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Carmelite
Heritage To be a Pilgrim This pilgrimage will be a relaxed journey visiting some of the most beautiful and inspiring places in Europe. However, more importantly, it will also be a spiritual journey whose heart is found in the life and experience of St Teresa of Ávila the joyous and great-hearted mystic who founded a new spiritual family in the Christian Church. Teresa found in interior prayer a life changing relationship with Jesus Christ. As her relationship with Christ grew, she first founded a community of friends and then they dedicated their lives to the need of the Church for unity. The flowering of her vision came when she became aware of the people of the New World who had never heard the Gospel. Her heart went out to them. She persuaded John of the Cross to join her and together they worked for the spiritual and personal growth of many people of their day. Their writings are a today precious heritage for anyone interested in t he spiritual life. Their lives were dramatic and filled with adventures and misadventures. It is astonishing how visiting the places in Castile and Andalusia associated with them brings them and their personalities and teaching alive. One of the first generation of Teresian Carmelites was Thomas of Jesus who is renowned for his recovery of the hermit life of the early Carmelites. However, reading the works of Teresa also moved him to become a dynamic missionary. St Thérèse grew up in a time when Jansenist narrowness and rigorism flourished. She found a simple way to the heart of the Gospel that made her the most loved saint of the 20th Century. She was greatly helped in her own journey by the writings of St John of the Cross. We also spend time meditating on the wonderful life of Père Jacques who brought his Carmelite heritage from the cloister to Nazi concentration camps. The crisis of his times was not something he could ignore. We visit then places of historical interest but places which also challenge us to face the crises of our times with creativity and courage that come from our own relationship with Christ. 2005 ÁVILA Pilgrimage
Where does the pilgrimage take us? We arrive in Paris and proceed from the airport to the Carmelite Spiritual Centre at Avon. We arrive here on Sunday morning and will spend two nights here. This will give us time to get over the long journey. The planning for the pilgrimage has sought to maximise our stay in each place so that we can take things in a leisurely manner.
On Thursday and Friday we will have excursions to places of nearby interest. If anyone would prefer they can remain in Lisieux rather than travel during these days.
On Friday, we will visit the monastery Mont St Michel built high on a rocky islet. Mont St Michel is a wonder of the world and the symbol of Normandy. Here we join the monks and nuns as they sing mass in their superb modern chants. In the afternoon we will visit the Carmel of Saint Sever, Calvados which is in a beautiful forest clearing made holy by hermits who lived and prayed here for 1,000 years.
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Avon
The beautiful spiritual centre in Avon is associated with one
of the great French moral heroes of the Second World War: Père
Jacques Bunel (1900-45). Pere Jacques was the headmaster of
a small Carmelite school at Avon where he hid Jewish boys. He
was caught and then exercised a remarkable ministry to all in
a number of concentration camps. He died just after the liberation
of Mathausen. He is buried in a very simple grave in the monastery
cemetery. We will be welcomed by the community and will be free
to simply enjoy the place. Those like can explore. Avon is situated
in the forest of Fontainebleau with the Royal Chateau of Fontainebleau
is next door. 
Lisieux
We leave Fontainebleau on Tuesday morning and take an easy journey
through the countryside to Chartres where we will have time
to see the great cathedral and have lunch. 
On
Thursday we will have a relaxing day travelling to Giverny in
the morning to visit the impressionist painter Monet's garden.
We will then travel to Rouen to visit the great Cathedral whose
façade Monet painted and to see the place where Joan
of Arc was burnt at the stake. On the way back to Lisieux we
will visit Bec Abbey which has produced two Archbishops of Canterbury
(Lanfranc and St Anselm) and one Pope (Alexander II). Today
Benedictine monks and nuns with a special ecumenical spirit
worship together in the church.
