After the Velvet Revolution, the sky of hope brightened over everything that had been doomed to destruction and discrimination. Hope shone that Christian communities would again be able to live their spirituality together and create a community of life – living cells of parishes or entire cities. However, the freedom gained is a great test of fidelity to one's life mission, as it can be compared to an intersection that offers many paths.
My former classmate once told me, during a passionate discussion about third orders: “It’s no use resurrecting corpses! Third orders are simply written off!” However, I believe that “written off” is anyone who easily gains, because they also easily lose. He also said that new movements are continually emerging in the church and they should be given attention. Certainly. They bring new aspects and interesting impulses, but at this moment, everyone must ask themselves an important question: Why did I decide to live Carmelite spirituality?
The answer can vary. For myself, I can say this: “I want to follow Jesus by climbing the mountain of knowledge of God through the path of perfecting myself in prayer. Before the image of Our Lady of Mount Carmel in Kostelní Vydří, I freely promised God that I would live the life of the Gospel until death, according to the example of Our Lady, which is characteristic of the Carmelite family. It has been more than a year now, and I must admit that I am not very successful in living according to the Carmelite ideal.
It is very easy to pay a few coins and board a steamboat for a Sunday cruise. It is much harder to build a steamboat and get it going. Such “small” details are easily forgotten. It is a challenge for the examination of conscience for all of us.
This year marks fifty years since the death of Anička Zelíková, for whose beatification Father Redemptus Valábek, a Carmelite postulant, is working in Rome, and are we losing our own identity? I know that it is easier to strum a guitar and listen to scholars, to draw from the company of the young, due to my waning strength, to float downstream, which carries me along… Yet, I firmly hope that after the exercises in Milevsko, we properly understand our Carmelite identity. To be a Carmelite means not to seek God in things, in personal success or satisfaction, but to rediscover a piece by piece the face of the loving Lord every day and to be constantly surprised by His creative work.
If the desired freedom is what prevents us not only from meeting but also from living together? Does it not also depend on you to get moving, instead of engaging in silly talk about the corpses of third orders? After all, Carmel still has much to say to many people in the world. Our spirituality is one of the fundamental colors of the spectrum of spiritual life. It cannot lose its identity by itself. We can only lose it, we individual people. The ascent to Carmel is, after all, demanding and can only be succeeded by those who are spiritually fit.
Those who want to argue that I am only theorizing about community should tune their ears to listen. There is a possibility to create a community where brothers and sisters of Carmel can live in the world (whether by means of consecrated life or otherwise)! Currently, there is one opportunity, and information can be obtained from Father Prior in Kostelní Vydří.
We stand at the intersection of freedom...
God, show me the way!
Petr (tertiary)
