St Teresa of Avila's day

"You should take no notice of the temptation to give up prayer and should thank God for your desire of practicing it. "

Our Lady of Mount Carmel, pray for us!

memo

"I knew perfectly well that I had a soul, but I did not understand what that soul merited, or Who dwelt within it, until I closed my eyes to the vanities of this world in order to see it. I think, if I had understood then, as I do now, how this great King really dwells within this little palace of my soul, I should not have left Him alone so often, but should have stayed with Him and never have allowed His dwelling-place to get so dirty."

'The Way of Perfection', St Teresa of Avila

...

One year in Carmel

Rosary bag: Ascension of Our Lord & Mount Carmel

St John of the Cross

"No man of himself can succeed in voiding himself of all his desires in order to come to God."

Maestra de Oracion

Exaltation of the Holy Cross

...

Our Lady of Carmel 16.07

There was nothing in the Virgin's soul

that belonged to the Virgin -

no word, no thought, no image, no intent.

She was a pure, transparent pool reflecting

God, only God.

She held His burnished day; she held His night

of planet-glow or shade inscrutable.

God was her sky and she who mirrored Him

became His firmament.

When I so much as turn my thoughts towards her

my spirit is enisled in her repose.

And when I gaze into her selfless depths

an anguish in me grows

yo hold such blueness and to hold such fire.

I pray to hollow out my earth and be

filled with these waters of transparency.

I think that one could die of this desire,

seeing oneself dry earth or stubborn sod.

Oh, to become a pure pool like the Virgin,

water that lost the semblances of water

and was a sky like God. 

Jessica Powers, 'The Pool of God'

'The Names of Jesus', the vase

Ascension of Our Lord

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(the day I entered Carmel)

'Ecce Homo' - 'Christ the Bridegroom'

Carmelite prayer