Monday, November 3, 2008

CHARISM

We embrace the religious life in friendship and service of Jesus Christ, in imitation of and under the patronage of the Virgin Mary, whose life of faith, simplicity and intimate union with Jesus and His mission, constitutes for us the interior model.
Our vocation aspires to union with God by the way of contemplation and apostolic zeal indissolubly united, and to the formation of a fraternal community as a sign communion in the world.
Prayer, which is a life of prayer and a prayer life, is nourished by listening to the Word of God and the liturgy and with "the joys and hopes, sorrows and anxieties"of the Church and of humanity. It is a way of life of faith, hope and love.
Apostolic zeal penetrates our prayer and our entire life, and it impels us to work with fervent aactivity in differrent ways in the service of the Church and humankind.
Evangelical self-denial, as a capacity for spiritual sacrifice, is a natural disposition because the Gospel, Jesus ans His Kingdom are worth it, and because the road to union with God and the mission makes us experience the neccesity of the purifcation and transformation of the heart and of life.
Everything has to carry the impress of a spiritual humanism which integrates simplicity, authenticity, joy, the gentleness of the fraternal life, the dignity of the human person, appreciation for the formation of the religious and the equilibrium of the ascetical life ordained to the theological life and mission.
The charism is dynamic reality capable of growing and becoming enriched in the course of history. Numerous Carmelites have enriched it with their teachings and initiatives, like St. John of the Cross, St. Therese of Lisieux, Blessed Francisco Palau, St. Teresa de Benedicta (Edith Stein), Blessed Elizabeth of the Trinity and others. Many are not canonized, like Jerome Garcian and John of Jesus Mary, to cite of few of the more eniment of the first generation of Teresian Carmelites, along with later ones, particular the missionaries, have enriched the charism. Inspired and compelled by the Gospel and the Teresian impulse they all have multiplied the interior mansions and have expended the horizons of Carmel.