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the meaning and mission of the III. Order of Carmel (community of tertiaries)

Basic information about the Carmelite Order (data valid as of March 1991)

Our God is a God of new beginnings. Each of us knows this from our own spiritual experience. For Carmel in our homeland, new beginnings are still characteristic...

We present the prayer of Pope Francis, which will accompany us during the Holy Year of Mercy:

Lord Jesus Christ,
you taught us to be merciful,
as the heavenly Father is merciful,
and you told us that whoever sees you, sees the Father.
Show us your face and we shall be saved.

Your loving gaze
freed Zacchaeus and Matthew from the bondage of money,
the adulteress and Mary Magdalene
from seeking happiness only in created things,
made Peter weep when he betrayed you,
and assured the repentant criminal of paradise.

Grant that each of us
may hear your words addressed to the Samaritan woman,
as if you were saying them to us:
“If you only knew the gift of God!”

You are the visible face of the invisible Father,
God, who manifests his omnipotence
most through forgiveness and mercy:
grant that the Church may be for the world your visible face,
the face of your risen and glorified Lord.

You willed that your servants
should be subjected to weakness,
so that they could feel compassion for those
who struggle with ignorance and error:
grant that anyone who encounters even one of them
may experience that God awaits, loves, and forgives them.

Send your Spirit
and sanctify us all with his anointing,
so that the Holy Year of Mercy
may become a year of the Lord's grace
and that your Church, renewed in enthusiasm,
may bring glad tidings to the poor,
proclaim freedom to captives and the downtrodden
and restore sight to the blind.

Through the intercession of the Blessed Virgin Mary, Mother of Mercy,
we ask this of you, who live and reign
with the Father and the Holy Spirit forever and ever.
Amen.

Excerpted from the website vojtechkodet.cz