{"id":28049,"date":"2026-09-17T10:21:57","date_gmt":"2026-09-17T15:21:57","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/carmelites.net\/?p=28049"},"modified":"2026-09-17T14:49:49","modified_gmt":"2026-09-17T19:49:49","slug":"webinar-transcript-fr-jack-welch-o-carm","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/carmelites.net\/it\/webinar-transcript-fr-jack-welch-o-carm\/","title":{"rendered":"Carmelo e la vita interiore"},"content":{"rendered":"\t\t
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Carmel and the Interior Life<\/strong><\/h1>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t
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Having an interior life sounds rather mysterious. Another term for it could be having a spiritual life.
<\/strong><\/em>An interior or a spiritual life can sound like a luxury to people who are occupied with the problems of daily life.<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t

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HOST: Edith Matlock of CINA | SPEAKER: Fr. Jack Welch, O.Carm., PCM Province | RECORDED LIVE: October 20, 2018<\/em><\/p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t

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Edith Matlock<\/p>

Hello, I’m Edith Matlock, Director of the Carmelite Institute of North America, and I would like to welcome you to our ongoing webinar series. Usually, at this point, I do explain a little bit about the work of the Carmelite Institute. But today, in lieu of doing that explanation, we’ve developed a very short three-minute video which describes the who and the what of the Carmelite Institute of North America. This video will be sent to your email at the very end of this webinar today, and I invite you to take a look at it, and this way you can see for yourself the work and have a better understanding of the work of the Carmelite Institute of North America.<\/p>

I would also like to tell you that while Father Jack Welch is speaking today, you do have the opportunity to ask questions. If you would scroll down below this video presentation, it says ask questions below. You can type in your questions there. If you don’t have a Facebook account to do that, then you can email me the questions while Father Jack is speaking to our email, director at carmelstream.org. At the end of Father Jack’s talk, I will be asking the questions of him, and he’ll be able to answer them.<\/p>

Now I would like to introduce to you Father Jack Welch. Father Jack is originally from Chicago. He was ordained a priest in the Carmelite Order in 1965. He taught in Carmelite High Schools for six years and then began to teach in the Washington Theological Union, a graduate school of theology preparing men and women for ministry in the church. At the WTU, he specialized in Carmelite spirituality and human development. Father Welch served 12 years on the Carmelite International Commission for Charism and Spirituality.<\/p>

He was president of the Carmelite Institute in 1993 to 2001. He served as provincial of his Carmelite province, the Most Pure Heart of Mary, from 2005 to 2011. Father Welch has a master’s degree in theology and a PhD in religious education from the University of Notre Dame. Among his publications are Spiritual Pilgrims: Carl Jung and Teresa of Avila. When Gods Die: An Introduction to St. John of the Cross, The Carmelite Way: An Ancient Path for Today’s Pilgrim, Seasons of the Heart: The Spiritual Dynamic of the Carmelite Life.<\/p>

And now without further ado, I’d like to welcome Father Jack Welch.<\/p>

Father Jack Welch<\/p>

Hello to all who are participating in this webinar and thank you for joining the class. I appreciate the opportunity to speak to you about the Carmelite tradition and the topic for the webinar is Carmel and the interior life. The process I’ll follow is I’ll read a prepared text but then on occasion additional comments. So I’d like to begin with the interior life. What is it? Having an interior life sounds rather mysterious. Another term for it could be having a spiritual life. An interior or a spiritual life can sound like a luxury to people who are occupied with the problems of daily life.<\/p>

People have said I like to have a spiritual life but right now I have a lot of problems in my life and when I get that straightened out then I’ll have time to have a spiritual life. Having an interior or spiritual life even sounds a little selfish. It seems to imply that withdrawing within myself and letting the cares of the world go by. It can sound like a gated spiritual existence where I live in another reality apart from the world. But really a life that’s a life of interiority and prayer is the opposite of an escape from problems.<\/p>

Fundamentally a spiritual life is a life lived with attention to and response to God’s Spirit working within us. It’s life lived in its depths, in its fullness and such an interior life is not a luxury. It’s essential to making our journey well in life and a messy life does not make us unfit for a spiritual life. The very messiness is the context for our spirituality. God is found right there where we’re struggling the hardest. One time Teresa of Avila heard in prayer God say to her seek yourself in me and she asked some people what that meant and John of the Cross apparently said you have to die to the world in order to seek yourself in God.<\/p>

And Teresa said well that’s not how I would understand it. She said look at the women in the Gospels, look at Mary Magdalene with her seven demons, look at the Canaanite woman, the Syrophoenician woman who was not Jewish, she was Gentile, look at the Samaritan woman with the life that she brought to the well. None of them died to the world or changed before Jesus met them. He met them right there and spoke with them, drove the demons out of Mary Magdalene, healed the Canaanite woman’s daughter and told the Samaritan woman everything she’d ever done.<\/p>

So Teresa’s point in that is God meets us where we’re at in life, right where we’re at and then invites us more fully into our life. So a messy life doesn’t make us unfit, that’s the context for our spirituality. Right where we care most deeply, where the heart is struggling the most or is troubled, that’s where we’re living, our spiritual life. Henri Nouwen, whom I’m sure many of you have read, a priest psychologist, popular teacher and writer in the field of Christian spirituality wrote that the spiritual life is not a life before, after or beyond our everyday existence.<\/p>

In other words it’s our everyday existence, it’s not before or beyond it or any other place but right there where we’re living our life. And he described the spiritual life as the active presence of God’s Spirit in the midst of a worry-filled existence. Nouwen’s assessment is that our busy lives often leave us feeling scattered and fragmented. We’re all over the place but really nowhere. As he says, most of us have an address but we can’t be found there. Being busy is not the problem. Jesus was very busy, hardly alone, but it’s having a true center.<\/p>

What’s missing is a true center. We’re busy about many things, having many centers, but we need to pay attention to the one necessary thing. Jesus tells us the one necessary thing is the compassionate presence of God. That center, the Holy Spirit, helps us relativize and prioritize our many centers. He calms down our anxieties and worries and this life guided by the Holy Spirit is the spiritual life. St. Teresa of Avila offered a good image for an interior life.<\/p>

When she wrote about her journey of prayer with God, she was 62 years old. She died at 67. So it’s her classic summary of her life. And her image for interiority was a crystal globe or castle [wording uncertain], an inner castle. And her journey as she conceived in this imaginative way was the journey from outside the castle to the center where the king dwelt for deep union or marriage. The king summoned her into this union. Outside where she starts, it’s dark and cold, distracting.<\/p>

But as she enters the castle in this relationship with the mystery at the core of her life, the God who invited her in, then her loves, many loves start to get prioritized and organized. Her image is a very interesting image for the journey. Look where God is in that image. It’s not a matter of going out and finding God or inviting God back into our life or winning God or proving to God, God is there. In theology, those saying, God is always already there in the center of our life, in the center of our existence.<\/p>

It’s we who are not there. That’s why Nouwen would say we have an address, but we can’t be found there. And you remember St. Augustine saying after his conversion, he said, Lord, you were inside, but I was outside. You were with me. I was not with you. So Teresa’s image for the journey from the periphery of our life to the center is a very powerful one. She said, but the problem is we don’t know who we are. It would be inviting simply to enter into this relationship with God.<\/p>

But her analysis is that we lack self-knowledge. We don’t really know who we are. And so our concerns, our priorities on the periphery of our life, and she names them business affairs, family, honor. We could have all kinds of things, possessions, titles, many good things in themselves. But each one drawing on us, drawing on our energy and fragmenting us. And without a true center, we ask from each of those other centers, who am I? What’s my value? What’s my worth? And so we’re really trying to find out who we are, but in places where we are not going to hear the truth.<\/p>

For Teresa, she said, I can’t know who I am unless I know you. So it’s in relationship with him that holy mystery at the center of life in relationship with that center with God, then she comes to the true knowledge of who she is. So when she says the problem is we lack self-knowledge, it means we’re in a sense on the periphery of our life without a true center. And so those many centers and concerns and priorities and commitments and responsibilities tug at us and fragment us and they can cause obviously anxiety and worry. Having one center and beginning to relate to that center, then starts to put these other loves in order and prioritizes them.<\/p>

So what was her solution to the problem of lacking self-knowledge in this image? Well, it was prayer and reflection. He said, prayer and reflection are the door to our interior life. And she says, that’s not easy to have a prayer life, but that prayer and reflection then will begin this relationship. And notice in her image of this holy mystery at the center of our life, it’s not we who speak first in prayer, but it’s God who speaks and addresses us and calls us more fully into our life to become more fully who we are. The more she could say God, the more she could say Teresa.<\/p>

And God calls us into a freedom from things that may be good, but we’ve made them idols and we’re clinging to them, asking to find out what our worth may be. And so that relationship with God frees us from making idols that way. It also helps us be more generous and it draws us into a deeper union and friendship. So prayer and reflection is the door to the castle. The goal obviously in the long run is union with God and it’s a loving union. So in St. Teresa’s reform of Carmel, she was returning to the origins of the Carmelite tradition and she was remembering the life established by the first Carmelites.<\/p>

And so I’d like to talk a little bit about the Carmelite tradition and its origins. And Teresa was returning to that in imagination and structuring her communities in a way that that original environment might take place in her time. And it’s an environment, a life structure that helps us have an interior life. So the Carmelites, Mount Carmel in Israel is the original site of the religious community, which would take its name from the mountain. The first community gathered on the mountain sometime in the late 1100s was a group of men from the West, perhaps a combination of recent arrivals in the Holy Land and perhaps a hermit from other sites that were now untenable.<\/p>

The crusades were going on. These men, this first community were seeking to express their following of Jesus Christ by living where he lived. They sought the solitude of the mountain and especially the quiet of one of its valleys, the Wadi ‘ain es-Siah. They arranged their selves around an oratory, a chapel dedicated to the Blessed Virgin Mary and spent their days in contemplative prayer, labor and occasional outreach to the surrounding area. Just thinking of the physical structure, the geography of that quiet valley on Mount Carmel with the sacred center of an oratory and then the individual cells, which may have been huts or caves around it and being organized by that center.<\/p>

Conditions on Mount Carmel became difficult over time. Crusades were being fought around them and by 1291, after roughly 100 years on the mountain, Carmelites had to abandon Mount Carmel. That site forever haunted the memory of the Carmelites because Carmel is the ancestral home of the Carmelites. So now that site where the original Carmelites began lives mostly in the memory and imagination of Carmelites. The original site is abandoned. The ruins are a haunting reminder of the life that once was lived in the valley.<\/p>

The spring of Elijah still flows there. The Mediterranean still sparkles off in the distance. It was around the spring of Elijah that the first Carmelites gathered. They sought solitude and companionship. They wanted an opportunity to give all their attention to the mystery that had been haunting them. We can only guess at the changes that had taken place in their lives. We don’t know their backgrounds. We don’t know the roles they played in life or their titles. But in whatever way they’ve had a conversion, they wanted to live where Jesus lived, walk where Jesus walked, and live as a contemplative community together.<\/p>

These changes in their lives result in a deeper commitment to the Lord. And their pilgrimage of faith brought them to the land where Jesus walked. People today still go apart in solitude to meet the Lord. Life’s experiences have taught them that wherever they are, they’re on holy ground. They may make an interior journey inwardly taking up residence on Mount Carmel and sharing in the spirit of that first community. These present-day pilgrims dwell in the land of Carmel and may find guidance in its rule.<\/p>

So I’m going to rehearse the rule a little bit, a few of the chapters of the rule of Carmel, because they help give a life structure for someone who’s trying to have an interior life. They provide us with a foundation or a framework within a spiritual or interior or prayerful life may happen. The rule of Carmel is the first document produced by the original Carmelites living in the Wadi ‘ain es-Siah. The patriarch of Jerusalem gave this rule to the first Carmelites, but certainly the men in the valley contributed to the document talking about their way they had been living their life.<\/p>

The rule is more exhortatory than precisely prescriptive. It’s laced with Scripture, and it provides a life structure for these hermits, but also I think for seekers and searchers today. The elements of the rule help the Carmelites to live in a way whereby God can find them. In following the rule’s light-handed guidance, the Carmelite becomes more available to God. I like that language that we don’t follow the rule or any structure in order to win God or have God’s approval, but to be available to God.<\/p>

Not to be so hidden in our lives that God can’t find us. And this rule, one of the ways of talking about the outcome is that it helps us be available to God. There are a few items in the rule I’d like to mention and comment on them a bit in terms of how they help us live an interior life. It begins by saying, all must live in allegiance to Jesus Christ. So the following of Jesus Christ is the foundational call for the Christian. Jesus, the Lord, is the lodestar for the pilgrim traveling the land of Carmel. And the pilgrim is encouraged to serve the Lord with a pure heart.<\/p>

In Carmelite memory, Mary and Elijah are the first ones to make a vow of virginity to dedicate themselves to living with a pure heart. A pure heart is a free heart, free to desire the reign of God. Mount Carmel is the site where zealous Elijah challenged the prophets of the false God Baal. So the pilgrim in the land of Carmel is encouraged to sort through the preoccupations, the idols in life, and have one who is centered and who arranges all other loves accordingly. It’s basically the first commandment, have one God.<\/p>

A chapter three in the rule says, Albert provided what was called a formula of life. Initially it wasn’t identified as a rule, an official rule in the church, but it was a formula of life. It originally was a way for carrying out the purpose for which the Carmelites had gathered on the mountain. It was not a set of prescriptions to which men had to conform, but more a plan which focused and organized the life they had been living. Having come into liminal space away from all previous guideposts and whatever roles they had or patterns they were living in life, they now felt the need for minimal boundaries.<\/p>

From their lived experience, a life structure emerged. Today’s pilgrim comes to Carmel for the same purpose, to find a plan which gives structure to life. It is not essentially a set of rules to be followed, but a way of life to be lived. It’s a time-tested formula for holding to a path within the myriad responsibilities and activities in one’s life. Life in the land of Carmel brings order and harmony to fragmented and dissipated lives. And the many desires are harmonized, as the desire for God is clarified.<\/p>

So this Interior Life that Carmel helps us to live and invites us into is really this relationship with God, prayer life. And in that relationship, the many preoccupations we have that sort of pull us and push us start to calm down and they get organized by the center, the God who is emerging as our one God in life. Holy mystery. The rule says to the Carmelites that you may have places in solitary areas, which is obviously where they began, but also where suitable in places that are suitable and convenient.<\/p>

So this shows what happened in the first hundred years. Carmelites began returning to Europe, to places in Europe. And by the end of the 1200s, everyone had left this site on Mount Carmel and they were beginning to become mendicants in Europe, along with the Franciscans, Augustinians, Dominicans. They became street preachers and counselors and they were moving frequently and taking up different ministries. And so the original environment of solitude and silence now has to be expanded and understood differently. So the rule has this slight change that you could be in areas of solitude, but also places that may be suitable and convenient for the life.<\/p>

To comment on that, Carmel has always spoken to the heart seeking solitude. Founders of religious groups often went apart in deserts and forests as Jesus went up the mountain. The early eremitical existence of these founders often remained a haunting element in the charism of the community. And so too with the first Carmelites, this anonymous group speaks to the heart of those who look to the tradition. We recognize in them the same desire we have to be apart and prayerful and we instinctively know that we need a balance to our often overly involved lives.<\/p>

We most likely are not going to be hermits, we’re not going to be living in areas of great solitude, but we still have the same desires for the God who wants us and who calls us into this relationship. And we know our lives are very busy and so we identify with why the first Carmelites went onto the mountain. We have that same need to find balance in our lives and to make God, holy mystery, a priority. Early Carmelite foundations were often in remote settings, even in Europe, but this chapter of the rule recognizes that physical solitude alone does not guarantee a deeper attentiveness to God.<\/p>

It’s not a guarantee of an interior life. Other settings, other locations may also allow us to be open to God’s transforming love. Obligations and responsibilities may dictate where we live, but faith determines what we find there. So one of the ways I think about it, it’s possible to have an interior life at O’Hare airport. It’s not the busyness or the crowdedness, but it’s a matter of what kind of faith we bring and attention we bring to God who’s always already there.<\/p>

Wherever we are, and it may be very busy and crowded, we may look around and say there’s nothing nourishing here. But then when we recline in our lives and patiently wait in trust, we may discover food in abundance. So in whatever situation or location, that doesn’t mean we can’t have an interior life, obviously, or a prayer life. And I often think of the crowd on the mountainside who wanted to be fed, and the disciples said that the Lord sent them back to town where they can get food. Jesus said, have them recline on the grass. And there was plenty of food there.<\/p>

So it’s possible sometimes when we’re in life settings that don’t seem promising and almost inimical to having a prayer life, it’s possible that we recline in those lives and look around and with the eyes of faith, we might find that there’s more nourishment there than we thought. The rule continues. According to the site of the place in which you propose to dwell, all of you are to have separate individual cells assigned by the prior. Separate individual cells. We are the people of God. We don’t go to God simply by ourselves.<\/p>

We are God’s chosen people. We go together. But each one of us is challenged to have a personal relationship within that identity of being one of the people of God. So the rule, this is chapter six, says you to have separate individual cells. My comment on that. People have special places where they think and pray. It may be a corner of the house or outside in the garden, maybe in the car or in the basement. St. Th\u00e9r\u00e8se of Lisieux, the little flower while attending school at the Abbey, found a space behind her bed, shielded by the bed curtain.<\/p>

And there she said, I thought. Many people have a separate cell somewhere in their lives. A sense of aloneness often comes to the fore in life, particularly after a fall or a failure. We learn for quiet. We long for quiet and solitude. The rule of Carmel provides space to be alone, to enter into our unique existence before God. And in that experience is an invitation to withdraw into an inner cell of the heart, the inner cell of the heart, sort of interiorizing the structure in the wadi on Mount Carmel, the inner cell of the heart.<\/p>

It’s hard to do that. It’s hard to have a prayer life, an inner prayer, and to retreat that way. When St. Teresa talked about praying, she was very, very positive about those who even tried to pray because she said to have an interior life requires courage. And it’s not for the fearful. She says this out of her own experience. She said, I thought that to have an interior life, to go within and have a life of communion with God would be like going home. It would be much better than the problems that she had outside where she had to find buildings and hire contractors and raise funds and invite vocations.<\/p>

Many, many problems outside. She thought that having an interior life going within would be a very pleasant experience. And she says, I went within and I was at war with myself. She said, I found that the problems inside were much tougher than the problems outside. So she’s positive on any effort to try to have an interior life, to stop and to reflect and to be open. She encourages people to have courage, that fear and faint-heartedness are what keeps us from having this life. And why would that be? Well, one of the way she says it is, it’s harder to hear the call than not to hear it.<\/p>

If I hear God inviting me into a relationship, it’s disruptive of my patterns, perhaps. But also, prayer throws light on the inauthentic ways I may have been living without realizing it. I start to know perhaps the false selves I’ve been presenting to the world around and believing it myself. I start to recognize some of the false gods, maybe, the idols in my life. That prayer helps me to be more authentic to myself and more deeply aware of my own brokenness and my own woundedness, perhaps. But that’s the route to healing.<\/p>

That’s the route to my salvation, as it were, where I meet God’s compassion and mercy and so forth. But initially, it’s difficult. And so Teresa is quite positive about that, and she encourages them having a life of prayer. As we enter, we may not recognize ourselves in that transparency. We may hear other voices in our house. and have to come to terms with some of the ways we have been inauthentic. The rule also says it’s not permitted for any of the brothers to change his appointed place or exchange with another.<\/p>

The place or site is very important. The rule also says, arrange these cells and caves according to the lie of the land. You know, geographically kind of follow the contours of the land. But in this particular chapter, it says, and don’t change those cells, don’t change your caves and so forth. We often yearn to be elsewhere. And this chapter may respond to that yearning. To be restless is to be human. St. Augustine warned us that we will be restless until we rest in God. So certain restlessness, a certain unease is very natural because the heart is going to seek God and rest only when it finds God.<\/p>

The encouragement to honor where we are in life and to not ask more from it is a healthy admonition. Psychologically and spiritually, it sometimes is easier to move away rather than settle in and trust that here too is holy ground. And also running away, we can run away from ourselves if we don’t engage in a prayer life. So the encouragement to have courage and to begin to listen and attend to the God who calls us is always inviting us more deeply into our lives. We need that kind of encouragement and support.<\/p>

So the chapter in the rule says, don’t change cells. In other words, maybe look where you are at your particular cell in place and seek the God who addresses us there. Blessed Titus Brandsma, a Dutch Carmelite who was arrested for refusing Nazi propaganda or encouraging newspapers not to print Nazi propaganda. He was arrested, eventually died in Dachau. But en route he was in another jail in Scheveningen and he writes in this Scheveningen, I’m already quite at home in this small cell.<\/p>

I’ve not yet got bored here. Just the contrary, I’m alone certainly, but never was our Lord so near me. I could shout for joy because he made me find him again entirely without me being able to go to see people nor people me. Seldom have I been so happy and content. The Carmelite is in his cell. He’s not exchanging it. He’s there, but he’s coming to meet the God who’s always been there. And notice the point of this is not to simply be isolated. The point of this is to become more open to God and then the way I live begins to proclaim God’s reign.<\/p>

And that would make me more compassionate then and more caring for my brothers and sisters. This is not a narcissistic trip into isolation. It’s to be more deeply and fully committed to the people of God and to justice for the people of God. St. Teresa’s communities apparently on occasion would complain and they would say, well, we’re all good here. What’s the point of this? So the idea that’s unattainable, something out there, a more romantic mission, sometimes is more attractive than the mission field in front of us. Her communities sometimes, they knew they were constricted, limited opportunities for service.<\/p>

And she understood their chafing and she admonished them and I quote her, we shouldn’t build castles in the air. The Lord doesn’t look so much at the greatness of our works, as at the love with which they are done. So the basic search is not our search for God, but God’s search for us and God can find us anywhere. St. Teresa reminded us God meets us and accepts us where we are in our life. Our challenge is to accept the fact that we are accepted. Isn’t that a beautiful thought that we’re already accepted.<\/p>

We don’t have to prove or win God’s acceptance. We are loved and accepted by God. The big change is when we finally accept the fact that God has loved us all along. One theologian said in his estimation, the definition of faith is the acceptance, finally, of having been accepted all along. One of the better images for the journey comes from John of the Cross and his Living Flame of Love poem, where he talks about an awakening. And in that awakening, we come to know the God who’s always already been there.<\/p>

So awakening is a way of talking about the journey and coming to consciousness or an awareness of the one who always accepts us and loves us. So Teresa reminds us God meets us right where we’re at in our lives. John of the Cross talks about the journey as an awakening. All are to remain in their cells or near them, meditating day and night on the Law of the Lord, a very famous chapter in the Rule of Carmel, keeping vigil in prayer unless they’re occupied with other worthy activities.<\/p>

So remain in cell or near it, meditating on the Law of the Lord and keeping vigil in prayer, unless occupied with other worthy activities. Well, as we know, Carmelites are occupied in many different activities, but this is a call to remain contemplative at root. The Rule of Carmel challenges the pilgrim to have a personal relationship with the Lord, remain in your cell or near it. This relationship requires time and attention. It means staying within my cell and my cell in attentiveness and openness to God’s approach. The early Carmelites ruminated on Scripture, often praying it aloud in the privacy of their cell and its environs.<\/p>

This continual engagement with the Word of God provided a context so that the silence was not simply a vacuum. Watching for the approach of the Lord, the Carmelite is the lonely sparrow on the rooftop. Notice that much of what the Rule talks about becomes interiorized, the cell of the heart, the contemplative dimension of prayer, and continually listening for God in whatever conditions in life. In our prayer, God speaks first, we listen to the Word, and the mystery at the core of our lives continually invites us more deeply into those lives.<\/p>

And this call from God, sometimes heard in very difficult times, sometimes in joyful times, draws us away from our idols and prioritizes our lives. This chapter about living in the cell or near it keeps us from running from ourselves. We keep the boundaries which help us not be distracted and scattered. Being centered and mindful, we can engage in other worthy activities in a thoughtful and balanced manner. So you hear the contemplative dimension of this Carmelite tradition.<\/p>

And it’s not identified strictly with solitude or certain types of prayer, but it really is an encouragement to have a continual attentiveness, a listening, a level of attention to God that’s at the base of whatever we’re doing, whether it’s in our communities or in prayer or pastoral ministry, we continually have this listening heart for the God who approaches us in all these many ways. Chapter 14 in the rule encourages that an oratory or a chapel be built conveniently in the midst of the cells.<\/p>

So think of that geography in terms of having an interior life. They’re encouraged to build a chapel in the midst of the cells and to come together every day to hear Mass, where it’s convenient. In the 13th century, pilgrims to Jerusalem who passed by the mouth of the wadi of the valley reported seeing a chapel dedicated by the Carmelites to Mary. The scattered dwellings in the wadi had a sacred center. Individual lives were asked to come together daily and make visible their community. When you look at that geography in the sacred center and the community is surrounded and they’re called to meet at that center, you can think of the same way of thinking about living community or married life or family life.<\/p>

If we simply depend on our relationships with one another, let’s say in the periphery of the circle, if we form a marriage or family relationships simply. with one another, what can be missing there is the center to that marriage or that community or their prayer. And if each of us has a relationship with the center, then there we experience forgiveness, compassion, healing, and we start then to come back to our family or spouse or community, knowing that that’s the way God has treated us and that’s the way we want to live with one another, a certain amount of forgiveness and healing and compassion because God is being with us in that way.<\/p>

So it strengthens a community if each person in that community has a relationship with the one who’s at the center, God is at the center. The separate cell finds its grounding in the oratory, in the midst of the cells, where they used to gather and recall the purpose of their life and be challenged. The graciousness of the center permeates the relationships of the members, allows them to treat one another with understanding, patience, compassion. St. Teresa set a high standard for her Carmelite communities.<\/p>

All must be friends, all must be loved, all must be held dear, all must be helped. But that depends too on all must be relating to Jesus, friendship with one another, friendship with the Lord. And when the monks, the friars came together in the oratory, they met in memory of the Lord, and that reminded them of the Paschal mystery, the death and resurrection of the Lord, that’s the rhythm of their lives, and for his followers. And in this daily dying and rising, the individual lets go and trust in the community, deepens in charity.<\/p>

A further chapter or two, chapter 18, 19 begin to talk about the struggles, the rule of Carmelite, Carmelite is in part desert literature. And so it talks about like a roaring lion, the devil is prowling. Teresa used to, St. Teresa used to mock the devil. She said, why waste your breath saying devil, devil, when you could say God, God. No demons can separate us from the love of God. But being a devil to ourself is a problem. So while all the prescriptions in the rule or the guidelines in the rule are generally relative, if you can do it if possible, and so forth, the one non-negotiable in the rule is to be clothed in the armor of God.<\/p>

And Albert, the lawgiver, draws out Ephesians, and he says the Carmelite has to take up the shield of faith, the helmet of salvation, the sword of the spirit, and so forth. This armor of God really means the virtues, and we don’t put that armor on. God clothes us in these virtues. So that’s a non-negotiable. That’s an outcome of the rule that we, that the rule is to inspire. The entire rule leads to transformation, a deep conversion that founds the Carmelite, the one living by this rule, living in a manner cooperative with the reign of God.<\/p>

The way this person lives begins to proclaim the reign of God. Contemplation, this is my kind of favorite definition of it. Contemplation is being open to God’s transforming love, no matter how it is approaching. So a listening heart that allows God to change a person, a contemplative way of approaching God, that’s going to transform the person. The little flower’s insight was God is not looking for people to punish. God is looking for people to open their lives to God’s transforming love. That’s a very powerful insight.<\/p>

God’s not looking for people to punish, but to open their lives to God’s transforming love. And then a couple more of the chapters. You must have some sort of work to do so the devil may find you occupied. You have some sort of work to do. Some commentators wrote jokingly say it means you have to have some work. Everybody’s got to have some work, but that’s not it. So what’s the work of the Carmelites? Some sort of work to do. Well, Carmel in general announces the reign of God. The pastoral work of the Carmelite, the work that engages his or her attention, energy, has varied over the centuries.<\/p>

The work the Carmelites have done depended upon the call of the Church, the gifts and opportunities presented in Carmel, and the guidance of the Holy Spirit. The essential work of the Carmelite is a contemplative openness to God’s transforming love. So whether in parishes or schools, retreat houses, or settings that are in solitude, that contemplative openness to God’s transforming love is a non-negotiable. The listening heart informs Carmel’s prayer, community, and service. And then the Carmel, the apostle recommends silence.<\/p>

The rule, silence is the longest part of the rule, the chapter on silence. It’s the cultivation of justice and silence and hope will be your strength. So the rule requests that there be silence in the valley during the night. It also recommends silence during the day. And by such practice, the Carmelite is to eventually interiorize silence. So our outer environment doesn’t have to be totally quiet or silent. It may be quite noisy, as a matter of fact, but the Carmelite is challenged over time to interiorize silence and become an expectancy, to have an inner awaiting of the Lord as a basic attitude, no matter what they’re doing.<\/p>

And the silence of the contemplative community provides an atmosphere within which members may be attentive to God. However, contemplative prayer is not necessarily related to a lifestyle, as we said. It’s not necessarily related to solitude or silence, although it may be. But it’s a disposition. It’s a listening heart, possible in any circumstance in life. And the rule says silence is also related to justice. Talking discouraged by the rule is talking that robs another of the personhood by painting them according to the image of the painter. And such talk may do an injustice to the other.<\/p>

And then the final chapter of the rule I’d like to raise up. It urges us to have a prayerful life. Albert the Lawgiver, Patriarch of Jerusalem, says, We’ve written these things briefly for you, establishing a formula for your way of life, according to which you are bound to live. But if anyone will have expended more, the Lord himself, when he returns, will repay him. Use discernment [wording uncertain], which is the Guide of the Virtues. So think of that chapter. I’ve written things for you, according to which you’re bound to live.<\/p>

But if you do more, the Lord himself will repay you. So this chapter alludes to the Gospel of the Good Samaritan. The Samaritan takes a beaten, wounded man to an inn, and asks the innkeeper to take care of the wounded man, and says, I’ll repay you upon my return. In this chapter, Albert has put the Carmelite in the role of the innkeeper. The Lord has taken our wounded world to the Carmelite, now in the role of innkeeper.<\/p>

And Albert writes that the Lord will reward whoever has expended more. What does expended more mean? Or activities? Or deepening in faith? St. John of the Cross says, There is one degree of love. We’re in the center. We’re with the Lord. But he writes, there’s still more. Like a stone in the earth, we can always go deeper into the center. Albert, in this last chapter of the rule of Carmel, testifies that the journey of transformation is open-ended. The pilgrim in the land of Carmel is on a lifelong exploration into the mystery of God.<\/p>

So a conclusion. Three of Carmel’s saints have been so influential in teaching the Church to pray that they’ve been declared doctors of the universal Church. And the key criterion for such a title is eminent doctrine. These three saints, Teresa of Avila, John of the Cross, Th\u00e9r\u00e8se of Lisieux, are honored for having profound insights into the Gospel. And each doctor has found their way into the interior life and left a mapping. But there are many other voices in Carmel that may accompany us in our spiritual journey. The blesseds and saints inhabiting the land of Carmel include Andrew Corsini, Peter Thomas, Nuno \u00c1lvares, Mary Magdalene de Pazzi, Teresa of Avila, John of the Cross, John of St. Samson, Lawrence of the Resurrection, Th\u00e9r\u00e8se of Lisieux, Z\u00e9lie and Louis Martin, Elizabeth of the Trinity, Titus Brandsma, Edith Stein, all explorers on the Spiritual Journey.<\/p>

Carmelites have served the Church in numerous ministries and in diverse lifestyles. The one constant preoccupation over the centuries has been attentiveness to God in prayer. Carmel has had to continually remind itself about its beginnings as a contemplative community on Mount Carmel. And Carmel saints have witness to the primacy of prayer in its tradition. Pope Benedict XVI declared, Carmel teaches the Church how to pray and the Spirit teaches Carmel how to pray. Again, thank you for your attention, attendance in this webinar and for the opportunity to speak to you about the Carmelite tradition.<\/p>

And I hope this experience will encourage you to delve more into the tradition if you care to, but more importantly, to continue your own interior journey of prayer in response to God’s invitation. So I thank you. And I thank the North American Carmelite Institute for giving me this opportunity.<\/p>

Questions & Answers<\/p>

Edith Matlock<\/p>

Thank you, Father Jack. That was a wonderful presentation on the interior life. We do have a couple of questions. So the first one from Lourdes in Canada. Thank you, Father Welch, for your inspiring presentation. There’s much to ponder and reflect. A couple of questions. The first is, could we obtain a copy of your presentation? The second is, what books would you recommend to read or study to help us as we develop the interior life? Thank you.<\/p>

Father Jack Welch<\/p>

Yeah, I’m sorry. The screen froze and the voice didn’t come through.<\/p>

Edith Matlock<\/p>

Okay. All right. I’ll repeat it again. It’s from Lourdes from Canada.<\/p>

Father Jack Welch<\/p>

Okay.<\/p>

Edith Matlock<\/p>

She thanked you for your inspiring presentation. And she has two questions. The first is, can she obtain or can we obtain a copy of the presentation? And the second is, what books would you recommend to read or study to help us as we develop the interior life?<\/p>

