The Shield of Carmel or
The Carmelite Crest
There have been several explanations of the design and they are all connected with the Prophet Elijah of the Old Testament. The Carmelites trace their origin to the hermits who lived in the spirit of Elijah on Mount Carmel in the twelfth century.
The peak or point in the centre of the shield is taken to represent Mount Carmel, the scene of the Prophet’s greatest triumph over the false prophets of Baal, and the dwelling place of the followers of Elijah. The star in the lower part symbolises Elijah while the two stars above it represent Christ and Mary. Many saints and early writers have seen a symbol of Our Lady in the cloud which Elijah saw arising from the sea to bring rain to the parched land of Israel (see 1Kings 18:44). The early hermits built an oratory in honour of Our Lady on Mount Carmel and chose her as their patroness. Later they become known as the Brothers of the Blessed Virgin Mary of Mount Carmel. Others have seen the lower star representing us and the upper stars representing Elijah and Mary, the two great models for the Order, guiding us up the Mount towards Christ. Another interpretation sees the lower star representing Elijah and the Prophetic Tradition while the two upper stars represent the Greek (Eastern) Tradition and the Latin (Western) Tradition.
The sword symbolises the power and zeal of Elijah. In the Scriptures Elijah appears again and again as God’s Prophet, speaking out boldly against abuses and reminding the Israelites of their special calling to live as God’s people. The sword is sometimes shown as flaming, to suggest the ardent and zealous spirit of the Prophet; moreover it recalls the fire which he called down from heaven upon the mountain of Carmel to confound the false prophets of Baal (see 1Kings 18:38). Elsewhere in the bible we are told, Then the prophet Elijah arose like a fire, his sword flashing like a torch (see Ecclesiasticus 48:1).
Around the crest are grouped twelve stars. The number is meant to refer to the crown of the woman in the Book of Revelations (or the Apocalypse), who has always been taken as a figure of Our Lady, And a great sign appeared in heaven: a woman clothed with the sun, and the moon under her feet and her head a crown of twelve stars (Revelations 12:1).
The motto or legend consists of the words of Elijah taken from the First Book of the Kings, 19:10: With zeal have I been zealous for the Lord God of Hosts. In Latin the phrase reads: Zelo zelatus sum pro Domino Deo exercituum. These words express the whole life of the prophet Elijah and the very spirit that moved him. The crest or coat of arms stands as an emblem of that tradition and is associated with Carmelite spirit which has been handed down to us.
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Chapter 10 of the Carmelite Rule says that a Carmelite is to stay in or near their cell, always watchful in prayer, unless doing some physical work. They lived in separate cells or huts and observed vows of silence, seclusion, and abstinence.
The Carmelites, formally known as the Order of the Brothers of the Blessed Virgin Mary, were to hear Mass every morning in the oratory of the community, take vows of poverty and toil, and maintain daily silence from vespers until terce the next morning.
Even meals are to be taken in silence while they listen to a reading from a spiritual book.
From Elijah, Carmelites learn to listen for the voice of God in the unexpected and in silence. We seek to allow the Word of God to shape our minds and our hearts - ours is a way of life in which the Word of God is cherished in silence.
For souls aspiring to contemplation, both silence and solitude are a necessity. The early Carmelites went into the solitude of the desert to focus their lives exclusively on God. They viewed Elijah as the father of monasticism, and from that time they sought God's presence in solitude and lived on Mount Carmel.
“Solitude is not an empty space, a void; it is an encounter with the God who loves us…”
Solitude walks hand in hand with silence.
Carmelite spirituality proposes silence and solitude as necessary pre-requisites for prayer and contemplation. Silence refers not only to external noise but also to the stilling of one’s internal noises.
Silence is the condition for listening attentively to the still small voice of God. Solitude provides the ambience where one may be alone so as to focus more attentively on the Beloved. Solitude then is not primarily separation or isolation from others, but a place of privileged encounter with the Beloved.
Each Carmelite from solitude, pilgrims to the encounter with the Lord every morning, and we can sing with the psalmist: "O God, you are my God-- for you I long!
Carmelite nuns embrace a life of silence and solitude to foster an atmosphere conducive to recollection and prayer. As God's sweetness is tasted in the silence, a desire for solitude naturally arises.
