O.Carm
Carmelite Family Celebrates Together at World Youth Day
World Youth Day | Lisbon, Portugal | August 1-6, 2023
On Wednesday, August 2nd, the Carmelite family from around the world—Carmelite friars, sisters, youth animators, and young people—gathered at Lisbon’s St. Antonio of Cavalerios, a Carmelite parish of the Portuguese Commissariat. They came to celebrate the Carmelite Day—a day for the Carmelite family to be together during the World Youth gathering in Lisbon, Portugal. There were 150 people representing each of the four geographic areas of the Order, along with prior general Miceal O'Neill, Richard Byrne, the general councilor for Europe, and Robert Thomas Puthussery, the president of the International Carmelite Youth Commission and general councilor for Asia, Australia, and Oceania.
“It was a grace filled occasion, with a diverse group of young people, all coming together to celebrate what it means to be a Carmelite in the world today,” said Fr. Robert. “Everyone was proud to be a Carmelite and delighted to be together. They shouted in different languages "Long Live Carmel," a great testimony to their joy and enthusiasm.”
The day began with a warm welcome from the Portuguese Commissary Agostinho Castro. There was then an opening prayer and a video presentation on the 600 year presence of Carmelites in Portugal. The prior general, Miceal O'Neill, gave a short but meaningful presentation on what it means to be a Carmelite today in the context of the WYD theme of Mary Went With Haste. He invited all to be "generous and determined" as Mary was to help those in need. He shared the stories of Carmelite saints, St. Nuno Alvares Pereira of Portugal, St. Titus Brandsma, and also referred to the inspirational example of Pablo Maria de la Cruz Alonzo Hidalgo, a young Carmelite from Spain, a model for young people today, who died on July 15 at the age of 21. He had just been professed on June 15 “in articulo mortis" and had hoped to be able to attend the Lisbon event.
The prior general asked everyone present to reflect on the question: what am I called to do or be right now? There was then time for group discussion and sharing after the talk. After lunch it was time for video presentations from each group which was enlivened by live music and dance from different groups.
At 4 pm, there was a concelebrated Holy Eucharist with the Carmelite family in the parish, complete with music and prayers in various languages of the Order.
“I want to publicly thank for Portuguese Commissariat for an incredibly well organized event,” said Fr. Robert. “Everyone enjoyed the warm hospitality of the Portuguese.”
It is quite the experience to see so many youth gathered and celebrating. Richard Byrne wrote, “There was a fantastic atmosphere through the city with all the young people around. To be honest, it was great to witness the young people.”
Pictures and Commentary on the Events:
John Toryusen
August 1
August 2: Carmelite Family Day
August 3:
August 4:
Vigil and Final Mass
Matthew Janvier, O. Carm. Daily Blog
Vitam Coelo Reddiderunt
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Celebrating At Home - 19th Sunday in Ordinary Time
Living the Kingdom
(Matthew 14:22-33)
Trust is an essential element in the formation of faith. This section of St Matthew’s Gospel is about the Kingdom of God being seen in the Church when human needs are responded to with the life of God. Jesus is forming the faith of the disciples and helping them to understand that they can do great and unexpected things if they allow the grace of God to work in them.
For that to happen the disciples must have faith in Christ. They must learn to sense the presence of God within themselves just as Elijah learnt to recognise the presence of God in the gentle breeze in the first reading today. Jesus and Elijah remain in communion with God through moments of solitary prayer.
St Matthew uses the story of Jesus approaching the disciples across the water to illustrate the confidence and trust the disciple needs to have in Christ. The story also shows how fear can erode faith and shake confidence.
Sometimes we, too, feel like we are sinking beneath the waves. For the people in Matthew’s community this story was a call to faith, trust, courage and boldness in the midst of the hostile forces of the world. Peter’s actions in the story are a mixture of impulsive love and faith weakened by doubt. Peter and the others see clearly for the first time exactly who Jesus is.
