Ever wonder what it's all about? I need to try and work it out. I'll just begin with the deer.
This is about what and who and where strength comes from.
There are so many ways to travel to the heart of things, but how to find the way?
Once on Holy Island I bought a small compass, maybe trying to nudge the interior journey through the physical world. It was worth a try. But there are maps.
Carmelites have a Way instead of a Rule. Half of it is strict, describing what they must do: pray, do manual work, live in poverty and charity, and so on. A second part has many exceptions saying 'unless this is appropriate,' depending on your circumstances. Be reasonable. I like that.
Teresa of Avila and John of the Cross had to navigate the Spanish Inquisiton with their understanding of what was reasonable and right. Teresa drew fire when she questioned the way some sisters had servants, and began her reform. Her map is The Interior Castle. It is full of her wonderful personality which reaches across hundreds of years.
Therese of Lisieux, in France, followed in her footsteps, in her own way. At an exhibition in Paris she saw the first mechanical lift. Imagine this 15 year old, entering the Carmel with its images of climbing the mountain, saying in all honesty and truth, 'I want to go to heaven in a lift.'
I had a copy of The Little White Flower which described the 'Little Way' of Therese by my bed at my grandmother's house. If I couldn't follow it all, I never forgot the directness of her, and the promise that she made:
'When I die ... I will spend my heaven by doing good on earth.'
She wants to do real things for people.
There are so many others, but in my mind today is the man who is nearest to me in time, Titus Brandsma from the Netherlands. A Carmelite teacher and journalist, turned down by the Franciscans because he smoked too much. He died in Dachau concentration camp. He taught the nurse who tortured him to pray with him, although she said she had sinned too much:
'Pray for us sinners,' he told her.
'You can say that much with me', he said.
And we always can.
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Holy Mary, Mother of God,
Pray for us sinners,
Now and at the hour of our death.
Amen.
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I add here a link, which I will also put in the first comment box so that you can use it, to a short tv film beginning with Titus Brandsma. Although it is in Dutch, you will see Fr Titus, Professor, Doctor and Journalist, and at 4 mins 10 seconds you will see the deer mosaic in the church of St Joseph in Nijmegen.
