Farewell message

It is almost five years since I have started this blog and originally it was supposed to be for one year only. One year became two, two became three and I found myself pretty much attached to writing posts and sharing my Carmelite journey into Tradition. At the beginning the blogs committed to Traditional Catholicism were sparse and treated with suspicion - is that blog sede or not? Since His Holiness Pope Benedict XVI published Summorum Pontificum motu proprio, interest in the subject grew substantially and Traditionalism is no longer taboo, thanks God for this. A lot of good, traditional blogs are available on the net and I am thinking of finishing my blogging journey - my health and energy are not any longer the same as they were five years ago. I will be still posting occasionally, but not on the regular basis. All visitors are invited to use search facility to browse the posts and subjects. God bless you all!

Picture represents 'The scribe' (from 'Scribes and Illuminators', C. de Hamel, British Museum Press).

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CHRISTMAS WITH ST THERESE

"...the time came for her to have her child, and she gave birth to her firstborn son" (Luke 2: 6).

(Christ) I am the Lover of purity, and the Giver of all holiness. I seek a pure heart, and there is the place of My rest. Make ready for me a large supper room, and I will make the pasch with Thee (Mark 24: 15)

Perhaps Jesus wished to show me the world before his first visit that I could more freely choose the way I should promise to follow him.

God, the divine Guest of our hearts, knows our poverty, all He asks, and expects to find, is an empty tabernacle.

In spite of all the graces Heaven was showering upon me, I was far from deserving them. I had a great desire for virtue, but all that I did was full of imperfections. i was so sensitive that i was a very great trial to others; it was useless to reason with me, for I was powerless to correct this fault. How could I expect to be received at Carmel?  It would need a miracle to make me grew up once and for all, and God worked this little miracle on a date i shall never forget: December 25, 1886. The newborn Child turned my darkness into light; having for my sake become small and weak, he made me strong and brave; He armed me with His own weapons, and after that I ran my course  like a giant (Ps 18), going from victory to victory. The fountain of my tears was dried up, and very rarely flowed again.  This is how I received the grace of conversion. They still treated me at home like a baby, filling my shoes with presents and putting them by the fire-place on Christmas Eve. My father had always shared in my  delight as I drew out each gift, but this year Our Lord wished to cure me of my childishness. As I went up to my room after midnight Mass, I heard my father say: "Therese is too big a girl for such a nonsense; I hope this will be the last year." The words cut me to the heart, and Celine, knowing my sensitiveness, begged me not to go down at once, as I would be sure to cry; but I was no longer the same,  Jesus had changed my heart. I went down to the dining-room as though nothing had happened, and gaily pulled out the presents one by one, my father joining in the merriment. Celine thought that she was dreaming, but the fact remained that I had found once more the fortitude I had lost at the age of four and a half. On that blessed night the third period of my life opened, the most beautiful and full of graces. The work I had attempted for years, was done in an instant by Our Lord, who accepted my good will. Like the Apostles, I could say: Master we have laboured all the night, and have taken nothing (Luke 5:5), but Our Lord did more for me than He did for them, for He cast the net Himself and drew it in full of fish, and changed me into a fisher of souls. Charity took possession of my soul and filled me with the spirit of self-forgetfulness, and from that time I was always happy. 

...true greatness is found in one's soul and not in one's name. (...) Thus, it is in heaven that we will find our true value. Then, "each of us will receive our just reward from God." He who has chosen to be poorest and most forgotten for the sake of Jesus on earth, will become the first, the noblest, and the richest.

i experienced several transports of love; one during my novitiate, lasted a whole week, during which time I seemed to make use of a borrowed body, and felt far away from this world, which was veiled from my sight. Yet I was not burned by real flame, and could enjoy these delights without hope of their breaking my hold upon life; whereas if other experience (see March 29) of which I told you, had been prolonged for a few instants, I would have died....Alas! I came back on earth, and immediately my soul become a prey to dryness of spirit.

Speaking of the Communion of Saints, she said: "With the virgins we shall be virgins, with the doctors we shall be doctors, with the martyrs we shall be martyrs, for all the Saints are our kindred; but those who followed the way of spiritual childhood will always keep the charm of children. From my earliest days God has given me the conviction that I would die young. (Novissima Verba)  

Opening the Gospel my eyes fell upon these words: Going up into a mountain he called to him whom he would (Mark 3:13). These words sum up the mystery of my vocation and of my whole life, and above all the mystery of the special graces bestowed on my soul. He does not choose those who are worthy, but those whom He is pleased to call. As St Paul says, quoting Exodus: I will have mercy on whom i will have mercy (Exod. 33:19). So then it is not of him that willeth, nor of him that runneth, but of God that showeth mercy (Rom 9:16) 

Picture represents 'Concert of Angels and Nativity' by Matthias Gruenewald 

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St John of the Cross - click to read more

Several spiritual maxims from John of the Cross: 

I did not know Thee, my Lord, because I still desired to know and relish trifling things. My spirit became dry because it forgot to rest in Thee.

If you wish to attain holy recollection, you will do so not by approving but by denying.

The devil fears a soul united to God as he does God Himself.

The purest suffering produces the purest understanding.

Through small things, one reaches the great. The evil that at the beginning appears insignificant, later becomes enormous and without remedy.

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Our Lady of Guadelupe - click for more to read

Nearly a decade after Spain’s conquest of Mexico, the future of Christianity on the American Continent was very much in doubt. Confronted with a hostile colonial government and Native Americans wary of conversion, the newly appointed bishop-elect of Mexico wrote to tell the king of Spain that unless there was a miracle, the continent would be lost. Between December 9 and December 12, 1531, that miracle happened, and it forever changed the future of the continent.

It was then that the Virgin Mary famously appeared to a Native Mexican Christian convert named Juan Diego on a hilltop outside of what is now Mexico City. The image she left imprinted on his cloak, or tilma, has puzzled scientists for centuries, and yet Our Lady of Guadalupe’s place in history is profound. A continent that just months before the apparitions seemed completely lost to Christianity suddenly and inexplicably embraced it by the millions. Our Lady of Guadalupe’s message of love replaced the institutionalized violence of the Aztec culture and built a bridge between two worlds.

Today, Our Lady of Guadalupe continues to inspire the devotion of millions. She is revered as Patroness of the Americas since she appeared in the center of North and South America. Reproductions of the Virgin’s miraculous image can especially be seen throughout North and South America, and in the Philippines. Her shrine in Mexico City, where the miraculous image is housed to this day in an enormous basilica, surrounded by several smaller churches from various epochs and a vast esplanade, is one of the most visited Marian Shrines in the world.

Previous post HERE

Our Lady of Guadelupe images HERE

Images of Saints HERE

Text credit to 'A Moment With Mary'

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