15. Having considered our roots in history and our Teresian charism, we are now in a position to outline the principal elements of the way of life we profess:

(a) We are committed to a consecrated life of allegiance to Jesus Christ. In this we are sustained the companionship, the example and protection of our Lady. Her life of union with Christ we regard, as it were, the prototype of ours.

(b) Our vocation is a grace by which we are called to a ‘hidden union with God’, in a form of life and fraternal sharing in which contemplation and action are blended to become a single apostolic service of the Church.

(c) This call to prayer embraces our whole life. Sustained by the word of God and the sacred liturgy, we are led to live in intimate friendship with God. By growing in faith, hope and above all charity, we deepen our prayer life. With our heart thus purified we are enabled to share more closely in the life of Christ himself, and prepare the way for a more abundant outpouring of the Holy Spirit. In this way the Teresian charism and the original spirit of Carmel become a reality in our lives as we walk in the presence of the living God.

(d) The very nature of our charism demands that our prayer and our whole religious life be ardently apostolic, and that we put ourselves at the service of the Church and of all mankind. This must be done in such a way that ‘our apostolic activity stems from our close union with Christ’. Indeed we must aim at that most fruitful of all apostolates which derives from the ‘state of union with God’.

(e) It is for this twofold service, contemplative and active, that we share life as brothers in the community. United by the bond of love in fraternal life, we also bear witness to the unity of the Church, faithful in this to our Holy Mother, who wanted her communities to resemble ‘the college of Christ’.

(f) This way of life, based on the primitive Rule and the teaching of our Holy Parents, must be sustained by constant evangelical self-denial.

16. This form of life, appropriately tested and found satisfactory by the Order, has more than once been given the approval of the Church, and we have been frequently exhorted by her to keep it faithfully. The Order thus approved, has been granted ‘clerical’ and ‘pontifical’ status. It also enjoys exemption, by which it is directly and immediately subject to the Pope. In this way it is made more available for the service of the Church everywhere, and better equipped to provide for its own life and development.

17. The Holy Spirit has deigned to make the Order, thus approved, bear fruit in the life of the Church. He has given it saintly men and women who are considered masters in the ways of the spirit. He has caused other religious families to grow out of Carmel, and share in various ways in its mission and work in God’s vineyard. We are closely united with them by our vocation and spirit.

18. From the beginning our Holy Parents took great pains to ensure that the charism bestowed on them should be embodied in a way of life rendered more stable by suitable legislation. That is why we too, while taking the following of Christ according to the Gospel as the supreme law of our life. Keep the Rule of St Albert, Patriarch of Jerusalem, approved by Innocent IV, according to these Constitutions.