CARMEL TODAY - "DRESSING THE BRIDE IN HOLINESS"

YOUR FIRST 6 MONTHS

A three tape series to orient you to the life of the OCDS and Catholic spirituality

Tape 101 B - "Specific Means to Perfection "

by Michael J. Kotarski, OCDS

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MICHAEL J. KOTARSKI, OCDS
CARMELITE FORMATION
SPECIFIC MEANS TO PERFECTION

The Holy Spirit. Our Father who are in heaven. Hallowed be thy name. Thy kingdom come. Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread, and for give us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us, and lead us not into temptation but deliver us from evil. Amen. Our lady of Mount Carmel pray for us. St. Joseph, pray for us. The saints of Carmel, pray for us, protect and guide us. As we go forward deeper in our discernment of God's call, God's specific call to each and every one of us. Amen.

This is side two of Tape 1 of our Dressing the Bride in Holiness series. Again the goal of this tape is simply to introduce individuals who are in the first period of six months, six meetings, to discern their call to Carmel, and in doing so we are attempting to simply give an overview of what we do in Flint, Michigan, and what I have done as a Formation Director, for several years. There has been frequent requests made to me, to memorialize some of the things that I have done in guiding souls through the process to help them discern if they have a call to Carmel. So these tapes are at a very basic level. Later on we may do an intermediate or more advanced level. They are meant to be more as if I were talking to any particular soul, helping them make that determination that God is calling them either to Carmel, or some other place. Which is very important, in that I believe that you understand as you are approaching this discernment process with any particular counsel or formation director that there is no failure, if you find that you have a devotion to Mary. You are in love with God, but God wants you to serve Him in the Blue Army. Or God wants you to serve Him in that particular charismatic prayer group, or the legion of Mary. There is no failure. The greatest gift is to know that you can close this particular door that you are looking through and you know that you found your niche, and that it lies elsewhere than to the Secular Carmel.

Because ultimately we discussed in the first side of this tape, God is attempting to order all to Himself, because that is where our greatest happiness lies, His greatest glorification lies, and its the best thing. And God is intelligible, supremely intelligible and it is a mystery and its best if we leave it to God, and He will be faithful. So there is no failure. And if you are ever in doubt, the Holy Father in his wisdom, promulgated a new canon law and I won't go into it here, it is on many other tapes that I have done, and it will be on one of the advanced copies. But there is a canon. Canon law that is the personal legislation of the Pope, and he tells us that each and every soul in the Catholic Church is of equal dignity. And it may surprise you there is great rank in a Cardinal, in a Pope. But this Pope says the most important thing in a church, is not being a bishop, even the bishop of Rome. The most important thing is becoming holy. Which means going deeper into that relationship with Jesus Christ and with that relationship with God. Becoming one with God. So it is this Pope that says that we are all equal in dignity. And I think what he is saying is that, if I am a priest I can become holy as a priest. I can't necessarily, don't want to say that if I were only a bishop I could be holy. And a bishop, if one were a bishop can say, I can be holy as a bishop. The bishop doesn't have to say, oh, if only I were a cardinal or a pope, I would be holy then. No, we are to bloom. We are to blossom where we are planted. And if we are (101 ? apparents), that equal dignity means, the flip side of that is there is an expectation that you can complete your mission of holiness of holiness in the state of life that you are found in. That God has placed you. And we have no better example than the holy family, Mary and Joseph. There will be no priest, no bishop no pope that will exceed Mary in holiness, in sanctity, in union with God.

One of the four marks of the church is holiness. It is no small act of love to live out that mark in the world. So, we are not going to discuss that specific means. For those who are still searching, still considering, joining the Secular Order of Discalced Carmelites, and I want you to understand here, that during the first six months I normally have an expectation that the souls coming in and are becoming acquainted, are beginning to learn what is expected of them. What is a Secular Order Discalced Carmelite. What is a community? What is the rule? What are the statutes? Well, I like to start with a single pamphlet that contains what you need to know for the first six months, and I am going to go over this with you, just briefly. And it is a nutshell, an encapsulation of the elements that we Secular Order Discalced Carmelites consider as our rule. The life that we live. The specific life. Now, it is good to know what type of odor, or smell, if you could smell the Carmelite flower, if you could smell the vocation, what kind of odor or smell would it give off? In that respect, we are going to talk about the Secular Order of Discalced Carmelites. The spirit of the order. What is the spirit of the order?

