Carmelite spirituality as a path to a deeper experience of liturgy (Part 1)
Paul Menting
Introduction
The Eucharist is the sacrament of unity between God and man. This unity should not be understood statically as an unchanging connection, independent of the current relationship between God and man; rather, we must always seek and find it anew through the celebration of liturgical rites and in the depth of the experience that it opens to us as a deepening communio.1 The Carmelites are characterized by a long tradition of seeking how to enter into the experience of unity with God, how to care for and protect that unity, and how to make it fruitful for their entire lives. They often refer to the text of the biblical Song of Songs, which better than any other book of the Bible expresses and describes what occurs in the unity of love (of man) with God. To what extent this can also deepen the liturgical experience of the Eucharist is the subject of this article.
The Carmelite Order was founded at the end of the 12th century in the Carmel Mountains. Zealous Christians who came with the crusades remained in the Holy Land and began to live a religious life there. In the Carmel Mountains, which was then a desolate and lonely area, they found an excellent place for a life dedicated to God as hermits. However, in the mid-13th century, this place became too dangerous due to Muslim raids, and so the brothers, who had meanwhile received their own rule, moved back to Europe. They changed their way of life and became a mendicant order, similar to the Dominicans, Franciscans, or Augustinian Hermits.
Nevertheless, the influence of the ideals of both the desert fathers and the mendicant orders does not adequately capture the spirituality of the Carmelites. Together with the Cistercians and Beguines, the Carmelites also have their place in the current of the tradition known as loving mysticism.2 This tradition provided the ground for the emergence of Eucharistic devotion, which at its peak led to the introduction of a new liturgical feast in 1264, namely the feast of Corpus Christi (on the second Thursday after Pentecost).
In the tradition of loving mysticism, the biblical Song of Songs has always played a significant role. It was not a foregone conclusion that this book would gain such a status. Consider that in the 1st century AD, doubts and disputes arose in Jewish circles about whether it belonged to Scripture. These doubts were ultimately dismissed in the final phase of the canonization of the Tanakh (our Old Testament) – referring to tradition. Some religious authorities then suspected the Song of Songs of depicting "only" the love between a man and a woman. Jewish and Christian mystics, however, always knew that this book is not merely an expression of human love, but that it clarifies the love between God and man. The love song about the love between a man and a woman also praises the love between God and a person in love with God. Women and men who represent that tradition of loving mysticism built upon this conviction and made the Song of Songs a guide for their reflections and sermons about the love of God. Their lives were completely resonant with the Song of Songs, and this voice of love between God and man became the underlying tone of their liturgy.
In this article, I wanted first to show how the Carmelite sisters and brothers understood the Song of Songs. It was for them almost a textbook for understanding and experiencing the love between God and man. Many sisters and brothers of the Blessed Virgin from Mount Carmel were inspired by the Song of Songs for their own testimonies of love. I must limit myself here to selecting just a few texts from the great treasure of Carmelite literature on the Song of Songs. I would like to briefly explain them. Then I would like to elucidate that the Carmelite mystics celebrated in the liturgy precisely this divine relationship of love that they found foreshadowed in the biblical Song of Songs. I will also refer to texts from the Carmelite tradition.
Growing towards one another
Love fosters receptivity among people. When two people become partners in love, both grow towards unity. The Bible puts it this way: "For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and they will become one flesh" (Gen 2:24 – ecumenical translation). Here it is explained, in this case of a man, that as a partner in love, he must give up his established life in his previous family to completely cling to his wife. In the time of the Old Testament, family meant much more than it does today. Family was essential not only socially but was also the foundation of education and economic opportunities. To leave one’s family meant to leave everything that was dear to the person. The Bible wants to say: in order for someone to begin a life of love and become one (with their partner), they must leave behind the old and familiar and completely focus on the one united by love.
In the love between God and man, it is no different. The apostles also left everything to follow Jesus and remain in his love. When they were called, they left their families and their means of existence to follow Christ. "He said to them, 'Follow me, and I will make you fishers of men.' At once they left their nets and followed him. Going on from there, he saw two other brothers - James son of Zebedee and his brother John. They were in a boat with their father Zebedee, preparing their nets. Jesus called them, and immediately they left the boat and their father and followed him" (Mt 4:19–22).
In comparison to true love, everything else that life may offer pales. Only those who deeply feel this can yield to the attractive power of Jesus’ call to love. But even then, it is not easy to leave one’s home. What one possesses gives a sense of security, resisting the attractive power of the other. Only when a person renounces themselves for the one they love can they enjoy the fruits of love. Therefore, Jesus said: “Everyone who has left houses or brothers or sisters or father or mother or children or fields for my sake will receive a hundredfold and will inherit eternal life” (Mt 19:29).
Whoever wants to gain love must cross the threshold of their own self and go towards the other. Regarding love for God, Jesus puts it even more bluntly: “Whoever wants to be my disciple must deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me! For whoever wants to save their life will lose it, but whoever loses their life for my sake will find it” (Mt 16:24–25).
Such an uncompromising change of life focus cannot be achieved with a single decision of the will. Rather, it requires a lifelong process during which a person continually steps out of their comfort zone and relinquishes what they already know and have achieved. And only if each of these steps is co-created by love for God will many small beginnings and tiny steps ultimately become one great movement of love, a current of love that carries everything along with it.
