Quote of the day, 14 March: St. Raphael Kalinowski

[In 1874, Saint Raphael] Kalinowski was already living a quasi-Carmelite life before he had even decided to join the Carmelites.

“I long for a regulated life, because nothing disturbs interior harmony so much as the absence of exterior peace—and how destructive that is! I’m beginning to convince myself that the worst thing in this world is to spend your time being torn apart inside. I aspire after one thing: to maintain purity of heart, because a conscience free from all sin allows the soul to lift itself up to God and helps it sustain the burden of life with a good heart. Also I am very stressed and today I started to look for an occupation which could engage all the hours of my day. Unemployment, in effect, is most injurious to an interior life, because it opens the door of our soul to the devil.”

In March 1874, Kalinowski had begun a novena to his patron St. Joseph, and this reminded him to write to his parents and thank them, especially his mother, for inculcating in him a devotion to St. Joseph.

Kalinowski wrote to Father Fiszer, his spiritual director in Irkutsk, and included in it a letter for the exiled Bishop [Kaspar] Borowski. In replying to this letter, Fiszer remarked:

“I read your letter aloud to His Excellency. The good old man listened benevolently and in regard to your desire to consecrate yourself to the service of God, he gave me this message: ‘go to a warm country and put it into effect.’ His Excellency is quite sure that the sacrifice of your life will be of benefit to humanity and will redound to God’s glory and that you will find immense good.”

Timothy Tierney, o.c.d.

Chapter 9, Transition Period

Tierney, T  2016,  Saint Raphael Kalinowski: Apprenticed to Sainthood in Siberia,  Balboa Press  Australia.

Featured image: Saint Raphael of St. Joseph Kalinowski, edited from the photo taken 30 March 1897. Photo credit: Discalced Carmelites (Used by permission)

#Carmelite #interiorLife #StJoseph #StRaphaelKalinowski #vocation

St. John of the Cross Novena, Day 3: Cleansing

Reading

If you desire that devotion be born in your spirit and that the love of God and the desire for divine things increase, cleanse your soul of every desire, attachment, and ambition in such a way that you have no concern about anything. Just as a sick person is immediately aware of good health once the bad humor has been thrown off and a desire to eat is felt, so will you recover your health, in God, if you cure yourself as was said. Without doing this, you will not advance no matter how much you do.

Sayings of Light and Love, 78

Scripture 

This is what we have heard from him, and the message that we are announcing to you: God is light; there is no darkness in him at all. If we say that we are in union with God while we are living in darkness, we are lying because we are not living the truth. But if we live our lives in the light, as he is in the light, we are in union with one another, and the blood of Jesus, his Son, purifies us from all sin. If we say we have no sin in us, we are deceiving ourselves and refusing to admit the truth; but if we acknowledge our sins, then God who is faithful and just will forgive our sins and purify us from everything that is wrong. To say that we have never sinned is to call God a liar and to show that his word is not in us.

I am writing this, my children, to stop you sinning; but if anyone should sin, we have our advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ, who is just; he is the sacrifice that takes our sins away, and not only ours, but the whole world’s. We can be sure that we know God only by keeping his commandments. Anyone who says, “I know him,” and does not keep his commandments, is a liar, refusing to admit the truth. But when anyone does obey what he has said, God’s love comes to perfection in him. We can be sure that we are in God only when the one who claims to be living in him is living the same kind of life as Christ lived.

1 John 1:5-2:6

Meditation

“Cleanse your soul,” writes Our Holy Father Saint John of the Cross. This is the medicine, the remedy he prescribes to those who are sin-sick and desire health and wholeness in Christ. Cleansing the soul of all that is not God enables us to grow in devotion, the desire for the things of God, and to grow in the love of God.

What are we cleansing? Desire. Attachment. Ambition. St. John of the Cross leads us on an examination of conscience with these three points.

