Paperback: Father Joachim Smet, author of The Carmelites, the prestigious four volume history of the Carmelite Order, now presents in a more popular form the story of what many consider to be its heart: the enclosed nuns.
Cloistered Carmel: A Brief History Of The Carmelite Nuns (1986) chronicles the origins and development of this particular expression of the Order's contemplative charism: its subsequent history through its golden ear in the seventeenth century, its persecution by enlightened monarchs and liberal governments, and finally its revival in the second half of the present century (twentieth century).
The presence of women in Carmel is practically coeval with that of men, but initially less evident: in the Middle Ages women took the same vows as the friars but lived privately in their own homes, in what is called stabilitas, or attachment to a fixed habitation.
Only after Nicolas V granted them papal recognition in 1452 did Carmelite Sisters regularly gather into communities, especially of the prior general, Blessed John Soreth (1394-1471).
Today, Cloistered Carmel takes its rightful place as the heart of the Order and in the Church.
About the author: Father Joachim Smet, Order of Carmelites, the oldest Carmelite in the Chicago Carmelite Province, died 4 October 2011. He was 95. Father Joachim was born in Chicago, IL, on 9 October 1915.
He entered the Province of the Most Pure Heart of Mary, Order of Carmelites, and was ordained a priest in 1942. He held a bachelor's degree in Library Science from the University of Chicago, a master's degree in Latin from the Catholic University of America, and a doctorate in Ecclesiastical History from the Pontifical Gregorian University in Rome, Italy.
Among his assignments were Latin and English teacher at Mount Carmel High School in Chicago, IL, Assistant Novice Master at New Baltimore, PA, founding member of the Institutum Carmelitanum at the Collegio Internazionale de Sant' Alberto in Rome, Italy, editor of Carmelus, a journal of Carmelite Studies, President of the Institutum Carmelitanum in Rome; Assistant General of the Carmelite Order at the Carmelite General Curia in Rome. A gifted writer, he is well-known for his four-volume work The Carmelites and his Life of Saint Peter Thomas.
His other works are Familiar Matter of Today-Poems (2007), The Mirror of Carmel: A Brief History of the Carmelite Order, (2011), various publications on Carmelite Nuns, Carmelite Liturgy, Carmelite Libraries of Spain and Portugal and the Carmelites of Medieval England.
No comments:
Post a Comment