We consider Carmelite spirituality as a manner of feeling and living the Gospel based on specific principles derived from the experiences of the Discalced Carmelite family's "great prophets": Teresa of Jesus, John of the Cross, Therese of the Child Jesus, and Edith Stein. It is a God experience that leads to recognising God inside oneself and gives life purpose based on theological virtues; it is a Christological experience that leads to the historical Christ of the Gospel; and it is a Church experience that includes membership to it and concern for its good.

The General Chapter of 1985 endorsed Pope John Paul II's call for the Gospel (and, by extension, great spiritual masters) to become a source of culture insofar as they encourage sensitivity for the authentic values of liberty, justice, and peace in the individual; that our boundaries would also be expanded in the perception and taste for christian values, leading us to the experience of the divine, which is where we can satisfy our hearts' desire.
Accepting this call, the Chapter members boldly underlined a set of virtues unique to our heritage that should guide the Order's existence and work, dubbed "the distinctive ministry" of the Discalced Carmelite:

Experiencing God and the desire for communion with him as a witness and response to man's religious dimension; the saving experience in Jesus of a humanity in desperate need of purification and liberation; the Teresian community's fraternity as a symbol of the social and relational aspirations of today's person, always seeking communication and fellowship; the theological and Christological view of man;The life of prayer as an experience of God's transcendence revealed in Christ Jesus; asceticism as isolation from what is superfluous and accessibility for human beings; encouraging in each person the ability to reflect – Teresa's critical spirit, fostering social coexistence, Teresa's style of fraternity; asceticism as detachment from what is superfluous and availability for human beings; asceticism as detachment from what is superfluous and provision for human beings.

Saint Teresa had a vision of damnation in 1599, which inspired her to live more perfectly. The Teresian ideal developed during the next seven years, until Fr Rubeo, the Order's General, paid a visit in 1566. The idea of starting began to take precedence over the idea of reforming. Her desire to go to the origins of what it meant to be Carmelite, "our parents from whom we came," persisted, as did a link to the past, a search for the original rule, and a desire to get to the sources of what it meant to be Carmelite. What was new in her was the "personal drive to chose" something that, when lived inside, would be passed on to the group or family she had started.

Saint Teresa's growth ranged from her desire to reform herself or her Order, which led to the founding of St Joseph's in Avila in 1562, to an ecclesial preoccupation: unity in the Church, the old Christianity, and finally an apostolic preoccupation to discover their mission, the new areas opening up for the Church in America, the New World.

The final consequence of this entire process was the formation of the notion of foundation, which occupied and filled the remainder of her life, 1567-1582, and the birth of the discalced friars, which occurred in Duruelo on November 28, 1568, via St. John of the Cross and Fr Antonio of Jesus. This incident continued not just her way of life, but also her love for the Church and the redemption of souls, as well as her apostolic and missionary ideals.

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