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“Therefore I will lead her into the desert and speak to her heart.”
~ Hosea 2:16
Life in Carmel is designed to simplify and direct our course towards God alone - to live ‘alone with Him alone’ as St Teresa expressed her ideal (Life, 36, 29).
Our religious order was born out of her impassioned love for Christ, which made her long to ‘do something to help this Lord of mine’, and thus she resolved to found a convent for women who wanted to give themselves to God in real earnest, becoming true friends of Jesus, standing by Him come what may and making the desires of His heart their own. The high ideal set before the Teresian Carmelite is to follow Jesus as perfectly as possible in a life of continual prayer.
“Withdrawal from the world in order to dedicate oneself in solitude to a more intense life of prayer is nothing other than a special way of living and expressing the Paschal Mystery of Christ.”
~ Venite seorsum, I
Silence and solitude play an indispensable part in allowing us to live fully our vocation of continual prayer. The practice of silence is a powerful aid to develop purity of heart and grow in charity. The quality of the solitude we practise is no mere physical solitude; rather, it is a state of being, a constant exposure to and availability for God.
The place of silence is perhaps best epitomised by the 'Great Silence', which extends from after evening recreation until after Terce the following day. This is a period of complete silence through the night and is valued as a time of deeper communion with God.
During the day periods of silence are interspersed with various community interactions, ensuring a healthy balance between solitude and togetherness.
“Silence enables us to live our lives from our personal centre, aware all the time of what we are doing and why we are doing it.”
~ Ruth Burrows
