and scripture allows me to further my knowledge of my faith, and deepen my relationship with Jesus.

People come from diverse backgrounds and their faiths are at different levels, but gathering to hear about Carmelite Spirituality, I guess, puts us all on the same page. We are all people of faith, seeking understanding. Quite often we are young people raised on our parents’ faith, but there comes that moment where we start to really own what we believe. That’s when our faith becomes an important part of our life, and shapes the people we are. Hearing the stories that Fr Greg shares with us about the people that have really captured the essence of what the Carmelite spirituality is all about is amazing. It teaches us about prayer, the importance of inviting Christ into all aspects of our life and encouraging others around us to embrace the vision of Jesus.

My favourite part of each YCG gathering is meeting with the Sisters. Whenever we walk into the room, there is an overwhelming feeling of community. To see a group of women, completely devoted to prayer and to a community life is a great inspiration for the young women of the church. The Sisters always make me smile as they tell their stories. I feel completely supported by them in the knowledge that they continue to pray for the young people of the Archdiocese, that they come to a deeper awareness of Jesus Christ and his awesome mission.

Anne

At the time I began attending the Young Carmelite Group meetings, December 2001, I had recognised that my spiritual health was in a state worthy of resuscitation. I thank God for leading me to the YCG: the oxygen that I needed

Under the power of the Holy Spirit, Father Greg’s guidance through passages of scripture and Carmelite spirituality has refocused me on my goal - union with God - and provided me with many insights into how I can progress toward this goal through Jesus and Our Blessed Mother.

I feel privileged to meet and pray with the Carmelite nuns who have responded to God’s call to a life of prayer on behalf of the whole world. Here I am reminded to persevere in prayer, so that through this communication I might grow in a loving relationship with God and live with confidence in Him. I also feel a tremendous joy to be sharing these days with a small group of like-minded and like-hearted young people.

The Carmelite Monastery, Ormiston, overlooking Moreton Bay and home to much of God’s natural beauty, with its quiet and peaceful atmosphere has proven to be a perfect meeting place. I always look forward to attending the YCG meetings as I know that I will always leave feeling revived and ready to enjoy and endure, with God, whatever comes my way each day. I pray that through the protection of our Blessed Mother, we will always look to Jesus as the Way, the Truth and the Life.

Anne is now discerning a possible vocation to Carmel. She has just had a live-in with us during February. At the YCG meeting on 29 February, she missed Fr. Greg’s talks, (David taped them for her) but there was great excitement in the parlour as she met the group on the other side of the grille. Anne has promised an article for the next issue on her experience inside the cloister.

A CARMELITE FOR 68 YEARS

Sr Margaret Mary, is the “elder Sister” of our Community. Having entered Carmel in 1936, she is our last living link with the entire original founding group, who had come to Brisbane nine years previously.

She speaks of the early days at Auchenflower, when the Community was poor, working hard to augment the new foundation. The building in which the sisters lived was the residence of a former Premier of Queensland and, while grand enough in its proportions as a house, it was not an ideal setting for the monastic lifestyle and needed to be somewhat modified to suit its new purpose. At the time of Sr Margaret Mary’s entering, for instance, the nuns were in the throes of excavating - by hand - an area beneath the house, which would become the community laundry! Sister held the office of Prioress at the time of the move to our newly-built Monastery at Ormiston in 1965. We remember with gratitude the part she played in finalising the construction work to the point of habitation, and for coordinating the move. Needless to say, this was a major event in the life of the community. Once again, the sisters had to work strenuously, both to pay off debts and to clear the land to create grounds and gardens. She has left her mark in a charming way, by giving names to different parts of the building and property, each with some biblical or Carmelite connotation. Perhaps the most apt is a certain patch of garden called the “Garden of Eden”, where snakes have been encountered on different occasions by the sisters!

