On Sunday, March 19, 2023, the Statutes of the “Friends of Carmel” were approved for five years Ad experimentum. The group began on January 12, 2017 at the Carmelite Monastery of Bujumbura. On that same day their current residence was inaugurated.
Some of these Friends had begun to frequent the convent from the first days of its establishment in Bujumbura, attracted first by the availability of the sacrament of reconciliation, then by the morning Mass, whose schedule easily harmonized with that of work, and finally, by adoration of the Blessed Sacrament every working day from Monday to Friday.
Starting from this pastoral attention to all of them, this group of faithful gradually found themselves in spontaneous friendship with the Carmelites to the point of actively sharing in the liturgy, to the point of contributing to it with song and the readings, especially on Tuesdays and Thursdays. Then, they showed solidarity with each other and with the Carmelites in different situations of life, to the point of recognizing each other as “Friends in Christ” according to the words of Saint Teresa of Jesus (cf. Life 16:7). After an informal process that lasted six years, they were encouraged to draw up statutes to constitute themselves as an Association of the Faithful. The Provincial asked the Regional Vicar to approve these statutes. They placed themselves under the co-patronage of Saints Joseph and Therese of the Child Jesus and the Holy Face. The aggregation of the first eighteen was marked with an act of commitment.
