Carmelite Way of Life: Focus and

Apostolate

With thousands of their Discalced Carmelite sisters worldwide, the nuns of Kilmacud Carmel continue to live the cloistered contemplative life as envisioned by St. Teresa of Avila. They witness to the transcendence of God through a life of unceasing prayer and sacrifice. The heart of Carmelite life is the experience of a personal relationship with the living God, present and close, who makes himself known as a Friend. Prayer is their apostolate, permeating every aspect of the nuns’ lives. Prayer is the raison d’etre of their lives. Their prayer is essentially ecclesial, for the wellbeing of the Church and the good of all humanity. Nothing human fails to find an echo in their hearts. They make their own the joys and hopes, the griefs and anxieties of all their sisters and brothers the world over, especially the poorest. Through their important ‘Apostolate of Listening’ and ‘Apostolate of the Pen,’ they offer comfort and encouragement to all who call or contact them for prayers. They gather each day as a community to celebrate the Eucharist and their praise and thanksgiving continues seven times throughout the day in the Prayer of the Church. They devote at least 2 hours every day to personal meditation and contemplation. Called to be ‘hermits in community’, their focus is on silent solitary prayer, and, like Mary, attentive listening to God’s word, balanced by warm sisterly relations in community. The balance between these two elements is fundamental to the Teresian Carmel and it is the tension between them that enriches and purifies them reciprocally. The Teresian charism has a strong community dimension, also characterised by friendship; “all must be friends, all must love one another, all must be cherished, and all must help one another”, (Constitutions 88). The nuns meet twice daily for recreation to upbuild relationships and to share their joy. The Teresian Community has a value in itself. It counteracts the growing individualism of today’s society and speaks to the yearning to belong that the superficial virtual relationships of the social media fail to satisfy. Teresa saw her small communities as ‘little Colleges of Christ’, whose way of being is transformed by the presence of the Lord in their midst. Teresa promoted the dignity of the person; the incomparable magnificence of the human person deriving from the fact that we were all created by God and chosen by him as his dwelling place. Her insights and conviction speak to our modern world where sadly the human person is often degraded and exploited. The nuns themselves must have a profound experience of their interiority and union with God, which transforms them into the image of Christ. This in turn impels them to recognise the presence of his Spirit in the situations of the world and the signs of God in history. The nuns endeavour to live by Gospel values. Their daily hidden life is simple; they pray work, study, and recreate within the monastery and its grounds. They try to live a counter- cultural lifestyle and witness to stability and life-long commitment in the fast-changing affluent consumer society of the 21st century. They engage in remunerative altar bread work to support themselves and to show solidarity with the poor. The Carmelite Community is inserted into the Parish of St. Laurence O’Toole, Kilmacud, and is valued for their place in the local community by the Catholic Church and the Church of Ireland. The Community is aware of the problems of ecology and their responsibility in safeguarding the environment. They do their best to re-duce, re-use, re-cycle. They very much welcomed Laudato Si (On Care of our Common Home), written by Pope Francis in 2015, and his Apostolic Constitution, Vultum Dei Querere on Women’s Contemplative Life of 2016, followed by Cor Orans from CICLSAL (2018). OBJECTIVES AND ACTIVITIES Aims The aims of the Carmelite community are to be of service to the Church and the world by living their contemplative vocation following the charism of St. Teresa of Avila. They strive to witness to the transcendence of God through a life of prayer and sacrifice. They contribute to the good of society in the spirit of truth, justice, solidarity, and freedom. The Corona virus pandemic has impacted on some of our activities over the past eighteen months. For the safety of all and obeying the various restrictions we could not open our Chapel for public worship nor have groups doing Bible study in our parlours. In the coming months as things continue to improve, we hope to return to our normal services and activities. Thank you for your patience and understanding. Activities • We engage in a tradition of contemplative prayer to which we dedicate our whole lives and we encourage others to develop prayer in their lives. • Individually and as a community we study and meditate on (Lectio Divina), the Word of God in scripture and encourage others to recognise the importance of the Word of God in their own lives. • We care for our own elderly and sick sisters within the monastery and support them in their needs, employing professional care when necessary. • We welcome new members and engage in their formation and in the ongoing formation and training in liturgy, scripture, and human development of all the community. • We offer support to our local church, clergy and parishioners through prayer and sacrifice. • Flowing from our life of prayer, our chapel and grounds offer an oasis of prayer and peace in a very busy suburb. • We welcome people to share in our daily Eucharist and Prayer of the Church. • We engage in the upkeep of our chapel, making it an intimate and welcoming place of worship. • From September to May we make our parlours available for members of the interdenominational Bible Fellowship Study Group for their weekly meetings. • In a spirit of ecumenism, every year we offer Evening Prayer 18th-25th Jan. for the Unity of all Christians inviting guest speakers from different faith traditions to address the year’s theme. • We are committed to praying for thousands of requests sent in weekly by viewers worldwide to the Chapel of Intentions on the popular Sacred Space website. • Through our community website and Facebook, we post inspirational blogs, pictures, and articles to support viewers in their spiritual searching. Through this medium we also share events taking place in our community. • Through our ‘Apostolate of Listening’, we provide a source of consolation, compassion and encouragement to members of the public who call to our monastery or who contact us by post or email. • We greatly support in prayer vulnerable groups like the Travelling Community, prisoners and their families, traumatised women and their families who spend time in the Women’s Refuge, those trapped in substance abuse, expectant mothers, the sick and the terminally ill, families affected by suicide, the bereaved and persecuted Christians of our time. • We pray for and promote vocations to the priesthood and religious life and accompany those who are discerning a vocation to the Carmelite life. We support missionaries at home and oversees. • We engage in altar bread baking and sale in an effort to be self-supporting for the care of our members and as a service to parishes and religious congregations mainly in the Archdiocese of Dublin, but elsewhere in Ireland and on the missions. • We share as generously as possible from our resources with charities at home and abroad. • We keep ourselves informed about the life of the Church and events in the world. Achievements and Performance We cared for the needs of our sisters especially the elderly and sick sisters in the monastery. We continue to be a deeply appreciated presence in this Parish of St. Laurence O’Toole for the past 140 years, and a public Mass centre since 1897. While our lifestyle cannot be judged by human standards, we believe it responds to the spiritual and temporal needs of people today. We are aware of the powerful effects of a life of prayer and the support and strength our ‘Apostolates of Listening and of the Pen’, give to those who seek our help. We receive very positive feedback from our contacts at the door or through letters and emails. People find great solace in our Chapel either by their attendance at Mass, Evening Prayer, or visiting for personal prayer. We have become increasingly aware of the importance of our presence within our local community. Our Evening Prayer 18th -25th January was attended by increased numbers in 2019, with invited guest speakers from various faith traditions. It is always strongly supported by people from our Parish and our neighbouring St. Brigid’s C of I. In 2020 we continued with a good attendance, but in 2021 we offered a Zoom link to the public as we could not have a congregation due to COVID-19 restrictions. We estimate over 70 people connected to the Zoom link during the week and many more viewed the videos we uploaded to our YouTube channel afterwards. Large numbers of participants in the Bible Study Fellowship Group met in our parlours weekly from Sept 2018- May 2019. Due to the pandemic, we were not able to offer our parlours for these meetings in 2020 and 2021. The Community continue to be faithful to supporting with prayer the thousands of online requests posted in weekly to The Chapel of Intentions of Sacred Space. We continue to update our own new community website and Facebook, to promote our life and to offer inspiring literature and reflections etc. to our viewers. Revised: October 2021