Carmelite nuns, sisters, priests, brothers and laity, Discalced and Ancient Observance, will gather in South Bend, Indiana, June 16-20, 2010, to explore together “Carmel’s Quest for the Living God.” Keynote speakers will be Camilo Macisse, OCD., former superior general of the Discalced Carmelites, Fernando Millán, Romeral O.Carm, prior general of the Carmelites, and Dolores Leckey of the Woodstock Theological Center. This conference will be a time for Carmelites and their friends to celebrate their Carmelite identity and to explore what it means to seek the living God in the new millennium. The North American Carmelite Forum will offer workshops during the conference. The Forum speakers include Sisters Constance FitzGerald, Vilma Seelaus, Mary Frohlich, Fathers Kieran Kavanaugh, Kevin Culligan, Daniel Chowning, John Welch, and Patrick McMahon as well as Keith J. Egan. At this conference the Forum will celebrate the 25th anniversary of its annual Seminar on Carmelite Spirituality held since 1985 at Saint Mary’s College. The 2010 conference will be held at Saint Mary’s College in South Bend, Indiana, with one evening event to be held on the campus of Notre Dame University. Options for housing include dormitory rooms and apartments on the Saint Mary’s campus as well as conference rates at nearby hotels. This conference welcomes members of the Carmelite Family as well as anyone interested in Carmelite Spirituality to this triennial event planned by the Carmelite Institute, Washington, DC, and the Carmelite Forum and sponsored by the Center for Spirituality, Saint Mary’s College. For information contact Mrs. Kathy Guthrie, 574-284-4636, or by e-mail: kguthrie@saintmarys.edu. Information and registration forms will be ready and can be obtained after the New Year by contacting Mrs. Guthrie. Catholic Environmental Education (continued from page 6) education is substantial, but our recent excursion to Joshua Tree National Park in Palms Springs, California, can perhaps best illustrate the way experiential environmental education is especially suited to not only teach about the moral virtues, but to cultivate them. For five days in October, I helped lead a group of EEOL backpackers traverse Joshua Tree’s Lost Horse Valley, a surrealist stage of frozen performers—jagged ballerinas perpetually awaiting a sunset sonata—studded with granite monoliths balanced into mountains. Opportunities to practice the virtues of justice and prudence pervaded our learning to live and travel as a self-sufficient group in a desert wilderness. Justice, according to Aquinas, is a perfection of the will that directs man in his relations with others, which is codified in the Leave No Trace ethic. Likewise, the students took leadership positions—from camp cook to map-and-compass-man—in which the exercise of prudence, or right reason applied to action, had very real consequences for the entire group. The students memorized the nine Leave No Trace principles and learned to account for them in every decision throughout the day, from choosing a durable campsite that would neither disturb other hikers nor sensitive, cryptobiotic soil, to “big spooning” leftovers rather than digging holes that attract coyotes, to extracting deflated balloons that find their last, ironic resting place in the prickly park. On the third day of the expedition Alex noticed that Hayden was limping and had been uncharacteristically lagging behind the rest of the group. When Alex finally learned that Hayden had been pushing through the hike despite his two-size-too-small shoes, he promptly offered him his own. Alex no longer had a comfortable pair for nights, but on the trail all gear is group gear; as Aquinas puts it justice is a habit whereby a man renders to another his due. Our last morning we set out before sunrise and were cresting a mountain pass in the Wonderland of Rocks when the group stopped short a mere thirty yards from a family of elusive Desert Bighorned Sheep. The herd surveyed us bashfully then deftly made its way down the bouldered valley and over the towering ridgeline. We watched their progress in silence for half an hour. The trees may have been dedicated to Joshua but the desert rocks remain the refuge of Elijah and the still small voice of God. The wonder of that silent encounter came closer than any moral virtue to manifesting John Paul II’s vision of “ecological conversion.” After all according to Aquinas the form of every virtue is love which we all know must be experienced even if not understood.
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