Category: Brother Bob Chiulli

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From the Pen of Brother Robert Chiulli, O.Carm.

This summer has been a very active one in our country, with the simultaneous celebration of the 250th anniversary of the founding of the United States, and the FIFA World Cup soccer tournament. While the Semiquincentennial festivities that took place in all 50 states were an opportunity for Americans to express their pride and gratitude for the many blessings we have and for the rich legacy of freedom we enjoy, it has been particularly gratifying to see America through the eyes of the millions of visitors here for the soccer tournaments. The news has reported that people from around the globe have discovered a United States much different from the one they learned about in their home country. They have been amazed by the size of our stores, that you can get free refills on soda, and that ranch dressing can be used to improve most any food. More importantly, they have found that Americans are far more open and friendly than they were led to believe. Many of these visiting soccer fans have noted that even with the many challenges we face as a nation, we still have a deep sense of optimism and hope for the future. It is part of the American DNA to believe that with conviction and hard work, anything is possible.

Mother Angeline, as an immigrant -born in Ireland, raised in Scotland, and formed as a religious in France, took immediately to this particularly American disposition. When she assumed her first assignment as a religious sister in the United States, she noted that the customs of the community for taking care of the aged were not those best suited for the American temperament. Americans were used to more independence and freedom, and Mother believed that they were entitled to a different style of care. Eventually, Mother and six companions felt called to start a new community – the Carmelite Sisters for the Aged and Infirm – that would embrace this American mentality. Mother not only cared for Americans, she wholeheartedly embraced their can-do philosophy. She established new homes for the aged across the country, and she implemented innovative methods of care for the elderly, all the while staying true to her belief that her sisters should treat their residents as if they were Christ Himself.

In the Declaration of Independence, it states that all men are created equal, and that they are endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights. The first of these rights is the right to life. From a Catholic perspective, we believe that because everyone is created in the image and likeness of God, they possess a dignity that is intrinsic to them. There is a clear complementarity between the Declaration of Independence and Catholic teaching in that we must regard our brothers and sisters with the deepest respect, and we must attend to their well-being, as best we can. When the rights of human beings are threatened, particularly the right to life, we have a moral obligation to act.
Mother Angeline, from an early age, felt a particular sensitivity to the burdens that the elderly carry, and carried a deep conviction that God wanted her to care for those who are often invisible and neglected in society. When the elderly are left to face the autumn of their lives alone and afraid, and when their value is questioned because they are no longer “productive”, this is an affront to the dignity that God has instilled in them. And this is why for her entire religious life, Mother Angeline exhorted her Sisters “to receive, feed, and care for the Aged with the same love and joy they would show in caring for the Lord Himself.”

As our country continues its birthday celebration throughout this year, may we never take for granted the freedoms we enjoy, and may we always make a special effort to protect the rights and dignity of our elderly.

 

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From the Pen of Brother Robert Chiulli, O.Carm.

Our newly elected pontiff, Pope Leo XIV, is well aware of the pervasive influence digital media and technology have on human society.  He regularly shares his teachings and insights on his social media accounts (as moderated through the Vatican) and has expressed his support of using artificial intelligence (AI) as a means of evangelization.  Wisely, he cautions that we should thoughtfully and prayerfully implement this new technology so that it “respects human dignity and elevates spiritual understanding.”

However, serious concerns about AI are being voiced from many different aspects of society. Teachers are frustrated that students are using it to complete assignments and that it is depriving our young people of the ability to think deeply and critically.  White collar workers are anxious that their jobs will be quickly replaced by this new technology; lawyers, accountants, computer programmers know that much of what they do can be accomplished quicker and more cheaply by AI.  In the healthcare field, there are plans to use AI to more efficiently diagnose diseases and help make clinical decisions.   What makes AI qualitatively different from how computers functioned in the past is that AI is extremely proficient in replicating human interactions.  This is why it is used as “bots” on many websites to respond to customer questions. It can mimic human conversation and actually learn new responses based on the prompts it receives.

One place where AI robots are proposed to be deployed is with the care of the elderly. Many elderly spend hours or days without any kind of meaningful human interaction. They may not have any family or friends nearby who can regularly visit them, so they often live lonely, isolated lives. And studies have shown that loneliness can be as detrimental to one’s health as any physical ailment. Thus the idea of using AI robots to help alleviate this human suffering is well intentioned. What could be so wrong with using robots to help bring some companionship into the life of our elderly?

The danger is that what these AI robots offer is not genuine companionship or emotions, but mere simulations of it.  They are, in a sense, exploiting the loneliness of a human being and providing them with an artificial substitute for care and affection.  Human beings crave real human relationships and can never truly be satisfied by an algorithm that mimics love.

