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 102 B - "Apostolates - Sharing The Fruit of Contemplation"

by Michael J. Kotarski, OCDS

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April 2002

The Apostolates.

The Secular Order of Discalced Carmelites has made a commitment to the apostolic life. Article 8. in the Rule of Life does contain what it is that the Secular Order of Discalced Carmelites commit to regarding apostolates. This apostolic activity is preserved in the constitutions that are now being studied and will be presented for approval by the Holy See.

Essentially, the church has entrusted to the Order of Carmel, responsibilities regarding the apostolate. Very briefly, and very simply, that responsibility includes prayer and teaching prayer. The promotion of prayer, and in addition and simultaneously with that apostolate to prayer, is the apostolate entrusted to the Carmel to promote the teachings of St. Teresa of Jesus, and the teachings of St. John of the Cross. This Holy Father we have now John Paul, II, has also asked us as Third Order members, Secular Order members, as members of the family of Carmel, to promote a greater understanding of what prayer is. A greater understanding of the teachings of St. Teresa of Jesus, and a greater understanding of the teachings of St. John of the Cross. He has asked that we make those teachings and prayer more accessible to all individuals regardless of their station in life. And that is the sum and substance of the apostolate. Taking Jesus Christ to our neighbor. Taking the life of prayer and making it much more intelligible to our neighbor. Those particularly and our families. And taking the spiritual life to our neighbor. Particularly our families. And that again, charity begins at home, and the first apostolate that you will enter upon is your discernment of whether or not you have a call to the Secular Order of Discalced Carmelites and as you discern that call you will rely upon the fruit of other people's apostolates that have gone on before you, to teach you what it is necessary for you to know God's will for you. This side of the tape we are going to go into some definitions that have already been provided to us by the church, and I am going to read for you, two paragraphs about ten sentences here.

Article 8. of the OCDS Rule of Life encapsulates the apostolate responsibility. I read it to you. Prayer and the apostolate, when they are genuine, are inseparable, and each profits the other. The Secular Carmelites are therefore bound to the fervent practice of fraternal charity and must take their share of apostolic responsibility in the church and in the world. With this object the Secular Carmelites will first of all seek to intensify their personal union with God, and to bear witness to Christ by their life of prayer. They are also free to engage in any type of apostolic activity. They will dedicate themselves especially to the promotion of priestly and religious vocations and collaborate in the Order's activities and undertakings. All these activities will be evaluated and made more precise by local statutes, according to the various geographic regions. You are free to do any type of apostolic activity. And that includes activity in (??086 catechitizing) your children, your neighbors' children, working in parish, any activity that you believe that an apostle of Christ would be involved in.

Now collaborating with the order depends upon your capabilities. It is not a necessity that you are involved in every activity that the Order is involved in. You are the bishop of your own time. You will have to make those judgments for yourself, what you are capable of doing. The individuals I have worked with in the Order always, always, without exception, encourage Third Order, Secular Order members to remain in their family unless they are able to take on the burden outside the family and move into the parish. Move into the community. No one will ever force you to go beyond what you are capable of doing. No one will ever ask you to do something that is unintelligible. And you are also asked to bring it to the leaders attention. That would be the Council, the Formation Director, the President, the Spiritual Assistant when you feel you have more on your plate than you are capable of handling. For the first apostolate that you have will be to the interior life and your life of prayer, and we will develop that in a few moments.

Right now, the collaborating in the Order's activities and undertakings includes making yourself aware of what is the Order involved in. Right now, Father General and Father Aloysius Deeney have acquired for the Carmelite Order, NGO Status with the United Nations. It is the effort of Fr. Deeney and several other priests to influence that international organization. Influence that organization, with that which Carmel believes important. Elevating the interests of Carmel in this international organization will elevate the interest that Jesus Christ has across the world in many countries. Particularly those countries that are non-Christian. There is a great deal of information available for anyone who is interested in praying about the NGO status that the Order has acquired. NGO stands for Non Governmental Organizational status at the United Nations. The Knights of Columbus are NGO, the Franciscan's have NGO status, the Dominican's have NGO status. It is the attempt of the orders to permeate the culture, to elevate the culture to Jesus Christ, to orient the culture to Jesus Christ, and this activity is being encouraged by the Holy Father as the Holy Father encourages all of us to not only meet the culture that is there but to generate a new culture of life, and that is one of the activities along with many activities that the order is involved in. And they constantly solicit your prayers. And those who are gifted, and who feel called to be more involved can contact their spiritual assistant or their provincial delegate for more detailed information in that area.