The Catechism of the Catholic Church (CCC) provides a veritable smorgasbord of theological and catechetical delights upon which we may feast in its article on the Tenth Commandment. (CCC 2534-2557) “The tenth commandment concerns the intentions of the heart,” and that goes precisely to the heart of the teaching of St. John of the Cross. Although the teaching of the Catechism rightly focuses on “coveting the goods of another” (CCC 2534), St. John would caution us to examine our disordered desires for another’s spiritual goods, not simply temporal goods. Who among us has not desired or envied someone else’s contemplative spirit, prayerful attitude, or Christlike zeal?

The Catechism says that “the sensitive appetite leads us to desire pleasant things we do not have” (CCC 2535). But Our Holy Father John of the Cross explains how his teaching encompasses more than just the senses: “God gathers together all the strength, faculties, and appetites of the soul, spiritual and sensory alike, so the energy and power of this whole harmonious composite may be employed in this love” (Dark Night II, 11:4).

Love: that must be our true ambition. First, to love God with all our heart, soul, mind and strength; then, to love our neighbor as ourselves (Lk 10:27). St. Thérèse of the Child Jesus went one step further, praying: “You know, Lord, that my only ambition is to make you known and loved” (Pri 8). If we are willing to do some regular housekeeping, we will progress—step by step— toward the desired state of having “no concern about anything”, just like an infant in its mother’s arms (cf. Ps 131:2).

Saint Raphael Kalinowski, a Discalced Carmelite friar from Poland who learned about the Carmelite order by reading the lives of the saints during years of forced labor in the salt mines of Usole, Siberia, has some housekeeping suggestions for us. May the beauty and depth of his words bring us a message of hope and encouragement as we read and understand the teaching of Our Holy Father St. John of the Cross.

As the raging sea seems to feel displeasure at all that pollutes it, and desires to expel from itself anything foreign, so that the beauty of the mysteries it holds might appear to view in all clarity, so the soul does not tolerate anything within itself unless it is of God or leads to God; approaching confession from the abyss of her misery, she casts off everything, desiring to preserve in herself only the image of God according to which she was created, to look only at him and to rejoice only in him. In her love-filled tears she receives a shower of graces that descend from the wounds of her Savior. The misery of sin makes way for grace, the thorns become roses, and even the very poison of sin changes into an antidote for the soul. Here are the fruits of a good confession: it purifies, heals, fortifies, and beautifies the soul.

All that we have treated so far leads us back to what we discussed at the beginning: imitating our Holy Father by using the means the Savior left us to purify our soul, to preserve the heart ever pure in order to be able to transform it into an altar of the living God, and to become enamored of him in suffering and being despised: Altare Dei, cor nostrum! Humilis corde, cor Christi est [The altar of God is our heart; the humble heart is like the heart of Christ].

In the sketch of the Ascent of Mount Carmel drawn by Our Holy Father John of the Cross, we read: “Here there is no longer any way because for the just . . . there is no law.” This means that if all the prescriptions of the law have as their object the love of God, when this is fully attained, the prescriptions cease of themselves. True repentance, in crushing the heart of man, crushes everything opposed to the love of God and destroys all that does not lead to him… And all this through Mary (Excerpts from On a Good Confession, 24 November 1902).

Prayer

O St. John of the Cross
You were endowed by our Lord with the spirit of self-denial
and a love of the cross.
Obtain for us the grace to follow your example
that we may come to the eternal vision of the glory of God.

O Saint of Christ’s redeeming cross
the road of life is dark and long.
Teach us always to be resigned to God’s holy will
in all the circumstances of our lives
and grant us the special favor
which we now ask of you.

Mention your request

Above all, obtain for us the grace of final perseverance,
a holy and happy death and everlasting life with you
and all the saints in heaven.
Amen.

Let’s continue in prayer

Day 1 — Self-trust
Day 2 — Self-giving
Day 3 — Cleansing
Day 4 — Walking in love
Day 5 — Trust
Day 6 — Prayer
Day 7 — Humility
Day 8 — Eternal Silence
Day 9 — Silent love

Icon of St. John of the Cross venerated by the Discalced Carmelite friars of the Krakow Province at Holy Trinity House of Prayer in Piotrkowice | Credit: Discalced Carmelites

The novena prayer was composed from approved sources by Professor Michael Ogunu, a member of the Discalced Carmelite Secular Order in Nigeria.