Practice my commandments and counsels. Drive away not only impure thoughts and selfish desires that are incompatible with love for me, but also beware of everything that might weaken or stifle your love for me (even just a little). Pay attention to what strengthens your love for me and what helps you love me with a more perfect love and without obstacles. Once you are so fervently united with me, when no singular desire arises in you that does not correspond to this love or obstruct it, then you begin to love perfectly with all your heart and to be hidden in Kerith, in love.3
The Book of the Founding of the First Monks is one of the earliest texts of Carmelite tradition. It was compiled between 1370 and 1390, probably by Philip Ribot. Its aim is on one hand to explain the origin and history of the Carmelite Order and on the other hand to introduce the reader, young Carmelites, to spiritual life. According to the author, the Carmelite Order originates from the prophet Elijah, who hid by the brook Kerith (cf. 1 Kings 17 – 2 Kings 1). Elijah's story can excellently be linked with the ideal of spiritual life in Carmel: to be transformed in divine love. The author of the book, who wrote in Latin, created a play on words with the name Kerith – he associated it with the Latin word "caritas" (pronounced "karitas"), which means: love. When God commands Elijah to hide by the brook Kerith (1 Kings 17:3), The Book of the Founding of the First Monks interprets this as entering into divine love. Once Elijah had received God’s revelation, he did not remain passive; on the contrary, he went into the wilderness and came to the brook Kerith. The book continues with the conviction that a young monk must do a great deal to create space for love. It is necessary to organize life according to many commandments and counsels, to avoid eager thoughts and desires. God's commandments and counsels are indicators of the path, with their help one proceeds forward; (on the other hand) thoughts and desires that focus only on something individual lead one away from the path and must be relinquished. Through these two efforts, the one who wants to lead a spiritual life must leave behind everything distracting and gather all their strengths in one single endeavor: selfless, giving love. A person must love with undivided attention, with all their heart and all their soul, without wishing to keep anything for themselves.
Such unity with oneself, with all one’s strengths and desires, is a prerequisite for being capable of love and thus of unity with the other. Mary Magdalene de Pazzi (1566–1607) describes what happens when this first step is taken, and a person completely hides in love:
When I received Holy Communion, I saw Jesus completely filled with love. It seemed that he wanted to tease me and sweetly spoke to me. We had a conversation full of love: I called you, and you did not answer me (cf. Song 5:6). And I replied to him: I sought you, and I could not find you. He said: I called you, my dove, and you did not answer me. And I replied: I sought you, my beloved. I longed for you, my beloved. I loved you, my love. I sought you, sought you, my beloved, and I could not find you. And my love, Jesus, whom I always call my love, said: O my bride, I called you so much, and you did not answer me! And I replied: I sought you so much, and you did not allow yourself to be found, my love! Jesus, my love, said: You know why you did not find me? Because you did not seek rightly. And I replied: You know, my love, why I did not answer you? Because you did not call loudly enough for me to hear you. Jesus, my love, said: Seek me rightly, my bride, and you will find me. And I said: Call me loudly, and I will hear you. My love, Jesus, said: You, my bride, you must seek me. And in my impatience of love, I said: Love, you know well that you said that whoever has more must give more. Because you have more than I do, you must give. You know well that you are mightier, richer, and stronger than I am, and you also know that you love more than I do. You said you are truth: so when you said that, love, you spoke the truth, and if it is true, you must, love, do something, because you are mightier and stronger than I am. Call me loudly enough for me to hear your voice. And now suddenly he began to say: Come, come, my dove, my beauty, come.4 And he completely united me with himself. And thus united, we had a very sweet conversation together, like friends with friends, yet I would not know how I could communicate even the smallest detail of it. But when I realized that I was so united with him, I often said: O now I have found you, my love, O now I am completely satisfied, because I am united with you, my love.5
How often it happens that people do not understand each other! One says something, and the other wants to agree, but the words do not express the meaning or do not find the right tone. Because God and man are completely different from each other and almost speak a different language, communication between them seems even more difficult. However, Mary Magdalene de Pazzi experienced very powerfully that through mutual passionate effort, connection (between them) is possible. Immediately after making her vows, she was for forty days, always after daily reception of Holy Communion, drawn into an ecstatic dialogue with God.
In the text quoted above, Christ teasingly states that he called her, but did not receive an answer. Mary Magdalene notes that she sought Christ but could not find him. He called, she sought – yet they did not meet. Only after Mary Magdalene received the sacrament did they find themselves drawn toward one another. Thus, a loving conversation could arise between them. They exchanged tender reproaches aimed at moving each other to enter deeper into the relationship of love. God wants to call more loudly, and Mary Magdalene wants Christ to give everything when he calls her. Christ, with his teasing, provokes Mary Magdalene to intensify her reproaches against him: since he is mightier than she is, he must he take care to achieve complete receptivity between them. She acknowledges that he is greater than she is and relinquishes her own effort to accept everything from him. She completely opens herself to him and entrusts him to bring about the unity of love (between them), i.e., she trusts Christ that he can (really) love her, that he can give her his love and by doing so, he can also enable her to love him in just the same way. Through this humble attitude of Mary Magdalene, Christ is moved to clearly – entirely and exclusively – call her to himself and unite her with himself. In this unity of love, both engage in a mutual dialogue that is so intimate that nothing of it can be communicated to a third party.
Translated from German by Sister Petra of the Risen One, OCD.