Now in order to better understand this broad term 'apostolate' I am going to reference the Catholic catechism, and going to encourage you to read also on your own and study the Catholic catechism where the Holy Father has approved language defining what it is to have an apostolate and what each and every Christian has, the church holds out for them as an apostolate. Even before entering Carmel. Your general call as a christian to the apostolate, is that diminished or suppressed in any way as a result of your entering Carmel? If anything, the apostolate that you have been called to as a baptized Catholic, is elevated and focused. Let's discuss the church's definition of the apostolate and I go to the Catholic Catechism, paragraph 863. The whole church is apostolic in that she remains through the successors of St. Peter and the other apostles in communion of faith and life with her origin. And in that she is sent out into the whole world, all members of the church sharing this mission though in various ways. The Christian vocation is of its nature, a vocation to the apostolate as well. Indeed we call an apostolate, every activity of the mystical body that aims to spread the Kingdom of Christ over all the earth. That means now the commentary begins on this first paragraph we have just completed. That means your apostolate can begin at home with your spouse and with your children. It can be in little ways, including elevating devotional life of the church by putting holy water in your home, by wearing the scapular, by having some recourse to solitude so that you can pull yourself together, and be stronger. By reading, by making known the books of saints and spiritual writers you feel are speaking to you and should speak to others. By being cheerful in community life as you reach out to others. These are all acts of the apostolate. It does not require that you take a microphone and lead a group in a march, or take a microphone and lead a group in a teaching session at your parish. Those are good things. Some are able to do that and some feel called in other ways. Lining with the comfort of something soft, a child's newborn slipper is the apostolate. It is an act of love, and it will go a long way as an example to others. A simple lining with something soft, a child's shoe or an infant's slipper.

I now go back to the Catholic Catechism 864. The church continues. Christ sent by the Father is the source of the church's whole apostolate. Thus the fruitfulness of the apostolate for ordained ministers as well as for lay people clearly depends on their vital union with Christ. In keeping with their vocations the demands of the times and the various gifts of the Holy Spirit, the apostolate assumes the most varied forms. But charity, drawn from the eucharist above all is always as it were the soul of the whole apostolate. And that means the robustness of your actions are clearly related to and dependent upon your relationship with Jesus Christ. Your union with God, your relationship with that eucharistic Jesus that body, blood, soul and divinity. And that means that oftentimes in your day and when you are able to get to Mass, that eucharistic Jesus that you receive will be one of the greatest goods that you will receive that day and it will be very difficult to imagine a greater good then to receive eucharistic Jesus that day. The greater good obviously is the will of God. Christ is the means to the Father, and Christ said "I do the will of the Father". Always the will of the Father is the greatest good. 865.

I continue with the Catholic catechism as it discusses the apostolate further and deeper. The church is ultimately one holy Catholic an apostolic, in her deepest and ultimate identity, because it is in her that the Kingdom of Heaven, the reign of God already exists. And will be fulfilled at the end of time. The Kingdom has come in the person of Christ, and grows mysteriously in the hearts of those incorporated into Him until its full (??228 estrological) manifestation. Estrological means like at the end of time. Full manifestation. Then all those He has redeemed and made holy and blameless before Him, in love, will be gathered together as the one people of God. The bride and the lamb. The Holy City Jerusalem coming down out of heaven from God having the glory of God, for the wall of the city had twelve foundation stones, and on them the twelve names. The twelve apostles of the lamb. What that means is as you enter your apostolate and you live that life of the apostle, you are taking up the function that was initiated by those original twelve foundation stones and you are living that foundation of life. The bride of the lamb is mentioned here. Do you see how appropriate it is for your apostolate to be part of that which we call blessing the bride in holiness? It is as simple as that. And the church goes on at paragraph 900 to emphasize the apostolate and I go a little bit more into reading and going to the authority, because there has been in my experience (1) A lack of emphasis on the apostolate for third order members, Secular Order members, and (2) A bit of confusion. That is why I wanted to make sure that early on you are rooted in what the mind set of the church is. Not my opinion, not someone else's opinion, but the mind set of the church, on what it is for an apostolate to be in a part of your life.

