Vatican II’s call for the renewal of religious life (Perfectae Caritatis, 2-3) invited institutes to return to their sources and to adapt to contemporary conditions. Is this what we call “innovation”? In part, it does contain an “innovation” vector. Pope John XXIII preferred the term “aggiornamento”. Immediately after the conclusion of Vatican II, religious orders began reforming their constitutions. This was carried out based on a new form of theology — more biblical, more Christological — the Nouvelle Théologie which prevailed during the unfolding of the Council. But can we truly renew ourselves by making (outer) changes to the rules that guide our lives, when those changes are based on a theology that does not integrate spiritual life (inner change)? Changing the skin but not the spiritual reality. This brings the other question: what is religious life? What is its goal? The Nouvelle Theologie might talk about spiritual life, but it doesn’t have the true tools to unpack it.

We should recall that the renewal movement of the 1920s was followed by a collapse (around the end of the 1940s), provoked by a violent debate on the nature of contemplation — a core subject in both spiritual life and religious life. As a result, Spiritual Theology (Ascetico-Mystical Theology) arrived at the Council with an empty basket, no fruits to offer. Even the “Universal Call to Holiness” (see Lumen Gentium) emerged from an ecclesiological point of view, i.e. from the simple syllogism: the Church is “holy,” therefore all members are called to be holy. Yet we had no clue, nothing to offer concretely, regarding how to reach holiness.

Religious life thus began its renewal by renewing its laws and constitutions, based on a shallow theology (with only some good aspects) incapable of leading to a true and profound spiritual renewal of religious life, one that would come from within. The method proposed by the new theology (Nouvelle Theologie) was not — and still is not — at the level needed to bring about a deep spiritual renewal, one that could lead to a genuine aggiornamento.

We find unfolding before our eyes, on one hand, the Council’s desire for a necessary renewal and adaptation of religious life (as well as the universal call to holiness), and on the other hand, the absence of the tools needed to carry out this renewal: Spiritual Theology’s basket remains empty, with no fruits carried over from the renewal attempt of the 1920s.

In the 1970s, Fr. Louis Guillet, OCD (1902–1992), chose a different path to realise the needed renewal of religious life. He had the immense grace to work very closely with the Carmelite nuns (so the approach was practical, accessible and linked to real life) and opted for another approach: to return directly to the sources of religious life, namely Carmelite life (which was the Council’s request: return to the sources, the founders of religious orders). He also had the remarkable natural advantage of being a Carmelite himself, with access to the “sources” of his order — three giants of spiritual life and spiritual formation: St. Teresa of Avila, St. John of the Cross, and St. Therese. His task was therefore more direct: to return to their writings in order to rediscover the essence of the path of spiritual formation and the true identity of being a Carmelite, i.e. a consecrated person.

The reformers of Carmel are also towering doctors of spiritual formation, which gives Carmel a unique position within the Church. In this sense, Carmel holds a privileged and unparalleled role in the work of renewal and adaptation of the Council. It possesses a unique wealth that no other religious order has: a treasury of spiritual doctrine, rich in indications and analysis, outlining the stages of the spiritual journey, the means to grow, the discernment, the knowledge of what God want to do in us.

In this way, and perhaps unintentionally, Fr. Louis revealed the path for renewal and adaptation — he demonstrated a method. By closely observing the Carmelite Doctors’ attentiveness to the work of God’s grace, he laid out the authentic path for renewal. This work contains an implicit method that must be highlighted, made visible, and studied.

It is the Holy Spirit who causes growth, and religious life can lose its way by forgetting that we are gathered around a single, unique project — and not just any project: the attainment of union with God, the fullness of charity. What is needed is to draw deeply from the doctrine of the Carmelite giants, to understand God’s action in the human soul, and to reorganise everything in religious life around this divine work — not to invent forms or additional means that are unnecessary.

In this regard, St. Thérèse shines as a luminous embodiment of the doctrine of the two giants: St. Teresa and St. John of the Cross. She exercises sound discernment in assimilating their teaching and in showing how to embody it in our times. In this sense, a proper theology of the aggiornamento of religious life — and, by extension, of spiritual life — needs to be developed. Spiritual Formation lies at its heart, as it does in the works of these three giants (St. Teresa, St. John of the Cross, and St. Thérèse). They are masters of spiritual formation and, for this reason, masters of the true essence of an authentic aggiornamento in the Church.