- pdf Celebrating At Home - 19th Sunday in Ordinary Time [PDF](3.01 MB)
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- pdf Celebrando en Familia - 19 Domingo del Tiempo Ordinario(616 KB)
- pdf Celebrando in Casa - 19 Domenica del Tempo Ordinario(621 KB)
- pdf Celebrando em familia - 19 Domingo do Tempo Comum(514 KB)
Celebrating At Home - The Transfiguration of the Lord
Transfigured in Christ
(Matthew 17:1-9)
In the Hebrew Scriptures high mountains were traditionally seen as holy places where one could encounter God. It was on the summit of Mt Sinai that Moses received the Law from God (Ex 19) and it was on Mt Horeb that Elijah encountered God in the gentle breeze (1Kings 19:9ff). So, it should come as no surprise that it is on a mountain that the disciples encounter the glorified divinity of Christ.
The transfigured Jesus is shown to the disciples together with Moses and Elijah who, in Jewish tradition, represent the Law and the Prophets. In Jesus, these two great traditions reach their proper fulfilment. Moses and Elijah are also the two figures in the Hebrew scriptures who have direct, personal encounters with God.
Perhaps that affirms that the disciples encounter God in and through their encounter with Christ.
Peter is delighted by this glimpse of the glorified Christ and wants to commemorate the experience by building three tents. But the voice of God interrupts Peter’s request. God seems to say, ‘Forget about building tents, Peter, the important thing is to listen to my beloved Son’.
Through our deep attention to the word of God spoken in Jesus we remain in contact with the heart of God, allowing God’s love to transform and transfigure us and to ‘burst forth’ in goodness.
Being transfigured is a revolution of mind and heart driven by God’s Spirit and enabled by our open heartedness to God’s Word. When we are ‘shot through’ with the presence of God, God can be seen in, and experienced through, us.
It takes faith and perseverance to dare to allow ourselves to be tempted by the passion, hope and vision of God rather than our own desires and wants. It takes great faith to trust in God’s word to us. But if we do, the living word of the Chosen One forms in us the heart of God.
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- pdf Celebrando en Familia - La Transfiguración del Señor(568 KB)
- pdf Celebrando in Casa - Trasfigurazione del Signore(464 KB)
- pdf Celebrando em familia - A transfiguração do Senhor(569 KB)
Lectio Divina August 2023
Opening Prayer
God our Father and protector, without you nothing is holy, nothing has value.Guide us to everlasting life by helping us to use wisely the blessings you have given to the world.
We ask this through our Lord Jesus Christ, your Son, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.
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Cover image: Antonio de Pereda, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Celebrating At Home - 17th Sunday in Ordinary Time
Close encounters with the Kingdom of God
(Matthew 13:44-52)
In the Gospel, Jesus compares the Kingdom to treasure hidden in a field, to a merchant on the lookout for fine pearls and to a fisherman’s dragnet which brings in a very mixed catch.
The point of the parables is the behaviour of the people in them.
In the first parable someone stumbles across the treasure by chance. Sometimes that can happen to us, too. We are happily living our lives when, by chance, something happens or we meet someone and our lives change for ever. On reflection we discern the presence of God in that encounter.
In the second parable the Kingdom is found after a long search. It is a reassurance that those who seek always find, and those who knock on the door will always have it opened.
The third parable introduces a note of reality: the Kingdom is a mixture of all kinds of things and some sorting out is needed.
In the first two parables the joy and delight of those who find (experience) the Kingdom is obvious. It is so strong that nothing is spared in order to posses the Kingdom.
The purpose of parables is not to provide answers to questions but to get us to think.
As we know, the Kingdom of God is not a ‘thing’ or a ‘place’. It is an experience or an encounter with the life of God.
In the life and ministry of Jesus many people experienced the Kingdom through their encounter with him which brought dignity, love, forgiveness, release from illness, disability, guilt, shame and even death. Jesus made present the reign of God’s grace for people in all kinds of need.
While we are sometimes overwhelmed by the experience of the presence of God within our hearts, more often we experience the reign of God’s grace through others. These people, like Jesus, somehow make present, make real the presence and action of God especially (but not only) in our moments of need.
