J M J T
The
Carmelite Novitiate
Published
Monthly by the Discalced Carmelite Fathers, Our Lady’s Hill, Waverly, New York
Volume 1, No. 1 December 1961
Dear
Friends,
Greetings, from Our Lady’s Hill,
Waverly, N.Y.
You are undoubtedly surprised to
receive this document out of a clear, blue (we hope) December sky. Allow me, then, to explain to you why it has
come to be and how it is that you are among those to receive the first issue.
By means of “Outlook”, we hope to
attain two objectives. The first of
them is entirely spiritual, and the other is partly spiritual but mostly
ulterior.
First of all, we hope that these
monthly bulletins will help you to lead a more profound and more satisfying
spiritual life. We hope to assist you
to achieve closer and more intimate terms of friendship with Jesus and
Mary. We propose to fulfill this aim by
using these pages to acquaint you better with the Scapular Devotion in honor of
Our Lady of Mount Carmel.
The Scapular affiliates its wearer with
the Order of Carmel, an Order long recognized as the Order belonging in a
special way to the Blessed Virgin Mary.
The affiliation brings with it an implicit, bilateral contract. Carmelites take upon themselves the
obligation of rendering to the Mother of God the homage of filial devotion, of
praise, honor and glory that is her due as the peerless daughter of God the
Father, the Immaculate Spouse of the Holy Ghost, and the Virgin Mother of the
Son. In turn, Mary acknowledges
Carmelites to be her favored children and exercises over them a special
maternal love and providence. Because
of this affiliation we may speak of a Carmelite Family and a family
spirit. That family spirit is the
Spirit of Carmel. Those who wear the
scapular, then, commit themselves to the Carmelite Spirit, and will achieve a
more profound spiritual life and taste sweeter, more satisfying spiritual
rewards only by living up to the spirit that is characteristic of Carmel.
Besides being noted for its Marian
orientation, Carmel is distinguished as an Order dedicated to the life of
Prayer. The term Prayer is used here to
mean Mental Prayer, as opposed to Vocal or Liturgical prayer. Carmel certainly does not ignore the latter
kind of prayer. It merely stresses the
practice of mental prayer as one of the most certain and efficacious means of
growing in the friendship of God and living in the constant awareness of His
presence and of His loving designs upon each and every human being. Carmel is rich in its traditions concerning
prayer, and is proud to number among her great Saints the great St. Teresa of
Avila and St. John of the Cross, both of whom are recognized masters in the art
of communing with God in the depths of one’s heart.
The spiritual wealth of Carmel
weighs upon us as a burden. We can’t
afford not to share it with all Christians.
We dare not keep silence concerning the indispensable role of the
Blessed Virgin Mary in bringing the world back to Jesus Christ. The timeliness of Carmel and its spirit of
Prayer and devotion to Mary are now more than ever in evidence because these
are days when the world at large and even Catholics have been paying more
attention to the senses and to the exterior than to the spirit and the
interior. Contact with God has been to
a great extent lost, and so it is quite understandable that spiritual ills
abound. But for all that, good will
also abounds, and many Christians struggling along through life would be very
happy to know how to find God in the personal contact of mental prayer, how to
model their lives after the Blessed Virgin, how to bring their lives into
closer conformity with that of Jesus Christ.
We believe, dear friends, that you are among those whom with a clearer
understanding of what God expects of us and how to go about giving Him what His
Will desires, would draw great profit and make great strides in the spiritual
life.
In addition to discussing the
Scapular devotion and Prayer, we will, therefore, speak of other matters of
supreme importance in the quest for closer friendship with God and His Blessed
Mother. They are, for example, the
Mass, the Sacraments, virtues, self-denial, spiritual reading. It is also our intention to comment upon the
important feasts of the month, or upon the Liturgical Season, or on great saints
whose feasts we celebrate from time to time.
In this way we hope to help the reader to appreciate better the riches
and treasures to be found in living his/her Catholic Faith with generosity, and
to find what he/she needs to balance the materialistic influence of this world
of technology by being reminded of the existence of spiritual realities and the
primacy of the spirit.
Having finished that long-winded
explanation of the primary purpose of this bulletin, (it is so long I wonder if
it is not because I am a little squeamish about mentioning the second, the
mostly ulterior motive) it is time I went on to explain the other. You see we are conducting here on Our Lady’s
Hill our Novitiate. It is a place of
training where young men who aspire to the Priesthood or Brotherhood in the
Discalced Carmelite Order receive their preliminary education and introduction
to our way of life. This is where they
seek to discover if the life of Carmel is truly their vocation. It is a new Novitiate, (the former Novitiate
in Brookline, Mass., was inadequate, having been converted from an old mansion)
and is therefore larger and more costly to maintain. Much of our support is derived from offerings for Masses, or from
offerings, which accompany requests for prayers, or from votive offerings sent
in, in gratitude for favors received.
By means of this bulletin we hope to reach a large number of
people. If the number is sufficiently
large, the few offerings for Masses we would receive each year from many of the
readers would enable thus to carry on our work smoothly and efficiently for the
greater honor of God, of His Blessed Mother and for the good of souls
throughout the world.
