Day 3: The Carmelite Charism

The third day of the Infant of Prague Novena turns to the religious order through which the Catholic devotion has been principally diffused: the Discalced Carmelites. The Carmelite charism of contemplative prayer, treated more fully in Saint Teresa of Avila and Saint John of the Cross, is the spiritual matrix in which the modern Infant of Prague devotion took root and from which it has flowed to the universal Catholic Church.

Today's invocation

O Most gracious Infant Jesus, I have recourse to You... (the full opening prayer)

Today's meditation

The Carmelite Order traces its origins to the prophet Elijah on Mount Carmel in the ninth century before Christ and to the hermit communities of the Holy Land in the early Christian era. The medieval Carmelites received their religious Rule from Saint Albert of Jerusalem in the early thirteenth century. The Discalced Carmelite Reform was begun by Saint Teresa of Avila in 1562 with the foundation of the Convent of San José in Avila, and was extended to the male Carmelites by Saint John of the Cross beginning in 1568. The Discalced charism is contemplative prayer in strict enclosure, manual labor, and Marian devotion.

The Catholic devotion to the Infant Jesus has long been particularly Carmelite. The Discalced Carmelites have produced an extraordinary number of Catholic saints whose spiritual lives were marked by particular devotion to the Christ Child: Saint Teresa of Jesus (whose Marian and Eucharistic mysticism included extensive contemplation of the Christ Child), Saint Therese of the Child Jesus (whose religious name and Little Way are deeply formed by this devotion), the Discalced Carmelites of Prague who received the statue in 1628, and the Discalced Carmelites of Beaune in France who developed a parallel devotion to the Child Jesus from the seventeenth century. The Catholic Carmelite imagination has consistently turned to the Christ Child as a particular form of contemplative encounter with the Lord.

The reasons for this Carmelite emphasis are theological. The Carmelite charism teaches that the soul advances in contemplative prayer by becoming small: stripping away the false self, surrendering to the Lord, becoming as a child before the Father. The Christ Child is the Lord's own assumption of this disposition: He came into the world as a small child, dependent on Mary and Joseph, in order to model for the Catholic soul what the contemplative life requires. The Discalced Carmelites pray to the Christ Child not principally as patrons of children (though they do that) but as patrons of the contemplative disposition that every Catholic soul is called to develop.¹

Today's intention

Today, in addition to your principal intention, ask the Infant of Prague for the Carmelite gift of contemplative simplicity. Divine Infant Jesus, who became small for our sake, make me small. Strip from me the complications of my life that prevent me from coming to You as a child. In the matter I have brought before You, give me the disposition of the contemplative.

If you are familiar with the Carmelite spiritual classics (Saint Teresa's Interior Castle, Saint John of the Cross's Dark Night of the Soul, Saint Therese's Story of a Soul), today is a fitting day to take one of them up again. The Catholic faithful who read the Carmelite saints alongside their Marian and Christological devotions are gradually formed in the deepest of the modern Catholic spiritual traditions.

Reflection

The Catholic spiritual tradition has long observed that the Carmelite charism has a particular gift for the modern Catholic soul. The modern Western Catholic faithful, formed by a culture of overstimulation, distraction, and complication, often find the daily disciplines of the Catholic life difficult to sustain. The Carmelite emphasis on simplicity, silence, and contemplation is a Catholic remedy: not principally an escape from the modern world but a Catholic reorientation of the soul that enables it to live in the modern world without being consumed by it.

The Infant of Prague Novena, understood in its Carmelite roots, is a Catholic invitation to this reorientation. The small wax-coated statue is a small image; the prayer is a small prayer; the disposition is a small disposition. Through the smallness, the Lord works.

Closing prayers

Conclude with the Our Father, the Hail Mary, and the Glory Be.

Divine Infant Jesus, I trust in You. Through the Carmelite charism that has carried Your devotion for four centuries, draw us into Your love.

Footnotes

1. The Carmelite emphasis on the Child Jesus is treated in Conrad De Meester, With Empty Hands: The Message of Saint Therese of Lisieux (2002), and in the Carmelite spiritual literature more broadly. The Discalced Carmelite Order's official archive at the Casa Generalizia in Rome preserves the contemporary documentation of the Carmelite devotional tradition. ↩