I'm going to read to you just a brief synopsis here. Consider this. When the prophet Elijah announced to his disciple (147 ?Elesias) that he would soon be
called from this life, Elesias asked him to bestow his double spirit upon him. Carmelite tradition has interpreted this double spirit as the formula of the mixed life. A union of contemplative and apostolic life. In the tradition and teaching of St. Teresa, the former of the Order of Carmel, the Discalced vocation is to a more intense, interior life, the life of prayer. In the teaching of Holy Mother Church to the Second Vatican Council, its apostolate is involved in the mission of the church, and here it is. Not only to bring men the message and grace of Christ, but also to penetrate and perfect the temple's spear with the spear of the gospel. Making the gospel known and then holy. And this little note ends with this statement. While the members of the Secular Order of Discalced Carmelites will prefer before all else to stay hidden with Christ, in God, at the heart of the church. Prayer and the apostolate, when they are genuine, are inseparable. And for citations for those who are interested. The first citation was to the Decree on Laity. Number Five. And the final citation of the last paragraph that I read was Secular Order Rule Four and Eight.

THE SPIRIT OF THE ORDER

The Order traces itself back to Elijah. Saint Elijah. And Carmel is that mountain in the holy land. And it is a beautiful place. It is that spirit, that two fold spirit of prayer that Martha and Mary, that prayer and that action. As Carmelites, Secular Order Carmelites, we are members of what is known as the Family of Carmel. The Family of Carmel has the spirit of the Order. It is the Order of Carmel. There are Carmelite friars, Carmelite nuns, Carmelite seculars, and then there are other members of the Order of Carmel, and I think there are probably twelve or thirteen of them if not more. There is the Infant of Prague, is a Carmelite devotion. There is the Scapular confraternity, which is the family of Carmel. There are many of these types of confraternities that bring individuals into the family of Carmel. The Secular Carmelite is a specific portion of that family and you can be married, or single, and if you are single and you join, you can still get married, and still have children, and what the spirit of the Order is directing itself to, is your call to imitate the praying Jesus. But like Mary and Joseph, you are not to be hermits, and in fact under this new Pope, we are asked to be generators of a cultural life. To generate life, a culture of life, which takes us into the basic question of how do we do that as Carmelites? And what is culture?

As Carmelites our apostle is to be like apostles. We are apostles of prayer in Catholic spirituality. We teach people how to pray. We teach them how, particularly Teresian spirituality, San Juana spirituality, or any type of spirituality. We teach them how to draw closer to God through this experience of God and this experience of spirituality, and how to pray. When I said we are to generate a culture of life, the question becomes, I ask you, what's a culture? The simplistic way to say that is culture is what a person values. What they hold most sacred. What they consider worth dying for. So, their most valuable thing, their values system. What they hold near and dear to their heart. When we generate a culture of life, what the Holy Father is speaking to is you want to put into a culture the sacredness of life. The value of that which is life. Not just physical life, but spiritual life also. The life of goodness. The life of truth. The life of a relationship to a transcendant being, to God. The life in a relationship with Emmanuel. God is with us, Jesus Christ.

So, when you ask what is the spirit of the order for that particular part of the Family of Carmel, known as the Secular Order of Discalced Carmelites, the positive way to frame it is to identify, that we are asked to be people of prayer, and then share the knowledge of that prayer with others. To bring them to the experience of God through prayer, and spirituality. And the depths of that spirituality, what is spirituality, that very simplistic way is the attempt, the idea, that there is a way to act perfectly, spirituality is that ability to teach people that knowledge of how to act perfectly. Well, the way you act perfectly is union with God. Spirituality teaches you how to have that union with God so that you can act perfectly. It is not legalism. But it is when we say 'act perfectly' it is simply how to kiss God. That is a perfect act of love, to kiss him. How to hug God. Perfect act of love, perfect act of faith. So the Carmelite will above all else be an example that God does exist, and that particular Carmelite has experienced God that particular day. And if you are doing that you are going to expose others to the spirit of Carmel. Your vocation will be fruitful, and you will be living the Carmelite life. So the spirit of Carmel, a two fold balance of prayer and apostolate.

