The following principles of the Rule of Saint Albert, written for the hermits on Mount Carmel in the 13th century, guide Carmelite life today: (below is a bulleted list)
- Living in allegiance to Jesus Christ
- Being diligent in meditating on the law of the Lord
- Giving time to spiritual reading
- Participating in the liturgy of the church, both the Eucharist and the Liturgy of the Hours
- Arming themselves with the practice of the virtues
- Seeking interior silence and solitude
- Using prudent discretion in all that they do.
(from “Constitutions of the Secular Order of the Teresian Carmel,” 2003)