Praskiewicz, S 2016, Saint Raphael Kalinowski: An Introduction to his Life and Spirituality, Coonan, T, Griffin, M & Sullivan, L (trans.), ICS Publications, Washington DC.

All scripture references in this novena are from the New Revised Standard Version Bible: Catholic Edition, copyright © 1989, 1993 the Division of Christian Education of the National Council of the Churches of Christ in the United States of America as accessed from the Bible Gateway website.

Don’t become discouraged and give up prayer, says St. John of the Cross. We offer varying novenas to Our Lady of Mount Carmel, as well as novenas to St. Teresa of Avila, St. John of the Cross, St. Thérèse of Lisieux, Sts. Louis and Zélie Martin, St. Elizabeth of the Trinity, and St. Joseph.

Let us unite in prayer

#ambition #appetites #attachment #catechismOfTheCatholicChurch #cleanse #concern #confession #desire #desires #icsPublications #johnOfTheCross #love #novena #sanJuanDeLaCruz #stJohnOfTheCross #stRaphaelKalinowski #stRaphaelOfStJoseph #stTherese #stThereseOfLisieux #stThereseOfTheChildJesus #tenthCommandment #theDarkNight #transformation #usoleSiberia

Quote of the day, 26 November: St. Raphael Kalinowski

On July 5, 1877, Kalinowski left the Czartoryski household and headed for the Carmelite house of Linz in Austria for an interview with the Provincial. He was 42 years of age, quite a late vocation by the customs of those days.

The Provincial accepted his request for admittance; he was shown to a little cell in the house and immediately felt he had reached home. The imminent celebration of the Feast of Our Lady of Mt. Carmel would be very special for him that year.

Next day, he had to leave for the Novitiate House of the Austro-Hungarian semi-province of Teresian Carmelites in Graz, also in Austria, where he was required to spend the next few months as a postulant.

On November 26, 1877, Kalinowski was clothed in the brown habit of a Carmelite novice and was given the name Raphael of St. Joseph, the name by which he would henceforth be known.

Kalinowski, we can ascertain from his letters, didn’t become a religious to inaugurate a renewal of Carmel in Poland, but merely to repent of his sins. The Prior of the house was Gabriel Gadi, while the Master of Novices was Teresius Jung. It was the latter—well-educated and experienced, if exacting—who undertook the spiritual guidance and religious formation of the new novice.

The background of candidates to the Order was strictly investigated before they were accepted, so as to discern their suitability for the life. The investigation is primarily about the candidate himself and his past life, but also about his family.

Kalinowski wrote at that time: “God bless the hand which directed me under the roof of the sons of the Holy Spirit.” He was resolved to commit himself to Our Lady’s Order and continue in “allegiance to Jesus Christ” as the Carmelite Rule urges, for the rest of his days.

Timothy Tierney, o.c.d.

Part Two, ch. 1, Answering the Call

Note: Carmelite biographer Szczepan T. Praskiewicz, OCD, tells us that in his Memoirs, Saint Raphael explained how early on during his exile in Siberia, he happened upon a copy of Skarga’s The Lives of the Saints: “That opened up many horizons for me. There, I discovered a note on the Order of the Virgin Mary of Mount Carmel and its rapid diffusion in the West. It occurred to me that precisely this Order should be able to bring the schismatics back to the Church of Rome. Guided in a marvelous way by Providence, I entered this Order ten years later.”

A statue of Saint Joseph in the Maria Schnee convent of the Discalced Carmelite friars in Graz, where St. Raphael Kalinowski entered the novitiate. Image credit: Eigenes Werk / Wikimedia Commons

Praskiewicz, S 2016, Saint Raphael Kalinowski: An Introduction to his Life and Spirituality, Coonan, T, Griffin, M & Sullivan, L (trans.), ICS Publications, Washington DC.

Tierney, T  2016,  Saint Raphael Kalinowski: Apprenticed to Sainthood in Siberia,  Balboa Press  Australia.

