← [[session-05-f1b|Session 5: Foundation of the First Monastery for Discalced Carmelite Friars]] | [[formation-I-b-handbook|Table of Contents]] | [[part-ii-f1b|Part II: OCDS Constitutions and Statutes]] → # Session 6: Origin and Basic Identity of the Secular Order “Let us live with God as with a friend, let us make our faith a living faith in order to be in communion with Him, through everything, for that is what makes saints.” — St Elizabeth of the Trinity Required Reading: Welcome to the Secular Order of Discalced Carmelites, Origin and Basic Identity of Secular Order pgs. 58-62. A Touch of OCDS History para. 7-15 (Appendix I). OCDS Constitutions: Articles 1-3 Additional Reading: The rest of A Touch of OCDS History, Elizabeth M Korves OCDS (Appendix J); Message of John Paul II to the Carmelite Family (Appendix K). Essential Points to Discuss: • “Our membership of the Order goes back to the relationship established between laity and members of religious Orders born in the Middle Ages” (Const. art. 2). • “…the involvement of laypersons with mendicant life was to bring the spirituality of the mendicant Orders into the life of laypersons in the world” (Welcome pg 59). • “…mendicant Orders do not base their identity on an apostolate, but on a spirituality, and the spirituality guides and directs the apostolates to which they dedicate themselves” (Welcome pg 59). • “The Secular Order is not conventual nor monastic, but definitely secular; that is, it does not exercise its responsibility in the convent or in the monastery, but in the world (saeculum)” (Welcome pg 60). • The evolution of the OCDS Constitutions – The Manual of 1921; The Rule of Life, 1979; The Constitutions, 2003 (A Touch of History para. 7-15) Assigned Meditative Reading: (weekly) Meditate on one or more of the Beatitudes, which are a pattern of life for all the faithful – ordained, religious, and laity. 15 --- **Source:** Secular Order of Discalced Carmelites, *Formation I Year B: I am the Way, the Truth, and the Life* (US National Formation Program, 2024).