A Message from the Chair

I held the holy card for a few minutes, thinking about the person who received it and then deposited it in this book for me to discover a century later.  

This year we celebrate three hundred years since the canonization of John of the Cross and one hundred years since his declaration as a Doctor of the Church. The Carmelite Center is pleased to host a seminar on this Carmelite Mystic on September 22. Beginning at 4pm, Jodi Bilinkoff (Professor of History, Emerita, University of North Carolina at Greensboro) will offer a lecture titled “From Disgraced Friar to Doctor of the Church.” She will be followed by Alison Weber (Professor of Spanish, Emerita, University of Virginia) who will speak on “John of the Cross and Anne of Jesus: An Apostolic Friendship” and Christopher Wilson (Visiting Associate Professor in Art History, George Washington University) who will speak on “A Visual Identity for St. John of the Cross: Gijón, Villalpando, and the Formation of Carmelite Iconography.” The seminar will be recorded and made available on the Center’s website shortly after the seminar.

On September 30^th and October 7^th  at the St. Vincent de Paul Chapel on CUA’s campus, the Carmelite Centre will sponsor two moments of catechesis on the Carmelite brown scapular followed by the enrollment in the brown scapular on October 15^th. The catechesis will be led by Br. John-Mary of Jesus Crucified, O.C.D. and each person registered for this catechesis and enrollment will receive the recently published book, Flos Carmeli: A Guide to the Marion Consecration through the Brown Scapular by John-Mary Winter O.C.D. and Michael-Joseph Paris O.C.D.  This volume is available from ICS Publications.

On October 1^st, on the feast Of Saint Thérèse of Lisieux, the Carmelite Center will hold a prayer service in the student center at Catholic University. This center is at the crossroads of the campus—a perfect location to meet undergraduate students rushing by and introduce them to Saint Thérèse. Some of these young people want to tell us about the importance of Thérèse in their lives. Last year we ran out of roses (we had 300) so this year we have ordered 500 roses to celebrate The Little Flower.

Over the summer I had the opportunity to meet with the President of the Teresianum in Rome, Emilio José Martínez González.  We discussed possible collaborations between the Carmelite Center and their very impressive program in Carmelite studies. In early August at the invitation of Fr. Emanuel Frano Gomez, O.Carm. I spoke to over 350 catechists from the diocese of Tucson.  Fr. Manu, as he is known, is director of Youth and Young Adult Ministries for the diocese and he designed the art in the Spanish Missal for the United States. Also over the summer we began overhauling the Center’s website and the new site should be launched in the coming months. 

Among the highlights of my summer was a retreat I gave at our Spiritual Center in Niagara Falls, titled, Paintings and Passages, Sacred Texts and Sacred Art.  The last painting that we meditated on was by Giovanni Girolamo Savoldo. This masterpiece (see below) is a portrait of Mary Magdalene (1535-1540) looking out at us. In the lower left is Jesus’s tomb and the vase of oil she brought to anoint his body. A bit of her crimson garment, the traditional color for Mary Magdalene, can be seen on the lower right and just at the end of her sleeve. But she has wrapped herself in the shroud that Jesus left behind at his resurrection. As she holds it close to her face, she relives her encounter with the risen Lord and her expression speaks volumes. 

We at the Center wish you many blessings as we begin the academic year 2026-27 here at the Catholic University of America.