Friday, July 17, 2009

Carmelite Saints and Devotion to Mary, Queen, Flower and Beauty of Carmel



Our Lady was helping me to prepare a wedding garment for my soul (S 118)

BEHOLD, YOUR MOTHER (ST JOHN 19:27)

Not being able to bear it any longer, I asked the Blessed Virgin to take my head in her hands and to support it (C 189)

The Blessed Virgin is my mother and little children ordinarily resemble their mama (C 275)

How great favour with which I begged her to be always my protector and to help me realize my dream, hiding me in the shadow of the virginal mantle! (C 277)

It is proper to speak of her prerogatives, but we must not content ourselves with that. We must do all we can to make her beloved of souls. (C 277)

[The Blessed Virgin] loves us truly as Jesus loves us. (C 278)

I feel that the Blessed Virgin was watching over me, that I was her child. Hence I found it necessary to call her "Mama", for this name seemed even more tender than that of my mother. (C 279)

When we ask a grace from the Blessed Virgin, we receive immediate help. have you not experienced this? Well, try it and you will see. (C 279)

The Blessed Virgin never fails to protect me as soon as I invoke her. In my troubles and anxieties I very quickly turn towards her and, like the most tender of mothers, she always takes care of my interest. (C 279)

To ask something of the Blessed Virgin is not the same thing as asking it of the good Lord. She knew very well what to do with my little wishes, whether to transmit them [to God] or not...If, after that, we obtain nothing, it is because what we asked for is not in accordance with God's design. (C 279)

When we have prayed to the Blessed Virgin and she has not given us what we asked for, we should let her do what she pleases, without insisting on our request; and after that let us not worry any more about it. (C 279)

I like to hide my pains fro the good Lord, because i want to give Him the impression that I am always happy; but I hide nothing from the Blessed Virgin; to her I tell everything (C 280)

Mary my Mother made it quite clear to me that it was really she who had smiled on me and cured me. With all my heart I begged her to keep me far from all occasions of sin and to make my dream come true of casting about me her mantle of virginity. (S 86)

The Blessed Virgin is sometimes pictured as if she were unapproachable. We should realize on the contrary that it is possible to imitate her by practicing her hidden virtues. (C 277)

I will never cease to bless the Mother who gave [me] to Jesus. [I] will eternally rejoice to be a flower in her crown; with her [I] will entirely sing the canticle of love and gratitude that is ever new. (S 137)

I think of my soul as a piece of waste ground and ask Our Lady to take away the rubbish of my imperfections and then build a spacious tabernacle there, worthy of Heaven, adorning it with her own loveliness. (S 129)

I can't describe what I experienced at her Shrine. The graces she gave me there were like those of my First Communion, filling me with peace and happiness. (S 86)

The Queen of Heaven was keeping faithful watch over her little lower, smiling down on her from above. She was ready to calm the storm. (S 39)

There was a sun not far away to which the petals of the "little flower" would often turn - the statue of the Queen of Heaven. (S42)

Quotations from "The Story of the soul" (S) and "Complete Spiritual Doctrine of ST Therese of Lisieux" by Fr Francoise Jamart, OCD (C) and "Sermon in a sentence".