Having experienced that, we too, want to possess, to find and hold onto, the Source which touched us so deeply and brought us hope, comfort and freedom.
The kingdom, as we are reminded in the third parable, is a mixed bag of good and rotten fish, saints and sinners. It is not the task of members of the kingdom to judge; the final sorting out belongs to God alone. In the meantime, patience and tolerance must guide the practice of those in the kingdom.
The people of the kingdom seek the things that are of real value in life. They are prepared to make great sacrifices in order to make them their own. They live their lives with virtue and wisdom and their lives are a blessing for others as they draw from their rich store of values and virtues, of wisdom and grace. They never stop seeking the things of real value, the riches of the kingdom and they never stop making God present for those around them.
- pdf Celebrating At Home - 17th Sunday in Ordinary Time [PDF](2.93 MB)
- default Celebrating At Home - 17th Sunday in Ordinary Time [ePub](2.45 MB)
- pdf Celebrando en Familia - 17 Domingo del Tiempo Ordinario(489 KB)
- pdf Celebrando in Casa - 17 Domenica del Tempo Ordinario(598 KB)
- pdf Celebrando em familia - 17 Domingo do Tempo Comum(490 KB)
US Catholic News Service Recognizes Titus as its Patron
OSV News has designated St. Titus Brandsma as the organization’s patron. It is a strong recognition by the news organization of Brandsma as a model for journalists. OSV News, the national and international wire service that began after Catholic News Service was discontinued at the end of 2022.
"When the OSV News team met in October 2022 for our first planning session and retreat, we knew we wanted in our corner a patron saint to intercede on behalf of our team and our work. The problem was figuring out just who to select," said Gretchen Crowe, editor-in-chief of OSV News. "We considered, of course, St. Francis de Sales, the beloved saint of Catholic journalists. We also discussed St. Maximilian Kolbe, St. John the Apostle, St. Paul, St. Teresa of Avila, St. Catherine of Siena, and Blessed Carlo Acutis, among others."
OSV News even considered compiling what one person called a "spiritual board of directors" with a few saints, she said. "But ultimately, we landed on St. Titus Brandsma because of his embrace of Catholic journalism as a means of evangelization -- a point that is at the heart of the mission of OSV News -- and because of his powerful and brave witness as a disciple of Jesus Christ," said Crowe, who was elected president of the Catholic Media Association this year.
She said that, besides his preaching and work in publishing, in which he founded and edited newspapers and magazines, St. Titus's work in the Catholic press put him in a position to stand up to the Nazis, who were trying to force publications to print their propaganda. There were more than 30 daily Catholic newspapers in the Netherlands in the 1930s.
St. Titus paid the ultimate price for his opposition, being arrested, imprisoned, and executed on July 26, 1942, in the Dachau concentration camp.
"The OSV News team was very moved by this story and by the courageous witness of St. Titus in standing up for the truth, and so we adopted him as our patron as we began our work," Crowe said.
Carmelite Michael Driscoll of Boca Raton in South Florida, who was healed of metastatic melanoma through the prayers of thousands to St. Titus, is also actively encouraging Catholic leaders to recognize the Dutch saint as the modern patron of journalists. Fr. Michael’s healing was accepted as the miracle needed for the Dutch Carmelite's canonization.
Earlier this year during an interview with a small group of journalists, Pope Francis spoke openly about his support for the idea of having St. Titus become a new patron saint of journalists.
Such recognition of St. Titus would come from Pope Francis. The journalists accredited to the Vatican have made a very public push for the designation as well. During the week of activities leading up to the canonization in May 2022, they sent a letter to the Holy Father requesting the recognition of St. Titus.
In one of the church's strongest acts of resistance toward the Nazis, Catholic newspapers were prohibited by the bishops of the Netherlands from publishing advertisements from the German occupiers. Father Brandsma, who was the bishops' liaison to the Roman Catholic Journalists Association, wrote a letter to all Catholic press editors, saying that the publications "may not allow these (National Socialist Union, Nazi) advertisements if they want to maintain their Catholic identity." He then travelled to visit the various editors to encourage them to remain true to their vocation as Catholic journalists.
