St. Teresa of Jesus advocated for her Discalced Carmelite friars to be learned, emphasizing that both education and contemplation are necessary for a healthy spiritual life. We student friars are very blessed to be given the gift of education, for the sake of our own formation and for that of the apostolate. All of us in formation have some sort of previous educational experience, but we all have had different paths before Carmel. This semester, there are five students from our Province taking classes at Saint John’s Seminary, along with Br. Vladimir Guadalupe from the Semi-Province of St. Thérèse. We student brothers are taking classes ranging from Ancient Philosophy and Logic to Sacramental Theology. We are very grateful to all who make it possible for us to receive this education, which enables us to serve our nuns, seculars, and communities all the better.
   

This semester the student brothers continue to host a Carmelite Spirituality Group for Seminarians. Meeting once a month at the Discalced Carmelite Nuns’ Convent in Roxbury, they read and discuss Maurice and Thérèse, a book containing letters between St. Thérèse of Lisieux and her spiritually adopted brother, seminarian Maurice Bellière. Thérèse provides great encouragement to Maurice through his many struggles to answer God’s call to be a missionary priest in Africa. Our group encourages seminarians, showing them how St. Thérèse and the heritage of Carmel can greatly strengthen their own responses to God’s call. The group also exposes these men to our Discalced Carmelite Family by attending Eucharistic Adoration with the nuns an hour before each meeting. Several seminarians have faithfully attended and benefitted from this group, and the love of Carmel is deepening among them. We will continue to share our charism with them through this group.

The students also continue to host a book study for local young adults and college students. This house ministry is entering its fifth year and has covered the works of our saints and blesseds, including: Bl. Marie-Eugène’s I Want to See God and I am a Daughter of the Church, St. John of the Cross’s The Spiritual Canticle, St. Teresa’s The Interior Castle, St. Thérèse’s The Story of a Soul, and (this year) St. Teresa Benedicta/Edith Stein’s The Science of the Cross. This year’s title was chosen in celebration of St. John of the Cross’ third centenary of canonization and the centenary of his being named the Church’s Mystical Doctor. The study bring together 25-30 college students and young professionals– some of whom drive up to 40 minutes to attend– each week, and a different friar gives a short reflection or conference on the reading announced the meeting prior, followed by small group discussions, a period of mental prayer, and time for socializing. Our study is a wonderful and edifying experience week, as we get to share our Order’s spirituality with others and grow in fellowship with the local Church in Boston.

This past September 13th, I professed my solemn vows along with Br. John-Magdalene Fanders, OCD, Br. Isaiah Klena, OCD, and Br. Nathanael Gregor, OCD. The next day, September 14th, Br. John-Magdalene, Br. Isaiah, and I were ordained to the Sacred Order of the Diaconate as transitional deacons. The weekend was so grace-filled that I will probably spend the remainder of my earthly days slowly unpacking it. However, as I look back on that weekend a mere month-and-a-half later, a particular moment stands out which is worth particular mention. In our profession formula for the vows, each of us professed "with my whole heart, I give myself to this family founded by St. Teresa..." Certainly, surrounded by my brothers in the Order, so many members of the OCDS, my friends and family, my brothers' friends and families, and in the Basilica where I had served so many Masses as a teenager and college seminarian, I was deeply aware of the potency of this moment. However, it is now in the daily living of these vows, in the transition from initial formation to ongoing formation, that I am made all the more aware of the significance of being now forever a member of this family founded by St. Teresa. The incorporation into this family is essentially about joyful love and service and, as such, it dovetails so providentially with the diaconate since such joyful charity and service are also at the heart of this Sacred Order. Indeed, I am reminded of this whenever I serve as a deacon for Mass and pray the following vesting prayer traditionally associated with the Dalmatic, the deacon's vestment: "Lord, endow me with the garment of salvation, the vestment of joy, and with the Dalmatic of justice ever encompass me." Thank you all who have accompanied me and my class on our formation journey. Please continue to pray that we all be joyful and loving servants of Our Lord and of those he has entrusted to our care. Know of our prayers for you.

Over the summer we said goodbye to our beloved Brother Augustine, who died July 14, during the Triduum of Our Lady of Mount Carmel. He had long served as our tailor, making habits with great care from the time he entered Carmel all the way until 2020. I first met Br. Augustine in late 2018 as I began postulancy at our Brighton Monastery. I was edified by his prayerful, joyful, fraternal presence and was fascinated by the methodical precision with which he crafted habits for our class of postulants– the last habits he would make before his fall in 2020. Returning to Brighton after novitiate and first year of vows at Holy Hill, having discerned to follow the brother's vocation (due in part to Br. Augustine's witness), with the blessing of my superiors I asked Br. Augustine to teach me his trade. No easy task! In his room at Marian Manor nursing home, Br. Augustine would explain what to do. Back at the monastery tailor shop, I was inevitably scratching my head, at a loss as to how it all fit together. A week or two later, once I thought I perhaps had a somewhat-presentable specimen of pocket trim or what not, I'd return and present him my work. Fumbling along every seam with arthritis-stricken fingers, he would gently begin the litany of "no,” "not quite…”, "pick it apart and do it over.” But within a year, we had a habit both of us were quite proud of. I recall with fond gratitude this exacting precision with which he imparted his skill to me. It was indeed a token of his brotherly affection for me, of his confidence in me. More importantly, his reverence and love for the Mother of God motivated the care with which he crafted what St. Teresa often calls "the habit of Our Lady.” I thank Br. Augustine for modeling devotion to Our Lady of Mount Carmel for me as I continue his legacy in the provincial tailor shop, now relocated to our monastery in Washington, D.C.

J.M.+J.T.

Fall 2025

Greetings in the Ordered Time of God's Son, and His Servant, and Bishop Anthony Mary of Claret!

We have entered that time of year when leaves turn color and fall to the ground.

This year, because of the drought, they are considerably muted. The most colorful trees have already begun to drop their leaves, while many others have remained summer green. 

What's amazing about that is that the bright colors (especially of the Maples) show all the more brilliantly against the backdrop of the deep summer green of the other trees. 

We are also approaching that great national holiday of Thanksgiving. For us Catholics we recall that the word "thanksgiving" in Greek is "eucharist". 

If we reflect on these two realities (Fall colors and Thanksgiving) we come to the realization that: the color of the leaves is a result of their dying; and that thanksgiving (Eucharist) is an appropriate response. 

Not only thanksgiving for the colors of this process which gives us such delight, but also further in imagining how the deaths of God's faithful ones appear to Our Heavenly Father. Just because we cannot see the beauty of our passing from this life to the Father, it does not mean that a leaf's death is more beautiful than our own. 

It is only by faith that we have come to know the beauty and preciousness that the deaths of God's faithful ones have in His sight. 

We thank God that He, through His death in Jesus, has given us eternal Life. Jesus has led the way through His Passion, Death, and Resurrection. He is the door to Eternal Life and reveals the true color of our own deaths. His, of course, is the most colorful, and ours reflect His according to our will to follow him through the door of death to new life.

Enjoy the colors, enhanced by the dark green backgrounds, and celebrate Thanksgiving with the best of thanks we can give: the Eucharist. 

We celebrate the Eucharist for the colors of the dying leaves, for the saving mysteries of Jesus, and for our own falling down to the earth, which reveals the colors of a faithful witness to Jesus and sharing in His Eternal Life. 

God is with your spirits! A bientôt (See you soon)!
Deo volente (God willing)!

Friar Father Bonaventure, OCD
(Prior)

(All of the photos of fall colors in this newsletter were taken around Boston and edited by one of the student brothers.)