Into the Wild: a blog by the Discalced Carmelites UK

Recently, during a talk about Edith Stein on Radio Maria, the action of the Holy Spirit on her soul stood out to me. The speaker was asked about how she had become a Catholic and while her reading St Teresa's Vida  is a well-known turning point in her life the previous gentle promptings of the spirit are less well-known.  She had at a young age decided that she was an atheist though out of love and respect for her mother, who was a devout Jew, she continued to practice the prayers of the Jewish faith her mind had turned away from the Abrahamic faith. In her autobiography, Life in a Jewish Family, she speaks about how her experiences of the death of close family members had left her with burning questions about the afterlife and about what was important in this life. These burning questions were not satisfied until her conversion more than a decade later and spurred her on in her studies. She would late comment how she realised that all those who seek the Truth are in reality seekin

The month of November begins with All Souls and All Saints. This coincides with a shortening of the day, the hours of darkness mark the rhythm of our routines. The leaves fall and it becomes colder. Everything seems to draw to a close, a visible and tangible reminder that the end of the liturgical year draws near.  The passing from this life into the next found in the Feast days that start the month initiate us into this period of closure of the liturgical year. The play of light and darkness of this period is symbolised in several feast days - St Martin, St Lucy, - and ultimately Advent. The Liturgical Calendar of the Church connects with the biblical idea of religious duties to be performed at the Temple found in the Old Testament. While the word Liturgy itself denotes especially public rather than private worship the connection between the two is a natural and necessary one in much the same way that fasting or abstinence from food aids in preparing the spirit, those private devotion

After a few days off sick with an unknown virus, we are back. We returned from Avila a week ago yesterday, the day that stands out in memory was the Friday we went to Medina del Campo. Medina was the place in which Teresa met John of the Cross. It was also St Teresa's first foundation outside of Avila, a test to the question of whether the charisma would 'travel' to another location. When St Teresa and her sisters that had travelled with her to the new foundation found that there wasn't a house but a rather dilapidated building that they would have to repair. They said the first mass in a room, that would later become the parlour, with only half a roof on it. It was in this room that St John of the Cross and St Teresa first met, we were standing on the side in which the first mass was said and St John sat when he spoke to St. Teresa. At the convent, which we had been allowed to enter as a special favour, as they only usually allow visitors on Saturdays, we met Jose Anto