Mother Angeline, in founding the Carmelite Sisters for the Aged and Infirm, believed that the elderly need and deserve to spend the autumn of their lives in a home-like environment, an environment that responds to loneliness and isolation with human compassion. An AI robot can provide distraction for an old person, but it cannot offer genuine kindness as it has no soul, no heart. Mother Angeline instructed her young sisters that “ the best and most efficient way to deal with old people is to be kind. No school can teach you this lesson. It comes from a heart that is filled with the love of God’.  Just as Jesus Christ was the Incarnation of God in human form, we as Christians are called to incarnate His love to those who need it:  the poor, the sick, the imprisoned, the elderly.  We cannot outsource our Christian vocation to a computer program, no matter how sophisticated it may be. 

The charism of Mother Angeline flows into the Congregation that she founded, and the Sisters today believe wholeheartedly that each human life is sacred and worthy of respect and dignity.  Because the elderly are made in the image and likeness of God, they deserve the love and attention that only another human being can offer. No program, no machine can replicate the gift of self that occurs when one person reaches out to another in need.

A way  this AI technology continues to develop and work its way into our lives, may we learn to use it in a that truly respects human dignity and builds up the human community according to God’s plan.

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From the Pen of Brother Robert Chiulli, O.Carm.

On May 9th, 2024, Pope Francis declared that 2025 would be a Jubilee Year, a year dedicated to the theological virtue of hope, and a year in which visits to holy places are encouraged. Jubilee years have existed in the Church since the 14th century, and are opportunities for Catholics to rededicate themselves to their faith, to seek forgiveness for their sins, and to embrace God’s grace and mercy as they continue on their journey to the heavenly homeland.

Jubilee years are also special times of pilgrimage, particularly to Rome. There, the faithful can visit the four major basilicas, and pass through the specially designated Holy Doors, with the opportunity to receive a plenary indulgence (when the additional conditions are met: sacramental confession, Holy Communion, and prayer for the intentions of the Holy Father). Mother Angeline herself, visited Rome during a Jubilee Year (1950) and went to all four of the major basilicas. In her letter to her sisters in which she describes her visits to these churches in great detail, she is overwhelmed by the variety and quality of the religious art she sees, but more so, she is humbled by how these holy places have served to inspire Catholics for centuries. She writes, “One cannot describe the feeling of pride in being a Catholic when the immense crowds of people from all over the world assemble here, the center and heart of Christendom, to proclaim their faith and pay their respects to the Vicar of Christ.”

In a world beset by wars, violence, inequality in wealth, and natural disasters, one can see why the Holy Father chose Hope as the theme for this year’s Jubilee. As there is so much negativity around us these days, it is easy to fall into cynicism and despair and wonder if there is any chance for things to get better. But as people of faith, we look to the cross as the ultimate sign of hope, for in the crucifixion, our sins – and our very death – was conquered. The hope found in the cross inspired the Carmelite martyr, Saint Teresa Benedicta of the Cross (Edith Stein) to adopt as her motto, Ave crux, spes unica (Hail to the Cross, our only hope). Hope belongs to the Christian because he is confident that Christ’s passion, death, and resurrection have secured for us eternal life, and hope, as the Catechism states, is a weapon that protects us in the struggle for salvation.

The Holy Father challenges us in this jubilee year “to be tangible signs of hope for those of our brothers and sisters who experience hardships of any kind.” One group in particular that the Holy Father identifies in need of hope are the elderly, for “(t)he elderly, who frequently feel lonely and abandoned, also deserve signs of hope. Esteem for the treasure that they are, their life experiences, their accumulated wisdom and the contribution that they can still make, is incumbent on the Christian community and civil society, which are called to cooperate in strengthening the covenant between generations.” As an elderly person himself, the Holy Father is well acquainted with the limitations that the aged endure. He understands the ongoing burden of illness and chronic health issues and recognizes the often-overlooked value of the elderly in the community.

Hope was the reason Mother Angeline founded her community for the aged. She wanted to bring hope and compassionate care to those elderly men and women who would otherwise have had to suffer the burdens of aging alone. And she believed that the aged deserved attentive and loving care in the autumn of their lives. But providing the elderly with hope is more than just tending to their physical needs, it also means bringing “Christ to every old person under our care. Bringing Christ means giving them His compassion, His loving care, His warmth-morning, noon, and night.”

May your Jubilee year be one filled with hope and many graces, and may we be inspired by Mother Angeline’s words and the Holy Father’s invitation to be messengers of hope to the elderly among us.

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From the Pen of Brother Bob, O.Carm.

As you can see in the pages of this latest issue of the Mother Angeline Society bulletin, a magnificent new statue of Mother Angeline was created, and then installed and dedicated at her home parish in Scotland. However, this is not the first statue of Mother Angeline that has been commissioned. The first one resides at the Carmelite Sisters’ Heritage Center in Germantown, New York. This statue, inspired by the Sisters’ recollections about Mother, depicts Mother at prayer in her pew in front of the Blessed Sacrament. It is interesting how these two statues of Mother, one of her at prayer, and the other with her in service to her beloved “old people,” encompass the totality of Mother’s life.  

