Sr. Annah Theresa Nyadombo, a Handmaid of Our Lady of Mount Carmel (HLMC), was appointed to the Pontifical Commission for the Protection of Minors. The appointment became official on September 30, 2022 with an announcement from the Holy See Press Office. The Commission falls under the Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith and was instituted by Pope Francis in March 2014. It is headed by Cardinal Sean O’Malley, archbishop of Boston (USA).

“I accepted the appointment with humility, realizing that I was going to learn a lot from others in the Commission and elsewhere what was expected of me. But I am grateful to be part of the Commission which was established to strengthen best practices to safeguard minors and vulnerable adults in the Church,” said Sr. Annah Theresa during a visit to the Carmelite General Curia in Rome during recent meetings of the Commission.

Sr. Annah Theresa serves as the National Education and Child Safeguarding coordinator of the Zimbabwean Catholic Bishops Conference (ZCBC). “The work [of the commission] involves safeguarding of minors and vulnerable adults as called for in the Apostolic Constitution Praedicate Evangelium. The work involves promoting policies and procedures which will create a safe environment for children and vulnerable adults. This will involve the whole Church,” sister said.

Following her first meeting with the other members of the commission she noted, “They are all experts in their own right and are experienced in the area of safeguarding minors. There was “team spirit” for finding the common good.”

Sr. Annah Theresa was professed in the Congregation of the Handmaids of Our Lady of Mount Carmel (HLMC) on December 15, 1981. She taught from 1985-1992 and served as the local authority for St. Benedict’s Mission in Zimbabwe from 1986-1991. She was mission administrator of St. Theresa Mission in 1992 and was appointed Diocesan Education Secretary from the Diocese of Mutare. She served as superior general of the Congregation from 2001-2007.

She has served on two international organizations of the Order: as a member of the Executive Team of the Carmelite NGO from 2007-2019. She simultaneously served on the International Commission for Justice and Peace and the Integrity of Creation from 2013-2019.

She holds a doctorate in Social Sciences and Humanities from the University of Dublin. She was awarded the degree in 2012 after completing a study of a holistic pastoral approach to people with HIV and AIDS in Zimbabwe.

She is on the staff of the Catholic University of Zimbabwe since 2014. She is also a member of the Catholic Theological Ethics in the World Church, an organization promoting dialogue in the world among churches, since 2009. That same year, sister became a member of the coordinating team of Talitha Kum, an organization of Catholic nuns established by International Union of Superiors General (UISG) to end human-trafficking. Finally, she is a member of the Pan African Catholic and Pastoral Network, a worldwide network that aims to encourage and strengthen bonds of solidarity between all Indigenous people.

Pope Francis reconfirmed the leadership of the Pontifical Commission for the Protection of Minors and expanded its membership from 17 to 20 people, naming 10 new members and reappointing 10 returning members. In an statement released the day the appointments were made, Cardinal O’Malley said, “The members include representatives from canon law, social work, the medical and psychological professions, law enforcement and the judiciary as well as pastoral experts who currently work in dioceses and religious congregations.”

The 20 members of the Commission include 10 women and 10 men. Twelve of the members are laypeople, three are women religious, three are bishops and two are priests. Four represent Africa or the Middle East, five come from the Americas, five from Asia and Oceania, and six from Europe. The body of experts, with input from survivors, is meant to make proposals and spearhead initiatives to improve safeguarding norms and procedures. It remains an advisory body for the pope, and it offers concrete assistance to every level of the church worldwide.

On November 8 the Carmelite Order celebrates the Memorial of St. Elizabeth of the Trinity.

Elizabeth had been reading St. Paul more and more from the beginning of 1903, the time of her profession. Her former novice mistress, Sr. Marie of the Trinity, would say that, from that time on, Elizabeth grounded herself in two authors: John of the Cross and St. Paul. With regard to the former, Elizabeth had begun by dipping into John’s works, and it was only in 1902 that she started to read him with depth and thoroughness. It was a similar case with St. Paul, who at first nourished her mind with occasional quotations like choice drops of water, until they fused into a continuous stream.

St. Paul had already had some influence on Elizabeth because his epistles include striking, meaningful phrases which, encountering them in the liturgy or in homilies or in spiritual books, she had readily made her own. One example is the words from Galatians which she had quoted or referred to in the last few months before entering Carmel and had had engraved on the back of her profession crucifix: ‘I live, no longer I, but Christ lives in me’ (Galatians 2:20). For Elizabeth, keenly aware of the indwelling God, this passage would have made an immediate impact. By the beginning of 1904, however, she was, as mentioned, already fairly well acquainted with the writings of St. Paul. She was no longer mentioning a passage she had happened to hear at Mass that day but showing a proper reading knowledge. In a letter to a friend and relative, André Chevignard, who was preparing for the priesthood, she even gives a chapter reference in brackets, which was unusual for Elizabeth and shows an element of study.
But most of all, she reveals her absorption in St. Paul’s writings as a whole, referring to them collectively as “his magnificent epistles.”

