February 19, 2014

Global Seminars & Invited Speaker Series

CONVENTUAL PAMPLONA

The beginnings of the Teresian Carmel in Pamplona

P. Ildefonso Moriones Zubillaga, O.C.D.

The Carmelites arrived in Pamplona in 1314 and remained until the suppression of 1835. The most visible signs of their five centuries long presence are the name of the Calle del Carmen and, above all, the deep-rooted devotion to the Virgin of Carmen and her holy Scapular.

The Discalced Carmelites arrived at the Calle de las Carnicerías Viejas, which began to be called Calle Descalzos, in 1640, after having lived for 53 years in the neighborhood of La Magdalena, outside the city walls, on the banks of the Arga River.

The foundation of the Descalzos, which took place in 1587, had been preceded in 1583 by that of the Discalced or Teresian Carmelites. In a brief historical overview, three points were made: I. The Carmelite Order; II. The Teresian Carmel; III. The foundations of Pamplona.

I. The Order of Carmel was born from the gesture of a group of friends who, after having fought and suffered for months, or perhaps years, for the common cause of Christ in the recovery and defense of the Holy Land, decided to carry that submission to its ultimate consequences, establishing themselves definitively on the western slope of Mount Carmel. Around 1209 the Patriarch of Jerusalem, Albert, gave them a Rule of Life. When external circumstances changed and the environment of Carmel became increasingly insecure, the hermits returned to their lands of origin and, from 1238, Carmelite communities appeared in various Western nations: Cyprus, France, England, England, Germany, Italy. In order to adapt to the new status, following the model of Franciscans and Dominicans, they obtained from Innocent IV in 1247 the adaptation of the Rule.

Only in 1452 the first feminine community is created, with the intervention of Blessed Soreth who obtains from Nicholas V a bull that gives the category of nuns to a group of women who wished to participate in the spiritual patrimony of the Order.

II. In the monastery of the Incarnation of Avila (founded in 1478) Teresa de Ahumada entered in 1535 and 27 years later, with the name of Teresa of Jesus, she began her work as Foundress, making her experience available to new communities of nuns, from 1562, and of friars from 1568. The living presence of the Mother Foundress, her writings and, in particular, her Constitutions shape the new reality until it becomes the Teresian Carmel.

III. The two foundations of the XVI century, which brought to Pamplona the Teresian novelty, were projected during the life of the Saint. On May 6, 1582, St. Teresa wrote from Burgos to Leonor de la Misericordia, sending the letter by the hand of Father Gracián: "Your reverence can deal with our Father about Pamplona. May the Lord guide him if it is for his service. In case it has to be done from the beginning, it seems to me that it is not convenient". And on September 15 (we are in the last weeks of the saint's life) she wrote to him again: "As for the foundation [of Pamplona], I will not be determined that it be made if it is not with some income, because I already see so little devotion that we have to walk this way, and so far from all these other houses, one does not suffer if there are not good communities, which already here are remedied by one another when they are in need. It is good that there are these principles and that devout people are tried and discovered, that if it is of God He will move them with more than what there is at present". Between Doña Leonor de Ayanz and her aunt Doña Beatriz de Beaumont they put the economic base and the convent of the Descalzas of Pamplona became a reality on December 8, 1583, with Mother Catalina de Cristo as Prioress.
 

Façade of the church of the convent of Carmelitas Descalzos in Pamplona. 

Façade of the church of the convent of Carmelitas Descalzas in Pamplona.
 

A new protagonist, perhaps the most important and on whom fell the weight of the two foundations, both of nuns and friars, in Pamplona, was another Navarrese gentleman named Martín Cruzat. Gracián says of him: "Arriving at the visit of the nuns of Soria [September 1583], the lord of Oriz, called Martín Cruzat, offered to come there, and the foundation of Pamplona was agreed upon, taking to position the same lord of Oriz, who was from that city, to reach the licence of the Bishop and to prevent the foundation" (MHCT 3, Doc. 423, p. 655).

An excerpt from the Becerro book: "This convent of Discalced Carmelites of this city of Pamplona was founded under the degree scroll and protection of the Glorious Saint Anne in the neighborhood of La Magdalena outside the walls of this city. The possession was taken on August 6, day of the Transfiguration of Our Lord Jesus Christ in the year 1587.