As a Carmelite, Mother Angeline was an intensely prayerful and reflective woman who continually strove to deepen her relationship with the Lord. For her, nothing was more important than her time in prayer, whether it be praying the Divine Office, attending Holy Mass, or spending time in quiet contemplation. Even with the many demands upon her time as the foundress of a religious community with a busy apostolate, she made sure to never neglect her spiritual life. Her continual orientation towards God reminded her that any success or achievement in her life and ministry was only possible because He allowed it. No doubt she kept Psalm 127, “if the Lord does not build the house, in vain do its builders labor” always in her heart.  

Mother’s profound prayer life allowed her to trust the Lord when she felt the divine inspiration to leave her original religious community to start a new congregation dedicated to the compassionate care of the elderly. Mother Angeline was deeply committed to providing homelike care for the elderly in need, and to treat them as Christ would treat them. In this new statue of Mother Angeline in Scotland, one can see Mother Angeline holding the hands of both an elderly gentleman and a woman in a wheelchair. This personifies the kind of care Mother wanted for the men and women living in the homes she founded: a care that was personal and genuine; a care that recognized the individuality of each resident and respected their independence.  

Also in the statue, Mother is placed in the center, between the woman and the man, representing how we need to stand in the midst of people when we minister to them. We need to walk the journey with them, share the same path, just as Jesus did when he brought his words of hope and salvation to the people of Israel. And lastly, on the faces of Mother Angeline and the two elderly people, one can see a sense of hope and confidence. Part of Mother Angeline’s vision was to prepare the residents in her homes for their Eternal Home, a place of endless peace and comfort. She wanted to tend to their souls as much as to their bodies, and to make sure that their spiritual needs were being met. Old age can be a lonely time, often filled with fear. So, Mother established a place where the elderly can enjoy the autumn of their lives free from many of the burdens that can make aging a continuous struggle.  

I pray that you may have the opportunity to visit these statues in person someday and grow in deeper appreciation of the life and ministry of this remarkable woman. 

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From the Pen of Brother Bob

If you’ve been keeping up with what’s going on in the Catholic Church these days, you’d be aware that there are currently two major initiatives being coordinated by our hierarchy. The first is a national Eucharistic Revival which started in 2022 and will end in 2025 with a Eucharistic Congress in Indianapolis (the first one in 83 years!).  The other is the Synod on Synodality, which is a world-wide process of listening and dialogue that Pope Francis hopes will guide the Church into living more deeply its call to be a church of mission and communion.   Why are both going on at the same time?

For the Eucharistic Revival, the U.S. bishops discovered that many Catholics today are ill-informed about how Jesus is truly present – body and blood, soul, and divinity – in the Eucharist.  Unfortunately, when many Catholics receive Holy Communion, they see the wafer in their hand as only a symbol, and not as the Real Presence of Jesus in our midst. So, to address this crisis, the Bishops began this Eucharistic Revival as a way of stirring up a deeper faith in the Eucharist, and to remind us of how important and necessary the Eucharist is in our lives.

As for the Synod, Pope Francis is asking Catholics to discern how the Church can be more relevant, more meaningful, in a world that seems to have no place for God and faith.  He is challenging Catholics to live their baptismal call more fully, and to share in the mission of proclaiming Jesus to the world. So, to have both the Eucharistic Revival and the Synod going on at the same time seems to be the Church holding onto and reverencing her tradition, while simultaneously looking forward and deciding how the Church can be an agent of positive transformative change in the future. And this is what the Church has always done: cling closely to tradition as the foundation of her identity, while adapting herself to the present age to meet people where they are. This has always been a delicate tension, to not be too stuck in the past while at the same time to not be seduced by every modern idea or philosophy.

Mother Angeline, as the foundress of the Carmelite Sisters for the Aged and Infirm, knew very well about this tension between tradition and innovation.  While she advocated for modern and up to date care for the elderly residents in the Sisters’ homes, Mother maintained that the sisters be grounded in the ideal that they should treat the residents like Christ in their midst, and that kindness be their guiding principle.  The Carmelite Sisters are known for their innovation in geriatrics and have helped advance how palliative and dementia care is administered in nursing homes. But no matter how sophisticated the care the residents receive is, the residents always know their human dignity, as beloved creatures of God, is of paramount importance.  In the same way, Mother Angeline insisted that as Carmelites, the Sisters should be rooted in a life of prayer. Without prayer, the work they would do would be impossible, and stripped of its supernatural meaning. She once wrote to her Sisters, “If we do not try hard each day to improve our prayer life and love of God, then we are failures and the successful administration of our houses or employments means nothing.”  Mother reminds us that we must be wary of seeing success only in worldly ways, and instead we must find our “success” and our joy in doing God’s will. Let us pray that the Eucharistic Revival and Synod will help us all more faithfully live out God’s Will in our lives.