Featured image: The Discalced Carmelite crest is seen above the main entrance to the friars’ convent in Linz, Austria. Both St. Raphael Kalinowski and St. Alphonsus Mary Mazurek passed beneath this hallowed gate; the friars in Linz also cared for the Servant of God Père Jacques Bunel after he was liberated from the Mauthausen-Gusen concentration camp in 1945. Image credit: Andrzej Otrębski / Wikimedia Commons (Some rights reserved)

#austria #carmeliteHabit #novitiate #stRaphaelKalinowski #vocation

Quote of the day, 19 November: St. Raphael Kalinowski

Just as there is nothing greater than God, says Saint Thomas, so none can attain a higher dignity than the Mother of God. Mary, with her Maternity, is like a book in which the world can read the Eternal Word, Jesus, the Lord.

What can one say of the fullness of grace God bestowed on the Most Holy Virgin, to the limits of his power, giving her a dignity surpassing our capacity to understand? When a wise man was asked, “Who is God?” he answered, “If I could define who God is, either God would not exist or I myself would be God.”

Likewise, to the question “What is it to be the Mother of God?” one can only give a similar answer. “If anyone could comprehend this dignity, either Mary would not be the Mother of God, or the one claiming to understand such greatness would be superior to her whose dignity is immeasurable.”

Saint Raphael Kalinowski

Mother of God, Hope of the World, 6

Praskiewicz OCD, S 2016, Saint Raphael Kalinowski: An Introduction to his Life and Spirituality, ICS Publications, Washington DC.

Featured image: Virgin and Child is an oil on wood painting by Anthony Van Dyck (Flemish, 1599–1641) executed around 1620. It comes from the collections of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York (Public domain).

#blessedVirginMary #jesusChrist #motherOfGod #stRaphaelKalinowski #understanding

19 November: Saint Raphael of St. Joseph Kalinowski

November 19
SAINT RAPHAEL OF ST. JOSEPH KALINOWSKI
Priest

Memorial

Raphael Kalinowski was born to Polish parents in the city of Vilnius in 1835. Following military service, he was condemned in 1864 to ten years of forced labor in Siberia. In 1877 he became a Carmelite and was ordained a priest in 1882. He contributed greatly to the restoration of the Discalced Carmelites in Poland. His life was distinguished by zeal for Church unity and by his unflagging devotion to his ministry as confessor and spiritual director. He died in Wadowice in 1907.

From the common of pastors or of holy men (religious)

Office of Readings

Second Reading

From the exhortations of Saint Raphael, Religious

(C. Gil, O. Rafał Kalinowski, pp. 109-110)

You must be holy

The Holy Scriptures praise nothing more than a perfect and holy life lived in the exact and perfect fulfillment of each one’s duties. In the Old Testament our Lord and God taught his people and told them: You must be holy because I am holy.

The Eternal Father gave us our Lord Jesus Christ as our teacher, master, and guide. He confirmed and ratified the Old Testament injunction where he taught us that we must emulate the holiness of the Father: You must be perfect just as your heavenly Father is perfect. How does one become perfect and holy? The Doctors of the Church, the leaders of souls, and the masters of the spiritual life answer: If you would be perfect and become holy, fulfill your duties faithfully.

Once a desert father was asked by a certain young hermit what books he ought to study in order to advance in holiness. The old man replied: My practice is to read two books only. In the morning hours I read the Gospel, and in the evening I read the Rule. The first teaches me the way I should walk as a disciple of the Lord Jesus Christ. The other teaches me what I should do to be a good religious. That is enough for me.

Let us, therefore, be students of the laws of God so that we may conduct ourselves according to them. When you walk, these will guide you; when you lie down, watch over you; when you wake, talk with you. Wherever we may be or go, may they go with us to direct our footsteps. May they be so near us when we sleep that they may fill our thoughts as soon as we awaken. His voice will speak to us in them. He will refresh us for the day ahead. Through his laws, we will gain the victory over our doubts. We will cast away every obstacle. We will free ourselves of that sluggishness of nature which is the enemy of strength, the foe of devotion, and the lover of ease. The law of life will help us to overcome our fears in the time of temptation and to follow eagerly in the way of obedience. May it always be at hand to counsel us, so that by it we may find the strength to follow God’s call with generous hearts and willing souls.

