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| Early Carmelites receiving their Formula of Life from St. Albert |
THE EARLY CARMELITES
As was
mentioned above, the 12th century was a time of great spiritual revival as a
reaction to the settled monastic life of the time. The changes that were unfolding in society,
cultural, political, educational and religious spheres were creating a deep vacuum
in the lives of the people. Spiritual
fervor has increased and was being manifested in the formation of different
Christian lay movements. The life of the
Apostles (Vita Apostolica) as described in the Gospels [Book of Acts] became
the ideal and the standard of true following of Jesus. The ideals of poverty, identification with
the poor in society, itinerant lifestyle, and fraternal life with the brothers
and complete abandonment to Divine Providence, were the hallmarks of the
mendicant movement. This century also
saw the rise of lay hermits. They lived lives of penitence and solitary
prayer. They did not always renounce
their properties. They were not bound by any official Rule of Benedict,
Augustine or Basil. They placed
themselves under the guidance of a priest or bishop. They were sometimes known as “solitary
wanderers” because some of them took vows of visiting holy places. The Holy Land was foremost among these
places. This vow of undertaking
pilgrimages had a canonical status of stability. They made the pilgrimage with the intention
of remaining in the place permanently.
The hermits on Mount Carmel were a group of lay hermits who had come
from Western Europe on pilgrimage to the Holy Land, probably bound by a vow to
stay there permanently. 5 [Perhaps they
were also sons of settlers in the Latin Kingdom of Jerusalem.] They gathered
themselves around a certain “B” as a small community of penitents. Jacques de Vitry, an eye witness, gives this
description: “From various parts of the world, and, according to their various
affections and wishes and their religious fervor, chose places to dwell in
suitable to their object and devotion... Some in imitation of the holy
anchorite the prophet Elijah, led solitary lives on Mount Carmel, especially on
that part thereof which overhangs the city of Prophyria (the present day Accon)
and Haifa, near the well called Elijah’s Well, not far from the convent of St.
Margaret... They lived in solitude, where in little comb-like cells, these bees
of the Lord laid up sweet spiritual honey.” 6
Between the
years 1206 - 1214, these hermits approached Albert of Jerusalem, Patriarch of
the Jerusalem Church, for a “formula of life” (formula vitae). Different historians of the Order will say
that the hermits' move to seek out Albert of Jerusalem was not a move to
acquire a “Rule” in the tradition of Benedict or Augustine. This move of the hermits is seen as an
initiative on their part to obtain approbation to a lifestyle that they already
were living. This was hinted in the statement: “It is to me, however, that you
have come for a rule of life in keeping with your avowed purpose, a rule you
may hold fast to henceforward.”7 St. Albert, in drafting this “rule” was
emphatic in situating it in the eremitical tradition of the Desert Fathers, but
also placed a heavy stress on community life.
The eremitical spirituality clearly shows in the language of the
text: emphasis on each brother having a
separate cell (Chapter III), staying in one’s cell meditating on the law of the
Lord day and night (Chapter VII), fasting (Chapter XII), life of man on earth
being a time of trial and persecution, spiritual warfare with the devil, in
which one is preserved by holy meditations, a life of faith and chastity
(Chapter XIV), manual work (chapter XV) and the practice of silence and
solitude (Chapter XVI). The formula of
life drafted by St. Albert curiously structured a community life contrasting
the Desert Fathers in Chapters I - XIII.
Election of a Prior by a common consent or greater majority (I),
community consultations with the brothers pertaining community matters (II ,
III & V), meals in common (Chapter
IV), common prayer (Chapter X), common ownership IX). Here we can see that Albert was already
infusing elements of the mendicant lifestyle.
This is easy to understand if we remember that St. Albert also was
commissioned by Pope Innocent III to draft a rule for the Humiliati, another
mendicant group,[semi-mendicant perhaps]
in Europe. It is also worth remembering that the rule of life he wrote
for the Humiliati was heavily based on the Benedictine Rule. Nevertheless, we can see how St. Albert retained
the eremitical spirituality as the early hermits in Mount Carmel lived it but
gave a new perspective and structure on community life.