From Joanne Mosley, “Elizabeth of the Trinity as a Reader of Scripture” in Sentire Cum Ecclesia: A Festschrift in Honour of Christopher O’Donnell, O. Carm. Edited by Patrick Mullins, O. Carm., and Simon Nolan, O. Carm. (Rome: Edizioni Carmelitane, Vocare Deo, 27) 2018.

The General Commission for Liturgy and Prayer developed a document on the development of shrines and friaries in our Order. These houses offer a way of building up the church that is different to the work of parishes. With a view to continuing reflection on this question the General Council signed the commission's letter. It is being distributed to the Carmelite Family for further reflection. This is considered a step towards developing this ministry more, one in which our Carmelite identity can be much more to the fore. This may lead to a reflection on suggestions as to how our parishes should be run so that we give our full Carmelite contribution to the Church also through our parishes.

A work in progress
(Luke 20:27-38)

In this episode from Luke’s Gospel, it is the Sadducees, rather than the Pharisees, who confront Jesus. Like the Pharisees, the Sadducees were a Jewish sect. They rejected much of what the Pharisees believed in, including the possibility of life after death.
The rather ridiculous scenario they put to Jesus in today’s Gospel was meant to show how ridiculous belief in resurrection was.
Part of the flaw in their scenario was the assumption that life after death would be the same as life is now, with the same conditions applying. So, they based their scenario on marriage in this world in order to ask the question about whose wife the woman would be in the next.
Without ridiculing their beliefs, Jesus says that in the risen life we are dealing with a totally new situation, one not governed by the laws of this life.
Then Jesus also uses a quote from Moses to show that Moses himself implies that the dead rise again.
Jesus’ proclamation of the ‘God of the living’ gives us the right context for viewing eternal life. Not as separate to, but as a continuation of the relationship with God we already live here. This also helps make sense of the Kingdom or Reign of God as already being present among us – not just as something yet to come.
God’s life in us is a work in progress. The disciples of Jesus live the life of the Kingdom now to the extent that they share in the life of God and can enable that reign of God’s grace to be experienced by others through the good deeds they do.
Eternal life is not something yet to come, but something we have already begun to live here and now.

• pdf Celebrating At Home - 32nd Sunday in Ordinary Time [PDF](3.06 MB)
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November 22 | Gregorian Pontifical University | 3 PM

The Gregorian University in Rome will host a 100 year anniversary celebration of the publication of Carmelite Bartolomé Xiberta's doctoral thesis, Clavis Ecclesiae. There celebration will take place on November 22, beginning at 3PM.

Speakers will include Josep M. Manresa Lamarca of the Universidad Abat Oliba CEU/Europa International School; Valfredo Maria Rossi of the Theology Faculty of the Pontifical Gregorian University; Joseph Carola, SJ, of the Theology Faculty of the Pontifical Gregorian University; and Fernando Millán Romeral, O. Carm., of the Instituto de Espiritualidad, of the Universidad Pontificia de Comillas in Madrid.

In 1921 Fr. Xiberta defended the idea that the Sacrament of Penance is an ecclesial act, administered in the name of the Church, and that the immediate principle benefit of the sacrament (res et sacramentum) is reconciliation with the Church. This thesis was progressively assimilated by theological reflection and subsequently influenced the drafting of Lumen Gentium 11 in the Second Vatican Council.

The commemoration is sponsored by the Gregorian University and the Carmelite Order.

Seminar on Christ Our Perfection: The Christological Spirituality of Fr. Avertan Fenech, O. Carm.
Warren Borg Ebejer TOCS
October 29 | Kunvent Tal-Karmnu, Mdina

Carmelite Life revolves entirely around Christ Jesus as the only way to our union with God. The Carmelite Rule actually proposes a project of life through which the Carmelite "walks in the footsteps of Jesus Christ and serves him with a pure heart and a clean conscience" (n. 2). Every spiritual lifestyle claiming to be authentically Christian and therefore Carmelite keeps Christ at the heart of the person and the spiritual project.

