St Louis Review Features Discalced Carmelite PodCast Article

Jennifer Brinker, a Review Staff Writer, has a great article in this week's Review about a new Podcasting venture by the St Louis Order of Carmel Discalced Secular which was posted here a couple of weeks ago thanks to Lisa Johnston.

(Picture by Lisa Johnston)
PURE PODCASTING — Discalced Carmelite Sister Paula Marie listens to a podcast of a meditation featuring the writings of St. Teresa of Avila in front of the sisters’ Clayton Road monastery. The Order of Carmel Discalced Secular, a group of laypeople who follow in the spirit of Carmelite men and women religious, created the podcasts and began offering them on the group’s Web site several weeks ago.



Jennifer Brinker writes:

A local lay order is bringing alive the writings of the Carmelite saints in a way the original writers probably never would have dreamed — through podcasting.

The Order of Carmel Discalced Secular, a group of laypeople who follow in the spirit of Carmelite men and women religious, started offering the podcasts on its Web site, www.stl-ocds.org on Pentecost Sunday. There are about 40 people in the lay order, sometimes called a third order.

The podcasts, which are about one-and-a-half to five minutes long, are meditations on the writings of some of the early Carmelite saints, including St. Teresa of Avila, St. John of the Cross and St. Therese of Lisieux, said member Lisa Johnston.

Described as a "beautiful garden, planted by God," the word Carmel originates with Mount Carmel, a mountain ridge in Palestine sacred for both the Jews and Christians. It was the site where the first order of Carmelites was founded around the 1100s. A group of hermits gathered there under the inspiration of the prophet Elijah, who had done God’s will there in ancient times.

The Carmelite tradition begins with vocal prayer, which can include basic prayers recited aloud or even participating in the Mass, she [Johnston] said. From there, those prayers might be taken to meditation, during which the person can "ponder on a certain aspect, and you try in that time to lift your heart solely to God and be with him."

"Once you have learned to navigate these trails of prayer, then it can lead you into a contemplative prayer," said Johnston, which she added is considered a grace from God. "That’s a mystical sort of thing" that not everyone can reach in their lives, "but it is an aim in our prayer lives, in the Carmelite tradition."

There is a link to the Podcasts on the left of this page.