Saturday, December 16, 2023
Thursday, December 14, 2023
St John of the Cross solemnity
Today is the Feast of St John of the Cross, a man of exalted sanctity, called the "prince of mystic theology", who was the chief co-labourer of St Teresa, in the establishment of the Reform, in Spain.
He was an ardent lover of the Cross, and on one occasion, when Our Lord asked him what he desired as a reward for his labours and great austerity, he answered: "Lord, to suffer and to be despised for Thy Sake."In the Office of his feast, the Carmelites sing of Saint John of the Cross:
"Saint of the eagle eye,
Gazing enrapt on high,
Mid dread abysses of Divinity;
Martyr by heart's intent,
Virgin yet penitent;
Prophet and guide in realms of mystery!
Clearly dost thou reveal
Secrets the clouds conceal,
For thou hast steeped thy soul in rays above,
Pondering the mountain height,
Darkness of faith's long night,
And the reviving flame of mystic love."
St John of the Cross' writings rank high in literature, and the more outstanding of his work are: "Spiritual Canticle, "The Ascent of Mount Carmel", "The Living Flame of Love", "The Dark Night of the Soul", "Precautions". Saint John of the Cross knew well how to "keep festival with unleavened Bread of Sincerity and Truth" even in the midst of excruciating trials, imitating therein the meek Lamb of God in His bitter Passion. This valiant disciple of the Cross affords encouragement with this consoling truth: "When God is really loved, He bears most readily the cry of the soul that loves Him".
Father John de Yepez, youngest son of Gonzales de Yepez, was born in 1542, at Fontibera, a small town between Avila and Salamanca in Old Castile. From his earliest childhood he had a particular inclination to piety, and several times experienced the protection of Divine Providence, and the watchful care of the Blessed Virgin, for whom he ever had a marked devotion. At the age of twenty-two he entered the Carmelite Monastery of Medina del Campo, and there practiced great austerities. He studied Theology at Salamanca, and was ordained Priest at the age of twenty-four. When he met St Teresa at Medina del Campo, she immediately recognized the treasures of grace his heart possessed, and unfolded to him her plans with her usual candour and simplicity. he understood her, and promised to join the good work if he might do so promptly, for his soul was longing for a more rigid life, and he had determined to go and join Carthusians. St Teresa lost no time, and having obtained the permission of the Provincial, and of the Diocesan Bishop, she founded at once the first Monastery of the Friars, in a poor little house, which had been given her for the purpose, at Durvelo. Thus was sown the tiny mustard seed, whence was to spring the mighty tree, upon whose ever spreading branches innumerable souls would rest in contemplation throughout future ages. While Father Antonio was tall and portly, Father John of the Cross was very small of stature, and the Saint, whose sense of humour was irresistible, used to say, that God had given her a friar and a half to begin her Reform. The latter was the first professed, and the saint cut and made his habit with his own hands. The house at Durvelo was poor and very small. It belonged to a nobleman of Avila, Don Raphael, and was kept for the use of his bailiff, who received his corn rents there. Their penances and austerities were such that the saint had to urge them to use moderation, fearing they would kill themselves and thus destroy the good work they had began, but they made light of all their sufferings and God so blessed their labours, that the Order spread with a rapidity truly miraculous.
Dom Prosper Gueranger OSB, writes beautifully about the Saint in 'The Liturgical Year':
Let us go with the Church to Mount Carmel, and offer our grateful homage to John of the Cross, who following in the footsteps of Teresa of Jesus, opened a safe way to souls seeking God. The growing disinclination of the people for social prayer was threatening the irreparable destruction of piety, when in the sixteenth century the divine goodness raised up saints whose teaching and holiness responded to the needs of the new times. Doctrine does not change: the asceticism and mysticism of that age transmitted to the succeeding centuries the echo of those that had gone before. But their explanations were given in a more didactic way and analyzed more narrowly; their methods aimed at obiating the risk of illusion to which souls were exposed by their isolated devotion. It is but just to recognize that under the ever-fruitful action of the Holy Ghost the psychology of supernatural states became more extended and more precise.
The early Christians, praying with the Church, living daily and hourly the life of her liturgy, kept her stamp upon them in their personal relations with God. Thus it came about that, under the persevering and transforming influence of the Church, and participating in the graces of light and union, and in all the blessing of that one beloved so pleasing to the Spouse, they assimilated her sanctity to themselves, without any further trouble but to follow their mother with docility and suffer themselves to be carried securely in her arms. Thus they applied to themselves the words of our Lord: 'Unless you become as little children, you shall not enter into the kingdom of heaven'. We need not be surprised that there was not then, as now, the frequent and assiduous assistance of a particular director for each soul. Special guides are not necessary to the members of a caravan or of an army; it is isolated travellers that that stand in need of them; and even with these special guides, they can never have the same security as those who follow the caravan or the army.
This was understood, in the course of the last few centuries, by the men of God who, taking their inspiration from the many different aptitudes of souls, became the leaders of schools, one, it is true, in aim, but differing in the methods they adopted for counteracting the dangers of individualism. In this campaign of restoration and salvation, where the worst enemy of all was illusion under a thousand forms, with its subtle roots and its endless wiles, John of the Cross was the living image of the Word of God, 'more piercing than any two-edged sword, reaching unto the divisions of the soul and the spirit, of the joints also and the marrow'; for he read, with unfailing glance, the very thoughts and intentions of hearts. Let us listen to his words. Though he belongs to modern times, he is evidently a son of the ancients.:
'The soul' he says, 'is to attain to a certain sense, to a certain divine knowledge, most generous and full of sweetness, of all human and divine things which do not fall within the commonsense and natural perceptions of the soul; it views them with different eyes now, for the light and grace of the Holy Ghost differ from those of sense, the divine from the human. (Dark night of the soul, book 2, ch 9) The dark night through which the soul passes on its way to the divine light of the perfect union of the love of God - so far as it is in this life possible - requires for its explanation greater experience and light of knowledge than I posses. For so great are the trials, and so profound the darkness, spiritual as well as corporal, which souls must endure if they will attain to perfection, that no human knowledge can comprehend them, nor experience describe them. (The Ascend of Mount Carmel - Prologue)
The journey of the soul to the divine union is called night for three reasons. The first is derived from the point from which the soul sets out, the privation of the desire of all pleasure in all the things of the world, by every desire and sense of man. The second, from the road by which it travels - that is, faith; for faith is obscure, like night, to the intellect. The third, from the goal to which it tends, God, incomprehensible and infinite, who in this life is as night to the soul. We must pass through these three nights to attain to the divine union with God.
They are foreshadowed in holy Scripture by the three nights which were to elapse, according to the command of the angel, between the betrothal and the marriage of the younger Tobias. (Tob 6;16) On the first night he was to burn the liver of the fish in the fire, which is the heart whose affections are set on the things of this world and which if it will enter on the road that leadeth unto God, must be burned up, and purified of all created things in the fire of this love. This purgation drives away the evil spirit, who has dominion over our soul because of our attachments to those pleasures which flow from temporal and corporal things.
He was an ardent lover of the Cross, and on one occasion, when Our Lord asked him what he desired as a reward for his labours and great austerity, he answered: "Lord, to suffer and to be despised for Thy Sake."In the Office of his feast, the Carmelites sing of Saint John of the Cross:
"Saint of the eagle eye,
Gazing enrapt on high,
Mid dread abysses of Divinity;
Martyr by heart's intent,
Virgin yet penitent;
Prophet and guide in realms of mystery!
Clearly dost thou reveal
Secrets the clouds conceal,
For thou hast steeped thy soul in rays above,
Pondering the mountain height,
Darkness of faith's long night,
And the reviving flame of mystic love."
St John of the Cross' writings rank high in literature, and the more outstanding of his work are: "Spiritual Canticle, "The Ascent of Mount Carmel", "The Living Flame of Love", "The Dark Night of the Soul", "Precautions". Saint John of the Cross knew well how to "keep festival with unleavened Bread of Sincerity and Truth" even in the midst of excruciating trials, imitating therein the meek Lamb of God in His bitter Passion. This valiant disciple of the Cross affords encouragement with this consoling truth: "When God is really loved, He bears most readily the cry of the soul that loves Him".
