The Carmelite Order was founded by St Berthold in Palestine around 1154. Hermits, following the example of Elijah, adopted a solitary lifestyle on Mount Carmel. They lived in small cells near the spring called Elijah's fountain and practised shared solitude. After 1206 they asked the Patriarch of Jerusalem to draw up their way of life in a rule. This directs that they celebrate the eucharist daily and gather weekly to encourage and correct each other. Soon after they received their rule Jerusalem fell and they migrated to the West settling in Sicily, Italy, Spain, France and England.
Elijah was an inspiration to them as he was solitary figure on Mount Carmel, who challenged his people to chose one God. Elijah heard God as an unexpected whisper while on Mount Horeb and, as a result, what the Carmelites call Carmel is a way of life in which they try to be aware of the presence of God in the most ordinary, everyday things. Elijah also said, 'God lives in whose presence I stand', so Carmelites seek to recognise God in everyone they meet and serve.
St Teresa of Avila, who reformed the Carmelite Order in Spain in the late 1500's, said this, 'But here the Lord asks only two things of us: love of His Majesty and love of our neighbor. It is for these two virtues that we must strive, and if we attain them perfectly we are doing His will and so shall be united with Him. But, as I have said, how far we are from doing these two things in the way we ought for a God Who is great! May His Majesty be pleased to give us grace so that we may deserve to reach this state, as it is in our power to do if we wish. The surest sign that we are keeping these two commandments is, I think, that we should really be loving our neighbor; for we cannot be sure if we are loving God, although we may have good reasons for believing that we are, but we can know quite well if we are loving our neighbor.'
St Teresa spoke of prayer as sharing friendship with God. Their emphasis was on intimate communion with God as in this poem by St John of the Cross:
The Living Flame Of Love
Songs of the soul in the intimate communication of loving union with God.
O living flame of love that tenderly wounds my soul in its deepest center! Since now you are not oppressive, now consummate! if it be your will: tear through the veil of this sweet encounter!
O sweet cautery, O delightful wound! O gentle hand! O delicate touch that tastes of eternal life and pays every debt! In killing you changed death to life.
O lamps of fire! in whose splendors the deep caverns of feeling, once obscure and blind, now give forth, so rarely, so exquisitely, both warmth and light to their Beloved.
How gently and lovingly you wake in my heart, where in secret you dwell alone; and in your sweet breathing, filled with good and glory, how tenderly you swell my heart with love.
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U2 - The Ground Beneath Her Feet.
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