INTRODUCTION

During the First World War, many young men were inspired to take up arms by the posters declaring, "Your country needs you!" Today it is not simply this country which needs you, but the whole world. It need you to pray and to pray the prayer if the Rosary, which in times past has freed the world from disaster and brought innumerable blessing on those who pray it. Are you willing to devote a short time each day in reciting the Rosary, if possible before the Blessed Sacrament? If so, this Association of Our Lady of Mount Carmel and this Handbook of the Association is for you. 

Started by lay people in 1969 and kept alive by lay people today, the Association has spread throughout the world among young and old, the healthy and the sic, peoples of all colours. It is an answer to the Second Vatican Council's call to holiness, for without prayer and without Mary there can be no true holiness. Mary is the Mirror of Justice, of holiness, she was holy because she sought always the things which please her heavenly Father and was the perfect disciple of her divine Son. In all genuine pictures of Our Lady of Mount Carmel, Mary is shown as presenting her Son to the world: she is his Mother, but is never possessive and never keeps her Son for herself. She is united heart and soul in the work of her Son for the redemption of all.

The century has often been called the century of Mary for so often has she appealed to her children to unite in a great effort of prayer an penance, a cry echoed by the Church from its very foundation. "Do whatever he tell you", were her words at the wedding feat of Cana to the waiters: they are still her words today, as she reiterates her Son's call to us to repent and be converted. Will you listen to her voice today and join the great army of those who daily recite the Rosary and mediate on the mysteries of her Son's life? It is not out of date, but very relevant to today's world for it calls us to reflect on the saving acts of Christ and brings us close to him in friendship and love: Pope Paul VI called it the "compendium of the entire Gospel".

The Association calls to the Catholics and to many who are not Catholics, but who share in its aims, to come before the merciful Saviour: "Come to me, all you who are meek and humble of hear and I will give you rest." It calls them to dedicate a short period each day in front of Jesus in the Blessed Sacrament, praying for the needs of the world and for their own needs. No matter how sinful and weak you may feel yourself, you are called by Jesus and Mary to pray, to intercede for all and so bring peach to this troubled world. If you respond to this call, you will yourself come closer in friendship with Jesus and Mary, you will find rest for yourselves, you will bring healing to the sick and suffering, you will inspire many young people to serve the Lord in the priesthood and religious life, you will serve the cause of peace.

May God Bless you all abundantly in his love!

Father Hugh Clarke, O.Carm.