Carmelite wisdom to encourage & inspire
When Sister Maria Lucia, the Fatima visionary entered the Carmel of Coimbra, the Prioress showed Lucia to her cell after the morning Mass. Above the door she saw the name of the cell: "Immaculate Heart of Mary". There was a verse addressed to its inhabitant: "My Immaculate Heart will be your refuge."
St. Elizabeth of the Trinity writes to a seminarian in the last days before his ordination: "With the Virgin, you can sing your “Magnificat” and leap with joy in God your Savior, for the Almighty is doing great things in you, and His mercy is eternal... Then, like Mary, “keep all that in your heart.”
Titus Brandsma writes to a formator many years later, "You came to my bedside [as a second-year philosophy student] and would not allow me to think about my studies, you wouldn’t even allow me to talk about philosophy... More than a professor, for me you were a father."
St. Thérèse explains that during her novitiate she had difficulty during her one-on-one sessions with her novice mistress: "I had never become accustomed to speaking about my soul and I didn’t know how to express what was going on within it."
On this day in 1888, young Thérèse Martin entered the Carmel of Lisieux. Her sister Marie wrote that day to their father, St. Louis Martin: "O best of fathers, how accountable we would be if we didn’t become saints, and if we didn’t follow in the footsteps of your generosity… "
All the Sisters with their veils raised came to greet me with such affection that I was embarrassed. They asked me when I was coming. I told them in May. Then one went to look at the calendar... It turned out the seventh was the Feast of Saint Joseph, and they commended me to him.
St. Zélie Martin confides in her sister-in-law that she is worried about Léonie's future. "If it only took the sacrifice of my life for her to become a saint, I would give it willingly."
"My Mother, here is the Bridegroom!" This was the inscription on the holy card that St. Elizabeth of the Trinity presented as a gift to her novice mistress on the day of her religious profession, 11 January 1903. Learn more about this day...
Pauline Martin explains that Thérèse "could have legitimately taken the Habit... before the end of October, but she in fact didn’t take the Habit until 10th January 1889."
Because God is truth and because he wants to be found by those who seek him with their whole hearts, sooner or later the star had to appear to show these wise men the way to truth. And so they now stand before the Incarnate Truth...
On 10 August 1591 Saint John of the Cross transferred from the friars’ convent in Segovia to the solitude of La Peñuela
Nothing but death will be able to separate me from the company of my Sisters
With the Virgin, you can sing your “Magnificat” and leap with joy in God your Savior
God wishes religious to be religious — in such a way that they be done with all and that all be done with them
By opening the door of our heart to love for God, this love dissolves all self-love in us. But we must open the door!
If God chooses someone for this way of life He may include some early signs of this vocation
I need Carmel... with its perfection and way of perfection
I wish her to be called—Teresa of Jesus
They are my Fathers to whom, after our Lord, my soul owes every good it possesses
Carmelite Quotes 
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