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.
The Carmelite Order is one of the four great Mendicant Orders of the Roman Catholic Church, dating to the Middle Ages. Our Carmelite spirituality is very much influenced by the notion of 'mendicancy', a term which comes from the Latin word mendicare meaning beggars.
The Mendicant Orders are, primarily, certain Christian religious Orders that have adopted a lifestyle of poverty, traveling, and living in urban areas for purposes of preaching, evangelization, and ministry, especially to the poor.
The Mendicant Orders surviving today are the four recognized by the Second Council of Lyon (1274): Dominicans, Franciscans, Augustinians (Augustinian Hermits), and Carmelites, as well as Trinitarians, Mercedarians, Servites, Minims, Hospitallers of St. John of God, and the Teutonic Order.
The Carmelites were able to settle in cities and towns, undertake the ministry of mendicants, especially preaching and the hearing of confessions. The Order quickly clericalized for these ministries, but was slower to move into academics.
Originally a group of hermits, apparently European, living on Mount Carmel in Palestine, the Carmelites established themselves in the Latin West as an order of itinerant mendicants.
The Carmelite Monks of the Most Blessed Virgin Mary of Mount Carmel are a monastic or cloistered Roman Catholic community.
In the solitude and silence of their monasteries, the Carmelite monks seek to perpetuate the charism of the Blessed Virgin Mary by living the word of God day and night.
The Carmelite Monks are the only monastery of contemplative, cloistered monks within the family of Carmel. Their life is characterized by prayer and contemplation. This community of Carmelite hermits live a hidden life of silence and prayer and separation from the world for the good of the Church.
The friars (brothers) are the oldest continually-surviving branch of the Carmelite Family. The very first Carmelites were hermits living on Mount Carmel. There were always solitary hermits or communities of monks on Mount Carmel. The Order was created and given their rules by the Patriarch of Jerusalem, St Albert Avigadro. This became known as the Carmelite Rule of St Albert.
The Carmelite monks live in accordance to the primitive Carmelite Rule and the ancient monastic observance of Carmelite men and are devoted to Mary and serve God through prayer, community and fraternity. The Carmelites also keep alive the ancient eremitical custom of permitting the monks to take walks during recreation through the woods and countryside within the monastery.
Inspired by the life and spirit of Prophet Elijah, the purpose of Carmelite life is precise - it is a life of prayer and sacrifice for the sanctification of priests and the salvation of souls.
Like the 13th-century hermits, the Carmelite monks are dedicated to a life of solitude.
Mount Carmel has always been a symbol of beauty. Mount Carmel is of great importance for Carmelites because the Order of Carmelites has its origins on this beautiful mountain in Palestine. The name means garden or orchard. It seems in the Old Testament this mountain has been mentioned twenty-nine times and is especially associated with Prophet Elijah. It rises 1,742 feet above sea level and towers above Israel's Mediterranean coastline.
Mount Carmel is a mountain spur projecting into the sea south of Haifa, Israel. Its bold outline can be seen for many miles. The Greek philosopher Pythagoras was reportedly attracted to Carmel by its sacred reputation.
Some hermits lived on Mount Carmel near the Fountain of Elijah in northern Israel in the 12th century. The name of our Order has been derived from Mount Carmel, the place of our outset, as by the end of the twelfth century, a group of Crusaders settled on the western slopes of Mount Carmel.
About 1156, the Order of Carmelites was founded, and a new monastery was built in honour of St. Mary of Mount Carmel.
The entire recorded history of Mount Carmel is one of a place of worship. It is on the heights of Mount Carmel that the Carmelite Order originated in the Holy Land. We do not have a particular founder.
Today the Order is found on all five continents.
The prophets of Mount Carmel reminded one and all that God lives among His people and that He loves each one of us with an everlasting love. The mission of the Carmelites is to let this love permeate the entirety of their lives
St. Teresa of Avila and St. John of the Cross once wrote of the Carmelite vocation: “I understood that the Church had a Heart and that this Heart was BURNING WITH LOVE.”
Thus, our Carmelite vocation is all about love and Divine Union. Love is the origin, means and goal of the Carmelites. God loves us and creates us as the object of love.
