Carmelite News

“Look to Him as risen. Just imagining how He rose from the tomb will bring you joy. The brilliance! The beauty! The majesty! How victorious! How joyful! And all of that, plus Himself, He desires for you!” – St Teresa of Avila –

“In his aloneness on the cross – ‘My God, why…?’ – the Son of God included in his relationship with his Father all our dryness, confusion, incapacity, before the divine mystery. He consecrated it, folded it into his return to the Father’s house. Those bewildered by a Father who is not just at their disposal […]

“If Lent makes us think of an austere, judgmental or frightening God, we need to recall the God of the Psalms who ‘delights’ in us, the God proclaimed by the prophet Zephaniah: ‘he will rejoice over you with happy song, he will renew you by his love, he will dance with shouts of joy for […]

“Believe that He loves you, that He wants to help you in the struggles you have to undergo. Believe in His love, His exceeding love.” – St Elizabeth of the Trinity –

“Let us turn our gaze upon the Babe as one who shows us what God is like. He shows us the sort of heart the Father has. And what strikes us so wonderfully is that it is a vulnerable heart. A heart that offers itself to us unprotected.” – Ruth Burrows –

“The Father spoke one Word, which was his Son, and this Word he speaks always in eternal silence, and in silence must it be heard by the soul.” – St John of the Cross –

“The holiest, most ordinary, and most necessary practice of the spiritual life is that of the presence of God.” – Brother Lawrence of the Resurrection –

“We do not always have to be in church to be with God. We can make of our hearts a chapel where we can withdraw from time to time to converse with him there, gently, humbly, and lovingly.” – Brother Lawrence of the Resurrection –

“May the God who is all love be your unchanging dwelling place, your cell and your cloister in the midst of the world; remember that he dwells in the deepest centre of your soul.” – St Elizabeth of the Trinity –

“When you look back over the day and see how fragmentary everything has been and how much you planned that has gone undone and all the reasons you have to be embarrassed and ashamed: just take everything exactly as it is, put it in God’s hands and leave it with Him.” – St Edith Stein […]

“All are invited to go further, for God simply longs to pour himself into our emptied hearts and to catch us up into the radiant mystery of Trinitarian love.” – Mary McCormack, OCD –

“However quietly we speak, God is so near that He will hear us. We need no wings to go in search of God, but have only to find a place where we can be alone and look upon Him present within us.” – St Teresa of Avila –

“Will we ever understand how much we are loved? I think this is indeed the knowledge of the saints.” – St Elizabeth of the Trinity –

“‘Facing’ the Crucified can reveal layers of self-identity, bringing home to us the truth that we are made in God’s image and loved wildly by this God on the cross.” – Elizabeth A. Dreyer –

“When you set yourself down to pray, what do you want? If you want God to take possession of you then you are praying. That is all prayer is. There are no secrets, no short cuts.” – Sister Wendy Beckett –

“In order that Love be fully satisfied, it is necessary that It lower Itself, and that it lower Itself to nothingness and transform this nothingness into fire.” – St Therese of Lisieux –

“It is at the very heart of human nature to desire what it is unable to achieve. We were made for infinity, for relationship with God; without it we will always be incomplete.” – Michael Casey –

“Faith alone can overcome the world and the threat the world imposes. It does not follow that we lose the feeling of anxiety and fear – we would be poorer for that – but these now play a role that is creative not destructive. Fear can cripple, paralyse, prompt us to shirk and evade life. […]

“I don’t think anyone can feel God. Those who believe in him most are most aware of his non-feelability, as it were. God is such a total mystery. – Sister Wendy Beckett –

“On the sure rock of God’s love we must build our lives. Every effort must be made to convince ourselves of this love: God’s unfailing, unshakable love for me, no matter what it feels like, no matter how unlike love it seems. What can matter in this life save to surrender to this love?” – Ruth […]

“Courage, for the One you love, the only One who can heal your wound, dwells within you and invites you to intimacy.” – St John of the Cross –

“The deepest part of our selves is far away, in our true country, beyond the land of thunder, frost, and ‘falling buildings,’ at the still center of the turning world.” – Robert Ellsberg –

“Let yourself be loved. . . . That is, without fearing that any obstacle will be a hindrance to it.” – St Elizabeth of the Trinity –

“I learn to delight in myself, that I am I and no one else. I despise nothing in myself except the desire to stand on self. I thank God for what he has done in the unique situation which is my life. Even my sins and failures, the black shadows, are seen in the context […]

“Are you convinced that Jesus loves you in your absolute uniqueness? We are not a faceless crowd. The Lord is not content that you are content with touching his robe, he wants to be face to face with you. He wants your embrace, your kiss of love. No one can give him the particular love […]

“Do not fear the void. Live in faith and hope, even though it be in darkness, for in this darkness God is supporting the soul.” – Iain Matthew, OCD (adapted) –

“What we cannot accept is that we are the beloved. . . . That I am the beloved. God longs for me, He presses on my heart with a tender, humble, hunger for me. He wants to possess me. . . . To be so loved and so wanted is so terrifying and so awful […]

“When we can see our poverty and fallibility shot through with God’s love, and can integrate them into our prayer, then we are finally reconciled with ourselves and become more authentic people.” – Mary McCormack, OCD –

“In the end you leave with empty hands, that I know; and it is well. At that moment you look at the crucified one and go. What comes is the everlasting mystery of God.” – Karl Rahner –

“God is today. He is not yesterday. He is not tomorrow.” – Jessica Powers –

“I was able to offer my feelings of failure to our Lord, vaguely understanding that this would please him more than if everything had gone swimmingly and I had emerged with flying colours.” – Ruth Burrows –

“It should be known that if anyone is seeking God, the Beloved is seeking that person much more.” – St John of the Cross –

“Oh, to become a pure pool like the Virgin, water that lost the semblances of water and was a sky like God.” – Jessica Powers –

“Unless we are anchored in something beyond the here and now, chances are we will drown in the present moment. . . . In my experience, the extraordinary people I have known and admired all have had the same secret: they prayed.” – Ron Rolheiser –

“Prayer is essentially God’s work. Our part is to give time, do our best to keep attention, surrender ourselves as best we can. Then we can be sure that God works. Faith does not ask for signs, for tokens. When we really grasp that prayer is essentially God’s business, not ours, we will never talk […]

“When God is communicating himself to the soul, the mind’s natural field of vision has too narrow a range, and we have to engage by believing, not by focusing. Were faith to open us merely to a world of sharper ideas or more vivid impressions, then its light would indeed look bright. As it opens […]

“The deepest reason why so few of us are saints is because we will not let God love us.”   – Ruth Burrows –

“O souls, created for these grandeurs and called to them! What are you doing? How are you spending your time?” – St John of the Cross –

“Whatever the past, or my fears of the future, here and now, O Holy Spirit, utter within me the total ‘Yes’ of Jesus to the Father.” – Sister Wendy Beckett –

“The most profound expression we can give to faith is to set aside an inviolable time each day, no matter how short, when we deliberately affirm God’s absolute love for me here and now and that we stay there in blind trusting faith, receiving it.” – Ruth Burrows –

“Prayer belongs to all: To people of all religions, And probably also to those that don’t profess any. Prayer is born in the secret of ourselves, in that interior place that spiritual authors often call ‘the heart.’ Therefore to pray is not something peripheral to us, It is not something secondary or marginal in us, […]