The ideals of the Secular Order of Discalced Carmelites. Well there are ideals. Those ideals in the spirit of Saint Teresa and Saint John of the Cross. That is Saint Teresa of Jesus, known as Teresa Vavala (262?) and Saint John of the Cross. Members of the Secular Order are to be mindful of the presence of the Blessed Trinity in their persons. Carmel means an enclosed, or secret garden, in which God Himself actually lives and dwells. Now again, I am going back, and you (may have 266?) can tell, a small pamphlet here we pass out here in Flint, Michigan, and its just another paragraph, going over the ideals of the Secular Order of the Discalced Carmelites. The object of the Secular Order is to make each member conscious of the divine indwelling and to come as close as possible to the Trinity in this mortal life. Secular Carmelites through christian charity are to bring the Divine Guest into the lives of those with whom they live, work and socialize. You are not to be a hermit. You are not to exclude yourself. You are not to run your family like it was a small monastery, and that if you are a man you dress up like a monk, and that you rule the family as if it were a monastery. That is not what God is asking of you, and that doesn't mean that the monks were not making any statement. That is a beautiful life, and it is obvious if you have those inclinations that you have great desires, but like a fire hose.

I have to tap you and say "You know there is a lot of water coming out of your hose but we got to move it over here a little bit." So if you have great love and devotion, for the priesthood, for the monastic life, but you are not called monastic life, you are not called to be a priest, and you are a father with children, the best way to do that is look to Joseph. Pick Joseph, and you know he had to live in the world. He had a business, he was a carpenter, he had to supply food for Mary and Jesus, and he did a good job, and the church considers him very extraordinary. In fact, if you want to know, in the canon of the Mass, as they recite it, you listen to the canon of the Mass. When I say the canon of the Mass, its the words of the Mass, when they talk about people praying. They put Joseph before they put the apostles. Watch that. That is how powerful, so if you are a father, and you responded to God, that is not a small thing, that is a beautiful thing, and you don't have to do anything extra, in the sense of putting on robes at home. You can live this life Carmel is asking you, to wear that scapular, that small scapular, and live the holy life as you are.

And yet the same goes for women. You are not second class because you are not a nun. Mary was not a nun, and listen to the canon of the Mass, she comes, Mary comes before the apostles and the other saints. You, if you are married and have children, you are so good is the vehicle that God has placed you in marriage that He has elevated this good to the level of a sacrament. He has elevated it to a level of a sacrament, saying "Live that life perfectly, and I will make you a saint". Thats' His bargain. Live it perfectly and He cannot resist but flow into your life, into your soul. Like water cannot resist but flowing into a crack in rock. So if your heart, or you know someone's heart is as cold and hard as a rock, if it begins to crack and open to God, God knows no limits. He will flow in by His nature, He will go there. For His love, and He will always be faithful. Christ told us. So as we look at this ideal, you live your life as lay individuals, and I'm speaking to lay individuals. There is an exception where diocesan priests can enter, but we are not talking about that and I'm presuming that this is a basic tape, they can pick up the more advanced tape.

So, we are not to be nuns we are not to be monks, the actual term is friars. A friar can move about. A monk stays in one place, like the Benedictines. Carmel has friars. Okay. Benedictines have monks. So, what is it to be admitted to the Secular Order of Discalced Carmelites? Those seeking admission to the Secular Order of Discalced Carmelites must be eighteen years of age, of upright character, good common sense, and motivated by a sincere desire of leading an evangelical life. Well, that's pretty straightforward, but the eighteen years, we know that the Little Flower was only fifteen. So if you have an occasional person who is sixteen, seventeen, whatever, borderline, and they are just on fire for that vocation, then you see your Formation Director, or you see your priest that is your helper there in the community, and you ask them what their opinion is on this individual and is there any exceptions? Because sometimes in God's mystery He sends someone to us like the Little Flower, and of necessity we have to in that particular instance allow dispensation, and that's what took place with the Little Flower, and I'm talking about (Teresa Vavula 337?) of course.

Now, common sense is very important, and you have to have your feet on the ground and Teresa and John of the Cross, the more you read about these saints, these holy people, the more we teach about them, we always present them as they were holy, that they were practical, and they were concerned about a lot of things. There was a land contract dispute that John of the Cross was consulted on. Teresa (Vavula 345?) had her problems when purchasing homes, and I think someone did one thing to her to another regarding the purchase of a home. That they promised one thing and delivered another. And, so they did have difficulties, and they had to overcome those difficulties, and they had to deal with the world, even though they were holy people, and they were a friar and a nun. How much more that you can deal with a world in a successful way, when I say spiritually successful, such that your life is functional. It works. That's the one hallmark of John Paul II, our present Pope. His life works. Its functional, it works, and it makes a difference, and it is the same with your life, united with Christ. Faith can make a difference in our world. The vocation that you are reviewing can make a difference in your world, in your family. On your job. It is of consequence.

Now the member undertakes the pursuit of evangelical perfection in the world, under guidance, and spiritual direction of the Discalced Carmelite Fathers. Pursue of evangelical perfection in the world. That means that you can't become a hermit and withdraw from the world, and I know that's never taken place in the communities that I've worked in. There was one situation where we had somebody visiting us, who was attempting to be a hermit, but that person never joined our community, was not part of our community, and that's part of that discernment process. So if you have somebody coming to you, and this is a particular example. This individual was single, male, and was trying to establish their own religious order. A very beautiful high ideals and came and spoke to our Spiritual Assistant Father Healy, and was guided and it was very beautiful. And there was an instance where there was no failure. There was no bad mark against this person. This was someone who was in love with God, had a devotion to Mary, and was going to establish a new order in the church. And went about doing it, and as far as I know they are continuing to work in that direction. Now pursuit of evangelical perfection in the world, under guidance. Under guidance is the guidance of your Formation Director, of your counsel, of your Spiritual Assistant the priest, to help guide you as it relates to this rule. They are not going to guide you as to who you should marry. What house you should buy. What job that you work at. That is outside the scope of what we are talking about here.

Spiritual direction of Discalced Carmelite Fathers. The spiritual direction of Discalced Carmelite Fathers is not something that is mandatory. They provide that spiritual direction in both the general and occasionally in the specific. What I mean by that, well when Father shows up at our meetings he is usually there a couple hours ahead of time hearing confessions, and in that context he'll provide spiritual direction. Other priests are not available for spiritual direction because they don't have the time given their duties, and responsibilities, and they are not even in proximity to a community. They may live one or two states away. The Little Flower did not have a Spiritual Director other than the Holy Spirit. So spiritual direction under the rule in Carmel is not mandatory. And you are not required to have a Spiritual Director and that right is preserved in canon law. Now, if you want to have a Spiritual Director you can choose to do so.

Now, the question becomes, well what's the difference between a Spiritual Director and a Formation Director? Well, the simplistic answer is this. A Formation Director will form you in the charisms, in the odor, the smells, the look of what it is to be a Carmelite, so that you can recognize the Carmelite life. You can recognize it in others, you can recognize another Carmel person. You'll know what the rule is about. But the Formation Director doesn't say, "Pick up your left foot and move it three inches to the left and drop it down". The formation director doesn't give you specific direction on what to do. The Formation Director forms, helps to put the boundaries. I talk about it as, the Formation Director is often the banks of the river through which your vocation is going to flow, so that you have an idea, yet your formed, and at some point you are going to be turned loose. You are going to be christened as a full, standing on two feet, as a Carmelite, and formed in the rule and the teachings of the saints. You will be well acquainted in that. The Spiritual Director is someone that will deal with you specifically. For instance a Formation Director will say "Well, listen, if you want to travel from Michigan and go to Florida you are going to have to go in a southerly direction. I would try to avoid California, and I try to avoid New York, because if you end up in either of those states you've got some problems, you are in the wrong direction. You've taken a wide, round about way to go to Florida.

A Spiritual Director will say, "Listen I need you to get on Flight 1708 of Northwest Airlines leaving Flint at 11:04 tomorrow and you will arrive in Tampa at approximately three hours. I want you to get off of that plane in Tampa, checking at the Holiday Inn. Get your bags and then go over to the chapel, and spend an hour in the chapel in adoration, at the Cathedral there in Tampa". Do you see the difference? A Spiritual Director is very specific, they will tell you this "I want you to spend an hour in the chapel every day in adoration". That could be one Spiritual Director. You'll come to the Spiritual Director with specific problems, "I have dryness in prayer". The Spiritual Director will tell you how you as an individual can overcome dryness. The Formation Director tells people in the generic how to overcome a dryness. So I teach on dryness. How to overcome dryness in prayer, or how to overcome distractions in prayer, and that's for another tape beyond the scope of this discussion. The Spiritual Director will know you intimately and will be able to tell you what to worry about and what not to worry about, and how you are to overcome any particular disfunction that you have in your spiritual life. Keep in mind that the Little Flower was responsive to the graces that the Holy Spirit gave, and that worked well for her. I believe that Fr. Thomas Dubay has a good book out on spiritual direction you might want to pick that up. I don't recall the name of it, I apologize but run Thomas Dubay at your local bookstore and they will be able to tell you all his books in print and get that book for you.

