Probably each one of us has a little different experience of Fr. John. For some he was member of the family—the uncle who came home to Massachusetts during the summer and spent time on the Cape. For others of us, John was the prior of our community, our provincial, our prior general; he was a fellow member of our Carmelite province. For others he was a major supporter of their work on behalf of the Church’s missions. For most perhaps, he was a familiar smiling figure in the hallways or patios of Salpointe, the school gym, or on the baseball diamond. He was the one sitting in the back at a school play or musical concert. And for those of us who have gotten a little long in the tooth, he was our classroom religion teacher!

    But I find it interesting that lots of people will say “Fr. John taught me” or “Fr. Randall taught me.” But I have yet to hear one person talk about the actual content of those classes, the subject matter taught in those religion classes. And here is an important point for all of us who see ourselves as teachers. While no one talks about what John taught, they all talk about how John taught them. Everyone speaks very fondly and very gratefully of John’s gentle presence, his ready smile, his encouraging word, the hand on the shoulder. That is the lesson they took from his class! That is what has proved important for them in later life.

    John was never my classroom teacher, but he was very much my teacher. The man spent his life teaching each of us. I think his classroom was life itself, and the content of his lesson was that God has greatly blessed each and every one of us with abundant gifts … and that living life completely, fully, and without compromise, means we need to develop those gifts and use them, not for ourselves, but for others. John just loved people and he could never understand why people would keep God’s gifts for themselves. All those gifts were to be used to build a better school, family, community, church, or world. And John did not just talk about this. His
methodology was to teach by example. John never asked me to do something that he himself had not already done. Why did he live that way? Because he genuinely loved people! He wanted us to succeed. He wanted us to become better people.

    "I suspect John was very much influenced by the passage Kate McGarey-Vasey just read from Paul’s first letter to the Corinthians. When Paul wrote to the Corinthians, he was trying to get them to move beyond the status quo, from merely living life (often a self-centered life) to living a life centered on love. Paul points out to the Corinthians that they could have everything---the gift of prophecy, the ability to understand all of life’s mysteries, a faith that could move mountains … but if their lives were not based on love, if “love for other” was not their motivation for doing everything, than they had nothing at all. In fact, St. Paul says, “If we live without love then we are nothing at all.”

    "Then St. Paul goes on to describe what qualities love really is. We have all heard this passage many times but it bears repeating because this was at the heart of John’s lesson. Paul writes that love is patient, kind, not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrong, it is not self-seeking. Do you catch what St. Paul is doing? He is taking some ordinary characteristics of personal relationships—qualities that each of us is capable of possessing and Paul is saying “do these ordinary things with love” and you will gain everything. Didn’t Fr. John teach us this lesson of St. Paul’s? Didn’t John show us how to live these ordinary things with great love?

    "Think back. In all the sporting events I attended with John, I never remember him raising his voice. Did you ever hear him yell? If you heard a Malley yelling, it was his brother! John accepted the victories and defeats with the same spirit. He was even keeled as someone said last night. He preferred winning to losing, no doubt about it. But he saw teachable moments in both. He was there for all involved with his quiet, gentle, reassuring presence, the hand on the other person’s shoulder, shaking the hands of the athletes after a victory or a defeat (It did not matter), giving each performer in the play an encouraging word. He would use those events to teach us to accept graciously whatever comes our way. If we did not like the result then we could try harder next time, work together better. Or if we had tried our best, then it was possible to move on. Life would continue. We would be okay.

    "You know besides never hearing John yell, I never saw him get mad. One of handful of times I remember seeing him a little testy was when Fr. Leo McCarthy was visiting our community and kept using his cell phone at the dinner table. Some in the community—and they will remain nameless—found this slightly inappropriate and so before the next evening meal, we printed up signs and hung them all around the monastery dining room, proclaiming it to be a cell phone free zone. Let me just say that what seemed like a very funny idea fell kind of flat. And as John left the room after a slightly tense dinner, he turned around and just said “No more signs.” Even the man’s fraternal corrections were gentle!!

    "The Carmelite Family follows the Rule of St. Albert, a very short document … 1600 words … composed before 1214. When you read through this document, you realize that it is really taking the ordinary things of life—time management, silence, religious practices (Mass, group prayer, private prayer, meditation), relationships with another, even eating—these very ordinary things of daily life and making them the way that a person lives extraordinarily, that one actually becomes capable of encountering God face to face. It is in living the ordinary things of life extraordinarily with love that we come to know God.

