Carmelite Family – Bulletin of Lay Carmel 

Number 15, Autumn 2002.

Contents

o        Editorial

o        In the Spirit and Strength of Elijah (below)

o        Interpreting St Teresa of Avila (XI)

o        Carmelite Spirituality

o        The Night Prayer Psalm – Compline Tuesday

o        Carmelite News Items

In the Spirit and Strength of Elijah

Double Spirit of Carmel

(continues the lecture given by Blessed Titus Brandsma, O.Carm in 1935)

Carmelite life must follow the lines indicated by Elijah’s life and experience. It must reflect his double spirit, the life of activity and the exercise of virtue in individual or social activity.

The double spirit has a three-fold sense. The first is the double portion of the inheritance of the Father, the portion of the first born son, the portion of the privileged children. The Carmelites are the privileged children of the great prophet and ask from him the portion of the first born. But only he who has the intention of maintaining the noble traditions of the house may ask this privileged portion. If we ask his double spirit in this sense, we have to be his first children and to follow him as well as possible.

Another sense is given to this double spirit: namely, the marvellous mixture of contemplative and active life in the great prophet. He was above all the great contemplative, but God called him many times from his contemplation to the active life and his place in the history of Israel is as one of its most untiring labourers. He always returned to the solitude of the life of contemplation. So the Carmelites must be contemplatives, who from their active life always return to the contemplative as to the higher and better part of their vocation.

However, the double spirit of the prophet is spoken of in a third sense as the harmonious union of the human exercise of virtue and the divine infusion of mystical life, It is in this third sense that the old institution of the Carmelite Order has taken the double spirit of Elijah and this double spirit we must ask from Heaven. Our institution must reflect his double spirit, the life of the exercise of virtue in individual or social activity, founded on a life of prayer, and the life of continual practice of meditation, crowned by active contemplation or prayer of simplicity and that other spirit unspeakably more exalted: the mystical, real experience of God, even in this life. It must be the union of active and passive contemplation, the union of human endeavour and the infusion of the mystical life of God. Our sufferings and sacrifices, our labours and exercises in prayer and virtue will be rewarded by God with the beatifying vision of His love and greatness. So we may truly say that “the life of Elijah is the shortest summary of the Order’s life.” But then we immediately have to ask: What are the characteristics of this prophetic life?

Walking in the Spirit and Strength of Elijah.

When Elijah was being taken away from the earth in a fiery chariot, Elisha, his faithful disciple, begged of him the inheritance of his double spirit. In the mantle which he received and with which he covered his shoulders, Elisha received the inheritance he had asked for. The Prophet’s mantle was to him a symbol of an assurance, and through the miracles worked by the mantle his disciples understood that the spirit of Elijah had descended on Elisha. And just as Elisha walked in the spirit and strength of Elijah so his disciples followed him. It is the same spirit the Carmelite Order has ever striven to continue in its members. It even sets before them the ideal of the double spirit and gives the promise of a double crown.

Living in the Presence of God.

To what degree of contemplation Elijah was raised on Horeb is an academic question. There are some who say he saw the Lord face to face as we hope to see Him in heaven. All spiritual writers number Elijah among the most favoured mystics. His experience on Horeb was a reflection of what he was to witness on Thabor when the Saviour was transfigured and Moses and Elijah were seen associated in His blinding glory. The Holy Scriptures say of Moses that when he descended from Sinai after his conversation with God, on his face shown the brightness and glory of divine light, so that the Jews dared not look at his face. The same is not said of Elijah, but we see him coming to the Jews, as if from another world, from the courts of heaven, and declaring at his appearance: “God lives in whose sight I stand.” This is the foundation of his life of prayer.

This living in the presence of God, this placing himself before the face of God is a characteristic, which the children of Carmel have inherited from the great Prophet. “Our conversation is in heaven”. Elijah was not taken up to heaven, but while on earth he lived in heaven and stood with a pious heart before God’s throne: “God lives, in whose sight 1 stand.” This realisation of the presence of God is of the very greatest significance in the spiritual life.

Conclusion

We need not say that this practice of the presence of God is not confined entirely to the Order of Carmel. It is at the root of all spiritual life and though methods may differ, all spiritual writers lay it down as an essential element in religious development. But in Carmel it takes a special place. It is significant that one of the most widely known works on the practice of the presence of God was written by a lay brother of the Paris Carmel. He was born in 1666 and died at the age of twenty-five. The book is a slight work containing four dialogues and sixteen letters of great importance. It was published a year after his death and soon afterwards translated into English. It has since been translated into many languages.

In our own time little Thérèse of the Child Jesus and the Holy Face is the great example of this exercise of the presence of God, expressing itself in her devotion to the Holy Face. This devotion was also characteristic of her sister, St. Teresa of Avila. In many of our old churches we may yet see traces of this Carmelite devotion to the Holy Face. The picture is painted on the big keystone of the gable of the sanctuary of the church at Mainz and Frankfort-in-the-Mainz, looking down on the choir and surrounded by appropriate texts, reminding those in prayer that the eyes of God are always upon them and that they must look upwards to the Holy Face.