(Adapted from the Florida Catholic, William Cone, Should St. Titus Be Patron of Journalists? July 12, 2023)
Activities of the Prior General for August 2023
The schedule of Míceál O’Neill, the prior general, for the month of August:
August 1 - 6: World Youth Day in Lisbon
August 1: Carmelite Day
August 10 - 31: Indonesian Province
+ Celebration of First Centenary of Carmelite Presence
+ Canonical Visitation of the Province
St. Titus Brandsma, priest and martyr
July 27 | Obligatory Memorial (Feast: Ger, Phil, Del Colombia)
A noted writer and journalist, in 1935, St. Titus was appointed adviser to the Dutch bishops for Catholic journalists. In the period leading up to and during the Nazi occupation in the Netherlands, he argued passionately against the National Socialist ideology, basing his stand on the Gospels. He continually defended the right to freedom in education and for a free the Catholic Press. As a result, he was imprisoned.
He passed from one prison or camp to another until he arrived in Dachau where he was killed on July 26, 1942. He was beatified as a martyr by Pope John Paul II on November 3, 1985 and was canonized by Pope Francis on May 15, 2022, in St Peter’s Square.
The Order’s petition to have the celebration of St. Titus Brandsma changed from an optional memorial to an obligatory memorial for the whole Order was accepted. The Provinces of Germany and the Philippines as well as the General Delegation in Columbia who have St. Titus as their patron celebrate the day as a feast.
Read more about the life of St Titus Brandsma
Reflections on St. Titus' Presence Today
From the Order's Website - ocarm.org
Books Available on St. Titus Brandsma, O. Carm.
Go Here
Fray Pablo Dies Weeks after Profession
Less than a month after his solemn profession “in articulo mortis” (at the point of death), 21-year-old Carmelite Pablo Ma. de la Cruz Alonzo Hidalgo died. He died on July 15, the eve of the Feast of Our Lady of Mount Carmel.
The prior provincial of the Province of Aragón, Castilla, and Valencia (ACV), Salvador Villota Herrero, announced the young Carmelites death. Fr. Salvador had received the solemn profession of Alonso as a Carmelite on Sunday, June 25, just three weeks earlier, in the church of the Carmel de Abajo in Salamanca, Spain. An exception was made for him in light of his impending death.
Pablo was diagnosed with Ewing sarcoma, a rare form of bone cancer, when he was 16 years old.
A few days prior to his profession, he had been admitted into the novitiate in a ceremony over which Villota presided at the University Hospital Clinic of Salamanca. Alonso’s parents, the novice master, and his spiritual director were also present.
Before his entry into the Carmelite order, the young man posted an invitation on social media stating his determination, which he headed with a quote from the Carmelite St. Titus Brandsma, who was killed by the Nazis in Dachau: “The cross is my joy, not my sorrow.” The post showed Alonso’s hand holding a cross.
“It is my desire to consecrate myself to God and live as an offering to Jesus Christ. My illness is progressing rapidly. From God we come and to God we go. The Father in his infinite mercy will soon call me to be with him,” the young religious wrote.
pdf Reminder of the funeral of Fray Pablo María de la Cruz. It was drawn by him. He indicated the texts to be placed(1.11 MB)Photos courtesy of Fr. Desiderio García Martínez, O. Carm
- Fray Pablo María de la Cruz Alonso Hidalgo, O. Carm., wearing the Carmelite habit.
- Profession of Fray Pablo.
- Fray Pablo and his parents as he is received into novitiate.
- Fray Pablo and his parents along with P. Salvador Villota Herrero, the prior provincial of the Aragón, Castilla and Valencia Province and P. Alejandro López-Lapuente Villalba, director of novices.
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Fray Pablo and Fr. Rafael Ma. López Melús, the youngest and the oldest members of the Aragón, Castilla and Valencia Province.
