It is true that the members of the "Carmelite family" feel closely united to one another by "a characteristic and permanent way of seeing, feeling,willing".[1] It is also true that Carmel possesses texts that are specially representative of its traditions and spirit but these texts are rather like reminders or manifestations than sources.
To characterize the spirituality of Carmel is all the more difficult because unlike other religious families Carmel has, in the strict sense of the word, no founder who trained it or gave it a rule. As a matter of fact no rule was written until the hermits of Mount Carmel requested one. And this was but the codification of the form of life that these men had spontaneously adopted.
Where are the sources of Carmel's spirit to be found and how can that spirit be acquired?
To answer these questions, two things are necessary. First, we must understand the nature of this spirit which came down from heaven upon the sons of the prophets dwelling century after century on the slopes of the holy mountain; because without this spirit Carmel would never have started and would never have lasted. We must also grasp the extraordinary signs of this spirit that are evident in those who possess it and give it full expression.
It will be seen that Carmelite spirituality is based only in part on documents. It is above all spirit and life. So it follows that by examining its origins, searching the Rule, the lives and writings of the Order's great saints that the soul of Carmel is revealed and, at the same time, Carmelite spirituality is made manifest.
I. THE SOURCES
Elias the prophet.
While it is certain that "schools of prophets " were established on Mount Carmel in the footsteps of Elias and Eliseus, it is impossible to discover how and when these schools became permanent institutions. Despite the mystery of these beginnings Carmel has always claimed Elias as its own and has seen in him one who inaugurated the eremitic and prophetic life which is its characteristic.
This is not to say that Elias introduced within the Old Testament frame of reference a special spirit, a new doctrine, a personal way. On the contrary, Elias is typical of the just men and the prophets who lived under the Old Covenant. But his disciples remembered this distinguishing note about him: He is the man whom the Spirit of Yahweh led into deep solitude and who, drawing waters from the "torrent of Carith ", drank from the rivers of living water and tasted, in contemplation, pleasures that
are divine. Therefore, if it is in documents that we wish to find the spirit of Carmel it is to the chapters in the books of Kings dealing with this prophet that we must go.
Here in fact rings out that fundamental note which will re-echo down the centuries, not only in the rocky solitudes of Mount Carmel but throughout the whole history of the order. In Elias, Carmel sees itself as in a mirror. His eremitic and prophetic life expresses its own most intimate ideal. In studying the life of Elias, Carmel is aware of a growing thirst for contemplation. It perceives its deep kinship with this man who "stood in the presence of the living God". If it shares his weaknesses and his anguish, it also knows his faith in God and his zeal for the "Yahweh of armies" and it has tasted the same delights of a life hidden in God which the prophet also experienced. When it discovers in the light of the inspired word that Elias, "in the strength he drew from the divine food,walked forty days and forty nights to Horeb, the mountain of God", it is not in the least surprised. How could the prophet not have been drawn to this spot where that tremendous event of the religious history of mankind had taken place several centuries earlier: God's revelation to Moses.
There, in the bleak wastes of Sinai, we read in the book of Exodus that Moses, silent and alone, perceived Yahweh's mysterious presence in the light of fiery flames that burned the bush without consuming it (Ex. 3:2). There, were revealed to him the incommunicable Name, the divine transcendence and benevolence. There, Moses understood that he must make known to those entrusted to him what he had been allowed to contemplate. "Thus shalt thou say to the children of Israel: HE WHO IS, hath sent me to you". (Ex. 3: 14).
How could the father of contemplative life not have been drawn to this mountain where God spoke to Moses "as a man is wont to speak to his friend" (Ex. 33: 11), where man dared address this prayer to God: "show me Thy glory" (Ex. 3 3: 1 8)? How could he have failed to see that all the elements essential to contemplation were already contained in the scene on Horeb? So we may say that having found its model in Elias, the Carmelite advances with him toward the very origin of true contemplative life. Or, it might be more exact to say that having found the contemplative experience in its origin, carried by Elias to the highest degree of
purity, detachment and fulfillment, the Carmelite, wishing to renew this experience, feels obliged to recreate in his soul the climate in which this life grew: the desert with its spiritual solitude and silence; and he, in his turn feels constrained to undertake this persevering march toward the mountain of God where fire burns but does not consume.
Carmelite spirituality in every century needs to breathe the air of these high places if it is to live; and it needs a form of life sufficiently recollected to permit the soul to perceive the divine presence "in the sound of a gentle breeze" (Cf. 3 Kgs. 19: 12). In this perpetual return to solitude and recollection, this nostalgic call to detachment: "I will allure her, and will lead her into the wilderness; and I will speak to her heart" (OS. 2: 14), the Carmelite finds the very soul of his vocation.
So he takes as guides those who have advanced along the paths of divine union and have tasted the sweetness of heavenly things; and he prays with Eliseus to his father Elias to grant him a double part of his spirit (4 Kgs. 2: 9).
Can we describe this spirit?
In spite of the mystery of its beginnings, on this point no hesitation is possible. This spirit consists essentially in a longing for union with God.
It will be objected that all spiritual men know this longing. This is true. Nevertheless at Carmel this aspiration has a quality of immediacy, an insistence on prompt realization that distinguishes the Order's religious attitude.[2] Carmel makes contemplation its proper end and to attain this end it practices absolute detachment in relation to all demands, or at least to all temporal contingencies. Eminently theocentric, Carmel refers itself wholly to the living God: "As the Lord liveth the God of Israel, in whose sight I stand" (3 Kgs. 17: 1).
From the earliest ages union with God has been its "raison d'etre" and its soul. No doubt it was "the anticipated dawn of the Savior's redemptive grace"[3] that made this possible. No doubt, too, that it has benefited by the progress and development of revelation down the centuries. Nevertheless at Carmel from the beginning, union with God has been and continues to be central.
Characterized by an awareness of the presence within man's heart of the very being of God, the spirit of Carmel also includes a sense of the sacred and a thirst for things divine. Progress in the experience of God only serves to deepen and develop this basic and truly essential element. Without it neither the wise nor the simple could enter into and intensify their relations with God, No matter how individual is this spirit and with what difficulty it is analyzed, this spirit is to be identified with the most authentic mysticism. At Carmel nothing imitative or esoteric is to be found and Carmelite tradition is singularly sober as to the content of spiritual
experiences though their presence is frequently attested. Always objective, it merely affirms the possibility and the reality of direct contact with God and points out the necessity, if this is to be attained, of recourse to a particular kind of life--the eremitic life.
It assigns no date to its first manifestations but instead states forcefully that, granted certain conditions, it is possible for man truly to live the divine life. For this it suffices for him to realize in himself the climate of the original desert, and after withdrawing into this interior solitude, "to hold himself in the presence of the living God". Than the light of truth will come to purify, enlighten and enkindle his soul.
Foundations are thus laid for a personal experience of God and the intimate relations that a creature may have with Him. Going back through the ages Carmel will never hesitate to recognize itself in the first hermit whom the Bible describes for us and to model its life on that of men vowed to the contemplation of divine things in silence and solitude.
1. JEROME DE LA MERE DE DIEU, O.C.D. quoting Costa Rosetti, S.J. in "Ladoctrine du venerable frere Jean de S. Samson", "La vie Spirituelle,"1925, p. 32, n. 1. 2. Saint John when he recalls it in the very title of "The Ascent of Carmel." He write:"The Ascent of Mount Carmel shows how: soul can prepare to arrive promptlyat divine union..."
