Year 9 students from our Carmelite Schools in Zumalai and Raimea, Timor-Leste, recently sat their final exams. If successful, the 62 students will graduate and begin their senior High School studies next year. Our thoughts and prayers are with all our students. We rely on the generous support of our friends to help transform young lives through education. If you would like to give the gift of education to our young people in Timor-Leste this Christmas, you can donate here. Thank you for your support. You are giving them a future.

In the Annual Report by the Church to the National Office for Child Safety, the Carmelites of Australia and Timor-Leste drew particular attention to its work with 2 East Timorese child protection experts to review progress in implementing the Province's Safeguarding Policy. This also included a risk assessment of the ministries in Timor-Leste. The report of the 2 experts highlighted that Carmelites in Timor-Leste have a good understanding of the policy and positive attitudes towards implementing it. In addition to making helpful recommendations, the East Timorese experts produced a training manual and ran three training sessions with seminarians, staff, volunteers, teachers and key community leaders, specifically focusing on the code of conduct.

16 young Carmelites in Timor-Leste recently renewed their vows to follow the Carmelite Way for another year. Brs Antonio Junias da Gloria, João Batista Caunan, Lucas dos Santos Martins, Samuel Lopes, Bonifacio Bragança Lopes, Caetano Soares da Silva, Celestino Soares, Elias Soares Sin, Fernando Gusmão, Jacob dos Reis de Carvalho, João Fernando Cabal, Paulo Martins de Araújo, Estavão de Deus Gomes, Julião Dos Santos and David Soares made their vows during Mass celebrated by Fr Carlito da Costa Araújo, Provincial Delegate for Timor-Leste. Br Francisco Xavirius Vieira Martins renewed his vows in a separate ceremony in Hatolia parish. Congratulations, Brothers! More photos

The beautiful words from the prophet Micah today talk about the One who is to come and who will be Peace. Can we dare to imagine that we, too, carry within us the Peace of God? Can we welcome the presence of God within us and one another? Can we find the ways to nourish our awareness of that presence, let it grow stronger and deeper until our whole life is filled with God, immersed in God and overflows in every word, thought and action of ours? Read more

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The Carmelite Library has been successful in its application for a Community Heritage Grant from the National Library of Australia, in the 2021 round of applications. The project is a ‘Significance Assessment of the Carmelite Library Rare Books Collection’. We are very excited about this recognition and look forward to working with an assessor in the coming year. The Library holds an important and growing rare books collection, with titles from every century since the 16th century. More story.

Br Carlito Da Silva has been appointed Head of General Administration at the Higher Institute of Philosophy and Theology (ISFIT), Fatumeta, Dili, Timor-Leste. The 5-year appointment was made by the Timor-Leste Bishops’ Conference. He has also been appointed as lecturer in the ‘Organization and Management of Education and Training’ course at the Institute from the beginning of 2022. Carlito returned from Portugal at the beginning of this year after finishing his studies in educational administration. We congratulate Carlito and wish him well for his new ministry.

Carmelite Librarian, Philip Harvey, recently led a Zoom session about the poetry of St John of the Cross. Philip took 4 of St John's poems as examples of John's encounter with the God of Love. You can read Philip's words here.

Saint John of the Cross was born at Fontiveros in Spain about 1542. He entered the Carmelites and with the permission of his superiors began to live a stricter life. Later he was persuaded by St Teresa to begin, together with some others, a reform within the Carmelite friars which cost him much hard work and many trials. He died in Ubeda in 1591, outstanding in holiness and wisdom, to which his many spiritual writings give eloquent witness. His writings were first published in 1618. After his death the reform he introduced within the friars eventually separated from the Carmelite Order to become the Order of Discalced Carmelite Friars. John was canonised in 1726 and declared a Doctor of the Church in 1926.

The Gospel opens with the people, the tax collectors and some soldiers, having heard the call to change their lives, all asking John, ‘What must we do?” These three groups would normally be very suspicious of each other. The Roman soldiers occupying the country, the locals who collected tax on behalf of the Romans, and the crowd, often the victim of both. Yet somehow John’s preaching has brought them all together in a community of sorts. Read more

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The sense of preparing is very strong in our readings this weekend as we focus on the ministry of John the Baptist. The loving action of God gently fills in the valleys and lowers the mountains and straightens and smooths the roads so that we can be fully open to the living and transforming presence of Jesus so that ‘all mankind shall see the salvation of God’ in and through us. Read more

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