London: Carmel in the City to study St Teresa of Avila

St Teresa of Avila

Carmel in the City will be focussing on St Teresa of Avila at their next meeting, on Saturday 2 October in St Joseph's, Bunhill Row. Sheila Grimwood from Aylesford Pastoral Team will be giving a talk entitled: 'St Teresa of Avila: her Life and prayer.' At the 2pm Mass, celebrated by Fr Wilfrid McGreal O.Carm, there will be professions in the Third Order.

Teresa of Avila’s perception of prayer as ‘an intimate sharing between friends’, rooted in her own experience, led her to believe that contemplative prayer is open to all. This prayer she was convinced would affect the life of the world and the Church and the convents of her reform were dedicated to this work. To make an understanding of the life of prayer accessible to all, in her first book, her Life, she chose to explain it using the images of four ways of watering a barren, parched garden. Through these images she illustrates the difference between what we can do – effort and grace working together – and what only God can do –sheer gift.

For more information contact Sylvia Lucas: sylvia_lucas@btinternet.com

For dates of further meetings check the ICN Listings. The next two are:

6 November Interfaith Week: Carmel and Interfaith Dialogue

4 December Ecumenical Advent day - with friends from Wesley’s Chapel, St Giles Cripplegate and St Anne’s Lutheran Church

Carmel in the City Thought for the Month:

The Second Vatican Council spoke eloquently of the indispensable role of the laity in carrying forward the church's mission through their efforts to serve as a leaven of the gospel in society and to work for the advancement of God's kingdom in the world (cf Lumen Gentium, 31; Apostolicam Actuositatem, 7).

The council's appeal to the lay faithful to take up their baptismal sharing in Christ's mission echoed the insights and teachings of John Henry Newman. May the profound ideas of this great Englishman continue to inspire all Christ's followers in this land to conform their every thought, word and action to Christ, and to work strenuously to defend those unchanging moral truths which, taken up, illuminated and confirmed by the gospel, stand at the foundation of a truly humane, just and free society.

How much contemporary society needs this witness! How much we need, in the church and in society, witnesses of the beauty of holiness, witnesses of the splendour of truth, witnesses of the joy and freedom born of a living relationship with Christ!
 Pope Benedict XV1 Westminster Cathedral 18 September 2010