CCA Charter of Life

CCA Charter of Life

A contemporary statement of the Teresian charism
by the Carmelite Communities Associated

We are Christians
We have been baptized into Christ, sealed by the Holy Spirit, and joined to Christ’s body the church, where we share the heritage of children who confidently say with Jesus: Abba!

We are Carmelites
We believe that each of us is called by Christ to follow him in a life of apostolic love, by searching the depths of divine intimacy in solitary prayer. To guide us, we have taken the Rule of Carmel as it has come down to us from St. Teresa.

Within the ancient Carmelite tradition, imaged in Elijah and Mary, Mother of God, Teresa, daughter and doctor of the church, evolved a unique style of contemplative life infused with her sense of the Risen Christ and the church. We have recognized in the Teresian Carmel the substance of our own desires. In Christ’s name, therefore, we have gathered to live a life of prayer in the light of Carmel’s Rule, quickened by Teresa’s spirit.

The Spirit within presses us to pray always, and our Rule counsels continual meditation in silence and solitude. Our solitude becomes a desert of time and space, and our silence, a climate of peace for listening. One permeates the other, and together they make up the environment of prayer.

Each sister has her own room apart—a sacred, familiar space, a desert where we are at home. We reserve two hours each day for solitary prayer. This spirit of prayer and leisure graces each of our moments with unhurried attention and esteem, giving our lives a contemplative dimension.

In community
There are times when we exchange the presence of solitude for the presence of community, gathering for worship, community meetings, and the common meal.

Worship is the source and summit of Christ’s life in us and of our shared life in him. We celebrate the Eucharist as disciples who live the dying and rising of Jesus.

The Liturgy of the Hours extends the memorial of the Paschal Mystery to the hours and seasons, gathering the prayer of all creation into our own.

Together in faith, we meet to explore our life’s meaning and direction, breaking the bread of the Spirit for one another and creating a quality of human and religious life befitting us as children of God.

Solitaries in Community
We embrace solitude and community without contradiction, finding strength in tradition, rooted in the church, and supported by common life, which frees us for prayer.

Our life is a journey toward solitude—an ideal of a heart wholly taken up with Christ. We grow towards it through God’s Spirit and the Gospel ideal of community, creating a community of love as we journey between solitude and unity.

We are Religious
Our vocation calls us to live the Gospel through poverty, celibacy, and obedience, binding us to Christ and in him to all, through all-embracing, inclusive, and creative love.

In choosing celibacy, we commit ourselves to a way of loving that binds us to Christ Jesus and to the community of life. We celebrate it in the Eucharist and give it flesh and blood day by day, in the mutual self-giving of community life.

In choosing poverty, we commit ourselves to a way of living that undergirds our life of prayer and bears witness to the Gospel. We live simply, holding our possessions in common and sharing in the spirit of concern for personal need counseled by our Rule.

In choosing obedience, we commit ourselves to a way of fidelity to the will of God, following Christ, who went this way to glory. We listen to the Spirit of Jesus speaking in each of us, in the community, in the church, and in the signs of the times.

The government of our communities is simply structured. We choose leaders from among ourselves and share the responsibility for discernment, decision-making, and the peaceful ordering of our everyday lives.

In professing our vows, we have said “yes” to Love, called to live out our Baptismal grace. We press on, hoping to lay hold of Christ Jesus, who laid hold of us, and to hasten the day when Love will be all in all.

We are people on the Way
We value the support of a disciplined life. Our asceticism is shaped by the call to a change of heart, guided by the Spirit’s breathing. We seek to immerse ourselves in the Word of God and value disciplines that develop us in body, mind, and spirit, disposing us for prayer and community living.

We are children of our time. We claim as our own its history, its culture, its greatness, and its sin, for we believe that the God we seek meets us in each unfolding moment of the cosmic story. We continue to fashion our life of prayer in ways appropriate to its time, becoming within the local church and community a visible and accessible presence of universal love.

We walk in faith
Faith is the wellspring of our life. Though ordinary, our life speaks of more than ourselves, as we embody a prophetic presence pointing to God’s infinite mystery and the immanence of God’s love. We go our way with quiet hearts, praying continually and giving thanks to God, always and everywhere.

                                              The Complete Text of Our Charter of Life            Charter of life 

ACKNOWLEDGEMENT
The CCA acknowledges its gratitude to all those who at any time were members of the Charter Task Force:

Sr. Teresa Hahn, Sr. Joan Bourne, Sr. Claudette Blais, Sr. Mary Paul Cutri, Sr. Constance Fitzgerald, Sr. Laureen Grady, Sr. Carolyn O’Hara, Sr. Mary Roman, Sr. Mary Catharine Scanlan, Sr. Vilma Seelaus, Sr. Carmen Womack