Joining a religious order has many facets. It starts with a call within your heart, and begins in reality when you take that first step to answer the invitation. Before becoming a novice in profession with your new brothers, there is a period of time when the candidate lives within the community and begins to understand the call of his future as a Carmelite. As a pre-novice drawn to the Order, I spent my first year in preparation by learning about this calling and how I may be of service to Gods community.

My journey began at Casa del Carmen, the Carmelite pre-novitiate house in Mexico City. As part of my understanding of Carmelite life, I was asked to look outside of myself and become involved in a pastoral ministry. Pastoral work is defined as a service in the midst of the people that is motivated by the charism. The ministry where the Carmelite prenovices serve is directed by the Archdiocese. It involves working with delinquent minors in Mexico’s penitentiary system.

There are five centers for social rehabilitation in Mexico City. Interns, (as they are called) who are staying at these centers have committed a crime such as assault, robbery, or even murder. Four of the centers house young men; the fifth is for young women. All the interns range from 13 to 22 years of age.

I have discovered that most interns are victims of social problems. They are the result of a society that ostracizes them, of a nuclear family that is nonexistent, of a lack of support and formal education. This pushes these young people into a life of delinquency and to choose a life-style that may seem to be easy, but in reality is a difficult one. Many live in the streets and have always lived there, while others have experienced severe wounds, physical as well as psychological, from members of their family or people close to them. They are people who suffer and who carry on their shoulders the weight of their social surroundings which exclude them and confuse them. They are resentful of society and feel the need to be loved and the need for support and tenderness.

I had prejudices that came with me as I entered the centers for the first time. I expected to meet interns that were incapable of feeling, who were aggressive, ignorant, different from us, mean-looking and rebellious. However, in reality what I found was quite different. They are very intelligent people. Many were astute, talented, gifted. They had great potential. They were capable of giving and receiving love. In several cases some of them are born leaders. But these capacities are not well channeled.

So my work and the work of the other pre-novices was to accompany these interns. We would interact with them around the clock. For example, each Saturday we would give talks on human development and Christian formation. We would also join them in playing therapeutic games. We prayed with them and sometimes we even talked on a personal level with them. In this way we encouraged their participation and increased their confidence in us. Just being aware of this reality makes us feel more committed than ever. Through my observance of these men and women, I feel changed somehow. I experienced feelings of tenderness. In each one of them I can see God’s face, which in turn makes me want to serve Him more. All of us listened to the interns, giving them a voice. We encouraged them, we helped them, and we got them to see in themselves the dignity that they have as persons and as members of society. We also tried to get them to feel the great love that God has for them. We want them to live and better experience the love of our merciful God.

I believe we have to live in allegiance to Jesus Christ, and so I along with the others gave ourselves totally to these people with this purpose in mind. Called to service in the midst of the people, we respond by attending to the needs of others. Our goal is to share with these young men and women our own experiences and our lives. They appreciate our attention since we don’t try to change them, but to encourage them. That way they can discover the great treasure they all have: their person and their dignity.

Our service to the interns is productive of many different experiences that help us to be compassionate, tender, loving, and committed. The assistance that we provide opens up our own vision of the world and of reality. We mature more as persons and this helps us to overcome our fears. As our prejudices melt away, we become surer of ourselves. We learn to listen and know ourselves a little better. We also receive a lot from them. They share with us their cleverness, the way they hang on to life, their capacity for survival, and their courage, their ability to face tough situations, their faithfulness, and the way they can adapt to any environment. These lessons have helped me and the other pre-novices to strengthen our own commitment as Christians, and above all, as members of the Carmelite Order to which we belong.