25th Profession Jubilee

We celebrated our annual retreat at Marylake from Oct 17-21 the 3^rd week of October. Fr. Raphael preached the retreat on Saint Teresa’s way of prayer as a relationship of intimacy with Jesus. On Thursday Bonaventure coined the name, “Rudolf the red-nosed Carthusian” referring to the Jesus Book St. Teresa used.

On Wed., 19-Oct-11 at 5:00 pm Mass we celebrated the 25^th silver jubilee of Bonaventure and Marion’s profession. They made their profession on the feast of Our Lady in July of ’86, but we wait until the province is all gathered together at Marylake to celebrate these things.

Our Fr. Provincial read the epistle, and after Marion read the gospel, each jubilarian spoke of his personal journey to Carmel. Both spoke of their gratitude to God for giving them 25 years of community life in our province. Living together in community is not always rosy, as any married couple can also attest.

Each rose has thorns. How did Paul express it? “In order that I might not become conceited I was given a thorn in my flesh.” [2 Cor 12,7] With the joys of community life come obligations and service to the brethren. Each of these two friars have stood up to these responsibilities with courage and valor for 25 years.

Fr. Bonaventure, in his gratitude to his religious brothers, also mentioned some failures he perceived in the positions of leadership to which we had elected him, accompanied by misunderstandings. His calls for restructuring and collaborative ministry did not always fall on sympathetic ears. But from a retrospective view on it all, he retains now a deep sense of thanks for having been accepted and being loved by his Brothers.

Fr. Marion recounted his long journey through imprisonments and boat wrecks of biblical proportions to finally get to learn about the Carmelite life through our nuns in Lafayette and Father Henry who introduced him to the friars. Marion laid down his guard and spoke of his personal feelings of gratitude to Our Lord and his Carmelite brothers for accepting his years of struggle with language and customs to arrive at this time of acceptance and true Brotherhood.

Fr. Luis, our Provincial, joined the two jubilarians on the altar for their Mass of Thanksgiving. The Community of Marylake had decorated the altar with autumn flowers and invited all, after the Mass, to a banquet in the refectory prepared by Rolf Tinner, a Swiss chef friend of Johnny Diaz.

Our retreat continued Thursday with Fr. Raphael’s final conference in the morning, and all the friars returned home to their monasteries and parishes Friday morning.