Special love of solitude.

Although the necessities of the apostolate had turned the Order to an ever more active life, the custom of establishing new convents in solitude was maintained during the first centuries according to the rule, until it was permitted to choose other sites when there was need. In 1254 the Friars refused the house which St. Louis offered them in the center of Paris and preferred the one which the King gave them outside the city. A decree of John XXII ordained that ten convents be transferred to cities so that the Carmelites might occupy themselves with the care of souls the more easily. In the beginning of the 14th century, John Baconthorpe, the greatest scientific authority in the Order at that time, vindicated foundations in solitude; he exalted meditation in the cell with the example of the Virgin, who by her prayers in the seclusion of Nazareth deserved to conceive the Son of God. We have proof that these solitary convents, asylums of contemplation, continued; in the life of St. Andrew Corsini, bishop of Fiesole (+1366), for example, it was to a house of this kind that he retired for his First Mass and obtained his first mystical grace, a vision of the Blessed Virgin. Blessed Angelus Augustine Mazzinghi (+1438) founded hermitages in the following century and the reform which he inaugurated had no other purpose than to remind the Order of its mystical glory.

Not only the rule, but all the constitutions recommend solitude; the cell is a sanctuary where each one lives with God and ascends to him. No province is complete or prosperous without "deserts," even under the mitigated rule. That is why solitude for the Carmelite is the expression of detachment from the world and nearness to God. Poverty moreover has a significance which differs from the meaning that the Franciscans, for example, attach to it; while the Friars Minor regard it especially as an imitation of Christ and opposition to the world, the Carmelites view it principally as a consequence of their adherence to God in contemplation of heavenly things. To neglect it is a sign that one is less united to God and prefers inferior occupations. In the pursuit of contemplation, poverty is intimately joined to solitude; "How sordid the world becomes for me when I gaze at the heavens."