Climbing the Mountain/Living the Carmelite Way/The Statutes

This biography of Malachy Lynch who restored Aylesford Priory to England is by Fr Wilfrid McGreal.

Writing in 1536, at the start of the English Reformation, the former Carmelite friar John Bale spoke admiringly of the early members of that religious order: 'The sons of Elijah were poor hermits of small repute among men, humble, retiring...They were endowed with the Holy Spirit of fervent devotion, occupied in contemplation of God... from among them came many who were wise and learned men'. Bale went on to accuse his contemporary Carmelites of declining zeal: 'They came to the notice of princes, put on airs and graces...rewarded with honors and titles, enriched with gifts... ambitious, proud and acquisitive'.

The Carmelite order began as a small group of hermits who settled in a valley on Mount Carmel around 1200. As their numbers grew and the Holy Land became subject to increasing attacks from the Arabs, they spread westwards, making foundations in Cyprus, Messina in Sicily and then in 1242, a group reached England and settled at Hulne Priory in Northumberland and Aylesford in Kent. Over the years, the English Province flourished and reached a peak of thirty-nine houses with nearly 1,000 friars by the end of the 14th century. Then, sadly, in 1538, like all the religious orders, the Carmelites were suppressed by King Henry VIII. During the penal days, individual Carmelites came secretly to care for those who still held to the Catholic faith but it was not until the Catholic Emancipation Act of 1829 that the Order could establish itself in England again. There are now communities of the Carmelites of the Ancient Observance at Aylesford, Faversham, Reading and Newcastle as well as our Discalced Carmelite brethren at Kensington in London, Oxford and Gerard's Cross.