NEWS ON THE HERMITS OF OUR LADY OF MOUNT CARMEL IN FAIRFIELD

Passing from the great feast of Pentecost to the spiritual beauties of Trinity Sunday, the Hermits of Our Lady of Mount Carmel keep vigil in prayer with the Blessed Virgin Mary, praying to the Triune God in communion with the Church Triumphant and offering intercession for the Church Militant laboring in the world. Carmelites are called to be experts in no human occupation other than in the vital depths of the spiritual life, adoring God and helping others in the spiritual way of perfection to advance towards consummate union with Him. Dedicated exclusively to a contemplative religious observance, manual labor, and priestly work, the religious observance and mission of the Hermits of Our Lady of Mount Carmel are realized through the material support of the faithful, for whom the Hermits offer their prayers, sacrifices, and priestly services.

Presently, the community has a substantial need for financial resources to be able to house and accommodate its quickly growing number of vocations and begin construction on the greatly needed hermitages. May God reward you for your prayers and support and for passing on the word to others who may be able to contribute towards these religious and priestly vocations and the permanent material foundation of a community dedicated to the glory of God, the honor of the Blessed Virgin Mary, the sacramental service of the Discalced Carmelite Nuns in Fairfield, the spiritual advancement of the faithful, and the salvation of many souls!

THOUGHTS FROM CARMEL: THE MYSTERY OF THE HOLY TRINITY IN OUR SOULS

This Sunday is the feast of the Most Holy Trinity, which crowns the great liturgical journey the Church began in Advent as it prayerfully celebrates the revelation of the mystery of God in His intimate life: the Holy Trinity, One in essence and Three in persons. Is this highest of mysteries merely for the speculation of theologians? And does it apply to our interior life?

“I will ask the Father, and he shall give you another Paraclete, that he may abide with you forever. The spirit of truth, whom the world cannot receive, because it seeth him not, nor knoweth him: but you shall know him; because he shall abide with you, and shall be in you. I will not leave you orphans, I will come to you. Because I live, and you shall live. In that day you shall know, that I am in my Father, and you in me, and I in you.”
John 14:16-20

The Missions of the Divine Persons in Our Souls

A real participation in the intimate life of the Triune God is granted to souls in the state of grace through the “missions” of the Word and Spirit. These missions are the basis of each soul’s sanctification and salvation. Mission comes from the Latin verb mittere, to send, a term used many times by Our Lord in the Holy Gospels when He refers to the Son and Holy Ghost being “sent” or “coming” into the world. The Father sends His Son, Whom He eternally begets as the Word, and the Father and Son send the Holy Ghost, Whom They eternally spirate as One in Love. Having no principle, the Father, Who is consubstantial with the Son and Holy Ghost, is not sent, but He comes and gives Himself with those He sends and gives, for the Three are inseparable.

“He that sent me, is with me… I and the Father are one.”
John 8:29; 10:30

The Visible Missions

“It belongs to the Holy Ghost, Who proceeds as Love, to be the gift of sanctification; to the Son as the principle of the Holy Ghost, it belongs to be the author of this sanctification. Thus the Son has been sent visibly as the author of sanctification; the Holy Ghost as the sign of sanctification” (St. Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologiae, Ia, Q. 43, A. 7). The visible mission of the Son of God eternally begotten of the Father and sent by Him into the world in time was in His assuming our human nature through His incarnation and birth. “And the Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us” (John 1:14). The visible mission of the Holy Ghost, affirmed the holiness of Christ and the Church through signs, as at Our Lord’s Baptism in the Jordan and at Pentecost.

The visible missions of the Word — “the apostle and high priest of our confession, Jesus” (Hebrews 3:1) — and of the Holy Ghost — “the holy Spirit of promise and Who is the pledge of our inheritance, unto the redemption of acquisition” (Ephesians 1:13-14) — were accomplished once in time, and they were for the sake of the invisible missions of the Divine Persons. “For the Son may proceed eternally as God; but temporally, by becoming man, according to His visible mission, or likewise by dwelling in man according to His invisible mission” (St. Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologiae, Ia, Q. 43, A. 2).

“We will come to him, and will make our abode with him.”
John 14:23

The Invisible Missions

In these invisible missions, God gives nothing less than Himself. “By the gift of sanctifying grace the rational creature is perfected so that it can freely use not only the created gift itself [sanctifying grace and the virtues flowing from it], but enjoy also the divine person Himself; and so the invisible mission takes place according to the gift of sanctifying grace; and yet the divine person Himself is given” (St. Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologiae, Ia, Q. 43, A. 3, ad 2). Speaking of the souls who receive the merits and fruits of His saving Passion, Our Savior said: “My Father will love him, and we will come to him, and will make our abode with him,” (John 14:16, 23) as in a well-adorned and worthy temple prepared by the justification and sanctification of the soul.

