Philip Harvey’s introduction to his presentation on ‘The Cloud of Unknowing’, given at Spiritual Reading Group in the Carmelite Library, Wednesday the 20th of September 2023.  Today we spend some time looking at a book about contemplation. Contemplation of God. Contemplation is the Middle English word used by its author. We don’t know the name of the author or their exact identity. The name of the book is ‘The Cloud of Unknowing’. In library cataloguing the anonymous author is called ‘The Author of The Cloud of Unknowing’ because he (they are fairly certain it’s a he) wrote other ..read more

 Spiritual Reading Group, Philip Harvey on Ways of Reading ‘The Cloud of Unknowing’, Wednesday 20 September, 10.30am to 12.00pm You are welcome to attend this session, which will be 'in person' in the Carmelite Library  216 Richardson Street, Middle Park. ‘The Cloud of Unknowing’ is a short medieval guidebook to the practice of contemplation of God. Written in Middle English, the many modernised versions of the text are a testament to the book’s popularity. In this session, held ‘in person’ in the Carmelite Library, we look at some of the sentences in ‘The Cloud’ and how we can use t ..read more

   Fairy Tales “A fairy tale is the simplest and purest expression of the collective unconscious and thus offers the clearest understanding of the basic patterns of the human psyche” (von Franz, 1978) Why Fairy Stories? •      Timeless stories revealing timeless virtues and vices •      Contain symbols and archetypes •      Symbols are in: stories, characters and objects •      Beautiful stories that embody timeless ideas that have a universal human appeal •    &nb ..read more

   An anthology of 100 poems written in the past 100 years, with readerly responses on each from Rowan Williams, is a kind of autobiography of the archbishop’s roving mind. Titled ‘A Century of Poetry’, the book’s subtitle gets to the point with the claim that we are “searching the heart.” This is not a best-of or my-favourites collection, but one where poems “open the door to some fresh, searching, and challenging insights about the life of faith.”   The English poet Michael Symmons Roberts opens ‘A New Song’: Sing a new song to the Lord, sing through the skin of your teeth, s ..read more

 ALL STOCK MUST GO GIGANTIC BARGAINS The Library of Father Bob Maguire Next time you are in the Library you must check out the books of Fr Bob Maguire. In May the Father Bob Maguire Foundation donated the religious section of his impressive collection to the Carmelite Library. We have sorted those that must be added to the Library collection, which leaves a sizable range that we either hold already or that fall outside our scope. You will be pleasantly surprised at the range and depth of his reading interests. Be the first person on your block to have a Maguire book, or three, on your she ..read more

  Written by Philip Harvey The phone call came through on Tuesday morning. Frank O’Connor, former Mayor of South Melbourne, was sorting Father Bob Maguire’s library and would the Carmelite Library take it? Everything had to be out of Fr Bob’s shopfront charity service in Albert Park “by yesterday”, as they were relocating to Port Melbourne. Intrigued by the very idea of what such a collection might hold, never mind our open policy of receiving donations, I answered Yes. Frank said he’d be around in the afternoon. Religion, as it is called, was the subject matter we were interested in. Fr ..read more

  NOTICE On Thursday the 6th of July the Library is open 10 am-1 pm, then CLOSED in the afternoon ..read more

 Two essays written by Philip Harvey in response to the subject of the Brothers Grimm fairy tale in Spiritual Reading Group on Zoom presented by Cecily Clark, Wednesday 21st of June, 2023.   When the crucial meaning of a story is a character’s secret name, a name no-one must know, it seems a super-spoiler who uses the secret name for the story’s title. Even to use the character’s initial R in re-telling the story is to limit the possibilities of the secret name to one letter, rather than twenty-six. Be that as it may, R raises all sorts of questions and conjectures, whether we know h ..read more

 Days of Appreciation of the Ecclesiastical Heritage 2023 The Opening of the General Archives and Library  of the Order of the Carmelites to the Public The 2023 edition of the Days of Enhancement of Ecclesiastical Cultural Heritage was held on May 13-21. Its theme was "Beyond the Slide. Church Cultural Heritage: From Accessibility to Inclusion." The Carmelite General Archives and Library took part with an event on May 19 at Centro Internazionale San Alberto (CISA) in Rome. Both library and archives are houses at CISA. Three rounds of tours were given. Some 50 people attended, includ ..read more

    As part of the Spiritual Reading group program, John Tidey delivered this paper on The Tablet of London at the Carmelite Library, Melbourne, on Tuesday morning, the 16th of May 2023. INTRODUCTION: My paper this morning has been a work in progress for 61 years. I arrived in England for the first time in 1962 and that was when I encountered The Tablet through an organisation of Catholic journalists and writers in London called The Keys. I didn’t meet the editor, Douglas Woodruff, but I did meet Tom Burns, a future editor who would change The Tablet’s direction and tempo; among ot ..read more