Reflections & Resources

Thank you to those in our Carmelite Centre community who share information here.  IF YOU HAVE SOMETHING OF INTEREST PLEASE CONTACT US

If you are interested in being part of a zoom meditation on Tuesdays at 5pm please contact us

 

Season of Creation A Home for All

JPIC (Justice Peace Integrity and Creation) AUGUST NEWSLETTER 2021

Keeping Social Justice on the Public Agenda – a reflection by Peter Thomas, JPIC Team
From 1984 to 2012 Peter was an International & Pacific  BoardMember and Vice President Unda, International
Catholic Assoc. for Radio & Television and subsequently Vice President of SIGNIS, the International Catholic
Association for Communication.

https://timor-floods-emergency-appeal.raisely.com/

Many, if not all of you have heard about the devastation of floods and landslides that has occurred in Timor-Leste over recent days. In response to this crisis the Fundraising Development Ministry has been working hard over the last two days to launch an Emergency Email Appeal in support of our brothers and sisters in Timor-Leste.

A donation page has been set up and we are just working on the last elements of the email itself so that later this afternoon we can send out an Emergency Email Appeal to all members of our Carmelite family for whom we have an email address, to make a financial donation to support our neighbours in Timor-Leste. Donation will help our Carmelites on the ground to provide essential food, water and vital items required for the clean-up and to provide pastoral support to help a community that is deeply hurting..

Some of you have already started to receive calls or emails from colleagues, friends or concerned members of the Australian community asking you what they can do to help. Please direct them to our donation page listed here and help us to broaden our outreach by taking one of the actions below:

  • Go directly to our donation page https://timor-floods-emergency-appeal.raisely.com/ to make their financial donation
  • Contact Nancy at director@carmelimpact.org.au or on 0488 224 647 if you want to discuss how you or your group can assist further with this appeal.
  • Send the email you receive later this afternoon onto your own list of contacts to broaden the outreach of this Emergency Flood Appeal for Timor-Leste.
  • Post a link to the donation page on your own personal facebook page

The Carmelites of Australia & Timor-Leste offer you our support in these uncertain and difficult times.We are praying for the whole world, and especially, for all those who are members of our wider Carmelite Family.  During this time we offer a variety of prayers, reflections, Lectio Divina and liturgies to celebrate at home when you cannot celebrate in Church – our Celebrating at Home Series

Suggested Lenten Resources

https://www.carmelites.org.au/celebratingathome

The Season of Lent can be seen as both a challenge and as a gift;  time set aside to listen to God calling us to see with new eyes. Am I truly living the Gospel life as Jesus did? Do I respond to the needs of my ‘neighbour’?  Catholic Social Teaching provides us with a guide to proclaim that all human life is sacred and to reach out to those in need.Peter Thomas of the JPIC Team, reflects on the direction given to him by our Church to try to act justly. Your Carmelite JPIC Team JPIC March newsletter 2021

Fully Human Fully Divine Ch 1 ( Michael Casey) 2 (copied with permission)

The Word became Text and dwelt among us – Michael Casey undated lecture printed with permission

https://catholicclimatecovenant.org/resource/lenten-reflections-season-creation

Celebration of Remembrance & Thanksgiving – CLOSING OF SANCTA SOPHIA MEDITATION COMMUNITY WARBURTON and celebrating the life Ken Petersen O.Carm, died 13th June 2020, -25 years of Sancta Sophia Meditation Community and 43 years of Karith Carmelite House of Prayer. Sunday 31st January 2021

Download the booklet Sancta Sophia Closing Celebration

Teresa and Covid 19  Covid 19 has unleashed unbelievable storms of insecurity that seemed beyond the realms of our imagination just a few months ago. We all have entered into a new world. Beyond the horror of the daily statistics of sickness and death, an inescapable anxiety drives us to question all our cherished standards of normality and security. We say it every day but that does not make it less true. We are in a new world. Teresa’s Prayer and Covid 19

A Journey of Discernment, The Plenary Council – The Most Rev Timothy Costelloe SDB
Archbishop of Perth President, Fifth Plenary Council of Australia. August 2020
Is it not the Church’s task to reflect the light of Christ in every historical period, to make his face shine also before the generations of the new millennium?  A+Journey+of+Discernment+The Plenary Council The Most Rev Timothy Costelloe SDB

Painting of the Incarnation ‘The Word was Made Flesh’ – by artist Judy Racz (active participant in Carmelite Centre events). See notes below image.