Nothing seems impossible to the one who loves! Without love, deeds, even the most brilliant, count as nothing.” St. Teresa of Avila
“In the heart of the Church, my vocation is love.” – St. Therese of Lisieux
As Secular Carmelites, we try to show God's love in our everyday lives, wherever God leads us and with the people God gives us.
The Blessed Virgin has shown her patronage over the Order of Carmel from its earliest days. The scapular is a sign of the love of Mary.
Our Carmelite charism is a pure gift from God. He is the contemplative, burning with passionate love for the Absolute who is God, his word flaring like a torch. We hope to touch all people with the healing and renewing power of God's love.
St. Teresa cannot get along without a heart that loves.
Haifa is Israel's third largest city, beautifully set on the slopes of Mount Carmel facing the Mediterranean Sea. For decades, Haifa has been Israel's model of what a 'mixed' Jewish-Arab city could be.
Haifa, Hebrew H̱efa, city, northwestern Israel, is where the Carmelite Order was established in the late 12th century when Crusader-era pilgrims, inspired by prophet Elijah, opted for a hermitic life on the slopes of the beautiful Mount Carmel.
Our first Carmelite fathers lived in obedience to Jesus Christ on this holy mountain.
A hermit is a person living in solitude as a religious discipline. The root of the word is the Greek erēmos, meaning “solitary.” A life of solitude isn't for everyone, but a hermit chooses it for any number of reasons. The hermit lives a life hidden within the heart of the Mystical Body of Christ, His Church.
The first Carmelites were hermits living on the slopes of Mount Carmel. This community of Carmelite hermits lived a hidden life of silence and prayer and separation from the world for the good of the Church. This Roman Catholic religious community observed the eremitical charism of the first hermits on Mount Carmel and the primitive Carmelite Rule of St. Albert of Jerusalem.
It is well known that the early Carmelites were hermits. It seems that they were men from Western Europe who had gone to the Holy Land as pilgrims.
The first Carmelites came as pilgrims to Mount Carmel to live a solitary lifestyle. These early hermits were mostly laity, who lived an unofficial religious life and they lived in separate cells or huts and their vocation was contemplative prayer. The foundation of their life was the Eucharist and Sacred Scriptures.
(900 BCE–849 BCE)
Elijah, also spelled Elias or Elia, Hebrew Eliyyahu, is a Hebrew prophet who prophesied during the reign of King Ahab of Israel. He came from Tishbeh in Gilead but nothing is known of his family or birth.
He performed his first miracles in the town of Zarephath, near Sidon, in the house of a poor widow.
After Elijah's victory over the prophets of Baal when he called down fire from heaven, the drought ended. Elijah was a prophet of God. Elijah told Ahab and his people to repent. If they did not repent, God would send a famine. There would be no water. The Elijah narrative took shape in the northern kingdom of Israel.
The Holy Prophet Elijah is one of the greatest of the prophets and the first dedicated to virginity in the Old Testament.
The first Carmelites were rooted in a prophetic tradition which goes back to the time of the Prophet Elijah. They venerated the prophet and established themselves near the fountain called cherith or Elijah's Spring or Well of Elijah on Mount Carmel. They gathered here and regarded themselves as the sons of the prophet. They led their life Prophet Elijah’s footsteps.
As the patron of the Carmelites St. Elijah is honoured on July 20, who is known as the father of Carmel. His words “with zeal I have been zealous for the Lord God of Hosts” are the Carmelite motto.
The eremitical life or the vocation of being a hermit is another way to live out God's call to live fully and to proclaim the Good news. An eremite or a hermit is a person living in solitude as a religious discipline. Eremitical life is, under certain aspects, the most complete form of monastic life as recognized by the Catholic Church.
The first Carmelites were hermits living on the slopes of Mount Carmel as the only site suitable for the eremitical life left in the Holy Land was Mount Carmel. The Rule was written for hermits living the kind of eremitical life common in Palestine in the thirteenth century. These hermits lived a hidden life of silence and prayer. They wished to lead a life like that of Elijah, the exemplary solitary one.
The Teresian Carmel joins both the original eremitical spirit of Carmel to life lived in Community. St. Teresa of Avila wanted the Discalced Carmelites to be “hermits living in community”. Even if in our own time there are few who are able to persevere continuously as hermits, the eremitical life remains revered as a unique charism within the Carmelite Spirituality.