Carmelites in Europe
Around 1238
groups of Carmelites started leaving Mount Carmel to return to Europe. The political life in the Holy Land gradually
became hostile with the invasion by the Saracens. Most of the hermits in Mount Carmel gradually
returned to their country of origin in Western Europe. But the Europe they left behind did not stand
still. There was now the new spiritual
climate of the “Vita Apostolica” which gave rise to the mendicant
movements. The Franciscans, Dominicans,
Augustinians were in the center stage of this spiritual movement. The Carmelites, with their “desert ways” and
different traditions, were out of place in this new world of evangelization and
ministerial life. Although St. Albert
gave them a formula of life somewhat comparable to the mendicants, the early
Carmelites only had this in principle and not in practice. The urban culture and change in the
social-religious needs made the mendicant groups very popular with the
people. The Carmelites fell into the
prevailing mendicant movement. This
unavoidable confrontation with the Europe of that time created internal
conflicts among the brothers. The heavy
stress on fraternal brotherhood and itinerant lifestyle of the mendicants
threatened the individuality and solitude of the hermit.
Changes in the Rule of St. Albert
A General Chapter held at Aylesford, England,
sent two representatives to the Holy See to seek revisions in their formula of
life. The work of revision was entrusted
to two former Dominicans, Cardinal Hugh of St. Cher and William of Reading,
bishop of Tortosa. 8 The selection of these two former Dominicans and other
unknown factors determined that the Carmelites would develop constitutions very
similar to those of the Dominicans. On 1
October 1247, Innocent IV approved the revised formula of life, which, with his
approval became a formal rule (regula). 9
The changes
in the text of the formula of life set the Carmelites full sail into the
mendicant identity. Some of the changes
made were: permission to have foundations in solitary places or where they are
given a site that is suitable and convenient for the purpose of the Order,
permission to eat meat, the recitation of the canonical hours, property in
common, common ownership and adding the vows of chastity and poverty. These changes in lifestyle of the Carmelites
created internal conflicts among the brothers.
With a very strong eremitical orientation, the move to the city and full
participation in the evangelical exercise of ministry of the Church among the
masses, created tensions within the Order.
The original identity of solitary search for God in silence and solitude
would constantly assert itself amidst the apostolic demands of ministry. These seemingly polarizing orientations would
occasion many internal debates and reforms in the Order in the succeeding
years.
Conclusion
The
Carmelite Order is a product of socio-political-religious changes originating
from the early Middle Ages. (And a product of God’s grace!) It began as an
ideal of holiness among simple individuals.
They followed the Lord in the simplicity of the Gospel teachings and
ended up with a total commitment to follow him in the land made holy by his
earthly presence. In allegiance to Jesus
Christ, in holy meditations, silence and solitude of Mount Carmel, they sought
him. But because “we do not have here
below a permanent dwelling place (St. Peter) these holy hermits had to finish
their journey in the land they first started in- Europe. [See comments
above] As part of the Church still on a
“journey towards the new Jerusalem” these hermits participated in full in the
life of the Church in the 13th century, with all its upheavals and spiritual
renewals. Theirs was a call to respond
to the signs of the times as they were played out in Medieval Europe. Theirs was a call to adaptability, a seeming
giving up of an established collective identity for something different and
new. Theirs is a Rule that has the power
to create something new out of the old.
Theirs is the blend of the active life and contemplative life that
creates a perpetual tension capable of giving birth to something mystical.
1 Monastic Background of Carmel, Audio Cassette ,Pentecost
1999, Fr. Patrick McMahon, O.Carm.
2 Catholic Encyclopedia Vol. 2, Hugh
Edmund Ford, “Saint Benedict of Nursia”
3 Dialogues, Saint Gregory, II
4 Classic Encyclopedia, 11th Edition Encyclopedia Britannica,
“Mendicant Movement and Orders”
5 Carmelite Rule, trans. Theodulf Vrakking and Joachim Smet,
Almelo (Netherlands): 1979
6 Historia Orientalis, F 85, cc.51/The History of Jerusalem;
fr. Aubrey Stewart, London, 1896, p. 26 -27)
7 The Rule of Saint Albert,
Prologue, Fr. Bede Edwards, 1973
8 “An Essay” 91, Keith Egan
9 “The Spirituality of
Carmelites” Keith Egan , page 52, Jill Raitt, Christian Spirituality, Volume 2.
New York: Crossroad, 1988
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