The symbolism:

  1. The circle at top centre has the Hebrew word ONE, my symbol for the Triune God
  2. The beam of light is for Christ coming into our world incarnating through
  3. Mary.  The blue poppy refers to her humility, a simple flower.
  4. Our response to this great mystery of the Incarnation is a prayer of gratitude: “Blessed be the Lord our God, King of the Universe”.  We are the thuribles on fire with love, the rising incense is our prayer and it is written in both Hebrew and English. These words are often the beginning of blessings in the Hebrew tradition.
  5. In the background is the diagram of the Tree of Life used in the Kabbalah, showing the Sephirot, the channels of Divine grace imparted to us by God: Understanding, Wisdom, Knowledge, Justice, Mercy, etc.

Giving Birth to Christ – article suggested by David Hofman OCarm
Looking at how Mary gave birth to Christ, we see that it’s not something that’s done in an instant. Faith, like biology, also relies on a process that has a number of distinct, organic moments. What are these moments? What is the process by which we give birth to faith in the world? Giving Birth to Christ

What is Messianic Expectation in the Old Testament – suggested by David Hofman OCarm
Every year, the time of Advent – the time of waiting par excellence – allows us to prepare ourselves for the birth of Christ-Emmanuel, the Son of God made flesh in the womb of the Virgin Mary, the Saviour “announced by the prophets”. But what precisely do the Holy Scriptures tell us about this “messiah” of God who will restore justice and peace to Israel? What do they reveal to us about His mission?
Messianic expectation in the Old Testament

Pandemic Journal with Amanda Witt (UPDATED 20 November)
Amanda volunteers at the Carmelite Library and shares her journal with us. Amanda Witt Pandemic Journal 20 NOVEMBER 2020Are you writing something you would like to share?

Living Water Blog – with Roland Ashby. The blog aims to promote contemplative wisdom, Christian meditation and the Christian contemplative tradition Tapping into a deep spring of love and wisdom; healing balm for our troubled times.  Jesus called it ‘living water’, with which we will never thirst. Living Water

Prayer Poems for a Pandemic – by Annemarie Paulin-Campbell. Thank you Gus for sharing these beautiful reflections.

Invitation to Love
May this be a day
In which generosity grows stronger
In which beauty does not go unnoticed.
In which suffering prompts me to action.
In which I notice the gentle nudges of the Holy Spirit as she moves,
disguised beneath the cloak of the
everyday trail of emails,
zoom meetings; and housework.
Cracking my heart open just a little further.
With her compelling invitation
To LOVE.
Find our more: https://www.facebook.com/Prayer-Poems-by-Annemarie-104623331356188/

Carmelite Conversations 7 October 2020. The Carmelite Rule and the Church Post Covid. This is a zoom session at the Carmelite Centre Melbourne, with Hugh Brown OCarm. It is an informal discussion and sharing with a group from the Carmelite Family. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fde0G__Y4dA&feature=youtu.be

Carmelite Conversations September 2020 – The Mystical Teachings of the Jewish Tradition. Judy Racz explores with us how the Kabbalah enriches Carmelite/Christian teachings. Much of Judy’s religious art focuses on the meaning of the letters in the Hebrew Alef-Beit (alphabet) and each letter is accompanied by a commentary https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6eFO34P3sag

Carmelite Library Poetry Workshop: Clotilde Lopez, Philippa Wetherell, and Philip Harvey have recently written haiku Thank you for sharing them.Haiku Haiku PHILIPPA Haiku PHILIP Haiku CLOTILDE

Big questions: the Pandemic, our Mission and the New Evangelisation by Daniel Ang, Director of Parish 2020 for the Archdiocese of Sydney. What are the implications of the current pandemic for the way in which people will live, work and worship in the future and how, therefore, will it reshape our approaches to evangelisation and mission as a Church? As we read through this crisis for hints of a future, the shape of the‘new normal’ appear to gravitate around themes of conversion, communion and commission. Big questions the Pandemic, our Mission and the New Evangelisation by Daniel Ang