Father John de Yepez, youngest son of Gonzales de Yepez, was born in 1542, at Fontibera, a small town between Avila and Salamanca in Old Castile. From his earliest childhood he had a particular inclination to piety, and several times experienced the protection of Divine Providence, and the watchful care of the Blessed Virgin, for whom he ever had a marked devotion. At the age of twenty-two he entered the Carmelite Monastery of Medina del Campo, and there practiced great austerities. He studied Theology at Salamanca, and was ordained Priest at the age of twenty-four. When he met St Teresa at Medina del Campo, she immediately recognized the treasures of grace his heart possessed, and unfolded to him her plans with her usual candour and simplicity. he understood her, and promised to join the good work if he might do so promptly, for his soul was longing for a more rigid life, and he had determined to go and join Carthusians. St Teresa lost no time, and having obtained the permission of the Provincial, and of the Diocesan Bishop, she founded at once the first Monastery of the Friars, in a poor little house, which had been given her for the purpose, at Durvelo. Thus was sown the tiny mustard seed, whence was to spring the mighty tree, upon whose ever spreading branches innumerable souls would rest in contemplation throughout future ages. While Father Antonio was tall and portly, Father John of the Cross was very small of stature, and the Saint, whose sense of humour was irresistible, used to say, that God had given her a friar and a half to begin her Reform. The latter was the first professed, and the saint cut and made his habit with his own hands. The house at Durvelo was poor and very small. It belonged to a nobleman of Avila, Don Raphael, and was kept for the use of his bailiff, who received his corn rents there. Their penances and austerities were such that the saint had to urge them to use moderation, fearing they would kill themselves and thus destroy the good work they had began, but they made light of all their sufferings and God so blessed their labours, that the Order spread with a rapidity truly miraculous.
Dom Prosper Gueranger OSB, writes beautifully about the Saint in 'The Liturgical Year':
Let us go with the Church to Mount Carmel, and offer our grateful homage to John of the Cross, who following in the footsteps of Teresa of Jesus, opened a safe way to souls seeking God. The growing disinclination of the people for social prayer was threatening the irreparable destruction of piety, when in the sixteenth century the divine goodness raised up saints whose teaching and holiness responded to the needs of the new times. Doctrine does not change: the asceticism and mysticism of that age transmitted to the succeeding centuries the echo of those that had gone before. But their explanations were given in a more didactic way and analyzed more narrowly; their methods aimed at obiating the risk of illusion to which souls were exposed by their isolated devotion. It is but just to recognize that under the ever-fruitful action of the Holy Ghost the psychology of supernatural states became more extended and more precise.
The early Christians, praying with the Church, living daily and hourly the life of her liturgy, kept her stamp upon them in their personal relations with God. Thus it came about that, under the persevering and transforming influence of the Church, and participating in the graces of light and union, and in all the blessing of that one beloved so pleasing to the Spouse, they assimilated her sanctity to themselves, without any further trouble but to follow their mother with docility and suffer themselves to be carried securely in her arms. Thus they applied to themselves the words of our Lord: 'Unless you become as little children, you shall not enter into the kingdom of heaven'. We need not be surprised that there was not then, as now, the frequent and assiduous assistance of a particular director for each soul. Special guides are not necessary to the members of a caravan or of an army; it is isolated travellers that that stand in need of them; and even with these special guides, they can never have the same security as those who follow the caravan or the army.
This was understood, in the course of the last few centuries, by the men of God who, taking their inspiration from the many different aptitudes of souls, became the leaders of schools, one, it is true, in aim, but differing in the methods they adopted for counteracting the dangers of individualism. In this campaign of restoration and salvation, where the worst enemy of all was illusion under a thousand forms, with its subtle roots and its endless wiles, John of the Cross was the living image of the Word of God, 'more piercing than any two-edged sword, reaching unto the divisions of the soul and the spirit, of the joints also and the marrow'; for he read, with unfailing glance, the very thoughts and intentions of hearts. Let us listen to his words. Though he belongs to modern times, he is evidently a son of the ancients.:
'The soul' he says, 'is to attain to a certain sense, to a certain divine knowledge, most generous and full of sweetness, of all human and divine things which do not fall within the commonsense and natural perceptions of the soul; it views them with different eyes now, for the light and grace of the Holy Ghost differ from those of sense, the divine from the human. (Dark night of the soul, book 2, ch 9) The dark night through which the soul passes on its way to the divine light of the perfect union of the love of God - so far as it is in this life possible - requires for its explanation greater experience and light of knowledge than I posses. For so great are the trials, and so profound the darkness, spiritual as well as corporal, which souls must endure if they will attain to perfection, that no human knowledge can comprehend them, nor experience describe them. (The Ascend of Mount Carmel - Prologue)
The journey of the soul to the divine union is called night for three reasons. The first is derived from the point from which the soul sets out, the privation of the desire of all pleasure in all the things of the world, by every desire and sense of man. The second, from the road by which it travels - that is, faith; for faith is obscure, like night, to the intellect. The third, from the goal to which it tends, God, incomprehensible and infinite, who in this life is as night to the soul. We must pass through these three nights to attain to the divine union with God.
They are foreshadowed in holy Scripture by the three nights which were to elapse, according to the command of the angel, between the betrothal and the marriage of the younger Tobias. (Tob 6;16) On the first night he was to burn the liver of the fish in the fire, which is the heart whose affections are set on the things of this world and which if it will enter on the road that leadeth unto God, must be burned up, and purified of all created things in the fire of this love. This purgation drives away the evil spirit, who has dominion over our soul because of our attachments to those pleasures which flow from temporal and corporal things.
'The second night, said the angel, thou shalt be admitted into the society of the holy patriarchs, the fathers of the faith. The soul having passed the first night, which is the privation of all sensible things, enters immediately into the second night, alone in pure faith, and, and by it alone directed; for faith is not subject to sense.
The third night, said the angel, thou shalt obtain a blessing - that is, God, who in the second night of faith communicates Himself so secretly and so intimately to the soul. This is another night, inasmuch as this communication is more obscure that the others. When this night is over, which is the accomplishments of the communication of God in spirit, ordinarily effected when the soul is the Wisdom of God, immediately ensues. ('The Ascent of Mt Carmel' Book I, Ch 2)
Sunday, December 03, 2023
ADVENT WITH ST THERESE
IT is Jesus alone, content with my feeble efforts, who will lift me to his side. Covering me with his infinite virtue, he will make a saint of me (Story of the Soul)
I have understood that Our Lord's love will reveal itself as well in the simplest soul which offers no resistance, as in the most noble (Story of the Soul)
Like a mother caressing her child, in this way I will comfort you, I will carry you at my breast and caress you in my lap...Having said this, there's nothing else to say all that's left is to wrap in gratitude and love (Story of the Soul).
I have understood that Our Lord's love will reveal itself as well in the simplest soul which offers no resistance, as in the most noble (Story of the Soul)
Like a mother caressing her child, in this way I will comfort you, I will carry you at my breast and caress you in my lap...Having said this, there's nothing else to say all that's left is to wrap in gratitude and love (Story of the Soul).
I understand that to become a saint, one must suffer a great deal, always seek perfection and forget one's self (Story of the Soul)
Now nothing surprises me, I am not concerned when i see that I am weak. On the contrary, it is that weakness which glorifies me. Every day I expect to discover new imperfections within myself.
God wanted to create great Saints who could be compared to lilies and roses, but also created lesser Saints. They should be content to be daises and violets, destined to simply enjoy God's glance as they lie humbly at His feet.
I do not know if you are still feeling as you did when you last wrote, but I am sending you in answer this passage from the Canticle of Canticles, which describes so vividly a soul in a state of dryness, who can find no comfort anywhere: "I went down into the garden of nuts to see the fruits of the valleys, and to look if the vineyard had flowered, and the pomegranates budded. I knew not: my soul troubled me for the chariots of Aminadab (Cant 6:10,11)." That is a picture of our souls. How often we go down to the fertile valleys where we found spiritual food, to the pleasant fields fo Scripture where we discovered so many treasures, but which now seem like a waterless desert. We no longer know where we are: instead of peace and light our lot is darkness and distress, but like the Bride we know the cause of this trial. We are not yet in our fatherland, but have still to be tried by temptation as gold in the furnace. Sometimes we feel utterly abandoned, and cannot make sure whether the chariots, that is the noise and commotion which surround us, are whitin or without. We do not know, but Jesus knows, and He sees our sorrow, and suddenly in the dark night, His voice is heard: "Return, return, O Sulamitess: return, return that we may behold thee (ibid, 6:12).
But if the son comes to know the dangers from which he has been spared, will he not love him [his Father] more? Well, I am this child, object of the provident love of a Father who did not send his Son to redeem the righteous, but the sinners.
All citation from the 'Story of the Soul' unless otherwise specified.
God wanted to create great Saints who could be compared to lilies and roses, but also created lesser Saints. They should be content to be daises and violets, destined to simply enjoy God's glance as they lie humbly at His feet.
I do not know if you are still feeling as you did when you last wrote, but I am sending you in answer this passage from the Canticle of Canticles, which describes so vividly a soul in a state of dryness, who can find no comfort anywhere: "I went down into the garden of nuts to see the fruits of the valleys, and to look if the vineyard had flowered, and the pomegranates budded. I knew not: my soul troubled me for the chariots of Aminadab (Cant 6:10,11)." That is a picture of our souls. How often we go down to the fertile valleys where we found spiritual food, to the pleasant fields fo Scripture where we discovered so many treasures, but which now seem like a waterless desert. We no longer know where we are: instead of peace and light our lot is darkness and distress, but like the Bride we know the cause of this trial. We are not yet in our fatherland, but have still to be tried by temptation as gold in the furnace. Sometimes we feel utterly abandoned, and cannot make sure whether the chariots, that is the noise and commotion which surround us, are whitin or without. We do not know, but Jesus knows, and He sees our sorrow, and suddenly in the dark night, His voice is heard: "Return, return, O Sulamitess: return, return that we may behold thee (ibid, 6:12).
But if the son comes to know the dangers from which he has been spared, will he not love him [his Father] more? Well, I am this child, object of the provident love of a Father who did not send his Son to redeem the righteous, but the sinners.
Oh! I love you, Mary, saying you are the servant
Of the God whom you charm by your humility (Lk 1: 38).
This hidden virtue makes you all-powerful.
It attracts the Holy Trinity into your heart.
Then the Spirit of Love covering you with his shadow, (Lk 1: 35)
The Son equal to the Father became incarnate in you,
There will be a great many of his sinner brothers,
Since he will be called: Jesus, your first-born! (Lk 2: 7)
O beloved Mother, despite my littleness,
Like you I possess The All-Powerful within me.
But I don't tremble in seeing my weakness:
The treasures of a mother belong to her child,
And I am your child, O my dearest Mother.
Aren't your virtues and your love mine too?
So when the white Host comes into my heart,
Jesus, your Sweet Lamb, thinks he is resting in you! ...
You make me feel that it's not impossible
To follow in your footsteps, O Queen of the elect.
You made visible the narrow road to Heaven
While always practicing the humblest virtues.
Near you, Mary, I like to stay little.
At the home of Saint Elizabeth, receiving your visit,
I learn how to practice ardent charity.
There, Sweet Queen of angels, I listen, delighted,
To the sacred canticle springing forth from your heart (Lk 1: 46).
You teach me to sing divine praises,
To glory in Jesus my Savior.
Your words of love are mystical roses
Destined to perfume the centuries to come.
In you the Almighty has done great things.
I want to ponder them to bless him for them.
("Why I love you, o Mary" from 'The Poetry of St Therese of Child Jesus')
Of the God whom you charm by your humility (Lk 1: 38).
This hidden virtue makes you all-powerful.
It attracts the Holy Trinity into your heart.
Then the Spirit of Love covering you with his shadow, (Lk 1: 35)
The Son equal to the Father became incarnate in you,
There will be a great many of his sinner brothers,
Since he will be called: Jesus, your first-born! (Lk 2: 7)
O beloved Mother, despite my littleness,
Like you I possess The All-Powerful within me.
But I don't tremble in seeing my weakness:
The treasures of a mother belong to her child,
And I am your child, O my dearest Mother.
Aren't your virtues and your love mine too?
So when the white Host comes into my heart,
Jesus, your Sweet Lamb, thinks he is resting in you! ...
You make me feel that it's not impossible
To follow in your footsteps, O Queen of the elect.
You made visible the narrow road to Heaven
While always practicing the humblest virtues.
Near you, Mary, I like to stay little.
At the home of Saint Elizabeth, receiving your visit,
I learn how to practice ardent charity.
There, Sweet Queen of angels, I listen, delighted,
To the sacred canticle springing forth from your heart (Lk 1: 46).
You teach me to sing divine praises,
To glory in Jesus my Savior.
Your words of love are mystical roses
Destined to perfume the centuries to come.
In you the Almighty has done great things.
I want to ponder them to bless him for them.
("Why I love you, o Mary" from 'The Poetry of St Therese of Child Jesus')
All citation from the 'Story of the Soul' unless otherwise specified.
Tuesday, November 21, 2023
Presentation of the Blessed Virgin Mary in the Temple
For a long time Carmel had been planning widespread honours for you, and in its happy caves it trains sons who in white cloaks will witness to perpetual chastity for you and will bind your name with the name of this Mount in everlasting covenant. You are purer than gold. You are whiter than snow. Your are brighter than the star of Venus. Your virginity was not vitiated by child-bearing, nor can your brightness be darkened by any stain. You certainly were not bound to this legitimate custom, and in all justice you could have renounced these gifts. Time will come when a future age will remember us and on this solemn day will offer you honour on the altars, and will carry candles in long procession of a well celebrated liturgy. Then your priest, processing in golden vestments, will chant your hymns and will sent forth a sweet smelling cloud throughout the Church and the breeze will spread the pleasant scent far and wide, and because our path cross at his point, posterity will call this day Hypante, in the Greek language, and it will be lit up with numberless torches. (Bl Baptiste Spagnoli of Mantua O.Carm)
Religious parents never fail by devout prayer to consecrate their children to God, His divine service and love, both before and after their birth. Some among the Jews, not content with this general consecration of their children, offered them to God in their infancy, by the hands of the priests in the Temple, to be brought up in quarters attached to the Temple, attending the priests and Levites in their sacred ministry. There were special divisions in these lodgings for the women and children dedicated to the divine service (3 Kings 6:5-9). We have examples of this special consecration of children in the person of Samuel, for example. Today the Church celebrates the feast of the Presentation of the Blessed Virgin Mary in the Temple of Jerusalem. It is very probable that the holy prophet Simeon and the prophetess Anna, who witnessed the Presentation of Jesus in the Temple, as we read in the second chapter of the Gospel of Saint Luke (verses 25) had known His Mother as a little girl in the Temple and observed her truly unique sanctity. It is an ancient and very trustworthy tradition that the Blessed Virgin was thus solemnly offered in the Temple to God at the age of three by Her parents, Saint Anne and Saint Joachim. The Gospel tells us nothing of the childhood of Mary; Her title Mother of God, eclipses all the rest. Where, better than in the Temple, could Mary be prepared for Her mission? Twelve years of recollection and prayer, contemplation and sufferings, were the preparation of the chosen one of God. The tender soul of Mary was adorned with the most precious graces and became an object of astonishment and praise for the holy Angels, as well as of the highest complacency for the adorable Trinity. The Father looked upon her as His beloved Daughter, the Son as One set apart and prepared to become His Mother, and the Holy Ghost as His undefiled Spouse. Here is how Mary’s day in the Temple was apportioned, according to Saint Jerome. From dawn until nine in the morning, she prayed; from 9:00 until 3:00 she applied herself to manual work; then she turned again to prayer. She was always the first to undertake night watches, the one most applied to study, the most fervent in the chanting of Psalms, the most zealous in works of charity, the purest among the virgins, her companions, the most perfect in the practice of every virtue. On this day she appears as the standard-bearer for Christian virginity: after her will come countless legions of virgins consecrated to the Lord, both in the shadow of the altars or engaged in the charitable occupations of the Church in the world. Mary will be their eternal Model, their dedicated Patroness, their sure guide on the paths of perfection.
Main text after 'Little Pictorial Lives of the Saints' a compilation based on Butler’s Lives of the Saints.
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Friday, November 17, 2023
Chirst the King Novena starts this year today and concludes on 29th November.
Pray Novena to Christ the King here
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Christ the King, Ghent Altarpiece, Jan Van Eyck.
Jesus, remember me when you come into your kingdom....Today, you will be with me in Paradise (Luke 23:42-43)
When she [St Teresa of Avila] came into the world, a mere twenty years had passed since the last of the Moors were driven out of Spain and the whole peninsula united in the Catholic faith. Eight centuries of continual warfare between the Cross and the Crescent lay behind the Spanish people. During these battles they blossomed into an heroic people, into a legion of Christ the King. Teresa’s more immediate homeland, the ancient kingdom of Castile, was the strong fortress from which in resolute struggle the cross was gradually carried to the South. (Edith Stein, 'The Hidden Life')
If I leave the battleground, it isn't with a selfish desire to rest; the Thought of the eternal beatitude hardly makes my heart flutter. For a long time, suffering has become my heaven here on earth....What draws me to the heavenly homeland is the Father's call. It is the hope of finally loving Him as I so wanted and the thought that I would make him loved by a multitude of souls who would bless Him eternally. (St Therese, Letter 28)
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Thursday, November 02, 2023
All Souls Day
"Jesus, remember me when you come into your Kingdom....Truly I tell you, today you will be with me in Paradise" (Lk 23: 42-43)
I feel it, we must go to heaven by the same route, the one of suffering united with love. When I reach the harbour, I will teach you....how to navigate on the stormy sea of the world, with the abandon and love of a child who knows that his Father cherishes him and would not leave him alone in a time of danger (St Therese, Letters)
Wednesday, November 01, 2023
All Saints
I am He who made all the saints; I gave them grace; I have brought them to glory. I know the first and the last; I embrace them all with an inestimable love.
I am to be praised in all My saints; I am to be blessed above all things, and to be honoured in every one of them, whom I have thus glorioulsy magnified and eternally chosen, without any foregoing merits of their own.
Take heed, therefore, my son, that thouu treat nor curiously of these things which exceed thy knowledge, but rather make it thy business and thy aim that thou mayest be found amongst the number of those who inherit the kingdom of God, although thou shouldst be the least among them. 'Imitation of Christ' Bk 3. Read whole post......
Saturday, October 14, 2023
Feast of St Teresa of Jesus
St. Teresa of JesusAfter Roman Breviary Lessons
The virgin Teresa was the daughter of a father and mother, equally honourable on account of their birth and of their godliness, and was born at Avila in Spain. She was brought up from the dawn of her life in the fear of God, and when still only seven years old she gave startling forecast of the holy earnestness of her later years. The reading of the acts of the holy martyrs so inflamed and excited her imagination, that she ran away from her father's house, with the design of going to Morocco and the hope there to lay down her life for the glory of Christ Jesus and the salvation of souls. She was met by an uncle and brought back to her mother, and was fain to slake her thirst for martyrdom by giving to the poor all the alms she could, and by other godly exercises, though still ever bewailing with tears that the highest prize had been snatched from her. Upon the death of her mother she besought the blessed Virgin to be a mother to her in her stead. This she gained ; thenceforth she lived always as a daughter under the shelter of the Mother of God. In the twentieth year of her age she withdrew herself among the nuns of St. Mary of Mount Carmel. There she dwelt for two-and-twenty years, tormented by grievous sicknesses and divers temptations, and so bravely served her time in the hardest ranks of Christ's army, starved even of that comforting knowledge of God's reconciled love, wherein his holy children are so commonly used even upon earth to rejoice.
Strengthened in the graces of an angel, the wideness of her love embraced in its tender care the salvation of other souls as well as her own. To this end, under the blessing of God, and the approbation of Pius IV, she set, first before women and then before men, the observance of the stern Rule of the Old Carmelites. The blessing of the Almighty and merciful Lord did indeed rest most evidently upon this design. This penniless virgin, helped by no man, and in the teeth of many that were great in this world, was enabled to build two-and-thirty houses. The darkness of unbelievers and misbelievers drew from her unceasing tears, and she willingly gave up her own body to God to be tortured, to soften the fury of his indignation against them. His own love so blazed in her heart that she attained to see an Angel run her through with a fiery spear, and Christ himself take her by the hand, and to hear him say : Henceforth thou shalt love mine honour as a wife indeed. At his inspiration she took the extremely difficult vow to do always that which should seem to her to be most perfect. She wrote much, full of heavenly wisdom, whereby the minds of the faithful are enkindled to long for the Fatherland above.
Earnest as were the ensamples of graces which she had shewn, and grievous as was the state of her body, afflicted by disease, she still burnt with the desire of tormenting it. She tortured it with sackcloth, chains of spikes, handfuls of nettles, and heavy scourging. She rolled herself sometimes among thorns, and was used to cry to God : Lord! to suffer, or to die! As long as she remained exiled from the heavenly Fountain of eternal life, her life was to her a lingering death. She was eminent for the gift of prophecy, and God did indeed so pour forth his bounties upon her, that she often cried to him in entreaty not to bless her so as to make her forget her sins. It was worn out rather by the fever of her love than by the wasting of disease that she sank upon her deathbed at Alva. She foretold the day of her own death, received the Sacraments of the Church, and exhorted her disciples to peace, love, and strictness in observing the Rule, and then her soul, like a pure dove, winged its flight to rest with God, on the 15th day of October in the year 1582, New Style, being then 67 years of age. At her death she had a vision of Christ Jesus surrounded by Angels. A dead tree hard by the cell instantly broke into foliage. Her body is untouched by corruption even unto this day, and lieth in a sort of perfumed oil, regarded with godly reverence. She was famous for miracles both before and after her death, and was numbered by Gregory XV, among the Saints.
Strengthened in the graces of an angel, the wideness of her love embraced in its tender care the salvation of other souls as well as her own. To this end, under the blessing of God, and the approbation of Pius IV, she set, first before women and then before men, the observance of the stern Rule of the Old Carmelites. The blessing of the Almighty and merciful Lord did indeed rest most evidently upon this design. This penniless virgin, helped by no man, and in the teeth of many that were great in this world, was enabled to build two-and-thirty houses. The darkness of unbelievers and misbelievers drew from her unceasing tears, and she willingly gave up her own body to God to be tortured, to soften the fury of his indignation against them. His own love so blazed in her heart that she attained to see an Angel run her through with a fiery spear, and Christ himself take her by the hand, and to hear him say : Henceforth thou shalt love mine honour as a wife indeed. At his inspiration she took the extremely difficult vow to do always that which should seem to her to be most perfect. She wrote much, full of heavenly wisdom, whereby the minds of the faithful are enkindled to long for the Fatherland above.
Earnest as were the ensamples of graces which she had shewn, and grievous as was the state of her body, afflicted by disease, she still burnt with the desire of tormenting it. She tortured it with sackcloth, chains of spikes, handfuls of nettles, and heavy scourging. She rolled herself sometimes among thorns, and was used to cry to God : Lord! to suffer, or to die! As long as she remained exiled from the heavenly Fountain of eternal life, her life was to her a lingering death. She was eminent for the gift of prophecy, and God did indeed so pour forth his bounties upon her, that she often cried to him in entreaty not to bless her so as to make her forget her sins. It was worn out rather by the fever of her love than by the wasting of disease that she sank upon her deathbed at Alva. She foretold the day of her own death, received the Sacraments of the Church, and exhorted her disciples to peace, love, and strictness in observing the Rule, and then her soul, like a pure dove, winged its flight to rest with God, on the 15th day of October in the year 1582, New Style, being then 67 years of age. At her death she had a vision of Christ Jesus surrounded by Angels. A dead tree hard by the cell instantly broke into foliage. Her body is untouched by corruption even unto this day, and lieth in a sort of perfumed oil, regarded with godly reverence. She was famous for miracles both before and after her death, and was numbered by Gregory XV, among the Saints.The photos represent the view of town of Avila and the family house of St. Teresa Read whole post......
Sunday, October 01, 2023
Feast of St Therese
Beautiful reflections from St Therese on her beloved Church - text after the "Story of the Soul".
I understand that the Church had a Heart and that this Heart was burning with love. I understand it was Love alone that made this Church's member act, that if Love ever became extinct, apostles would not preach the Gospel and martyrs would not shed their blood. I understand that LOVE COMPRISED ALL VOCATIONS, THAT LOVE WAS EVERYTHING, THAT IT EMBRACED ALL TIMES AND PLACES....IN A WORD, THAT IT WAS ETERNAL!
Then in the excess of my delirious joy, I cried out: O Jesus, my Love...my vocation, at last I have found it...My VOCATION IS LOVE!
Yes, I have found my place in the Church and it is You, O my God who have given me this place; in the heart of the Church, my Mother, I shall love. Thus I shall be everything, and thus my dream will be realized.
What speak of a delirious joy? No, this expression is not exact, for it was rather the calm and serene peace of the navigator perceiving the beacon which must lead him to the port...O luminous Beacon of Love, I know how to reach You, I have found the secret of possessing Your flame.
I am only a child, powerless and weak, and yet it is my weakness that gives me the boldness of offering myself as VICTIM of Your love, O Jesus!
O Jesus, I know it, love is repaid by love alone, and so I searched and I found the way to solace my heart by giving You Love for Love...I presented myself before the angels and saints and I said to them: "I am the smallest of creatures; I know my misery and my feebleness, but I know also how much noble and generous hearts love to do good. I beg you to ADOPT ME AS YOUR CHILD. To You alone will be the glory which You will make me merit, but deign to answer my prayer. It is bold, I know; however, I dare to ask You to obtain for me YOUR TWOFOLD SPIRIT.
Jesus, I cannot fathom the depths of my request; I would be afraid to find myself overwhelmed under the weight of my bold desires...Well, I am the Child of the Church and the Church is a Queen since she is Your Spouse, O divine King of kings...What this child asks for is Love. She knows only one thing: to love You, O Jesus. Astounding works are forbidden to her; she cannot preach the Gospel, shed her blood; but what does it matter since her brethren work in her stead and she, a little child, stays very close to the throne of the King and Queen. She loves in her brothers' place while they do the fighting. But how will she prove her love since love is proved by works? Well, the little child will strew flowers, she will perfume the royal throne with their sweet scents, and she will sing in her silvery tones the canticle of Love.
Yes, my Beloved, this is how my life will be consumed. I have no other means of proving my love for You other than that of strewing flowers, that is, not allowing one little sacrifice to escape, not one look, one word, profiting by all the smallest things and doing them through love; and in this way I shall strew flowers before Your throne. I shall not come upon one without unpetalling it for You. While I am strewing my flowers, I shall sing, for could one cry while doing such a joyous action? I shall sing even when I must gather my flowers in the midst of thorns, and my song will be all the more melofious in proportion to the length and the sharpness of the thorns.