Now, the question is going to come up as you go through your own personal discernment, your own personal walk with Jesus in the Carmelite Order, what part that the community plays? And it is preferred that you have a community. Isolate membership is not the norm. That means people who live out of the community and for some special reason particularly if I were living in the desert somewhere, or up in Alaska and I can't get out, and the only way to get in and get out is through the airplane. I am an isolate member. Community is where you live with a counsel, the Formation Director, and that is where the Formation Director is responsible to bring you to knowledge of this rule. Knowledge of the way of life that you are going to attempt to embrace.

Now, keep in mind that the first six months your obligation is very simple. To bring about an awareness that what it is that the daily life and the responsibilities of a Secular Order Carmelite are. Upon completion you are going to make an application, if you choose to go forward, to be clothed. And the clothing will initiate the beginning of two more years in formation. I like to tell these individuals that the first six months you are going to learn about what's going on, and come to a basic understanding, because when you initiate the second part, these two years, you are going to be telling God and the community, "I am going to try to live this life". And you are going to try to live it for two years. Well you can't try to live it, unless you know what you are going to try to live in this community setting. So that's why we focus during these six months, and the focus of these tape series is on what it is you are going to try to live. After those two years are done, you will have an opportunity, your promises will expire, and you will have an opportunity to walk away, or you can go to the next phase which is to take your temporary promises for three years. This three year period is where you are telling God and the community "I will live the life". So again, six months, two years, three years, then permanence. Six months awareness, the two year period is where you are going to try to do your best. The three year period of formation is where you say that you will do it. And you have the opportunity to say "I'm going to do it for the rest of my life". And then a year after that you take your vows, if you choose to do so.

Now, on this particular side of the tape, we introduced the specific means (471??) we have yet to introduce the specific means to your call, and that is the beginning to talk about the spirit of the Order. We begin to talk about the particular ideals of the Order. Admission to the Order, and what the member undertakes to capture, what the member is going to share, and what you are going to share, and you are going to share in the beautiful spiritual heritage of the Order. Its holiness and its mission.

Now, a little parens right here. The church has some, what we call some terms, nomenclature. You will have your faith, grace from God, and there will be charisms given to you. Those are three things that you might want to consider that I want to introduce you to. Your Catholic faith. Your faith, graces and charisms. The faith is given to you from God. You have to believe something. Or you believe. You believe the Catholic faith and all its teachings. You begin to get help from God to live this Catholic faith. Those are the graces. There are certain charisms that will allow you to help others. That will most likely benefit you too. So faith, grace and charisms. We are going to get into that mission of the Carmelite Order and its charisms. We are still Catholics. We still get the graces from God, but we begin to talk about charisms. Charism in the Carmelite Order is prayer. People of prayer. Union with God. And it is the Carmelite Order that is best illustrated for me, best illustrated in the seraph. They are singularly known for their love that exceeds their knowledge. It is the mission of Carmel, that your love exceed your knowledge. It is the mission of Carmel, that you take, you bring your prayer, the fruits of your prayer to your neighbor. That you first put on prayer, you go to prayer, you experience God in prayer, and then you take that experience and those fruits to your neighbor. That may mean in a very simple, simple way, by being faithful an example.

You may preach a gospel by your simple example. It does not require you to engage in conversation, people. It does not require you to engage groups in public square. You are allowed to do so if you choose, but that may be very frightening to some people. But when they see your cheerfulness, when they see your smile. When they see you enduring great burdens, great crisis without wavering in your faith. That is love in action. That is a splendid example and God is pleased with that. So again, charism of Carmel. Look to Mary and the crucifixion. It wasn't because of her intellectual knowledge of Jesus Christ. It was because she loved Him that she endured the cross. And it will be a mystery, but in Carmel your love must exceed your knowledge of God. You must love beyond knowing, you must love beyond understanding and that includes both those in your community in Carmel, in your family, and of course the Trinity. Many times there will be mysteries and you will be required to smile even when your lips are bruised. That is love in action. That is a Carmelite.

I will continue on in more detail with tape two. When we continue with an overview of the rule of life in a very simplistic format,

May God grant you the grace to live this life. Amen.

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