The Ultimate Priors Meeting

Back during the 1993 Chapter (a “Chapter” is a meeting of all the Carmelites) it was decided that the Provincial and Council should meet with the priors of each region once each year. A “prior,” for those who do not know, is a Carmelite who is chosen by a community to be that community’s leader. After only one year it became evident that an annual meeting of the Council and priors held in each region was too often and in too many locales. The Priors Meeting was reformatted to be held instead every three years and in one location instead of each region. It also evolved to having various speakers, various discussions, and various reports besides the meeting with the Council. Under this new format (starting in 1995) all the “Priors Meetings” have been held in Houston. They have all been in January with the hope that Houston would be warm and sunny during the meeting—and it always has been.

Carmelites Peter Liuzzi, Myron Judy and Adrian Wilde in discussion

This year was a Priors Meeting year and it was again held in Houston. Again, Houston came through with warm and sunny weather (to the most part). This, though, was the “ultimate” Priors Meeting—not in that it was the greatest, but that it was the “last” (ultimate can also mean last or final) of these to be held in Houston. The Carmelites will soon be withdrawing from our institutional ministries in Houston (see editorial on page 4).

This meeting was held January 29th and 30th at Our Lady of Mount Carmel Parish with most of the priors staying at Casa Santa Teresita (both near Hobby Airport in Houston) with a dinner in their honor held by Saint Bernadette’s Parish in the Clearlake area. Twenty-one priors gathered from our communities in the United States, Mexico and Canada.

We began with a “keynote” presentation by Brother Larry Fidelus, O.Carm., our Director of Long-Range Planning, entitled “The Prior in the Model of Servant-Leader.” Then Brother Larry gave a report from the Inter-Provincial Planning Group about inter-provincial cooperative ventures, and various models of combining the two North American Provinces (PCM-Chicago and SELNew York). These models are:

1. Assimilation (the larger swallows up the smaller)

2. Merger (administration levels combine, other level continue ‘as is’)

3. Amalgamation (the two Province form an entirely new entity at all levels)

4. Cooperation (continue as two separate Provinces which work together on specific projects)

As part of his report, Brother Larry tried out a ‘poll’ on the priors that will later be used to gather hard data from all the members of both Provinces on these models. Afterwards the priors were invited to discuss the report and exercise—and a lot of discussion ensued.

Another report was given by Kristina Ludwig, a lively and informative nutritionist from the Texas Medical Center. Reverend Myron Judy, O.Carm., who is the Province’s Coordinator of Health Care, had arranged a presentation on health and nutrition, especially in light that the priors are in charge of the nutrition of their communities. Her presentations were very informative from cuttingedge research on nutrition. She also offered some easy to follow rules for good nutrition. Both the report and the presenter were well-received. Our chair of the Fraternal Life Commission then gave a report on renewing the “Access Community” project in our various communities.

Lastly, the Provincial Council presented a ‘mid-term report.’ This Provincial and Council were elected in June of 2005 and so are mid-way through their three-year term. Using the Provincial Chapter Acts as their rationale, they resolved to focus on six goals during their term. These issues are:

1. Long-range Planning

2. Vocations

3. Communications

4. Dialogue with the SEL-New York Province

5. Health and Wellness

6. To be accredited as a community who provides safe environments for children and minors The priors felt that this Council has shown definite progress on addressing these issues and showed their appreciation to the Council.

No, this was not the ‘ultimate’ priors meeting either in the sense of it being the greatest or it being the last. But it is ‘ultimate’ in that all Priors Meetings to date (five of them) have been held in Houston and this was last for this locale.