- Teresian Ideal
The Reform of our holy Mother Teresa de Jesus gave back to the Primitive Rule of Carmel what had been taken from it. "La Madre" gave the Order its definitive form and truly its soul - orienting it back towards its end by accentuating the contemplative tendency, and San Juan dela Cruz did the same. The Teresian Carmelite Reform stated precisely the mission of Carmel. It was for this that St. Teresa suffered so much, that our holy Father John of the Cross was almost put to death. It is this Rule which makes us truly children of our holy Mother Teresa of Jesus and of our holy Father John of the Cross, which really makes us Carmelites. This Rule then ought to dominate, to command the Constitutions, the customs; this is the law, the norm, the judiciary criterion which enables us to judge whether or not the novelties since Vatican II 'updating' are according to the Order; "if they are not conformable to the Rule, it is not good, it must be suppressed!" (Fr. Jerome of the Mother of God, C.D.)
"I cannot think why we should be astonished at all the evils which exist in the Church, when those who ought to be models on which all may pattern their virtues are nullifying the work wrought in the religious Orders by the spirit of the Saints of old....
This [is]... a great pity... when a monastery follows standards and allows recreations which belong to the world... Many... are to be pitied: they wish to escape from the world, and, thinking that they are going to serve the Lord and flee from the world and its perils, they find themselves in ten worlds at once... Youth, sensuality and the devil invite and incline them to do things which are completely worldly; and they see that these things are... [naturally] 'all right'. To me, in some ways, they resemble those unhappy ['Bible-only'] heretics, who wilfully blind themselves and proclaim that what they do is good; and believe it to be so, yet without real confidence, for there is something within them that tells them they are doing wrong" (Vida, Ch. VII).
Entering a traditional monastery requires a great faith; but to seek the Teresian Carmel of Traditional Observance - "to be alone with Him Who Is Alone" - requires even greater faith (according to the spiritual Masters of the "Order of the Virgin"). Why, exclaims "La Madre" Teresa de Jesus, the Beloved has only few close friends. A "man of the Faith" does not take for his guiding light the cost of greater hardship and pain in being counted on, so to speak, by the Beloved in His burden of the Cross for His great love for us. Many therefore would rather guess outside our walls if what they think, say, and do is the one more perfectly conformed to the mind and heart of God - the more they are beset with complications running the risk of their being eternally lost! And all this is removed by "seek[ing] the old paths [of Mount Carmel]... where you shall find refreshment for your soul" (Jer. 6.16) - by living the Rule of Our Lady in holy obedience: simply placing oneself, and that generously, at the lawful command and pleasure of your legitimate Superior and even of those same of the rest of the brethren of the Community. "God," teaches Pope Leo XIII, "in His infinite Providence has decreed that men for the most part should be saved by men; hence He has appointed that those whom He calls to a loftier degree of holiness [the summit of Calvary] should be led [as the Crucified was] thereto by men, 'in order that,' says St. John Chrysostom, 'we should be taught by God through men'" (in Fr. Tanquerey, S.S., "Spiritual Life"). Salvation and perfection is attained "by giving up our freedom for the love of God and entrusting it to another" (St. Teresa of Jesus, "Way of Perfection," XII): since the true Catholic Religion is the school of Jesus Crucified - submission of self, even to immolation, to the will of God: to His signified will (the commandments of God; the traditional teachings, norms, and the legitimate - never the SEEMINGLY legitimate: see our post "In virtue of our Apostolic authority" - laws of the true Church; the commands and directions of lawful superiors according to holy obedience) and to His good pleasure (that is, to all providential events willed or allowed by God for our own greater good and, chiefly, for our sanctification).
Our Lord once said to St. Teresa: "Knowest thou what it is to love Me in truth? It is to realize that everything which is not pleasing to Me is a lie." The Carmelite soul, then, is not concerned about acquiring any possession except the possession of God, neither is he concerned about any loss, if it be not the loss of God and His friendship through grace. Everything can be taken from it: health, riches, honors, esteem, trust, the affection of the most cherished persons, and these persons themselves; but never could the soul endure that God should be taken from it, or that it should be prevented from loving Him. Therefore, to those who are inquiring about our Teresian Carmel, considering entrance to it, are these words of our "La Madre": "Let your desire be to see God [face to face in heaven]; your fear, that you may lose Him; your sorrow, that you are not having fruition of Him; your joy, that He can bring you to Himself." Secundum Verbum
Be it done to me according to your word.
(Lk. 1.38)
In keeping then with the Rule which bids us "Let all you do have the Lord’s word for accompaniment," we follow the traditional pre-Vatican II religious discipline and ceremonial of the "Order of the Virgin" (Our Lord to St. Teresa), drawing only from its same sane traditional source of holy noursihment - the Tridentine Rite of the Liturgy (the Missal - una cum... Pontifice Benedicto XVI - and the Divine Office according to the norms of Divino Afflatu of Pope St. Pius X) - as is the desire of God's Heart:
