Carmelite Spirituality

You know that in an Apostolic Letter in 2002, Pope John Paul II added five Luminous Mysteries. Did you know that in that same Letter he also called for a new way of praying the Rosary?

St. John Paul II's new way of praying the Rosary was based on the teachings of St. Theresa of Avila and has become known as the Contemplative Rosary because it more perfectly unites vocal prayer and meditation, transforming the prayers of the Rosary into a contemplative meeting with God.

Did you know about these changes? Have you tried them?

In our new book, The Contemplative Rosary, we have not only incorporated the five new Luminous Mysteries, we have included as well the many other changes Pope John Paul made to the Rosary.

Here are his additions to the texts and prayers -- additions small and large -- that, as John Paul intended, unite the Rosary more closely to the official liturgical prayers of the Church as well as to Scripture.

Here are

After escaping his captors, John fell into a state of profound ecstasy and wrote Dark Night of the Soul. Later, he added an important commentary to his poem to guide other searching souls along the arduous path to communion with God. Here, for the first time, a scholar unaffiliated with the Catholic Church has translated this timeless work. Mirabai Starr, who has studied Buddhism, Hinduism, and Judaism, lends the seeker's sensibility to John's powerful text and brings this classic work to the twenty-first century in a brilliant and beautiful rendering

Edmund Husserl, the founder of phenomenology, declared Edith Stein the best doctoral student he ever had (even abler than Heidegger, who was also his pupil at the time). A prayerful woman of deep spirituality and authentic mystical experience, she remained an influential, active philosopher all her life. Though born and raised in a very religious Jewish family in Germany, she not only converted to Catholicism, but became a Carmelite nun and followed in the footsteps of Teresa of Avila and John of the Cross.

Edith Stein vigorously opposed Nazism from the outset and urged Pope Pius XI to put the church on record against Hitler. A model Catholic, a brilliant intellectual, yet a profoundly humble soul, she affirmed her solidarity with her suffering Jewish people no matter the cost. Edith Stein was arrested by the Nazis at a Carmelite convent at Echt in Holland and sent to her death at Auschwitz.

Waltraud Herbstrith has fashioned a warm, memorable portrait of this woman who, as Jesuit philosopher Jan Nota points out in the introduction, discovered in Christ the meaning of human existence and suffering ... Edith Stein was one of those Christians who lived out of a hope transcending optimism and pessimism. Hers is a voice that speaks powerfully to all of us today, and a life that stands as testimony to the profoundest values of human existence, the significance of the individual, and the truths of faith that can reconcile Christian and Jew, philosophy and religion, oppressor and oppressed to heal a troubled world.

Available in English for the first time, this short book is a powerful introduction to the spiritual wisdom of one of the Church's newest saints: Elizabeth of the Trinity.

There was nothing extraordinary in Elizabeth of the Trinity's life. There were no ecstasies. She didn't work miracles. She didn't communicate heavenly messages through visions or words she heard.

Instead, she presented a message to modern man through her own life of fidelity, showing us that the true road to contemplative prayer is not an ascent to grasp God, but a descent into the depths of one's heart.

She teaches us that only by drawing our souls inward can we move toward bold abandonment and achieve immersion in God, thereby connecting our spiritual lives to the eternal praise of the saints in heaven.

In our noisy culture, Elizabeth of the Trinity reminds us of God's power to establish in us a profound and peaceful stillness. She reminds us that that the Trinity is our home, and that Go

The work of a mind of rare intelligence and integrity, this book is unique among the lives of saints. First published in Germany in 1944, the original is now in its eighth edition. This first English translation is based on a new, revised version using the latest edition of the saint's writings.

Ida Friederike Goerres is the author of several outstanding works on sanctity including The Nature of Sanctity and The Cloister and the World. The Hidden Face is considered her most important work.

Until the end of the 1930s, the Carmel of Lisieux regularly published "rains of roses", collections of testimonies of people healed, converted, and reconciled through the intercession of little Thérèse. Thérèse had promised to "spend her heaven doing good on earth", a promise which is being fulfilled in the four corners of the world.

It is this miracle worker Thérèse that Guy Gaucher presents to us through numerous testimonies. At the end of the 1997 World Youth Day in Paris, John Paul II announced to an enthusiastic crowd that Thérèse would be proclaimed a Doctor of the Church. It is as a privileged witness that Guy Gaucher recounts this process which led the little Norman Carmelite to become the third woman in the history of the Church to receive this title. Therefore, the missionary momentum that inflamed the young nun will resume throughout the world. From the Philippines to the United States via Iraq and Siberia, the relics of the "patroness of the missions" will thus tou

The Brown Scapular holds a special place in the devotional life of the faithful. It is neither jewelry, a sentimental religious article, nor a vain token of superstition. Rather, it is a silent prayer, a gift from our Heavenly Mother that draws us to the Sacred Heart of her Divine Son.

A simple pairing of two pieces of cloth with ribbon, wearing the scapular is a declaration that you have put on Christ and are seeking to follow His way in imitation of Mary, Our Lady of Mount Carmel.

Although there is no formal preparation for investiture in the Brown Scapular, Fr. Jeffrey Kirby has collected in these pages the Church's best writings on the subject to prepare you for receiving the scapular and incorporating it into your daily faith practice. Because Baptism is foundational to your consecration and commitment to Jesus Christ, Fr. Kirby centers the reflections in this book on the six baptismal promises in order to heighten and intensify your living out of the baptismal way