LIBRARY LOCKDOWN: TWO SONNETS – Philip Harvey
Reveries of libraries, the thirty-seventh on the Library blog.  Library Lockdown Two Sonnets

Letter to the Carmelite Family from the Prior General Fr Míceál O’Neill on occasion of Feast of Our Lady of Mount Carmel Letter to the Carmelite Family from The Prior General Fr Míceál O’Neill

A PANDEMIC OF FRAGILITY
That feeling you are feeling is fragility. We are all feeling it. Of course, at first glance I mean the fragility of our own precarious emotional, economic or mental states; but if we dig deeper we can also feel the fragility of the various systems, understandings and routines that make our contemporary lives possible…A PANDEMIC OF FRAGILITY – ANTHONY RICHARDSON.

‘HOME’ – Reflection by Michael Murray
As we have all spent so many hours recently staying at home I have been thinking a lot about what “home” has meant to me in my life. Maybe you have been thinking along the same lines? I thought I would share my thoughts and experiences of my “home” with you in the form of a letter which I have written in gratitude to this special place which I still call “home”.‘HOME’ A REFLECTION BY MICHAEL MURRAY

The Carmelite Library Reverie 35 – Philip Harvey
Reverie 35 Philip Harvey

Monthly Poetry Group with Philip Harvey
This group continues to meet monthly via email. This month the group is writing poems about day’s delight, set on one particular day. Philip’s poem is about walking in the morning’s fog.
What To Do, Give It To You
hat to do with the all about white that is fog at sunrise
A house here a tree there normally all trees and homes…What to do, Give it to you Poem Philip Harvey

UPDATED: From Arthur Rich in Warburton – a longtime Carmelite Way pilgrimage friend Isolation by Arthur Rich  Arthur’s poem is now a song on YouTube  Beautiful thank you Arthur:)

The Great Realisation: Some positives to take from Covid-19
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y1XtWIpNjts

Coronavirus and the Church: ‘Submission’ or ‘lack of faith’? A French bishop calls on Catholics not to pit civil law against divine law, says being careless in dealing with COVID-19 is tantamount to ‘tempting God’
CoronavirAus and the Church

Impermanence – A Challenge to accept during this Isolation time?
Impermanence – by Michael Murray

Daddy Daughter Duet – The Prayer – With everything that is going on in the world, sometimes its best to pause and remember the simple prayer of a father and daughter for “life to be kind”.

Brother Richard Hendrick, a Capuchin Franciscan living in Ireland, has penned a touching poem about coronavirus
Brother Richard Poem

Reflections from Jamie Miller from the Spiritual Horizons Program
Prayers for Discernment Reflection_Pilgrimage and Vocation

Website for Multifaith COVID-19 Resources 
https://spiritualhealth.org.au/multifaith-resources

A Meditation on ‘The House at Rest’,
The House at Rest by Jessica Powers PHILIP HARVEY

The Carmelite Librarian, Philip Harvey writes:
Reveries of libraries, the thirty-second: Closed Doors and Spatial Distance
Until I had come into this space alone, knowing I would leave alone eight hours later, I had not fully lived. While the world outside has also closed its doors on empty streets and falling leaves of an early Australian autumn, experience tells me this is no ordinary experience.

Poem by Lynn Ungar — minister, dog trainer, little-known poet — sat down at the desk next to her kitchen table and began to type, with her two Australian shepherds by her side, turning her thoughts into a poem. Pandemic Poem Lyn Ungar

Managing Stress and Anxiety at this time.
Watch a 5 minute youtube on F.A.C.E. C.O.V.I.D.

More Well being Resources

Anonymous Reflection
I’m a strong believer that there is a spiritual purpose behind everything that happens, whether that is what we perceive as being good or being bad,,. Anonymous reflection..

Reverie with Philip Harvey. Beautiful Libraries of the World...
Reveries of Libraries – Philip Harvey

Recent article in TIME 29 March 2020
Christianity Offers No Answers About the Coronavirus. It’s Not Supposed To