O Jesus, of what use will my flowers be to You? Ah! I know very well that this fragrant shower, these fragile, worthless petals, these songs of love from the littlest of hearts will charm You. Yes, these nothings will please You. They will bring a smile to the Church Triumphant. She will gather up my flowers, unpetalled through love and have them pass through Your divine hands, O Jesus. And this Church in heaven, desirous of playing with her little child, will cast these flowers, which are now infinitely valuable because of Your divine touch, upon the Church Suffering in order to extinguish its flames and upon the Church Militant in order to gain the victory for it!
O my Jesus! I love You! I love the Church, my Mother! I recall that "the smallest act of PURE LOVE is of more value to her than all other works together." But is PURE LOVE in my heart? Are my measureless desires only but a dream, a folly?Ah! If this be so, Jesus, then enlighten me, for You know I am seeking only the truth, If my desires are rash, then make them disappear, for these desires are the greatest martyrdom to me. however, I feel, O Jesus, that after having aspired to the most lofty heights of Love, if one day I am not to attain them, I feel that I shall have taste on the bosom of the joy of the Fatherland, unless You take away the memory of these earthly hopes through a miracle. Allow me to taste the sweet bitterness of my martyrdom.
Jesus, I cannot fathom the depths of my request; I would be afraid to find myself overwhelmed under the weight of my bold desires...Well, I am the Child of the Church and the Church is a Queen since she is Your Spouse, O divine King of kings...What this child asks for is Love. She knows only one thing: to love You, O Jesus. Astounding works are forbidden to her; she cannot preach the Gospel, shed her blood; but what does it matter since her brethren work in her stead and she, a little child, stays very close to the throne of the King and Queen. She loves in her brothers' place while they do the fighting. But how will she prove her love since love is proved by works? Well, the little child will strew flowers, she will perfume the royal throne with their sweet scents, and she will sing in her silvery tones the canticle of Love.
Yes, my Beloved, this is how my life will be consumed. I have no other means of proving my love for You other than that of strewing flowers, that is, not allowing one little sacrifice to escape, not one look, one word, profiting by all the smallest things and doing them through love; and in this way I shall strew flowers before Your throne. I shall not come upon one without unpetalling it for You. While I am strewing my flowers, I shall sing, for could one cry while doing such a joyous action? I shall sing even when I must gather my flowers in the midst of thorns, and my song will be all the more melofious in proportion to the length and the sharpness of the thorns.
O Jesus, of what use will my flowers be to You? Ah! I know very well that this fragrant shower, these fragile, worthless petals, these songs of love from the littlest of hearts will charm You. Yes, these nothings will please You. They will bring a smile to the Church Triumphant. She will gather up my flowers, unpetalled through love and have them pass through Your divine hands, O Jesus. And this Church in heaven, desirous of playing with her little child, will cast these flowers, which are now infinitely valuable because of Your divine touch, upon the Church Suffering in order to extinguish its flames and upon the Church Militant in order to gain the victory for it!
O my Jesus! I love You! I love the Church, my Mother! I recall that "the smallest act of PURE LOVE is of more value to her than all other works together." But is PURE LOVE in my heart? Are my measureless desires only but a dream, a folly?Ah! If this be so, Jesus, then enlighten me, for You know I am seeking only the truth, If my desires are rash, then make them disappear, for these desires are the greatest martyrdom to me. however, I feel, O Jesus, that after having aspired to the most lofty heights of Love, if one day I am not to attain them, I feel that I shall have taste on the bosom of the joy of the Fatherland, unless You take away the memory of these earthly hopes through a miracle. Allow me to taste the sweet bitterness of my martyrdom.
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Tuesday, August 15, 2023
Feast of the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary
O Mary, kind Mother! be for us the way that leads to your Son... (Latin Liturgy)
My spirit rejoices in God my Saviour, for he has looked with favour on the lowliness of his servant. Surely, from now on all generations will call me blessed" (Luke 1:47-48)
The Blessed Virgin was also watching over her little flower. Not wanting her to be tarnished by contact with earthly things, she moved her to her mountain before she bloomed...While wanting for this happy moment, the little Therese grew in love for the Heavenly Mother (St Therese, The Story of a Soul)
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Picture represents Rubens' masterpiece 'Assumption'
Sunday, August 06, 2023
Transfiguration of Our Lord
With three chosen disciples Jesus went up the mountain. Then he was transfigured by a wonderful light that made even his clothes seem to shine. Moses and Elijah stood by him and spoke with him of how he was going to complete his task on earth by dying in Jerusalem. In other words, they spoke of the mystery of his incarnation, and of his saving passion upon the cross. For the law of Moses and the teaching of the holy prophets clearly foreshadowed the mystery of Christ... The presence of Moses and Elijah, and their speaking together, was meant to show unmistakably that the law and the prophets were the attendants of our Lord Jesus Christ... They did not simply appear in silence; they spoke of how Jesus was to complete his task by dying in Jerusalem, they spoke of his passion and cross, and of the resurrection that would follow.
Thinking no doubt that the time for the kingdom of God had already come, Peter would gladly have remained on the mountain. He suggested putting up three tents, hardly knowing what he was saying. But it was not yet time for the end of the world; nor was it in this present time that the hopes of the saints would be fulfilled - those hopes founded on Paul's promise that Christ «would transform our lowly bodies into the likeness of his heavenly body» (Phil 3,21).
Only the initial stage of the divine plan had as yet been accomplished. Until its completion was it likely that Christ, who came on earth for love of the world, would give up his wish to die for it? For his submitting to death was the world's salvation, and his resurrection was death's destruction. (Saint Cyril of Alexandria (380-444), Bishop, Doctor of the Church, Homilies on the Transfiguration, 9)
Thursday, July 20, 2023
Carmelite Devotion to St Elijah, the Prophet - click to read
PRAYER TO ST. ELIJAH
Holy Prophet of God Elijah, Leader and Father of Carmelites, intercede
for us and for the salvation of all.
V: Pray for us, O holy Father Elijah.
R: That we may be made worthy of the promises of Christ.
Let us pray.
Grant, we beseech Thee, O Almighty God, that we who believe that the Blessed Elijah Your Prophet and our Father was wonderfully carried up in a fiery chariot, may by his intercession be raised to the desire of heavenly things and rejoice in the society of Your saints. We ask this through Christ our Lord. Amen.
After: “Carmel, Its History, Spirit, and Saints”
Sunday, July 16, 2023
The Feast of Our Lady of Mount Carmel
"I venerate you a thousand times, O true Mother of my Lord Jesus Christ, Hail Mary.
I venerate you, O sovereign Queen of the Angels, Empress of the Universe, Hail Mary.
I venerate you, most kindly Virgin Mary, most worthy mother of my one Saviour Jesus, Hail Mary."
St Teresa Margaret Redi prayer
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Saturday, June 10, 2023
Most Holy Sacrament of the Altar, St Thomas Aquinas and Carmelite Saints, Corpus Christi Solemnity
Food sustains life. Without food, no living being can remain alive and active. Grace gives to man a divine life. Baptism gives man birth in the divine life. Confirmation gives man maturity in the divine life. But this life cannot continue to grow without food, spiritual food. Like every other life, the divine life of grace must be nourished. it must be fed. The food of the life of grace is the Sacrament of the Holy Eucharist . In this Sacrament, the life of grace feeds on the very Body and Blood of Christ Himself. If, in the natural order, bread were the only substance that men could eat, then all men would eat bread always. For a man needs food to live. In the supernatural order of grace, the Eucharist is the necessary food of the supernatural life of grace.
St Teresa of Jesus of the Andes: "Dear Jesus, may Your will be done and not mine. Tomorrow I will go to Communion. I obtained permission. Oh, what happiness: tomorrow I will have Heaven in my heart! Oh, I love, Jesus, I adore You! I thank You and my Mother for this favour. I am all Yours....only You....no other creature."
The Eucharist is not necessary in the same way that Baptism is necessary. Baptism is necessary as the beginning of the supernatural life of grace. But the Eucharist is necessary as the consummation of the life of grace. Baptism is necessary because it make a man like Christ, and so fits him for the reception of Christ in his soul. In the Eucharist, man is united to Christ Himself. In the Eucharist, the very Body and Blood of Christ become the spiritual food of man's soul, increasing grace in the soul and so increasing man's likeness to Christ.
The Eucharist is called by many names in Christian tradition. It is called "the Sacrifice", because it is a remembrance of Christ's Passion. it is called "Communion" because it is the cause of unity or union between Christ and the members of His Church. It is called "Viaticum", because it gives man the way to win the vision of God. To put it in another way, in the Eucharist we have a renewal of Christ's Passion, which saved men by meriting grace for men; in the Eucharist we have Christ Himself, Who gives grace to men; and in the Eucharist we have Christ Himself, Who enables the soul of men to pass through death to eternal life.