    "One artistic representation of our Rule was created by the Dutch artist Arie Trum. He called it “No Image Satisfies.” What Trum did was arrange the 1600 words of the Rule in the shape of a cross. In the center of that cross is an empty space. To highlight the importance of this empty space, Trum made it into the most perfect of shapes, a circle. Then to give the empty circle even more importance, he highlighted it with a band of pure gold. 

    "For me, this representation means that living life following the Rule of St. Albert will involve quite ordinary experiences. But most of life is very ordinary, and so it teaches us how to use those ordinary events and experiences that the Rule speaks of—how we use time, silence, common religious practices, relationships with another, yes, even eating—to create this space within us, within our soul, in interior space that can only be filled by God! Was not that really what Fr. John taught us?

    "Fr. John’s support and presence very often came in the form of a handwritten card or letter. He had many friends, literally around the world. He helped them and us navigate all those moments that normal, ordinary life brings, as well as some of the extraordinary ones, making sure we understood that he was there with us with his quiet, gentle, reassuring letters—the theology of the note. How much more simple could it be! But how many of us treasure those notes and cards that we received from John!

    "That is what the Rule of St. Albert and living as a Carmelite is all about. That is what the first reading, from the first book of Kings, is about. Elijah is attempting to experience God in the extraordinary—in the earthquake, in the fire, in the storm—but he does not find God in any of those. It is only when he feels this gentle breeze, or as some translations put it, in the sound of sheer silence, does Elijah realize that God is there with him. That silence, that gentle breeze is Elijah’s encounter with God. God is not in the incredible events, not in the extraordinary. Elijah only finds God in the ordinary. Helping us to discover God in those ordinary events of our own lives was John’s gift to so many of us.

    "The Gospel passage from St. John was the only Scripture reading that Fr. John specified he wanted read at his funeral. So obviously this Gospel had special meaning to him. It was also an important passage to St. Teresa of Avila, the 16th century Spanish Carmelite mystic, who Fr. John read and studied. Teresa never had direct access to this Gospel passage as the Bible was only available in Latin in her day. But she became familiar with this passage in her spiritual reading, from authors who would quote the Scripture in Spanish. This particular passage had a tremendous influence on her writing “The Interior Castle” based on a direct, personal experience Teresa had of God—and how she understood her own faith journey, of going through the many rooms of the castle, ending with union with God.

    "Of course, the goal, the vocation, the desire of each Christian is union with God--- but the journey is arduous. While St. Teresa uses the image from Scripture of moving through this castle with many rooms, St. John of the Cross uses the image of ascending a mountain, and Carmelite spirituality also often speaks of the spiritual journey as a journey into the desert. We Tucsonians can perhaps relate best to that. The point is that we are all on this journey.

    "I would not presume to judge where John Malley was in his own spiritual journey—that is between him and God. But it was obvious to me that there were two aspects to John’s journey. While he was incredibly people oriented, he was also very reflective and prayerful—he worked at developing a personal relationship with his God. How appropriate that he died praying the office and that the book was open to the Psalm 116 which says, “How shall I make a return to the Lord for all the good he has done for me? My vows to the Lord I will pay in the presence of all his people. Precious in the eyes of the Lord is the death of his faithful ones.”

    "When Fr. John was prior provincial, his secretary, Helen Sullivan often referred to Fr. John—when he wasn’t around—as St. John. When I went to Rome as a member of the General Council, John had completed his term of office six years before so he was well-known in Rome. I enjoyed making some statement and attributing it to “St. John.” Someone would always get flustered and say, “That is from St. John? Where is that written in St. John?” Then someone familiar with my tactic would explain I was actually quoting John Malley. One day we were having a rather heated discussion about something when one of the Council members said “This was John Malley’s doing when he was prior general. I told him it was wrong. He didn’t listen! This is Malley’s fault.” And then, for his great finish, he pointed across the table at me and said “And THIS ONE calls him St. John!!!” Everyone at the table dissolved into laughter. We all walked out of a very tense meeting laughing! To this day, the Spaniards who were there call me Este (This One).