The Eucharist, also called Holy Communion or Lord's Supper, is a ritual commemoration of Jesus' Last Supper with his disciples. The Holy Eucharist is a sacrament and a sacrifice. According to Catechism of the Catholic Church (CCC) 1360, “The Eucharist is a sacrifice of thanksgiving to the Father, a blessing by which the Church expresses her gratitude to God for all his benefits…….”
The Carmelite life has always been centred around the Eucharistic celebration. The first hermits on Mount Carmel gathered daily for the Eucharist. The Rule calls on Carmelites to share daily in the Eucharist. The chapel is to be in the midst of the cells, which evokes the heavenly Jerusalem. The Carmelite rule also speaks much about silence, solitude and meditation. Christ is present in both the solitude of the cell and the Eucharist.
The Eucharist is the source and summit of our entire lives as Discalced Carmelites. At the heart of community life is the abiding Eucharistic Presence of Christ. The Eucharist is the power which permits us to arrive at contemplation.
The way of life of a Carmelite is rooted in the Gospels and a deep love for Jesus in the Holy Eucharist. We ponder on the scriptures as we go about our daily tasks. The heart of our day is the celebration of the Eucharist.
In August 1562 Saint Teresa of Ávila founded a new style of Carmelite community in Ávila, Spain. It was to become the first of a new Order – the Order of Discalced Carmelites (OCD). Thus the Discalced Carmel acknowledges Saint Teresa as its mother and foundress. She envisioned an Order fully dedicated to poverty. She felt strongly about this and thus the virtue of poverty became integrally related to this Religious Order.
The Barefoot Carmelites is a more common name for the Discalced (from Latin: without shoes) Carmelites. The Discalced Carmelites are a Roman Catholic religious community of priests, brothers, nuns, and laity serving the Church. We embrace the religious life in friendship and service of Jesus Christ.
Our religious Order’s heritage reaches back to a community of hermits living on Mount Carmel in Palestine during the late-12th century. But in 1592 the Discalced Carmelites or of the Teresians became independent from the Original Carmelites (O Carms) and grew independently but be it the Teresian Carmelites or the O Carms, the ultimate vocation of the Carmelites is to live in allegiance to Jesus Christ who loves us.
India
The Discalced Carmelites came to India in the beginning of the 17th Century. They founded their first residence at Tatta in Sind, now in Pakistan, and the second, in Goa in 1620.
Sebastiani and four friars, the first Carmelite Missionaries, were sent to India by Pope Alexander VII and with them begins the history of Carmelites in our country. Fr. Benigno of St. Michael, Fr Leander of the Annunciation, who had been sent to the Persian mission, came to Goa in 1619 and the Carmelites were able to establish roots there in 1621. They began their mission in India at Old Goa. Carmelites were a prominent Order at Old Goa along with Jesuits, Franciscans and Augustinians since 1619 till the Portuguese suppressed religious orders in 1834.
The Carmelites, on their refusing to take the Oath of Allegiance to the king, were expelled from Goa in 1707. The church fell into disuse and ruins soon after. Nothing remains of the Church of the Carmelites built in 1621, except the façade and a raised pavement which served as an altar. It is located to the south-east of the Church of St. Cajetan on a hill more or less contiguous to the hill on which the Chapel of Our Lady of the Mount stands.
Today there are around 1000 Discalced Carmelite friars and some 500 Discalced Carmelite nuns (34 monasteries) spread across India.
The present monastery building Convent do Carmo (Carmelite Convent/Monastery) was a novitiate house and was built in 1943. Today Carmelites have three foundations (Margao, Mapusa and Xellim) in Goa.
In 2019, the Discalced Carmelites celebrated 400 years of their presence in India. This celebration was held from February, 8-10 in Goa.
The Constitutions of the Carmelite Order stand as an expression of the ideals and spirit of the Order of Our Lady of Mount Carmel.
The Carmelite Order produces Constitutions periodically that reflect on how Carmelite life and the Rule of Saint Albert are to be lived in the present age.
According to our Constitutions, to be a Carmelite is to live a prophetic life, after the example of the prophet Elijah.
The document, called an apostolic constitution, includes a dozen directives on various points of life within contemplative religious communities.
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