Bl Teresa of Jesus of the Andes: "Tomorrow I will go to Communion. How I long for this, my Jesus. I am so bad. I need You to be good. Come, Love, come quickly and I will give You my heart, my soul and all I possess. My Mother, prepare my heart to receive my Jesus." (after "God, the Joy of my Life: Blessed Teresa of the Andes")
Dieric Bouts "The Last Supper"
Christ Himself instituted this great Sacrament at the Last Supper. He knew that He was shortly to leave this earth. He knew that He would not remain in this world much longer in His bodily presence. But He did not wish to leave His faithful disciples entirely. He wished to remain with His followers in some way. And so He gave us His presence in the Sacrament of the Eucharist to take the place of His historical bodily presence. Besides, He wished to leave men a remembrance of His Passion. Faith in His Passion is necessary for salvation. But in the course of time men might forget His Passion and death on the Cross. In the Eucharist he has given men a perpetual remembrance of His Passion and death on the Cross. He instituted this Sacrament at the Last Supper, because He knew that the last words and actions of men who are about to leave this world are more likely to be remembered with love and devotion than any other words and actions. The Eucharist was, as it were, His last will and testament to the human race. Shortly before His Death, Resurrection and Ascension into Heaven, he left men His Body and Blood as the food of their souls. It was the most precios gift He had to leave us, because the Eucharist is Christ Himself, the Author and Dispenser of God's grace.
Saint Teresa Benedicta of the Cross, fragment of the poem "I shall Stay with You":
..."This is the heart of Trinity divine,
The center also of all human hearts.
Source of our life from God.
It draws us close with its mysterious might,
It keeps us safe within the Father's lap
And flood us with the Holy Spirit.
This heart beats in a tiny tabernacle
Where it remains in hidden mystery.
Within that orbit, silent, white.
That is Your royal throne, O Lord, on earth,
Which You have built for us, plainly to see.
It pleases You when I draw near....
In the mind of Christ, the Eucharist is to be the food of souls. "I am the living bread which came down from heaven. If any man eat this bread, he shall live forever: and the bread that I will give is my flesh, for the life of the world...Except you eat the flesh of the Son of man and drink his blood, you shall not have life in you. He that eateth my flesh and drinketh my blood hath everlasting life: and I will raise him up in the last day. For my flesh is meat indeed: and my blood is drink indeed. He that eateth my flesh and drinketh my blood abideth in me: and I in him. (John 6: 51-55). Becasue the Eucharist is the food of souls, Christ chose bread and wine for the matter of this Sacrament. Bread is the staple food of all mankind, and wheaten bread is the bread most commonly used among men. For this reason, Christ chose bread to be the sacramental sign of His Body. But man not only needs solid food, he also needs liquid refreshment. Wine is a liquid nourishment universal to mankind. Wine made from grapes
is the only true wine. Hence Christ chose wine to be the sacramental sign of His Blood. When He instituted this Sacrament at Last Supper, Christ, according to the custom of His country, mixed a little bit of water with the wine. In the Mass, a little bit of water is mixed with the wine which is to be changed into Christ's Blood. This water represents the Christian people, the members of the Church. This represents the union of the faithful with Christ. Christ wanted to give men His own Body and Blood, as the food of their souls. Hence, as the sacramental sign of His Body and Blood, He chose elements that would be recognized as food by men.
...Your eyes look deeply into mine with love,
And to my whispered words You bend Your ear.
You fill my heart with deepest peace.
And yet Your love cannot be satisfied
By this exchange, for there remains a gap,
Your heart still asks for more.
each morn You come to me at early Mass
Your flesh and blood become my food and drink;
And wonders are accomplished.
Your body permeates mine mysteriously,
I feel Your soul becoming one with mine:
I am no longer what I used to be.
You come and go, but still the seed remains
Which You have sown for future splendour,
Hid in the body made from dust.
A heavenly radiance lingers in the soul,
And deeply shines a light within the eye,
A vibrant music in the voice...
In the Eucharist, at words of consecration uttered by Christ at the Last Supper, or now by the priest at Mass, bread and wine are changed into the Body and Blood of Christ. Bread and wine are no longer present. Instead the Body and Blood of Christ are present sacramentally. We can never hope to understand in this life how this change takes place. This is a mystery beyond comprehension. But we can so state the mystery that it is no longer absurd or ridiculous or contradictory. Let us examine the mystery more closely. Before the Consecration of the Mass, bread and wine are present on the altar. When the priest says, speaking in the name of Christ, "This is My Body," and "This is the chalice of my Blood of the New and Eternal Testament, the Mystery of Faith, which shall be shed for you and for many unto the forgiveness of sins," the bread and wine cease to be present. How does this take place? Christ, in His Body and Blood, is present in heaven. He does not leave heaven and come to the altar to displace the bread and wine. Rather, the bread and the wine are changed into His Body and Blood. The bread and the wine cannot remain. If this happened, then the words of Christ, pronounced in the Mass by His priest, would not be true. Instead of saying, "This is My Body," the priest should say "This is bread and the Body of Christ." At the moment of Consecration, then, the bread must become the Body of Christ and the wine must become his Blood. The change must be instantaneous, for Christ did not say, "This bread is about to become My Body;" He said, "This is My Body." Naturally, the whole of the bread must be changed into the Body of Christ, and the whole of the wine must be changed into His Blood. If this did not happen, then once again the words of Christ would not be true. He should have said something like this: "This is partly bread and partly My Body." But He did not say anything like this. He said simply, "This" - all this that you see - "is my Body".
Bl Elizabeth of the Trinity:
Oh, how good it is in silence
To listen to Him over and over,
To enjoy the peace of His presence,
And then to surrender wholly to His love.
O Lamb, so pure and so meek,
You and All, my only One;
How well You know that Your fiancee,
Your little one, hungers greatly for You.
She hungers to feed upon her Master,
Above all to be consumed by Him,
To surrounder fully to Him her whole being
So she may be totally taken.
Oh, that I may be possessed by You;
One who lives by You alone,
Yours, Your living host,
Consumed by You on the Cross.
This is a very special kind of change, in fact the only change of its kind we know. We are accustomed to many chages in the world of matter. Water and wheaten flour can be mixed together and baked. In the baking they are changed into bread. In the course of time, through the process of nature wine can change into vinegar. But there are three things of which we are sure in all changes of this kind. First, the new substance - bread or wine in the examples given - did not previously exist. It came into being with the change. Secondly, something of the first substance - of the wheat or of the wine -went into the making of the last substance, the bread or the vinegar. And thirdly, the sensible qualities of the first and the last substances were not the same. Wheat looks differently and tastes differently from bread. Wine tastes differently from vinegar. Now in the Eucharist, the substance of the Body and Blood of Christ are in existence before the substance of the wine are changed into them. Secondly, and consequently, nothing of the bread and nothing of the wine are used in making the Body or the Blood of Christ. Thirdly, although the sensible qualities of the Body and Blood of Christ are different from the sensible qualities of bread and wine, nevertheless, the sensible qualities of bread and wine still exist in the Eucharist. The consecrated Host still looks like bread, feels like bread, and tasted like bread. The wine that has been consecrated still looks like wine, tastes like wine. On the other hand, neither the Host nor the Previous looks like the Body and the Blood of Christ. We can only say that the whole substance of the bread has been changed into the substance of the Body of Christ, and the whole substance of the wine has been changed into the Blood of Christ, but that the appearance of bread and wine still remain. What was bread has been changed, though the appearance of bread remain. What was wine has been changed, though the appearance of wine remain. Theologians call a change of this kind 'Transubstantiation'. The word means that one whole substance changed into another whole substance, even though the appearances - philosophers would say "accidents" - of the first substance still remain. In the Eucharist neither the bread nor the wine is annihilated. They are changed into the Body and Blood of Christ.
St Therese of the Child Jesus: "Living Bread"
Living Bread, Bread of Heaven, Divine Eucharist,
O touching Mystery produced by Love,
Come dwell within my heart, Jesus, my white Host...
Deign to unite me unto Thee, O Holy and Sacred Vine,
That my feeble branch may yield its fruits to Thee;
And I will offer Thee a gilded cluster....
This cluster of love of which the grapes are souls.
"My Heaven Is Hidden"
My Heaven is hidden in the little Host
Where Jesus, my Spouse, hides Himself through love.
Thou, the great God Whom the universe adores,
In me Thou liv'st, a prisoner night and day,
Thou liv'st, for me, hidden in a Host.
For Thee I wish to hide myself, O Jesus,
Lovers need solitude,
A heart-to-heart which lasts night and day.
I am Thy cherished spouse,
Come, my beloved, live in me.
O come, thy beauty has ravished me,
Deign to transform me into Thee.
St Teresa of Jesus of the Andes: "Dear Jesus, may Your will be done and not mine. Tomorrow I will go to Communion. I obtained permission. Oh, what happiness: tomorrow I will have Heaven in my heart! Oh, I love, Jesus, I adore You! I thank You and my Mother for this favour. I am all Yours....only You....no other creature."
The Eucharist is not necessary in the same way that Baptism is necessary. Baptism is necessary as the beginning of the supernatural life of grace. But the Eucharist is necessary as the consummation of the life of grace. Baptism is necessary because it make a man like Christ, and so fits him for the reception of Christ in his soul. In the Eucharist, man is united to Christ Himself. In the Eucharist, the very Body and Blood of Christ become the spiritual food of man's soul, increasing grace in the soul and so increasing man's likeness to Christ.
