St Thérèse of Lisieux said that her vocation was to be love in the heart of the Church, and she believed her mission in heaven will be to help souls to love God. She chose to be a Victim of Divine Love and a Little Flower in the Garden of God to bring souls to blossom in the garden where they are planted.
St Teresa of Avila felt called to support the Church through personal holiness and through her reforms to provide dedicated, devoted and loyal friends to Jesus who would intimately love him through prayer. Teaching others to spend time with God in prayer, as intimate friends on the Way of Perfection was her mission.
St John of the Cross taught the unconditional necessity of the way of Nada, of the purification and transformation of the Will in Love to arrive on the summit of Mount Carmel. He taught silence and renunciation as the key to union with the Beloved who Wounds us with Love and the guides us through Darkness and Faith to Transformative Union.
St Teresa Benedicta (Edith Stein) believed that it is the vocation of all Carmelites to intercede for others and like the Prophet Elijah to stand before the Presence of the Lord who lives. She taught that the Mystical Marriage and Bridal Union can only occur though the Science of the Cross.
St Elizabeth of the Trinity said that Carmelites are called to become another Mediatrix together with Christ so he can continue the work of salvation through their humanity. She also believed her mission in heaven would be to draw souls into interior recollection with the Blessed Trinity.
St Teresa of the Andes believed that the life of a Carmelite should be no other than of continually contemplating, adoring and loving God. She wanted to be totally immersed in the Ocean of God so that she was captured by the Divine Fisherman, trusting in him as her Captain and Friend, so that others may learn to also fall madly in love with God.
St Titus Brandsma believed his mission was to help reawaken in people the wonderful reality of mysticism, and what it means for us that we have the Indwelling of God within us as the ground of our being. The Virgin Mary is our examplar and guide in the mystical life of union with God, who teaches us to relive the mystery of the Incarnation in our own bodies. To be Carmelite for him, is to be completely Marian to the point of conceiving God and teaching others how to live this mystical transformative union.
For myself as a Carmelite hermit, I see my own personal mission to be an example and witness for all those who feel unwanted or that don’t have a place in the Church. To follow the Holy Spirit to the places and people where others do not or would not go, living on the peripheries and bringing the Gospel to the dark places even when I myself feel lost in the dark. That even in the face of all my weaknesses and sins that there is always hope! So that I can help others not to fall into despair, but to trust that the Lord has a plan for each and everyone of them no matter how much they struggle or want to give up. If the Lord can work through me and change me, then he can do it for anyone!