Father Jack Welch<\/p>

Well, I heard those questions. I think this presentation will be made available. Is that correct, Edith?<\/p>

Edith Matlock<\/p>

Well, the video will be made available. I think what she’s asking about is the written presentation if you had one.<\/p>

Father Jack Welch<\/p>

Yeah, it is written.<\/p>

Edith Matlock<\/p>

Oh, okay. If you wanted to speak with her about that privately, I don’t know.<\/p>

Father Jack Welch<\/p>

I would think she could send me an email.<\/p>

Edith Matlock<\/p>

Okay.<\/p>

Father Jack Welch<\/p>

Maybe I could then send some kind of a text back. That might be helpful.<\/p>

Edith Matlock<\/p>

Okay. Okay. Yeah, what books would you recommend?<\/p>

Father Jack Welch<\/p>

Well, I mean, I have a couple of my own that I would recommend, but I hate recommending my own that way. They’re very short. Seasons of the Heart is a very small booklet and it talks about the Carmelite life. The Impact of God by Iain Matthew is a very good book on John of the Cross. There are several. I think rather than just sort of pick around at different ones, again, if she writes me, I think I might be able to focus a little bit more on something that would be helpful.<\/p>

Edith Matlock<\/p>

We have, okay, we have a couple. And you know what, Father, if you can email me a list of books as well, I can certainly attach that to this webinar as an answer.<\/p>

Father Jack Welch<\/p>

You know, I could do that.<\/p>

Edith Matlock<\/p>

Okay. I have two more questions. One is from another one from Canada from Jean. Could you elaborate a bit on the eyes of faith and how looking at your situation and trying to discern a direction to go or even gentle call from God in life may be discerned by looking with the eyes of faith? Could you elaborate a little bit more on that?<\/p>

Father Jack Welch<\/p>

Yeah, that is a rather nebulous metaphor, isn’t it? But it’s trying to trying to listen in any way we can to what’s what’s tugging at us and which way our heart is pointing. Pope Francis is quite good about this because he keeps talking about keep going forward, keep moving, even in doubt. Don’t set the boundaries. So we’re continually on this journey, and the restless heart kind of keeps us moving as it were. You know, when the when the Jesuits discern directions, they talk about consolation, desolation, and so forth. I think when Teresa of Avila gives an indication of when the journey is going well, she’ll say it’ll show up in a person’s humility, for example, how they understand themselves in relationship to God.<\/p>

It will show up in how free they become from what they’ve been clasping onto or grabbing onto in place of God. It will show up in generosity. Those behavioral indications, I think, when someone is on the right path and how they’re growing. But it’s such an interior journey, it’s sometimes hard to judge how people are doing from the outside, because from within, they may be very heroic in what they’re struggling with, but it’s not showing itself right away in the outside. So for us, I think there’s no one way in a person’s life how they’re guided, but I do think listening to one’s heart also, listening to people, talking to people.<\/p>

Teresa of Avila said, if you want to know God, know God’s friends. So if you’re dealing with the people who are friends of God, and they can kind of give feedback to you in direction or some kind of counseling, that can be helpful too. I don’t have anything clear on what that means. So listen, look with the eyes of faith, or be attentive with the ears of faith. But just knowing that there’s more, that there’s a transcendent dimension to our lives that’s always present in our human experience, and to try to be a person of depth and have a listening heart. I think that’s another way of talking about it.<\/p>

And you’ll test it as you go along. What are the fruits of it? You’ll see. That’s the most I can say for that, Edith.<\/p>

Edith Matlock<\/p>

Okay, we have another question from Maria, [name unclear]. Even Paul, who is a saint, said that he does things he doesn’t want to do. How can Carmel help us to [unclear: vacare Deo] ourselves so that we can begin to interiorize our exterior lives? Or is this strictly a gift from God? Does this state of interior life begin after eliminating mortal and venial sin? Or can it be accomplished while we still have faults? And also, can we achieve this state even during external chaos?<\/p>

Or is it just a matter of having the spiritual eyes to sort it out? How can we be sure that authentic transformation has taken place?<\/p>

Father Jack Welch<\/p>

Well, I begin with by saying that we’re born loved by God. God continues to love us. So we’re graced people from the very beginning. We’re in relationship with God. Actually, we’re in union with God from the very beginning. If we weren’t with God, we wouldn’t be able to move toward God. John of the Cross has an image that, in effect, we wake up in the middle of a love story. We wake up in it. We didn’t start it. We didn’t love first. But we wake up loved and our heart aching for fulfillment. So already, we’re being guided by God’s grace.<\/p>

And as a testimony of these saints, John of the Cross is very clear about it that we don’t push away our idols or change our pattern simply ascetically or by our willpower because they attract us too strongly until we have a better life, better love come into our life. Let’s say the heart can’t push things away where it’s getting some nourishment, some peace, some some life and wait in an affective vacuum. But the heart has to have some place to go. So when God comes into a life, and it may be through what John describes a dark night, it may be through something very celebratory, something entirely greatly joyful.<\/p>

In those times, we may detect in the experience a light kindled in our hearts that’s in the long run a deeper love, and that deeper love offered us will lure us past the lesser loves. So it’s always a combination of our effort and work, but it really has to be a graced effort. And it’s God who was working with us to pull us away from what we’re clinging to. People in 12 step movements have had to acknowledge that, that they come to a point where on their own, they can’t change, but they have to surrender to a higher power to God and God’s grace.<\/p>

It covers some of that question, I think.<\/p>

Edith Matlock<\/p>

Thank you, Father. We have Denise, who just wishes to thank you so very much for your talk. And then I just have two more questions. One is, what do you think is the special vocation of the secular order?<\/p>