Paragraph 900 of the Catholic Catechism. Since like all the faithful, lay Christians are entrusted by God with the apostolate by virtue of their baptism and confirmation, they have the right and duty, individually or grouped in associations to work so that the divine message of salvation may be known and accepted by all men, throughout the earth. This duty is the more pressing when it is only through them that men can hear the gospel and know Christ. Their activity in ecclesial communities, that is church communities, your parish, your community with the third order. Their activity in ecclesial communities is so necessary that for the most part the apostolate of the (??264 pastor's/apostles?) can not be fully effective without it. What they are saying here is that you often will move in circles that the priest will not move in. You will move in circles of friendship, friend to friend. And as you do you will have an opportunity, with your example, to evangelize these individuals without speaking a word. For you are aware that your life may be the only gospel another person will read. Your marriage. Your cheerfulness in that marriage. Your cheerfulness in raising children when people are aborting children. Killing innocent life. Your cheerfulness is an apostolate. Your smile to someone who is depressed and is looking at clouds of darkness in their life. Sorrow at the death or loss of a loved one. Your smile and comfort is an apostolate.

Now consider this. You have the right and duty individually, by yourself, or grouped together. Two or three of you are together as friends and want to make scapulars, want to make rosaries, want to promote holy water. That is an apostolate. You have a right to that. That will not be diminished or taken away as a result of entering Carmel. If anything, the evangelization you were doing before will become more vigorous and more robust, because the Holy Spirit is enlivening it with a call to come closer in this specific area, that we know as the third orders, and you may be called to become a Secular Order member of the Discalced Carmelites. Or a Secular Order member of another group, but in any case whatever you are called as you step into the will of God and draw closer to what He has for you, your apostolate will become more hot, more on fire, more powerful, more robust. Now consider how this is open to you, even before you enter Carmel, the apostolate to evangelize.

I now read Chapter 905 of the Catholic Catechism. Lay people also fulfill their prophetic mission by evangelization. That is the proclamation of Christ by word and the testimony of life. For lay people this evangelization requires a specific property and peculiar efficacy because it is accomplished in the ordinary circumstances of the world. This witness in life however is not the sole element in the apostolate. The true apostolate is on the lookout for occasions of announcing Christ by word. Either to unbelievers or to the faithful. There are two points you can read this for yourself. Two points I think are important for you. (1) Your witness of life in ordinary circumstances. You recall Namon the Syrian. He was an unbeliever. He was not Jewish. He came. He came to the holy land and he had leprosy. And he came there and I believe it was the prophet Elijah asked him to bathe seven times in the river Jordan. Namon the Syrian was a wealthy man, and he was what we would call affluent and powerful. He refused to do what Elijah asked him to do. He had heard about Elijah. He knew this holy man could heal, but he was indignant that he was asked to do something so lowly and so ordinary and he responded "Of all the rivers in Jordan, why are not the rivers where I come from greater than these rivers?" and he started to leave. And his servant said to him "Oh, Namon. My master. If this holy man were to ask you to do something extraordinary would you have done it?" "Why certainly I would" was the response. "Most certainly I would have done an extraordinary act". And his servant tugged at him, "Please master, if you would do the extraordinary how much more should you just do the ordinary. This prophet has healed many. Listen to him". Namon paused and got off his camel. Went to the river Jordan and bathed seven times. Did the ordinary and he was healed. That is the power of the ordinary way and that ordinary way is imbedded deep in Carmel. Don't look for the extraordinary way. Elijah, Carmel, constantly works in the ordinary circumstances of life and has been a very, the order has been very efficacious, very powerful, very productive in producing good for the church in the ordinary circumstances of life. And you look at the Little Flower, look at (??335 Terisee?) of the Andes, both saints, in ordinary circumstances of life.

Now the second point is, I read it again. This witness of life however is not the sole element in the apostolate. The true apostle is on the lookout for occasions of announcing Christ by word, either to unbelievers or to the faithful. On the lookout, that means be prepared to respond spontaneously to opportunities. Be on the lookout for opportunities and grab them. For a lost opportunity may never repeat itself. You are allowed to be on the lookout. What we in America would say, "Be on the make. Be on the make for Jesus Christ. Be prepared". The church asks that. If you are capable, there is nothing unholy on being on the make for God, and watching for occasions and striking at that opportunity. Your catechism emphasizes that.