Responsory

℟ Free your minds, then, of encumbrances, since it is the Holy One who has called you * be holy in all you do.
℣ For it is I, the Lord, who am your God; you have been sanctified and have become holy because I am holy. * Be holy in all you do.

Prayer

Lord God, you made your priest Saint Raphael
strong in adversity and filled him with
a great love in promoting Church unity.
Through his prayers, make us strong in faith
and in love for one another,
that we too may generously work together
for the unity of all believers in Christ.

We ask this through our Lord Jesus Christ, your Son,
who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit,
God, forever and ever.

Saint Raphael of St. Joseph Kalinowski, photo taken 30 March 1897 | Photo credit: Discalced Carmelites

Catholic Church 1993, Proper of the Liturgy of the Hours of the Order of the Brothers of the Blessed Virgin Mary of Mount Carmel and the Order of Discalced Carmelites (Rev. and augm.), Institutum Carmelitanum, Rome.

#DiscalcedCarmelites #LiturgyOfTheHours #Memorial #priest #StRaphaelKalinowski

Quote of the day, 9 September: St. Raphael Kalinowski

The Visitation for 1901 was held on September 9 and was repeated every year at about the same time whenever [St. Raphael Kalinowski] was strong enough to undertake the journey. He wrote:

“They sent me to you in spite of my unworthiness. In order to carry out this visit well, I would have to have the spirit of our Father Elijah, our Mother Teresa and our Father John of the Cross, which I don’t have. So if anything good is to happen, it will be the work of God, but I will boast of my weaknesses.”

In the opinion of Kalinowski, the purpose of a canonical visit is found in the Lord’s Prayer: “Your will be done on earth as it is in heaven” and he used this as a motto for the nuns.

“We are in Carmel,” he would say, “to submit to God in giving up the things of this world, and in that way drawing down on ourselves and others the help we need to attain eternal happiness. The best part of this sacrifice, which is also the most pleasing to God, is that we surrender our will to Him by the vow of obedience. Obedience is the death of one’s own will, but that’s not enough. We need to persevere until death…. Our obedience offers us the perfect opportunity for our will to disappear completely and the will of God to be the guide of our actions. So when is our obedience perfect? We can see it in the mirror which the canonical visitation holds up to us. This is a mirror of our sacred obligations. If you do not obey them perfectly, the visitor will point it out to you, and you should take that as if it came from the lips of God – with respect and joy.”

Timothy Tierney, O.C.D.

Chapter 8, “Vicar Provincial for the Carmelite Nuns”

Note: Saint Raphael Kalinowski was appointed Vicar Provincial for the Discalced Carmelite nuns in Galicia in 1901.

Tierney, T  2016,  Saint Raphael Kalinowski: Apprenticed to Sainthood in Siberia,  Balboa Press  Australia.

Featured image: Ruins of the Discalced Carmelite Monastery in Zagórz, Poland. Image credit: uranos1980 / Adobe Stock.

#DiscalcedCarmelites #nuns #obedience #religiousLife #StRaphaelKalinowski

Quote of the day, 27 August: St. John Paul II

Once again, during my service to the universal Church in the See of Saint Peter, I come to my native town of Wadowice.

With great emotion I gaze upon this city of my childhood years, which witnessed my first steps, my first words and those “first bows” which, as Norwid puts it, are “like the eternal profession of Christ: ‘Be praised!’” (cf. Moja piosenka [My Song]).

The city of my childhood, my family home, the church of my Baptism… I wish to cross these hospitable thresholds, bow before my native soil and its inhabitants, and utter the words of greeting given to family members upon on their return from a long journey: “Praised be Jesus Christ!”

In a particular way, I wish to greet the Discalced Carmelite Fathers of Górka in Wadowice. We are meeting on an exceptional occasion: 27 August this year marks the centenary of the consecration of the Church of Saint Joseph, at the Convent founded by Saint Raphael Kalinowski.

As I did as a young man, I now return in spirit to that place of particular devotion to Our Lady of Mount Carmel, which had such a great influence on the spirituality of the Wadowice area. I myself received many graces there, and today I wish to thank the Lord for them.

