Carmelite homily for Monday (Week 12), June 22, 2020 – Lectionary 371 (Matthew 7:1-5)
In today’s Gospel Jesus warns us not to judge others and the measure we measure out will be measured back to us. And he gives us the good example of why look at the speck in your brother’s eye and miss the plank in your own. But what’s the point? I think it’s to make life rich and rewarding instead of picking at each other and bringing each other down, building each other up. Saint Therese of Lisieux, who lived in a difficult Carmel, says, “A kind word or an amiable smile is often enough to make a sad soul bloom.” That’s our purpose; that’s our mission – to make a sad soul bloom. Instead of cutting them down or trampling them, make the sad soul – make all souls – bloom. That’s our vision; that’s our duty; that’s our mission.
a commentary by Gregory Houck, O.Carm. – Friday, June 5, 2020
We are living in racially-charged times and race has become a ‘front burner’ issue with protests and even rioting throughout the United States in response to the killing of an African-American, George Floyd, by a policeman in Minneapolis; this on the heels of other recent racially-charged events in New York, Georgia and Kentucky. What is the Carmelite response?
First, some history. Spain of the 1500s, after driving out the Moors (Muslims) and the Jews from the land, put in Purity of Blood laws throughout the Spanish empire. Not only did a person had to be a natural-born white European to
become a priest,
become a nun,
be a member of the aristocracy,
teach in a university,
to hold any government position,
but that person had to also show that his/her parents and grandparents also had ‘pure blood.’ This prevented anyone of Jewish, Muslim, or native American ancestry from having any kind of employment, any kind of power or even a family anywhere in Spanish lands.
Yes, those were racially-charged times. In the middle of that Saint Teresa of Avila founded her first reformed Carmelite convent in 1568. She told the sisters that they would not follow the Purity of Blood laws when admitting new members to the Order. Some of those sisters, and much of Spain, were not happy with Teresa. Some accused her of being a lawbreaker or a free-thinker; and some plotted to have her arrested and locked up. She did not flinch – even when the Spanish Inquisition began looking into her policies. This is the Carmelite response – to support any oppressed minority and work against oppression but also to empower and include them fully.
This inclusive policy did not begin with Saint Teresa though. On Mount Carmel in the 1200s the first Carmelites were formed from a mishmash of nationalities and cultures and, yes, races; pushed together onto Mount Carmel by war. In those racially-charged times, those first Carmelites worked through all those issues and all those differences forming one Order and made it work. From its founding and throughout an 800-year history, this is the Carmelite way. Today, we too can work through this and make it work!