In regards to request for
favors: We are of the conviction that
Our lady is very anxious to prove her maternal solicitude for her children by
bestowing numerous favors upon those who invoke her with confidence under the
title Our Lady of Mount Carmel. One of
the greatest of the Blessed Virgin’s Carmelite daughters, The Little Flower,
tells us that confidence is the key to the greatest treasurers of God, and that
as much as we hope for, so much we shall receive. Thus we encourage the reader to ask frequently and with
confidence, for really big favors, real “whoppers”. And to help bolster lagging confidence (if there be any), we
offer these pages as a means of publicizing any signal graces bestowed. On our part we will offer a high Votive Mass
in honor of Our Lady of Mt. Carmel each Saturday of the year for the intentions
sent in.
There is one thing we want to
emphasize. This bulletin is written as,
and is, a kind of friendly letter. So
we would be very happy to hear in turn from the readers telling us what he would
like to have us talk about or commenting upon what will have been said here. We want you to feel that you are part of the
Carmelite Family. And that brings me to
the next important point: how it is
that you are among those to receive this first issue of the bulletin. It is for no other reason than that you have
already shown interest in Carmel. While
the Novitiate was still located in Brookline, Mass., many of you send in
requests for scapulars, or for commutations, or concerning other things that
pertain to the scapular devotion. Many
of you are benefactor and have sent us alms.
Some of you have come to visit the new monastery. Your names and addresses were kept on file
and we use them to send out our Christmas cards each year, assuring you of a remembrance
in our Masses and prayers. It is for
this reason, too, that we can be so frank in writing this bulletin. We are already sure of your good will toward
Carmel. We ask you, finally, that if
you know of anyone who would be interested in receiving the “Outlook”,
please let us know. It will help us
reach the “sufficiently large” number of readers quickly.
* * * *
Now that the Holy Season of Advent
is over, and we are beginning to enjoy the festivities associated with the
great and consoling feast of Christmas, we ought to be aware of a change for
the better in our outlook on life and its meaning. Not that we don’t know what the true picture is, rather we find
that in the course of the year from Easter to the end of the time after
Pentecost our newness of life has worn thin from the constant rub of everyday
living. We need a Season like Advent in
which to prepare for the commemoration of the birth of Jesus Christ the Son of
God. It is a period in which to make a
kind of readjustment. We find we
readily return to mere natural ways of viewing all things, ways which do not
square with the mind of God. The Holy
Scripture instructs us very clearly on this point: “As the Heavens are above the earth, so are my thoughts above
your thoughts and my ways above your ways.” Each year at the beginning of Advent, the message of John the
Baptist is pertinent: “Repent, for
the kingdom of heaven is at hand.”
Although we are practicing
Catholics, we must not think we are excused from taking this message
seriously. The exhortation to repent is
not restricted to outright (as distinguished from those who at least try to do
otherwise) sinners. We are urged to
repent of pursuits that, though not objectively wrong in themselves, are for us
not conducive to growth in the friendship of God. We must also repent of putting too much emphasis on the natural
aspects of those things that are required of us by the Law of God. For example: God wants us to enjoy a respectable position in the community so
that we may be able, by example, to assist others to lead a good Christian
life. (The man in the street has a
pronounced tendency to emulate and imitate celebrities, those persons who are
in the public eye.) We instead want to
enjoy a high standing in society because it feeds our ego and our vanity. Similarly, God wills that Catholics hold
high positions of civil authority so that they may vindicate His rights and
those of the common man. Too often we
seek political office for the sake of personal aggrandizement.
The discrepancy between the ways of
God and the ways of man appear vividly when we consider the humble Child,
Divine and Human, born in a stable in poverty.
He, who transcends beyond comprehension us wretched humans, stooped as
low as was possible in order to identify Himself with us and give us a share in
His life and His happiness. He who has
everything wants to enrich us who have nothing. (Compared to spiritual good things, earthly riches add up to
naught.) He who Is wants to
share His perfections with us who are not.
It is typical of God to share.
That is what the words of St. John the Evangelist, “God is Love”
means. On the other hand, we are
stingy; we do not want to share. This
does not come easy to us. We want to
rise as high as we can above and beyond our fellow creatures and separate
ourselves from them. It is human to
want to exclude others. Witness the
fetish we have for exclusive clubs and parties, for privileges, exemptions,
etc. The way of fallen nature is
selfishness and miserliness.
With the feast of Christmas we ought
to have purged our hearts of every desire to be better than others, of every
instinct to keep things for ourselves alone.
When we are free of all self-seeking, then the Holy Spirit is able to
beget the Christ Child in our minds and hearts, just as He was able to beget
Jesus according to the flesh in the womb of the Virgin. She was Immaculate, free of all carnal
desire. So the Christ Child will abide
within us when our hearts are imbued with the permanent and stable disposition
to share all we have and are with those less fortunate. This is the only disposition that identifies
us with Jesus Christ.
* * * *
You may wonder how this bulletin
received its name. It happened one day
when we were exchanging a few pleasantries with one of the workmen early in the
fall. We were discussing the
location. The Monastery is situated on
a high hill overlooking a very flat, wide-spreading valley. The view is one of extraordinary beauty. “You have a beautiful outlook”, he
said. That is why we call this
Carmelite Novitiate “Outlook”.
Cordially yours in Our Lady of Mount
Carmel,
Fr.
Bruno, O.C.D. Prior
* * * *
Note
to the reader: This newsletter was written in the 60’s and
Waverly Novitiate no longer exists, however, the Carmelites are always in
need of funds to carry out their work. If
anyone wishes to contribute to the cause of the Discalced Carmelite Friars,
please send your donations to: In appreciation
for Fr. Bruno's Works, Mission Procurator, P.O. Box 270136, Hartford, WI
53027.