I am pleased that I was able to beatify, together with one hundred and eight martyrs, Blessed Father Alfonsus Mary Mazurek, a pupil and later a worthy teacher in the minor seminary attached to the Convent.

I had the opportunity to meet personally this witness of Christ who in 1944, as prior of the convent of Czerna, confirmed his fidelity to God by a martyr’s death.

I kneel in veneration before his relics, which rest in the Church of Saint Joseph, and I give thanks to God for the gift of the life, martyrdom, and holiness of this great Religious.

Saint John Paul II

Homily, Eucharistic celebration in Wadowice, Poland
Wednesday, 16 June 1999

Featured image: Opening of the John Paul II Museum in Wadowice, 9 April 2014. Image credit: M. Śmiarowski / KPRM (Polish Foreign Ministry) / Flickr

#BlessedAlphonsusMaryMazurek #Czerna #DiscalcedCarmelites #friars #homily #martyrs #StJohnPaulII #StRaphaelKalinowski #Wadowice

Quote of the day, 11 August: St. Raphael Kalinowski

The God of mercy does not cease coming to the aid of his weak creature. The life of human beings and their most ambitious desires have limits, while God’s love has none. 

This love accompanies us along our way, surprises us in our erring wayward paths, and reminds us of what we have forgotten; it repeats in our hearts the promises made on a day, long ago, and speaks to us at length of our first faith, of that first charity, of that incomparable innocence regained with holy baptism.

A stream of tears floods one’s conscience at the sight of the loss of those treasures, and to this the Spirit of God bears witness. Christ’s mercy endures everything, and does not think evil but rejoices in the good; it intercedes for us, and knocks on the door of our heart, it lowers itself until it conquers the soul with its love full of humility.

Saint Raphael Kalinowski

Conference given to the Discalced Carmelite nuns for the renewal of vows, on the occasion of a pastoral visit. Date and place unknown.

Praskiewicz OCD, S 2016, Saint Raphael Kalinowski: An Introduction to his Life and Spirituality, Translated from the Polish by Coonan, T, Griffin, M & Sullivan, L, ICS Publications, Washington DC.

Featured image: Noah Buscher / Unsplash

#GodSLove #humility #JesusChrist #mercy #StRaphaelKalinowski

Quote of the day, 9 May: St. Raphael Kalinowski

Some of Saint Raphael’s talks are extant and in one he tells the story of the blind man who asked the Savior to restore his sight. His prayer was heard and he was cured as a reward for his faith.

Following the example of the blind man, a person should ask God for the gift of a living faith in the presence of Christ in the Blessed Sacrament on the altar, in the Church and in the person of the Holy Father, the Vicar of Christ on earth.

A person should be noted for devotion to the Church, and to the Pope as its head. Because we possess in the Church the precious treasure of faith, the grace of the sacraments, the example of the saints and all the means for salvation, we should show gratitude and devotion to the Pope.

So too should we pray for bishops and clergy, for the perseverance of the just and the conversion of sinners. To achieve this goal we need to avoid sin, and remember in prayer the goal we are aiming at.

Father Timothy Tierney, O.C.D.

Part Two, chap. 5, Juniorate for Carmelite Students in Wadowice

Tierney, T  2016,  Saint Raphael Kalinowski: Apprenticed to Sainthood in Siberia,  Balboa Press,  Bloomington, IN

Featured image: Saint Raphael of St. Joseph Kalinowski, edited from the photo taken 30 March 1897. Photo credit: Discalced Carmelites (Used by permission)

⬦ Reflection Question ⬦
Do I recognize Christ’s presence in the Eucharist, the Church, and the person of the Pope?
⬦ Join the conversation in the comments.

#devotion #gratitude #HolyFather #prayer #StRaphaelKalinowski #VicarOfChrist

Quote of the day, 8 May: St. John Paul II

Was Saint John Paul II a Carmelite?

Some years ago, a lively discussion arose online about whether Saint John Paul II was formally affiliated with the Discalced Carmelite Order.

