Reformed Carmelites

A reform movement within the Roman Catholic Church took place in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries and our holy mother St. Teresa of Ávila was an important figure in this Reformation which is also called the Counter Reformation. 

She is considered as the Spanish religious reformer and credited with reviving Catholicism in the 1560s and 1570s when Protestantism threatened to bring down the church. Her most significant contribution was the founding of the Reformed Discalced (Barefoot) Carmelite Convent of San Jose, a Catholic order for women. At the time of her death in 1582 she had started seventeen new Reformed Discalced Carmelite convents, or religious houses, in Spain.

The Carmelites were formally known as the Order of the Brothers of the Blessed Virgin Mary. The need for reform of the Carmelite order was recognized by the early sixteenth century, and some early attempts at reform were made then.

St Teresa started a reform movement among the nuns and then with the help of St John of the Cross, among the friars in 1568 in Spain. In 1592 this reform, called that of the "Discalced Carmelites" or of the "Teresians", became independent from the Carmelite Order and grew rapidly.

St John of the Cross began the first monastery of the Teresian reform for the friars.

The reformed Carmelites are also known as Discalced (shoeless) Carmelites and have produced many canonized saints.

So it is today in the 21st century the Discalced Carmelite friars and nuns continue to live this way of life begun on Mount Carmel and reformed by St Teresa of Avila. An important element of her reform was to rescue the practice of mental prayer.

The aim of the reform was to restore and emphasize the austerity and contemplative character of primitive Carmelite life. Because Reformed Carmelites wore sandals in place of shoes and stockings, they came to be called the Discalced, or barefooted, Carmelites, to distinguish them from the older branch of the order.