Carmel in St. Louis

Order of Carmel Discalced Secular

The Order of Carmel Discalced Secular is a community comprised of Lay Roman Catholics who live in the world while centering themselves on God and serving Him through the spirit of Carmel. We live under the constitutions of the Order and are part of the Carmelite family of Friars and Nuns. more

Mount Carmel

The Holy "Mountain of God" is located in Haifa, Israel and stands at the edge of the Mediterranean sea. In biblical times, this was the home of the Prophet Elijah who dwelt in its many caves. Today Carmelites continue to pray on Mt. Carmel as it remains a holy place of prayer and communion with God.

Translated from Hebrew, the word Carmel in English means GARDEN. With our Podcast, we invite you to now take a moment and enjoy this Garden of God as you take pause from your day to listen and hear His voice in the stillness of your soul. Learn more about the history of Mt. Carmel.

Praise be Jesus Christ!

Welcome to our OCDS Community Website and Meditations from Carmel Podcast. Through this new media apostolate we hope to enlighten souls to the ways of contemplative prayer as exampled by the great Saints of our Carmelite tradition.

Our Podcast are short audio meditations which are meant to lead a soul into prayer. The meditations
are taken directly from the writings of the Church Doctors of Prayer, Mysticism, Confidence and Missionaries (Saints Teresa of Avila, John of the Cross and Thérèse of Lisieux) as well as many other Carmelites you may not have known before!

As Secular Carmelites living in the world, our calling is to listen to hear the whisper of God in the silence of our hearts. We seek Him, who we know loves us, and contemplate His wonders.

Through our Vocation of Prayer, we are inspired by the words of our Holy Father, Pope Benedict XVI. He says the people of the Catholic Church should "spread the truth of the Gospel in the form of the New Evangelization." With this encouragement, our apostolate of prayer has spread into using new medias to teach the world about the importance and beauty of prayer and Carmelite Spirituality.

June 7, 2008 marks our second year anniversary of this podcasting apostolate which began on the feast of Pentecost. The Church Calendar marks our anniversary as the feast of one of our own special Carmelites, Blessed Anne of Saint Bartholomew. Blessed Anne was an intimate friend, nurse and religiouis sister of St. Teresa of Avila who eventually founded many Carmelite Monasteries of her own. Among her foundations were the Carmels in Belgium which eventually made the first foundation of Carmel in America (Baltimore 1790) and next to St. Louis (1863).

We do hope you will find our new website easy to navigate and quick to load. Our 2 years worth of podcasts are still available to listen to and you may also choose to listen to them as mp3 audio files which may be played straight from your computer via our built in audio player. May you find a meditation today which will inspire your heart towards contemplation of our Lord in His great Majesty and love!

We hope these short reflections will inspire you to take up the practice of prayer in your life. As St. Teresa of Avila reminds us is:

"For mental prayer in my opinion is nothing else than an intimate sharing between friends; it means taking time frequently to be alone with him who we know loves us."

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