Special vocation to the mystical life.

In 1370 the Spanish Carmelite, Philip Riboti, assembled some documents on the origins of the Order, in which the mystical vocation of its members is particularly affirmed. The authenticity of these documents has given place to very serious debate, but also to important defence. The collection contains the Institutio primorum monachorum, attributed to John XLIV, Patriarch of Jerusalem; a letter from about 1235 by Saint Cyril of Constantinople, third Prior General; and finally, the Chronicle of William of Sanvico, the author of which was one of the last to flee from Mount Carmel in 1291 at the time of the general massacre by the Turks and who assisted at the General Chapter of Montpellier (1287) in the capacity of definitor of the Holy Land.

Should they be of the 14th century only -- which is by no means proved -- these documents would still furnish us with very precious information about Carmelite Spirituality and what was regarded in the middle of the 14th century as the mystical tradition of Carmel and its ideal. According to the testimony of the Dominican, Stephen of Salagnac, in the second half of the 13th century, the Institutio, even as apocryphal, remains a traditional paraphrase of the rule of life created by the Patriarch Aymeric of Malafay in 1156 to which allusion is made in the prologue of the Rule of 1205. The Institutio describes the spiritual life of the hermits of Carmel and indicates clearly the double goal of the Order, and affirms consequently from the beginning its members' arrival at mystical graces if they are faithful to their rule and if God judges it opportune. "This life," says the Institutio (Ch. 2), "has a double goal; we acquire the first by our virtuous labor and effort with the help of divine grace. It consists in offering to God a holy heart, free of all stain of sin. We attain this end when we are perfect and in Carith, which is to say, hidden in charity... The other goal of this life is communicated to us by a pure gift of God; I mean not only after death, but even in this mortal life, to taste in some way in one's heart and to experience in one's spirit the power of the divine presence and the sweetness of glory from on high. This is called drinking from the torrent of God's pleasures." Not only the purgative way and the illuminative way, but even the unitive way and infused contemplation are clearly proposed as the end to be attained, the goal to be pursued, the ideal to be realized; but still this union and participation in the heavenly life are declared at the same time to be a "pure gift of God." Never in any Order; to my knowledge, has a book furnishing a norm of life and declaring the end toward which its members should strive, enunciated the vocation to the mystical life in so formal a manner.

This double end is the "double spirit" asked by Elisha for his disciples and the imitators of Elijah. Occasionally this double spirit is interpreted as the double portion of the firstborn or as the union of the active and contemplative life. But more generally it is admitted that it pertains to active contemplation which the divine Goodness crowns with passive contemplation.