And now, briefly we are going to discuss what the Carmelite Order has taken the general churches call to the apostolate and how it has refined it to show us some of the things that Carmel holds dear as an apostolate. Some of the things that Carmel, the teachers of Carmel have taught and strive to teach, and hold out for each and every one of us. Now I am going to be referring you to the divine intimacy. Meditations on the interior life for every day of the liturgical year. This is by Fr. Gabriel of St. Mary Magdalene and he is a Carmelite and he has given us some very, very, good material to study, to understand the specific apostolate we, as Carmelites are called to. I now am going to give you an excerpt from the Preface, at Roman Numeral XIV of Teresian spirituality it is defined and what it is you will be sharing with others if you choose to enter that area of apostolate, and you share this with others through your learning it yourself, through various tape ministries you can start in your community. Through various book ministries you can start. Create your own pamphlets. But here it is simply, and we are trying to direct souls towards helping others especially on this point, and I will give just a brief introduction to this and we will develop it more in a later, more advanced series. Teresian spirituality. You will be sharing that. You will be learning it. What is it? Teresian spirituality of divine intimacy. That is it tries to nourish the souls the ideal of intimacy with God, and it directs them towards this ideal, principally by means of mental prayer. Mental prayer should be attuned therefore to this great and lofty aspiration, and Teresa defines mental prayer in her autobiography. She defines it as friendly intercourse and frequent solitary converse with Him who we know loves us. We can see that in life, in our book life, Chapter 8. Now, that is what we share. Our life of prayer and the spirituality we try to make better known, but regarding the interior apostolate, there is a call to the interior apostolate, and I just want to share with you how this priest places it in the heart of Carmel and it is no small act. I read for you at 2040 Interior Apostolate, Chapter 24, page 70, of the book that Fr. Gabrielle sent Mary Magdalene, has done for us.

The apostolate considered in its totality consists in everything we can do in collaboration with Christ to diffuse the supernatural life in souls. The apostolate is always a collaboration with Jesus, and attains its end only when it helps to bring God's grace to souls and to develop it in them. Catholic doctrine gives us two fundamental means for our collaboration with Christ. Prayer and sacrifice. Even the mystici corporis speaks first of prayer and voluntary mortification, and only then speaks of the exterior activity of the clergy and the faithful. Our cooperation with Jesus for the salvation of souls, must be deeply rooted in prayer and sacrifice, for it was mainly by prayer and sacrifice that Jesus himself redeemed the world. Jesus saved us not only by His exterior activity of preaching, teaching, instituting and administering the sacraments, but also by obedience and silence of His hidden life. By His prayer, which is expressly mentioned so often in the gospel, and above all by the sacrifice of the cross in which all His work of redemption reached its culmination. St. John of the Cross says, "Just then He wrought the greatest work that He had ever wrought, which was the reconciliation and union of mankind with God through grace".
The interior apostolate of prayer and immolation then holds the first place. Upon it is founded the exterior apostolate of action which draws its strength and efficacy from the interior one. I say that and I refer you to that, to orient you. Do not abandon the duties of your rule of prayer, in order to become active. Your activity is built on the foundation of your prayer. That is Carmel.

Now I want to take you to a final reference on what it is for Carmel, and what you are called to. It is a document in Vatican II. The constitution on the sacred liturgy. Its known as (??411 Sacrosanctum consilium) was dated December 4, 1963, and we are looking at paragraph 2 on the introduction, and this may be something on the Constitution on the Sacred Liturgy, and it identifies what the church is. The church is essentially both human and divine. Visible but endowed with invisible realities. Zealous in action, and dedicated to contemplation. Present in the world but as a pilgrim so constituted that in her the human is directed toward and subordinated to the divine. The visible to the invisible. Action to contemplation. And this present world to that city yet to come. The object of our quest. The liturgy daily builds up those who are in the church making of them a holy temple of the Lord. A dwelling place for God and the Spirit. To the mature measure of the fullness of Christ. It is a beautiful statement of the church, the document of Vatican II, and when it says that things are directed and (?? 425 subordined) to the divine, action to contemplation. It is saying that action is subordinated to contemplation. It is very powerful. It is very needed in the church. Your prayers. And if God calls you to Carmel, and you are tempted to abandon prayer for action, you never want to abandon your half hour of prayer. Your little interior garden for action. God has said if he calls you to Carmel that I can work with you consistent with the Rule of Life, what I have already asked you to do. You are embracing that rule. He is saying that if you live this rule, I will keep you. You keep the rule perfectly, you will become holy. Keep that in mind and these little nuances in the documents of the church are to encourage you, to know that the mind set of the church is such that action is subordinated to contemplation. Now this now concludes this side of the tape on apostolates, the very introductory basic level, we will develop it in greater length with more support, more ideas, and further teachings in later series. We pray together that God will give you that grace to discern your call to Carmel, your call to come closer to God in His divine will, and may God allow you to see and discern what it is that He wants from you. And know whether its to Carmel or some other place. I hope that the information that you received here will help you understand that generally the call is there for prayer for all Catholics and the call is there for inviting all to deeper union with God, particularly deeper participation in the apostolate. Amen.

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