In this seminar Mr. Warren J. Borg Ebejer, TOCS, explores the Christological spirituality presented in the writings and life of the Servant of God F. Avertan Fenech and shows us how Christology is not only talk and reasoning (logic) about the person and mystery of Christ, but implies also a life lived according to "the mind" or "the thought" and "the sentiments" of Christ (1 Cor 2:14-16). In one word, it implies that a person walks according to the logic of Christ. In this seminar we will have the possibility to sift through some of Fr. Avertan's writings and reflect on them.

Mr. Borg Ebejer will also launch his book, published by Edizioni Carmelitane, entitled Christ Our Perfection: The Christological Spirituality of Fr. Avertan Fenech, O. Carm.

Location: Carmelite Priory, Mdina
The seminary will be in English

There is also the possibility of following the seminar by Zoom: https://universityofmalta.zoom.us/j/99610101733?pwd=VkFPVVRGWmV3SE5OeFkyZHlFVlRlQT09

Meeting ID: 996 1010 1733
Passcode: 734107
 

Program:
October 29, 2022 from 10:00 to 01:00 p.m.

10.00 am First Session: Lecture
10.45 am Pause
11.00 am Second Session: Lecture
11.45 am Analysis of selected passages
12.30 pm Light lunch

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Making assumptions
(Luke 19:1-10)

It is all too easy to make assumptions about other people which turn out not to be accurate. In the Gospel today, the crowd assumes that Zacchaeus is wicked and sinful, a traitor to his people because he is a tax collector.
The scene for the Gospel is, as usual, set by the first reading from the Book of Wisdom – in praise of a God whose love for what he has created allows him to overlook sins. God is all-powerful and all-merciful, the lover of all he creates and the lover of all life, ‘whose imperishable spirit is in all’. God corrects his people through forgiveness, drawing people away from evil and towards trust in himself.
This loving, forgiving action of God is on show in the Gospel story. Where we might have expected Jesus’ to condemn Zacchaeus, as the crowds do by excluding him and labelling him a ‘sinner’, Jesus recognises the good that Zacchaeus does even in his so-called ‘sinful’ situation (being a tax collector on behalf of the Roman government). Salvation does not lie in appearing to be good, but in being good. Such a person is truly a ‘son of Abraham’ – one of God’s chosen.
It might be helpful to note here that in Zacchaeus’ speech about intending to give half of his property to the poor and so on, the verbs are usually translated into future tense, as in the version which appears here. In the original Greek manuscripts, however, the verbs are unambiguously in the present tense. So Zacchaeus is describing how he presently conducts his life – a defence against the condemnation of the crowd that he is a ‘sinner’ and a traitor.
It is the crowd who turns out to be ‘what was lost’, not Zacchaeus.
Read against the background of Luke’s community, the story raises questions about judging on appearances, who is truly at rights with God, who is truly the sinner. An echo of last week’s parable about the Pharisee and the Tax Collector.
Most of all, building from the first reading, it is a story about the God who does not judge and punish as we would, but who loves, forgives, heals and reconciles people to one another.
When Jesus pronounces Zacchaeus a ‘son of Abraham’ he removes the barrier between the crowd and Zacchaeus and reconciles them.

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From October 17 to 22 the Assembly for the Mater Unitatis Federation of Carmelite nuns was held at the Casa de Espiritualidad "Santos Ángeles" of the Hermanas Angélicas in the city of Zaragoza, Spain.

The Federation was canonically erected on December 10, 1980 and comprises the enclosed monasteries of Caudete, Fontiveros, Huesca Asuncion, Huesca San Miguel, Madrid, Onteniente, Valencia, and Zaragoza.

The results of the elective chapter were as follows:

Federation President | Presidente de la Federación | Presidente della Federazione:
Rvda. Madre M^a del Sagrario Lorite Beltrán, O. Carm.

1st Councilor | 1ª Consejera | 1ª Consigliera:
Hna. M^a Mercedes de la Cruz Medina Zárraga, O. Carm.

2nd Councilor | 2ª Consejera  | 2ª Consigliera: 
Hna. Inés Nthenya Nzyuko, O. Carm.

3rd Councilor | 3ª Consejera  | 3ª Consigliera:
Hna. Ana wairimu thuo O. Carm.

4th Councilor | 4ª Consejera  | 4ª Consigliera: 
Hna. M^a Brunilda Rodriguez Velazco, O. Carm.

Director of Novices | Maestra de Novicias | Maestra delle Novizie
Sr Maria Sabina Berneschi, O. Carm.

Treasurer | Ecónoma | Economa: 
Hna. Inés Nthenya Nzyuko, O. Carm.

Secretary | Secretaria | Segretaria:
Hna. Mª Mercedes de la Cruz Medina Zárraga O. Carm.

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