Meet the Novices IV - Br Kurt Mizzi

Br Kurt Mizzi

Hello Everyone! My name is Kurt Mizzi, from Malta. I have joined the Carmelite pre-novitiate in September 2009 within the Maltese Carmelite Province. I started taking active interest in the Carmelites in 2007 when I went for the first vocational live-in.

The Carmelites in Malta have seven priories and the ministry is diversified; though we have four parishes we also have the Carmelite Insitute Malta, a House for Retreats, a Sanctuary dedicated to Our Lady of Mt Carmel and a Secondary School (St. Elias’ College).

The ability of being involved in a whole variety of ministries and yet to conserve in the centre of one’s own heart the central dynamic of the Carmelite Charism: that of seeking without rest God’s Face before whose presence we ask to live and receiving the gift of being full of passionate zeal for him whilst striving to offer him a pure heart and stout conscience thereby living in Allegiance to Jesus Christ.

During my journey, which today has brought me here, I came to cherish various moments, moments which express both my own personal journey inward but also journeying with other brothers and sister along the Carmelite way, a community based on reconciliation, compassion and the willingness to create a space for God. I choose just two of these moments to share with you. The first was in September 2008 when we had a simple and a solemn profession in our Province. An orthodox monk once said When out of a gift (God’s gift of Life to us), we make a gift (religious consecration), then it is Heaven. The other moment was in November 2010 when the eldest friar in our Province went to meet the Risen Lord. The last days of his life (a life which he spent in service of God and his people especially through the ministry of reconciliation) he spent in awaiting Him who shows us the way to the Father.

God shows the way forward and He himself becomes the guide and he also reveals his love through people we meet. In Carmelites God has shown me that God makes a path of holiness out of our brokenness (St Therese, to mention just an example) that the life of prayer is a life of a demanding encounter in Love (John of the Cross and Teresa) and that we can serve the poor and the cause of Justice with a contemplative heart (Angelo Paoli and Titus Brandsma).  What is God telling you through the Carmelites you may know?