SECULAR ORDER OF DISCALCED CARMELITES
England, Wales and Scotland

When my OCDS community first began more than twenty years ago, there were four of us.  I was completely new to Carmel, I was just trying...

I never cease to be amazed at the attractive power of St Therese of Lisieux which takes this beautiful saint into people's hearts and...

I have been invited to give a talk on Therese in a few months’ time, and I was asked to provide the organisers with a title now for...

We were looking at Chapter 10 in the Way of Perfection last night and I was struck with the delightful Teresa’s way of expressing...

'Called to Carmel, Called to Community: Reflections on the Carmelite Rule, Secular Constitutions, and Statutes' by Tim Bete Grateful...

The rich treasury of the Catholic saints and blesseds often seems to me to be inexhaustible.  I don’t know how many there are, I expect...

I learnt quite a bit from reading about St Joseph of Leonissa Ofm. Cap (1556-1612), whose feast is today.  First about himself – he was a...

Among the most endearing of the many new technologies to me are What’s App groups.  A What’s App group has just been started for the...

I googled ‘St John Bosco Carmelites’ to find any connections between the saint of today’s feast with Carmel, and I came up with the...

The Boars Hill Carmelite friars have a plot in Wolvercote Cemetery, on the northern edge of the city of Oxford.  This same cemetery...

In recent years I have found myself – to my complete astonishment – involved in founding new OCDS groups.  There are of course many...

In the Office of Readings, we have been looking recently at St Paul’s Letter to the Romans.  I can’t help but be struck by the way that...

I found this about St Angela Merici (1474-1540, today's feast) on an Ursuline website – it seems she was very close to us Carmelites in...

Quite a few years ago in my Protestant days I discovered the Treatise on the Love of God by St Francis of Sales (1567-1622) - whose feast...

Today’s saint offered to us by the Church - St Emerentiana - was a favourite of Blessed Marie-Eugène, founder of the Carmelite Institute...

In a Carmelite prayer group last night, we were discussing the ‘Act of Self-Offering to Merciful Love’ (you can google it to see the...

I was talking to a friend the other day about how in my youth I was always craving intimacy with a woman.  When I married my late wife, I...

‘How was it?’ – we sometimes get asked by others after one of our Carmelite meetings; or we ask someone else that question after such a...

The story of St Antony made a great impression on me when I first read about him as a young man.  This call he had to a life of solitude...

After his funeral mass at Boars Hill Carmelite Priory today, Fr John Hughes OCD will be laid to rest in Wolvercote Cemetery.  This is...