In a 2001 message to the Carmelite family, the Holy Father wrote:

“I too have worn the Scapular of Carmel over my heart for a long time! Because I love the heavenly Mother we all share, whose protection I constantly experience, I hope that this Marian year will help all … to grow in her love and to radiate to the world the presence of this Woman of silence and prayer…”
— Message to the Carmelite Family, 25 March 2001

When this question of official affiliation was raised in the Carmelites Unite Facebook group, a friar of the Krakow Province, Father Włodzimierz Tochmański, OCD—a friar with deep knowledge of the Discalced Carmelite Secular Order in Poland—responded that Karol Józef Wojtyła was never canonically affiliated with the Third Order of the Teresian Carmel.

However, Fr. Tochmański emphasized the Pope’s deep spiritual affiliation with Carmel, akin to the bond shared by members of the Scapular Confraternity.

Biographers also highlight the formative role of the Discalced Carmelite friars in Wadowice, the Pope’s hometown. Although St. Raphael Kalinowski, OCD, had died in 1908—twelve years before Karol Wojtyła was born—his legacy continued to shape Carmelite life in Wadowice for decades. As a young priest, Wojtyła studied in Rome, and in 1948 he successfully defended his doctoral dissertation at the Angelicum: “The Doctrine of Faith in St. John of the Cross.”

St. John Paul II and the Carmelite Scapular

In his homily for the Feast of Our Lady of Mount Carmel on 16 July 1988, delivered at the Alpini pilgrimage Mass on Mount Adamello, the Pope spoke warmly of the Scapular tradition:

“It is not the time to dwell on the particular devotion to Our Lady of Mount Carmel. I will only cite a few words of Pius XII, who wrote in an authoritative document: ‘No one surely is ignorant of how much the love for the most blessed Mother of God contributes to enlivening the Catholic faith and to amending lives, especially through those expressions of devotion which, more than others, seem to enrich minds with supernatural doctrine and move souls to the devout practice of the Christian life. Among these must be mentioned the devotion of the Sacred Scapular of Carmel, which, by its simplicity, adapts to the character of everyone and is widely spread among the Christian faithful, with abundant spiritual fruits.’”
— Homily on Mount Adamello, 16 July 1988

Just over a week later, in his Angelus address of 24 July 1988, the Pope returned to the theme:

“In Carmel, and in every deeply Carmelite soul, an intense life of communion and closeness with the Blessed Virgin flourishes. This becomes a ‘new way’ to live for God and continue here on earth the love of Jesus the Son for His Mother Mary.”
— Angelus, 24 July 1988

He also affirmed the Scapular as “a particular grace” passed on by Mary, recalling the tradition tied to St. Simon Stock, and described it as: “A sign of affiliation with the Carmelite Order… a means of tender and filial Marian devotion.”

A Personal Word

In a visit to the Carmelite parish of Santa Maria in Traspontina in Rome on 10 February 1991, Pope John Paul II offered a personal memory:

“I lived as a child in a town and parish where there was also a Carmelite monastery and convent, where I learned this great Carmelite tradition… This tradition, rooted in the Old Testament with the prophet Elijah, renewed in the Middle Ages, has come down to us—even here near the Vatican—and to this Pope, who has been connected to it since his earliest youth.”
— Address at Santa Maria in Traspontina, 10 February 1991

He closed with a blessing and a wish for all present:

“I wish you every blessing as you continue your journey under the protection of Our Lady of Mount Carmel and her Scapular, as we see in the Carmelite Third Order.”

Saint John Paul II

Translation from the Italian text is the blogger’s own work product and may not be reproduced without permission.

Featured image: Brown Scapular worn by Saint John Paul II, a gift to the Discalced Carmelite parish in Wadowice, Poland. Image credit: Discalced Carmelite Order (Used by permission)

⬦ Reflection Question ⬦
How might I grow closer to Carmel’s spirit of silence, prayer, and Marian devotion in my own life?
⬦ Join the conversation in the comments.

#BrownScapular #DiscalcedCarmelite #OCDS #Poland #StJohnPaulII #StRaphaelKalinowski #Wadowice