    "John was a very good man—no doubt about that. And the natural reaction is to want to memorialize him—a picture, something of concrete or metal. But I don’t think John would be very interested in those kinds of memorials. Pictures fade. Concrete crumbles. Metal rusts. Plus John just did not like a lot of attention focused on himself.

    "I think what Fr. John would be most interested in is a monument of flesh and blood. He would want us to memorialize him by taking seriously all those things he taught us by his own example. He would want us to really live out authentically with our lives those lessons he taught us. Our best tribute to him would be to live life to the fullest, that we create space for God within us by making sure we take those little moments—being with each other, listening to one another, encouraging each other, connecting via letter or email (although he was not too keen on email himself), or one of the other ways John showed us how to love. He would ask that with our love we turn those very common, ordinary moments into great moments of love, genuine encounters with our God. That I think is the best, most lasting monument we could build to remember
him.

    John, you good and faithful servant, enjoy living forever in the tender and loving presence of the Lord. And many thanks for all that you were for us. Amen."

    Did you know that you are a unique gift to the Church and to the world?  There is only one you and there is something that God wants to offer His people which He has entrusted to you alone.  What is that gift?  
    God has also entrusted unique gifts within every ecclesial community, for the sake of the Church and the world.  We call such gifts charisms.  Communities within the Church that have received charisms from God include religious orders, like the Carmelites.  What is the Carmelite charism?  This question can be difficult to answer, just as it may be difficult to discover personal charisms.  
    In our search for the Carmelite charism the following video may be helpful.  It was produced by the Carmelites of the Province of Aragón and Valencia.  Who knows, perhaps by watching it you may come to appreciate more, not only the Carmelite charism, but your personal charism as well.        

    As we live our days, periodically we come accross puzzling phenomena.  For instance we may experience and question the cultural habits of different ethnic groups, wonder how it is that man can invent marvelous devices and technology such as cars, planes, computers, the internet, etc., be amazed at the beauty of conjugal love, or awaken to the realization that the hearts of our friends and our own hearts can never be fully known.  In all these experiences there is a mystery that calls for respect, all the while inviting us to contemplate within them something of the divine.  The following four-part video reveals such a mystery, the mystery of a Carmelite vocation.  Why is it that Carmelites live the lives they lead, mystical lives of abandonment and selflessness for a love that is signified by an object of condemnation?  We will never fully understand this simply by watching a video.  However, if we give the following Interview with a Carmelite Nun a chance perhaps we will begin to see what she sees and consequently be lit with the same joy her face radiates.      

    

    Carmelite Homiles would like to honor St. Therese of Lisieux in its first posting on Carmelite spirituality.  St. Therese was a Carmelite nun of France at the end of the 19th century.  Her short life on earth, though seemingly insignificant by some of her contemporaries, has proved to be a powerful catalyst in spreading the Gospel of Jesus Christ throughout the world.  The reason why we would like to honor her in our first post on Carmelite spirituality is twofold.     
    Firstly, her sprituality is a "little way," one in which any person can find the means to spiritual satisfaction (cf. the Gospel of Mark 8:8).  Therese's Little Way is, according to the saint herself, "the way of spiritual childhood, the way of trust and absolute surrender," (Story of a Soul, translated by John Clark, OCD, Third Edition, page xi).  To learn more about this little way, please obtain a copy of her autobiography, A Story of a Soul, which can be purchased at www.icspublications.org.  
    Secondly, besides being the patroness of vocations, she is officially recognized by the Holy Catholic Church as the patroness of the missions.  As she once said, "I would like to travel over the whole earth to preach Your Name and to plant Your glorious Cross on infidel soil.  But O my Beloved, one mission alone would not be sufficient for me, I would want to preach the Gospel on all the five continents simultaneously and even to the most remote isles.  I would be a missionary, not for a few years only but from the beginning of creation until the cunsummation of the ages.  But above all, O my Beloved Savior, I would shed my blood for You to the very last drop."  (Ibid, pages 192-193).  Carmelite Homilies needs St. Therese to pray for the success of this website, that it may be used by the Lord Jesus Christ to spread his Gospel throughout the world. 
    May St. Therese's mission to make our Lord Jesus Christ loved as she loves Him become realized in each one of our hearts!  How can we help her do this?