While her memories of the early days of our community are precious, newcomers can also be taken aback at some of Sr Margaret Mary’s reminiscences of her early life, growing up in Brisbane as the seventh of nine children. The family car, which was nicknamed the “biscuit box”, was actually a Model T Ford!!
	In photographs spanning the decades of our Sister’s life she is easily recognisable for her trademark spectacles (worn since childhood) and an unmistakable, broad, beaming smile. In fact, an affectionate nature is perhaps one of her best known, and best loved, personality traits. She herself maintains that she has “more heart than head”, and that she “hates no-one”. This aptitude for making and sustaining friendships, is attested to by the prayer partnership she has with missionary Fr Wally Fingleton SM, which has spanned more than sixty years. (Incidentally, he is the brother of Jack Fingleton, who was in the Australian Cricket Team with Don Bradman in the 1930’s - another historical link).
For many years, Sr Margaret Mary has been involved with answering our general correspondence. Since this is one of the primary modes for people to contact us with prayer requests, as well as generally keeping in touch, it keeps her busy. Sister is not one to speak much about her prayer life, though her example of fidelity to the daily round of common prayer is eloquent enough, and even inspirational. The witness of an eighty-six-year-young Sister attending Mass in the early morning and all the prayer times throughout the day, is a great boost for the rest of us, whenever fatigue or impatience with the routine makes the going tough. We have come to be familiar also with her favourite devotions, which are recommended to most everyone she meets or writes to. Perhaps highest on her list are a devotion to the Angels, and a firm belief in the efficacy of Holy Water for every ill and want! Notable also is a perseverance in praying for particular intentions, for which she will constantly make intercessions during the Evening Prayer of the Liturgy of the Hours. The Pope and all Bishops, especially those known personally to her, continually feature in this way. Asked what advice she would give to any young person searching to know what God wants of them in their life, she answers with characteristic simplicity, “Tell them to pray to the Holy Spirit!”. You can’t do better than that!

Praying with... St. Teresa

When her sisters asked her to write something about prayer, St. Teresa wrote the ‘The Way of Perfection’. In chapter 26, she leads us into prayer by focusing on Jesus in his sufferings. Take a quiet half hour to enter within yourself, where Jesus is waiting for you. Let Teresa guide you......

Let us approach the Lord humbly and ask him to be with us.... I am not asking you now to think of him, or to make long and subtle meditiations with the understanding. I am asking you only to LOOK AT HIM. He never takes his eyes off you. If you want him, you will find him. He longs so much for us to look at him.... Look upon him on his way to the garden. How distressed he must have been to describe his own suffering as he did and to complain of it! Or look upon him bound to the column, full of pain, his flesh all torn to pieces by his great love for you. How much he suffered, persecuted by some, spat upon by others, denied by his friends, and even deserted by them, with none to take his part... or look upon him bending under the weight of the Cross and not even allowed to to take a breath....

At this point take some time just to look at Jesus, and see him looking at you: a look of love and familiarity. In his immense loneliness, he recognises you as his own. You are precious to him. Two people deeply in love can spend a long time together in silence, simply gazing at each other, and more so when one is in pain; the pain of one becomes the pain of the other.

Speak to him from your heart.... ‘Are you so much in need, my Lord, that you will accept poor companionship like mine? Do I read in your face that you have found comfort even in me?’ He will look upon you with his lovely and compassionate eyes, full of tears, and in comforting your grief will forget his own.

Can you believe it? Jesus, in spite of his own horrendous suffering, is looking at you!! He sees your grief and sadness as you look helplessly at him, and he turns to comfort you. That’s how he is: always thinking of others. Is that the sort of person you want to become: more concerned with others’ pain than your own? The closer you stay to Jesus, the more his love will inspire you in your own life and relationships.

‘If you, Lord, are willing to suffer all this for me, what am I suffering for you? What have I to complain of?... Let us go both together, Lord: wherever you go, I must go; whatever you suffer, I must suffer.’

Remain in quiet prayer, while you allow your heart go out to Jesus. If words come to you, speak to Him. If not, simply be there for Him, and with Him.... in love.

A NEW MEETING ROOM

This month Bishop Ray Benjamin will bless and open ‘Avila’, a room we have built close to our front driveway. It will be a quiet place where the YCG and other groups inspired by the Teresian ideal, will be able to meet in an atmosphere of peace and prayerfulness.