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Testing and Discerning a Vocation to the Secular Carmelite Order (OCDS)
Fr Aloysius Deeney OCD
The point of this presentation is to answer the question “What are the
principles that you use to discern the vocation to the Secular Order?
Who is called to be a Secular Carmelite and how do you distinguish between
those called and those not called?” Among the friars and the nuns, people
do not leave because they are bad people. People are not sent home from
the monastery or the convent because they are morally unacceptable. It
is a vocation to be a member of the Order and one that needs, for everyone's
sake, to be clearly identified. Otherwise, the Order, either the friars,
or the nuns, or the seculars, loses its way and confuses its identity
I would describe a member of the Secular Order of Our Lady of Mount Carmel
and Saint Teresa of Jesus as a practicing member of the Catholic Church
who, under the protection of Our Lady of Mount Carmel, and inspired by
Saint Teresa of Jesus and Saint John of the Cross, makes the commitment
to the Order to seek the face of God for the sake of the Church and the
world.
I would note in that description six distinct elements that, coming together,
are those elements that move people to approach the Order and seek identification
with the Order in a more formal way.
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Six Elements of discernment:
1. "Practising member of the Catholic Church."
2. "Under the protection of Our Lady of Mount Carmel."
3. Inspired by St Teresa of Jesus
4. Commitment to Carmel as an Ecclesial event
5. Seeking the Face of God
6. "for the sake of the Church and the world."
Discerning a Vocation - Acrobat PDF format
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