What is a Lay Carmelite

The Lay Carmelite Order of the Blessed Virgin Mary of Mount Carmel (Third Order), is a lay association whose members, replying to the special call of God, freely and deliberately promise to live the evangelical life in the spirit of the Carmelite Order and under its direction.

Some lay-people, because of a special call, share the charism of religious families. This charism is the common heritage of the People of God, and it becomes for them a source of strength and a school of life. The Church approves these charisms and gives encouragement by inviting the laity to try faithfully to adopt the special characteristics of the spiritual life proper to these families.

The entire Carmelite family, in its task of living out its consecration to Christ, seeks to live in the presence of the living and true God who, in the person of Christ, lives in our midst; it is a family that seeks divine intimacy.

In the family, in work or professional surroundings, in their social responsibilities, in everyday actions, in their relations with others, Lay Carmelites look for the hidden hand of God. They recognize this hand of God and they help the seed of salvation bloom according to the spirit of the Beatitudes by a humble and continual exercise of the virtues of honesty, justice, sincerity, kindness and courage, without which there can be no true human and Christian life.

This Gospel way of living which Lay Carmelites seek to live, a life of contemplative prayer, a communion of life and ministry, is summed up by one word, love. St. Therese of the Child Jesus, a great saint of Carmel, showed this clearly to us when she cried out: "O Jesus, my love ... my vocation, at last I have found it ... MY VOCATION IS LOVE! "