The Eucharist is called by many names in Christian tradition. It is called "the Sacrifice", because it is a remembrance of Christ's Passion. it is called "Communion" because it is the cause of unity or union between Christ and the members of His Church. It is called "Viaticum", because it gives man the way to win the vision of God. To put it in another way, in the Eucharist we have a renewal of Christ's Passion, which saved men by meriting grace for men; in the Eucharist we have Christ Himself, Who gives grace to men; and in the Eucharist we have Christ Himself, Who enables the soul of men to pass through death to eternal life.
Bl Teresa of Jesus of the Andes: "Tomorrow I will go to Communion. How I long for this, my Jesus. I am so bad. I need You to be good. Come, Love, come quickly and I will give You my heart, my soul and all I possess. My Mother, prepare my heart to receive my Jesus." (after "God, the Joy of my Life: Blessed Teresa of the Andes")
Dieric Bouts "The Last Supper"
Christ Himself instituted this great Sacrament at the Last Supper. He knew that He was shortly to leave this earth. He knew that He would not remain in this world much longer in His bodily presence. But He did not wish to leave His faithful disciples entirely. He wished to remain with His followers in some way. And so He gave us His presence in the Sacrament of the Eucharist to take the place of His historical bodily presence. Besides, He wished to leave men a remembrance of His Passion. Faith in His Passion is necessary for salvation. But in the course of time men might forget His Passion and death on the Cross. In the Eucharist he has given men a perpetual remembrance of His Passion and death on the Cross. He instituted this Sacrament at the Last Supper, because He knew that the last words and actions of men who are about to leave this world are more likely to be remembered with love and devotion than any other words and actions. The Eucharist was, as it were, His last will and testament to the human race. Shortly before His Death, Resurrection and Ascension into Heaven, he left men His Body and Blood as the food of their souls. It was the most precios gift He had to leave us, because the Eucharist is Christ Himself, the Author and Dispenser of God's grace.
Saint Teresa Benedicta of the Cross, fragment of the poem "I shall Stay with You":
..."This is the heart of Trinity divine,
The center also of all human hearts.
Source of our life from God.
It draws us close with its mysterious might,
It keeps us safe within the Father's lap
And flood us with the Holy Spirit.
This heart beats in a tiny tabernacle
Where it remains in hidden mystery.
Within that orbit, silent, white.
That is Your royal throne, O Lord, on earth,
Which You have built for us, plainly to see.
It pleases You when I draw near....
In the mind of Christ, the Eucharist is to be the food of souls. "I am the living bread which came down from heaven. If any man eat this bread, he shall live forever: and the bread that I will give is my flesh, for the life of the world...Except you eat the flesh of the Son of man and drink his blood, you shall not have life in you. He that eateth my flesh and drinketh my blood hath everlasting life: and I will raise him up in the last day. For my flesh is meat indeed: and my blood is drink indeed. He that eateth my flesh and drinketh my blood abideth in me: and I in him. (John 6: 51-55). Becasue the Eucharist is the food of souls, Christ chose bread and wine for the matter of this Sacrament. Bread is the staple food of all mankind, and wheaten bread is the bread most commonly used among men. For this reason, Christ chose bread to be the sacramental sign of His Body. But man not only needs solid food, he also needs liquid refreshment. Wine is a liquid nourishment universal to mankind. Wine made from grapes
is the only true wine. Hence Christ chose wine to be the sacramental sign of His Blood. When He instituted this Sacrament at Last Supper, Christ, according to the custom of His country, mixed a little bit of water with the wine. In the Mass, a little bit of water is mixed with the wine which is to be changed into Christ's Blood. This water represents the Christian people, the members of the Church. This represents the union of the faithful with Christ. Christ wanted to give men His own Body and Blood, as the food of their souls. Hence, as the sacramental sign of His Body and Blood, He chose elements that would be recognized as food by men.
...Your eyes look deeply into mine with love,
And to my whispered words You bend Your ear.
You fill my heart with deepest peace.
And yet Your love cannot be satisfied
By this exchange, for there remains a gap,
Your heart still asks for more.
each morn You come to me at early Mass
Your flesh and blood become my food and drink;
And wonders are accomplished.
Your body permeates mine mysteriously,
I feel Your soul becoming one with mine:
I am no longer what I used to be.
You come and go, but still the seed remains
Which You have sown for future splendour,
Hid in the body made from dust.
A heavenly radiance lingers in the soul,
And deeply shines a light within the eye,
A vibrant music in the voice...
In the Eucharist, at words of consecration uttered by Christ at the Last Supper, or now by the priest at Mass, bread and wine are changed into the Body and Blood of Christ. Bread and wine are no longer present. Instead the Body and Blood of Christ are present sacramentally. We can never hope to understand in this life how this change takes place. This is a mystery beyond comprehension. But we can so state the mystery that it is no longer absurd or ridiculous or contradictory. Let us examine the mystery more closely. Before the Consecration of the Mass, bread and wine are present on the altar. When the priest says, speaking in the name of Christ, "This is My Body," and "This is the chalice of my Blood of the New and Eternal Testament, the Mystery of Faith, which shall be shed for you and for many unto the forgiveness of sins," the bread and wine cease to be present. How does this take place? Christ, in His Body and Blood, is present in heaven. He does not leave heaven and come to the altar to displace the bread and wine. Rather, the bread and the wine are changed into His Body and Blood. The bread and the wine cannot remain. If this happened, then the words of Christ, pronounced in the Mass by His priest, would not be true. Instead of saying, "This is My Body," the priest should say "This is bread and the Body of Christ." At the moment of Consecration, then, the bread must become the Body of Christ and the wine must become his Blood. The change must be instantaneous, for Christ did not say, "This bread is about to become My Body;" He said, "This is My Body." Naturally, the whole of the bread must be changed into the Body of Christ, and the whole of the wine must be changed into His Blood. If this did not happen, then once again the words of Christ would not be true. He should have said something like this: "This is partly bread and partly My Body." But He did not say anything like this. He said simply, "This" - all this that you see - "is my Body".
Bl Elizabeth of the Trinity:
Oh, how good it is in silence
To listen to Him over and over,
To enjoy the peace of His presence,
And then to surrender wholly to His love.
O Lamb, so pure and so meek,
You and All, my only One;
How well You know that Your fiancee,
Your little one, hungers greatly for You.
She hungers to feed upon her Master,
Above all to be consumed by Him,
To surrounder fully to Him her whole being
So she may be totally taken.
Oh, that I may be possessed by You;
One who lives by You alone,
Yours, Your living host,
Consumed by You on the Cross.
This is a very special kind of change, in fact the only change of its kind we know. We are accustomed to many chages in the world of matter. Water and wheaten flour can be mixed together and baked. In the baking they are changed into bread. In the course of time, through the process of nature wine can change into vinegar. But there are three things of which we are sure in all changes of this kind. First, the new substance - bread or wine in the examples given - did not previously exist. It came into being with the change. Secondly, something of the first substance - of the wheat or of the wine -went into the making of the last substance, the bread or the vinegar. And thirdly, the sensible qualities of the first and the last substances were not the same. Wheat looks differently and tastes differently from bread. Wine tastes differently from vinegar. Now in the Eucharist, the substance of the Body and Blood of Christ are in existence before the substance of the wine are changed into them. Secondly, and consequently, nothing of the bread and nothing of the wine are used in making the Body or the Blood of Christ. Thirdly, although the sensible qualities of the Body and Blood of Christ are different from the sensible qualities of bread and wine, nevertheless, the sensible qualities of bread and wine still exist in the Eucharist. The consecrated Host still looks like bread, feels like bread, and tasted like bread. The wine that has been consecrated still looks like wine, tastes like wine. On the other hand, neither the Host nor the Previous looks like the Body and the Blood of Christ. We can only say that the whole substance of the bread has been changed into the substance of the Body of Christ, and the whole substance of the wine has been changed into the Blood of Christ, but that the appearance of bread and wine still remain. What was bread has been changed, though the appearance of bread remain. What was wine has been changed, though the appearance of wine remain. Theologians call a change of this kind 'Transubstantiation'. The word means that one whole substance changed into another whole substance, even though the appearances - philosophers would say "accidents" - of the first substance still remain. In the Eucharist neither the bread nor the wine is annihilated. They are changed into the Body and Blood of Christ.
St Therese of the Child Jesus: "Living Bread"
Living Bread, Bread of Heaven, Divine Eucharist,
O touching Mystery produced by Love,
Come dwell within my heart, Jesus, my white Host...
Deign to unite me unto Thee, O Holy and Sacred Vine,
That my feeble branch may yield its fruits to Thee;
And I will offer Thee a gilded cluster....
This cluster of love of which the grapes are souls.
