Young people share in prayerful day of joyful thanksgiving
By Wendy Shaw
The World Day of Consecrated Life and the Feast of the Presentation of the Lord is a day of joyful thanksgiving for the Carmelite community.
It was marked on 2 February at the Carmelite Monastery, West Launceston, and coincided with one of the Archdiocese of Hobart’s Ember Days, providing young people with the opportunity to explore different ways of living out their faith and learning more about vocations.
The day included Mass with the blessing of candles and procession and the renewal of nuns’ vows; Office of None (afternoon Prayer of the Church); Adoration; and Benediction.
Carmelite Prioress Mother Teresa Benedicta OCD explained the significance of Feast of the Presentation of the Lord to the Carmelite community.
“Each year this feast is a beautiful opportunity for us to give thanks to the Lord for the precious gift of our vocation as consecrated religious and more specifically our Carmelite vocation,” she said.
“So, it is a day of joyful thanksgiving but also a special chance to express our desire to live our vocation ever more faithfully and generously by publicly renewing our vows during Mass. This is always very moving for us as it takes us back to the moment we first professed our vows of chastity, poverty and obedience, committing ourselves to follow Christ in this closer way, and so fanning into a greater flame the fire of divine love that first inspired each of us to set out on this path.
“I think it is also a wonderful chance to publicly give thanks to God for the gift of consecrated life to the Church and to give witness to all Catholics that this way of following Christ is one of deep joy and great peace. And, of course, to pray for more vocations to all forms of consecrated life especially for the Church here in Tasmania. Vocations come from the Heart of Christ and they only come to maturity with much prayer.”
Mother Teresa Benedicta said she hoped the Ember Days participants were able to appreciate that the monastery at Carmel is “an oasis of prayer and peace where they will always be welcome to come to deepen their relationship with the Lord in prayer, and to know that we are here praying for them. And that the call to be a Carmelite is such a life-giving, deeply fulfilling invitation that leads the one who is so called to great intimacy with Our Lord”.
“The Lord continues to call men and women to follow Him more closely in consecrated life, and when He does call, He always gives the grace needed to step out in faith, follow that call and discover all the peace, joy and love they could ever hope for,” Mother Teresa Benedicta added.
The Carmelites live a contemplative vocation of hidden prayer and sacrifice, praise, adoration and thanksgiving in strict enclosure. This has been described as a ‘cloistered desert’ enabling the flourishing of an intimate friendship with Christ.
The Archdiocese’s Director of Youth Evangelisation, Sam Clear, said the Ember Days participants had an enjoyable, relaxed, cheerful and deeply prayerful day.
“The highlights included learning about Carmel, particularly that it made beautiful sense as to why they are hidden away, in that they initially were people seeking solitude in caves in the desert and what they have done is create a desert in the wider community – a place of prayer; and learning about their charism and what we can take into our prayer life even now, particularly the beautiful way that they are seeking solitude but living in a committed community,” he said.
Sam added that the Archdiocese had a number of young adults discerning a vocation to religious life and the priesthood.
“This is an immense and beautiful decision, and it is very helpful to learn how to put time aside to encounter the Trinity within ourselves from baptism – that is one of the beautiful things we learned from Mother: to be still and be with God,” Sam added.
“We are incredibly grateful to the Carmelites for their involvement and we are hoping to hold more Ember Days in the future.”
Young people from Hobart, Smithton, Mount Roland and Melbourne attended the Ember Days event at Carmel. The Archdiocese’s pastoral support officer, Heather Excell, said participants developed a deeper understanding of the Carmelite charism and a deeper love for prayer.
“It is a haven of prayer and it is so beautiful up there,” Heather said.
“The key message from Mother Teresa Benedicta was about the power of prayer; and that in the silence and the solitude is where we find God.”
This was the second Ember Days event after an earlier one with the Benedictine community at Colebrook.