Father Jack Welch<\/p>

Well, just just off hand, I would say to live a contemplative life. In other words, to go about one’s ordinary life in a way where there’s a listening heart, a level of attentiveness to God, and God’s call within that life, that will change us, and it will change us, and we’ll live that life whatever it is. Family life, work life, we’ll live it, I think, more in accord with the Gospel, more in accord with the reign of God, where the world needs to be more loving, more just, more peaceful. So I think an ongoing prayerful attention to our daily lives, our commitments, our responsibilities, will help shape us.<\/p>

God’s grace will help shape us so that we go about them well and healthily.<\/p>

Edith Matlock<\/p>

The last question we have for today, Father, is this is from Kathy. Do most people find it difficult to set aside the time and make the effort to turn inward, particularly in a busy household? What does one say to one’s spouse or family member to help them understand the need for contemplative practice on a daily basis?<\/p>

Father Jack Welch<\/p>

That’s a very good question. I mean, that’s such a, what percent of quiet time, alone time is needed for the journey, and how does it interact with one’s responsibilities and commitments in life? I don’t think it’s a matter of necessarily time, but certainly it seems to require some time apart. Jesus tried to get apart. His life was busy, though. I mentioned that early on. Jesus had a busy life, rarely alone. He’s continually being swarmed, but he does go up the mountain. He does go apart. He takes some time. And I think at a certain point, most likely, that attentiveness in life, that deep listening, that listening heart becomes maybe habitual and perhaps doesn’t need lengthy periods of time, but short periods of time of being aware of God’s presence.<\/p>

Lawrence of the Resurrection said he just attended to God’s presence in his life, and he was the cook in the community. So the contemplative life is not necessarily a life of great solitude or silence, and one’s life may not have it, but it is more of this interior listening, and it does show up in the quality of living and quality that we give to our family and our responsibilities. So I think it’s a test. What helps? What helps center? What helps keeps us focused? How much time? But it need not be lengthy times, necessarily.<\/p>

Edith Matlock<\/p>

Thank you, Father. Do you mind one more question, one last question?<\/p>

Father Jack Welch<\/p>

Sure.<\/p>

Edith Matlock<\/p>

Okay. So this is from another D. Jean, and she says, thank you very much for your helpful and inspirational webinar. In this, you tell how the interior life calls us to find God within us, and we’ve always been taught to put God before all else in our life’s priorities, both of which I understand. My question is, if important, personal relationships have been put out of our lives, and now we’re actually in a better place to spend more time alone with God interiorly, as well as exteriorly, is it wrong to pray to ask God to bring this relationship back into our lives, according to His will, of course?<\/p>

Or is this kind of turning your back on the open, unattached life you’ve been given in a kind of imposed detachment?<\/p>

Father Jack Welch<\/p>

I’m not exactly sure of the focus on that, but I’ll just say this, that attachment doesn’t mean being related to life or being related to other people. We have to care about others, be compassionate, loving, and so forth. Attachment is an enslavement of the heart, so they can no longer hear God’s invitation. It’s the way we’re related to life, not life itself. It may not be the other person or the family or the job. That may not be the problem. It’s how we’re related to it, asking it to be our God, asking it to be too much to fulfill our deepest desires.<\/p>

When we are asking some part of God’s creation to be the food for our deepest hungers, we’re taking something good and asking it to be a God, and that’s an attachment to the relationship. Detachment is not necessarily shoving people away or the world away. It’s a liberation of the heart so that the heart can love freely, not turning relationships into what I need them to be or turning job into what I need to be for myself. A liberation of the heart, detachment, done really in cooperation with God’s grace, is having one God, not asking God’s creation to be God, and being able to live in the world well and healthily and to love others well and not distort that relationship for ourselves.<\/p>

We’re meant to enjoy, in the heart of the dark night of the Spirit, the most difficult time John of the Cross writes about, he says, what’s the purpose of this night of the Spirit, this challenge to my images of God and of myself? He said, it’s the enjoyment of all earthly and heavenly things, the enjoyment of all earthly and heavenly things with the freedom of Spirit. That’s the catch. We’re not a useless passion. Our deepest desires are meant to be fulfilled by God. In the Carmelite way, we don’t annihilate our desires or deny them, try to pretend they’re not there.<\/p>

It’s a transformation of desire so that we’re living and desiring well. So when he says, what’s the purpose of this night of the Spirit, the enjoyment of all earthly and heavenly things, he’s saying freedom of the Spirit, meaning not asking any of it to be God except the one who is no thing, God.<\/p>

Edith Matlock<\/p>

Thank you, Father Jack. And thank you so much for this very important talk, this talk on the interior life, which is such an essential and important part of who we are as Carmelites and our charism and our spirit. So I thank you for that. And I thank all of you for listening to this wonderful teaching from Father Jack Welch. And may I say the video about the work of the Carmelite Institute has been sent already to your email. And I ask if you would please take it’s a short only three minute video the time to see the other things that the Carmelite Institute is doing.<\/p>

And this is to serve the Carmelite family here in North America. The events that we do are the events that the Carmelite family has asked of us as an institute. And we are so happy to bring all of this to you. Also, those of you who live in the Los Angeles area, I have to put this plug in. November 17th, we’re having a day of recollection in Alhambra at the Sacred Heart Retreat House on living in the presence of God. And the discussion will be on the teaching will be on St. Lawrence of the Resurrection.<\/p>

And Father Leopold Gleuckert will be leading that day for us. So please check our website for more details on that event and other future events that we’ll be holding around North America and other webinars that we have planned for the rest of this year. Thank you and God bless you.<\/p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t

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