“Our fellowship may be with the Father, and with his Son Jesus Christ… And in this we know that he abideth in us, by the Spirit which he hath given us.”
1 John 1:3; 3:24

The Mystery of the Holy Trinity in Meditation and Contemplation

This divine indwelling through sanctifying grace (a created supernatural quality of the soul) is a true presence of the uncreated God in the soul: Father, Son, and Holy Ghost. But it is beyond perception by the senses or even the natural understanding of the intellect. Until the Light of Glory is granted to the intellect in the Beatific Vision in Heaven, this mystery of the presence of the Triune God in our soul is inaccessible except to that superior, supernatural light that we have through living faith. But faith is experienced as obscure and dark to the natural powers of our reason, so is there a means by which we might approach the contemplation of this mystery and receive of its divine power, light, and love?

The Fathers and innumerable saints respond: through meditation upon the visible missions of the Divine Persons as taught by Sacred Scripture and Tradition, we can begin, even in this life, to know and love the life of the Triune God within our soul. As the Mass and Divine Office of Christmas, Epiphany, and the Ascension beautifully teach us, the incarnation of God the Word as a visible Man was effected so that we might be drawn to and participate in His invisible Divinity.

“For through the Mystery of the incarnate Word, new light of Thy glory hath so shone on the eye of our soul, that while we recognize God made visible, we might be caught up in love of the invisible.”
Preface of the Nativity

In discursive meditation, we raise our souls to God through grace and “discourse” or ponder on the content of faith (principally on that which is “visible” in God’s revelation and the mysteries of salvation). Thereby, we elicit acts of faith, hope, charity, religion, and the other virtues which proceed from sanctifying grace. We thus quiet our worldly and carnal passions, form our minds according to revealed Truth, conform our will to God’s will, and stir up the love of God in our souls. This disposes us for an increase of sanctifying grace, which is the source of all of the virtues and the means to intimate union with the Triune God Who is yet unseen by us in His divinity.

“We must recollect our outward senses, take charge of them ourselves and give them something which will occupy them. It is in this way that we have Heaven within ourselves since the Lord of Heaven is there…His Majesty will make us conscious that He is there.”
St. Teresa of Avila

Infused Contemplation

Persevering and consistent in the exercise of the virtues and interior habits that discursive prayer cultivates, we are gradually disposed for contemplation through God’s illuminations and inspirations, which are received through the receptive habits in our souls called the Gifts of the Holy Ghost.

“For God, who commanded the light to shine out of darkness, hath shined in our hearts, to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God, in the face of Christ Jesus…We all beholding the glory of the Lord with open face, are transformed into the same image from glory to glory, as by the Spirit of the Lord.”
2 Corinthians 4:6; 3:18

The Gifts of the Holy Ghost illuminate faith, inspire and enkindle charity and hope, and elevate the exercise of these virtues from their natural mode to a divine mode, and we are transformed in the intimate communication of God and receive something of a loving knowledge — full knowledge and union being consummated only in Heaven — of the interior, invisible presence of God indwelling and active in our souls, communicating to us a participation in His intimate life of Light and Love as Trinity. Disposed for the intimate action of God by actively applying itself to prayer, the soul is united to His Majesty, the intellect is enlightened by the truth of the Word Himself, and the will is enkindled by the love of Uncreated Charity proceeding from the Father and His Uncreated Light.

This explains the normal progression in spiritual progress described by St. Teresa of Avila and St. John of the Cross: from discursive meditation using concepts and elicited affections to more interior and supernatural elevations of the intellect and will in an increasingly penetrating and contemplative faith and charity under the influence of the Gifts of the Holy Ghost and His illuminations and inspirations.

The Way of Perfection

Thus, to advance on the way of perfection and grow in grace, the Mystical Doctor, St. John of the Cross, echoes the ancient Fathers and multitudes of saints, and exhorts all souls to mental prayer.

“He who makes the most progress in meditation advances the most in perfection.”
Saint Alphonsus Liguori

Until infused contemplation is granted, one reads and reasons — applying also the affections and will — principally on that which is visible to dispose oneself for the intimate action of God in those invisible recesses of the soul, in which He silently abides if sanctifying grace be present. Thence we are led into the mystery of the divine indwelling, as the saving grace of God pours into the soul, and the Divine Persons are sent through the merits of the crucified, risen, and glorified Author of our salvation, Who is seated at the right hand of God the Father and interceding for us. Thus, we live in ever greater union with the Most Holy Trinity abiding in our souls.

“It seems to me that I have found Heaven on earth, since Heaven is God, and God is in my soul. The day I understood that, everything became clear to me. I would like to whisper this secret to those I love so they too might always cling to God through everything.”
St. Elizabeth of the Trinity

May each of you and your families be blessed this feast of the Most Holy Trinity, as the Hermits of Our Lady of Mount Carmel continue to intercede day and night for you and your intentions!

Hermits of Our Lady of Mount Carmel
www.eremitaednmc.org