Journey to Carith: The Sources and Story of the Discalced Carmelites by Peter Thomas Rohrbach

Author:Peter Thomas Rohrbach [Rohrbach, Peter Thomas]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781939272300
Publisher: ICS Publications
Published: 2015-01-23T05:00:00+00:00

Notes

1 John Roca (1540-1614) was an aggressive, forthright personality, somewhat of a firebrand. After his successful mission to Rome in 1579, he was sent bade several times for similar assignments. He occupied a number of important administrative positions in the reform, although Teresa maintained that he had “no talent for government.”

2 At this time Teresa was no longer limited to a maximum number of thirteen nuns for each convent. Her original purpose in so limiting the house was to avoid the overcrowded conditions of convents like the Incarnation where the presence of so many nuns made religious observance extremely difficult. But the number of thirteen proved a little too limited, and in 1576 Gratian allowed her to increase the number to twenty, if necessary; and this number did not include the lay sisters, of whom there could be a maximum of three. The custom of twenty nuns, excluding the lay sisters, was then written into the nuns’ constitutions, which were approved at the Separation Chapter at Alcalá de Henares. In the seventeenth century the Carmelite nuns increased the number to twenty-one, the extra one being in honor of St. Teresa herself, whom the nuns said should be present in every convent. This number of twenty-one has endured until the present day. There was never any limitation on the number of friars in each monastery, although Teresa did say that “there should be few religious in each monastery.” That statement has always been broadly interpreted in the reform, and some of the larger monasteries have at times contained more than a hundred friars.

3 In the course of her many foundations Teresa had become an astute businesswoman. She wrote to her brother Lorenzo: “Although I used to detest money and business matters, it is the Lord’s pleasure that I should engage in nothing else, and that is no light cross. My experiences with these houses of God and the Order have made me so good at bargains and business deals that I am well up in everything.” When Teresa was building the convent at Malagón in 1568 she remained outside all day watching the builders, sitting on a large stone where she had her lunch brought to her for fear the builders would try to cheat her in her absence.

4 As a true Castilian, John of the Cross did not like the southern country of Andalusia. In 1581 Teresa wrote to Gratian, imploring him to bring John back to Castile in the north: “When I was commiserating sometime ago with Father John of the Cross on his dislike of being in Andalusia—for he cannot endure the people there—I told him that, if God gave us a province of our own, I would try to get him back here. Now he reminds me of my promise and he is afraid they will be re-electing him at Baeza. He tells me that he is begging your reverence not to confirm the election. If that is practicable, it would be only fair to give him this comfort, for he has had his fill of suffering.

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