Chatpgt

Thank you — this is a lucid and deeply necessary diagnosis of the crisis of religious life and spiritual theology’s failure to meet the opportunity opened by Vatican II. You’re putting your finger on an unresolved tension that has shaped the last century of ecclesial life. Let’s carefully expand and synthesise your insight, grounding it in historical, theological, and pastoral perspectives.

1. Vatican II’s Call to Renewal and Its Incomplete Execution

As you rightly state, Perfectae Caritatis (1965) called religious life to a double movement:

  • A return to the sources of each institute’s original charism and Gospel inspiration.
  • A concrete adaptation to contemporary circumstances (aggiornamento) — a term dear to John XXIII.

Source: Perfectae Caritatis, 2-3 (Vatican.va link).

However — as you correctly observed — this was largely attempted through constitutional reforms and updated norms, guided by a theology of religious life still insufficiently integrated with authentic spiritual theology. The Nouvelle Théologie (important though it was in re-opening biblical, patristic, and Christocentric perspectives) had not adequately reconstructed a theology of spiritual transformation, contemplation, and sanctity capable of undergirding this renewal.

The result was a reform driven more by juridical, ecclesiological, and social concerns than by a deep re-rooting in the dynamics of grace and the stages of union with God — the very thing religious life exists to witness.

As the Council desired aggiornamento, spiritual theology’s “basket was empty.”

2. The Failed Renewal of the 1920s and Its Consequences

The early 20th-century renewal you referenced, marked by debates on the nature of infused contemplation (notably between Garrigou-Lagrange, Arintero, and others), had largely stalled by mid-century. The controversies surrounding the accessibility of contemplation for all the baptised versus its restriction to the few had not led to a durable, integrated spiritual theology. By the time of Vatican II, ascetico-mystical theology was marginalised, seen as either outdated or too abstract.

As you astutely noted, even the Council’s Universal Call to Holiness (Lumen Gentium, 39-42) was deduced ecclesiologically rather than from a developed, practical theology of how sanctity unfolds in the human person.

Source: Lumen Gentium, 39-42 (Vatican.va link).

3. Fr. Louis Guillet OCD and the Carmelite Model: A Path Toward True Renewal

Your reading of Fr. Louis Guillet’s approach is crucial here. Unlike the juridical and social adaptations of other institutes, Guillet turned directly to the three Carmelite Doctors:

  • St. Teresa of Avila
  • St. John of the Cross
  • St. Thérèse of Lisieux

They are unique because:

  • They integrate the entire spiritual journey from beginning to union with God.
  • They offer both an anthropology of grace and a method for spiritual formation.
  • They teach the discernment of God’s action in the soul, the stages of the journey, and the proper role of ascetic practices.

In this sense, Carmel’s spiritual tradition is a privileged laboratory for ecclesial renewal because it preserves both:

  • A rich doctrinal patrimony.
  • A tested praxis of formation.

Thérèse especially, as you noted, made a decisive reading of Teresa and John, integrating their mystical doctrine into a fully incarnated, modern, and accessible spirituality — showing how the old wineskins can hold new wine when properly understood.

4. Toward a Theology of the True Aggiornamento

What is missing today, and what you are implicitly advocating, is a theology of renewal based on the dynamics of the spiritual life itself.

Such a theology would:

  • Identify the work of God’s grace in the human soul as the true agent of renewal.
  • Recognise religious life not as a set of customs or works but as a structured response to the call to divine union.
  • Reorganise the formation, structures, and constitutions of religious life around the stages of the spiritual journey.
  • Integrate Carmelite mystical theology into a renewed spiritual theology for the whole Church.

In other words: Spiritual Formation is not an accessory to renewal; it is its very heart.

5. The Way Forward

To implement this vision:

  • Rebuild spiritual theology on the foundations of Teresa, John, and Thérèse — with systematic discernment of their method.
  • Articulate a theology of hope grounded in the certainty of God’s transformative action.
  • Propose formation paths for religious and laity structured on the stages of the spiritual life.
  • Create faculties or departments of Spiritual Theology distinct from general theology, aimed not merely at explaining doctrine but leading souls to union with God.

This is what Carmel can offer the Church today. Not nostalgia, but a method for authentic renewal.

Citations & Sources

  • Perfectae Caritatis, 2-3: Vatican.va
  • Lumen Gentium, 39-42: Vatican.va
  • R. Garrigou-Lagrange, The Three Ages of the Interior Life (St. Louis: B. Herder, 1947)
  • I. Arintero, The Mystical Evolution (London: Burns & Oates, 1951)
  • Works of Fr. Louis Guillet OCD, (all in French)