Considering how vital witnesses are for the mission of the Church, Archbishop Edward Gilbert put a great deal into perspective when he thanked the Corpus Christi Carmelites last week for “clarifying” the Christian witness. He could hardly have paid a higher tribute.

Last Monday’s Mass at the Cathedral on the Feast of Our Lady of Mount Carmel, which marked the start of the centenary celebrations of the religious congregation, was an opportune time to honour the Carmelite women who have served the Archdiocese, the region and various parts of the world for so many years.

“The Church must always seek to make her presence visible in everyday life, especially in contemporary culture, which is often secularised and yet sensitive to the language of signs,” wrote Pope John Paul II in Vita Consecrata (The Consecrated Life).

“The Church has a right to expect a significant contribution from consecrated persons, called as they are in every situation to bear clear witness that they belong to Christ,” he said.

In his remarks before the start of the Mass at the Cathedral, Fr Reginald Hezekiah reminded those assembled of what the sisters’ contribution has been like – “a long and beautiful tradition of ministry to those who are often forgotten, neglected and abandoned by society”.

This relatively small congregation of sisters – just 75 professed (53 over 60 years) – continues to run a day nursery, a convalescent home for children, a home for the mentally challenged, vocational and high schools. They have been involved in parish ministry, hospital and prison ministry, counselling and more.

The familiar brown habit

Still more important than all the various jobs they do is the witness that they give that Jesus is among us. The name of the congregation – Corpus Christi Carmelites – and their double motto, “I am the Bread of Life” and “Serve the Lord with Gladness”, give further evidence of this witness.

But the nuns who arrived in the Archdiocese as Dominican Tertiaries in 1919, at the invitation of Archbishop John Pius Dowling, and who became affiliated to the Carmelite Order in 1928, and took up the now familiar brown habit, in 1935, also remind us that the divine attracts.

They make clear that “the most important thing is to serve God freely” and, by their chosen way of life and influence continue to remind us that we are all called to be saints (Vita Consecrata).

This Sunday’s Gospel, the story of Jesus’ visit to the home of Martha and Mary, has come to be seen as portraying two dimensions (one active, the other contemplative) of the one spiritual life – a life to which each of us is called and which is lived with such clarity by the Corpus Christi Carmelites. They have managed to keep in wonderful tension the two dimensions. At a time when so many of them are aging, the witness of the sisters is as important as ever.

The Catholic News, which has chronicled the journey of the religious community at every stage, remembers with gratitude the generous women who have passed on and the ways God has continued to bless the sisters and – through them – the Archdiocese, the nation and the other places that have benefited from their presence.

Sisters, may this centenary year renew your trust and hope in God’s providence.

Corpus Christi Carmelites

'Quiet power' of Corpus Christi Carmelites