"My Heaven Is Hidden"
My Heaven is hidden in the little Host
Where Jesus, my Spouse, hides Himself through love.
Thou, the great God Whom the universe adores,
In me Thou liv'st, a prisoner night and day,
Thou liv'st, for me, hidden in a Host.
For Thee I wish to hide myself, O Jesus,
Lovers need solitude,
A heart-to-heart which lasts night and day.
I am Thy cherished spouse,
Come, my beloved, live in me.
O come, thy beauty has ravished me,
Deign to transform me into Thee.
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Wednesday, June 07, 2023
Novena to the Sacred Heart of Jesus starts today - click to pray
St John of the Cross in the Canticle of Canticles says: 'Arise, and make haste, my love, my fair one, and come into the clefts of the rock, and into the cavern of the enclosure" (Spiritual Canticle 31:5). And St Teresa Margaret of the Heart of Jesus wrote in her resolutions: My God, I wish to enclose myself in Your most loving Heart as in a desert, to live there in You, with You, and for You, a hidden life of love and sacrifice" (Spirituality Of St Teresa Margaret Redi)
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Blessed Anne of Saint Bartholomew, memoria
Ana Garcia was born at Almendral, Castlle in 1549. In 1572 she made her profession as a Carmelite in the hands of St Teresa, at St Joseph’s, Avila. The saint later chose her as her companion and nurse, and she subsequently brought the Teresian spirit to France and Belgium, where she proved herself, like Teresa, a daughter of the Church in her great zeal for the salvation of souls. She died in Antwerp in 1626. More about the life of Bl Anne on the Discalced Carmelite Nuns website link: https://carmelitenuns.uk/blessed-anne-of-st-bartholomew/
If Jesus kept silence, it was not because he hated anyone. He was simply saying to his eternal Father what he said on the cross: ’Lord, forgive them, for they do not know what they are doing.’ What infinite love burned in that sacred heart of yours. Lord Jesus! Without uttering a single word you spoke to us: without a word you worked the mysteries you came to accomplish – teaching virtue to the ignorant and blind. What our Lord did was no small thing. Where should we get patience and humility and poverty and the other virtues, and how could we carry the cross for one another, if Christ had not taught us all this first, and given himself as a living model of all perfection?
Blessed silence! In it you cry out and preach to the whole world by your example. Volumes could be written about your silence, Lord! There is more wisdom to be learned from it by those who love you than from books or study. Is there any way to achieve it except by taking it from Christ as he taught it to us
Our Lord became a spring for us, so that we should not die of thirst among all the miseries that surround us. How truly he said in the Gospel that he came to serve and not to be served! What tremendous goodness! Can we fail to be shamed by your words and deeds, and the patience you show with us every day? How truly, again Lord, did you say: ‘Learn from me for I am meek and humble of heart’. Where can we obtain this patience and humbleness of heart? Is there any way to achieve it except by taking it from Christ as he taught it to us with those other virtues we need – faith, hope and charity? Without faith we cannot follow that royal road of the divine mysteries. It is faith that opens our eyes and makes us see the truth; and where faith is wanting there is no light, and no way leading to goodness. Excerpts from ‘Meditation on the Passion of Our Lord Jesus Christ’ by Bl Anne of Saint Bartholomew.
Benedictus ant. Where humility is, there is wisdom, the wisdom of the humble will protect them from defeat.
Magnificat ant. God has chosen those who are poor in the eyes of the world to be rich in faith, and heirs of the kingdom which he promised to those who love him.
All after Discalced Carmelite Proper Offices, A Supplement to the Divine Office. 2006 revised edition.
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Sunday, June 04, 2023
Feast of the Most Holy Trinity
O Incomprehensible God, Your greatness is eternal, and your goodness ineffable. I see the three divine Persons flowing one into another in an indescribable, inscrutable way, and I rejoice in this sight. The Father flows into the Son, the Son into the Father, and the Father and the Son flow into the Holy Spirit. Eternal God, You are unspeakably good, You who, out of goodness, communicate to a creature, aware of its nothingness, some knowledge of Your eternal Being; but although this communication is wonderful, it might be called in all truth, a mere nothing, in comparison with what You really are. (St Mary Magdalen dei Pazzi)
text from 'Divine Intimacy' mediatations
Wednesday, May 24, 2023
Feast of St Mary Magdalen de Pazzi, Carmelite Saint, May 25th
Holy Spirit, I see you coming down into the soul like the sun which, finding no obstacle, no impediment, illumines everything; I see You descending like a fiery thunderbolt which, in failing, goes to the lowest place it finds and there it reposes, never stopping on the way nor resting on the mountainous or high places but rather in the center of the earth. Thus You, O Holy Spirit, when You come down from heaven with the fiery dart of Your divine love, You do not repose in proud hearts or in arrogant spirit, but You make Your abode in souls that are humble and contemptible in their own eyes (St Mary Magdalen de Pazzi).
Picture represents fragment of the main altar depicting St Mary Magdalen de Pazzi and St Agnes in the Carmelite Church in Cordoba
Picture represents fragment of the main altar depicting St Mary Magdalen de Pazzi and St Agnes in the Carmelite Church in Cordoba
Friday, May 19, 2023
Today we start Novena to the Holy Spirit for the Seven Gifts - click to pray
The novena in honor of the Holy Ghost is the oldest of all novenas since it was first made at the direction of Our Lord Himself when He sent His apostles back to Jerusalem to await the coming of the Holy Ghost on the first Pentecost. It is still the only novena officially prescribed by the Church. Addressed to the Third Person of the Blessed Trinity, it is a powerful plea for the light and strength and love so sorely needed by every Christian.
How to pray the Novena
Each day the meditation and prayer for the particular day is said, followed by one (1) Our Father, one (1) Hail Mary and seven (7) Glory be to the Fathers, the Act of Consecration and the Prayer for the Seven Gifts. (From Novena's text)
Thursday, May 18, 2023
Feast of Ascension - click to read
"And eating together with them, he commanded them, that they should not depart from Jerusalem, but should wait for the promise of the Father, which you have heard (saith he) by my mouth. For John indeed baptized with water: but you shall be baptized with the Holy Ghost, not many days hence. They therefore who were come together, asked him, saying: Lord, wilt thou at this time restore again the kingdom of Israel? But he said to them: It is not for you to know the time or moments, which the Father hath put in his own power: But you shall receive the power of the Holy Ghost coming upon you, and you shall be witnesses unto me in Jerusalem, and in all Judea, and Samaria, and even to the uttermost part of the earth. And when he had said these things, while they looked on, he was raised up: and a cloud received him out of their sight. And while they were beholding him going up to heaven, behold two men stood by them in white garments. Who also said: Ye men of Galilee, why stand you looking up to heaven? This Jesus who is taken up from you into heaven, shall so come as you have seen him going into heaven."-Acts 1:4-11
Saturday, April 08, 2023
Holy Saturday
Rembrand, The Descend from the Cross
There was a garden in the place where he was crucified, and in the garden there was a new tomb in which no one had ever been laid...They laid Jesus there (St John 19:41-42)
When I saw the blood running from the wounds of Jesus, the thirst of all souls entered my heart.(...) Oh, each day since this special blessing [Pranzini], my desire to save these souls grew. I felt I heard Jesus tell me, "Give me something to drink!" (St Therese The Story of a Soul)
Thursday, April 06, 2023
Good Friday
Carl Henrich Bloch 'Life of Christ' series
When Jesus knew that all was finished, he said (in order to fulfill the scripture). "I am thirsty."...When Jesus had received the wine, he said, "It is finished." Then he bowed down his head and gave up his spirit (St John 19:28,30)
The cry of the Lord on the cross, "I am thirsty" sounded continually in my heart...I wanted to give me Beloved a drink, and felt myself devoured by the thirst of all souls...It was not the souls of priests that attracted me, but those of the big sinners. I burned with the desire to pull them from the eternal flames (St Therese, The Story of a Soul).
Saturday, April 01, 2023
PALM SUNDAY and HOLY WEEK - click for link
Holy Week begins with the description of the triumphal entrance of Jesus into Jerusalem on the Sunday before His Passion. Jesus, who had always been opposed to any public manifestation and who had fled when the people wanted to make Him their king (Jn 6:15), allows Himself to be borne in triumph today. Not until now, when He is about to die, does He submit to being publicly acclaimed as the Messiah, because by dying on the Cross, He will be in the most complete manner Messiah, Redeemer, King, and Victor. He allows Himself to be recognized as King, but a King who will reign from the Cross, who will triumph and conquer by dying on the Cross. The same exultant crowd that acclaims Him today will curse Him in a few days and lead Him to Calvary; today's triumph will be a vivid prelude to tomorrow's Passion. As the joyful procession advances, Jesus sees the panorama of Jerusalem spread out at His feet. St Luke says (19:41-44): "When He drew near, seeing the city, he wept over it, saying: "If thou also hadst known, and that in this thy day, the things that are to thy peace!...Thy enemies...shall not leave in thee a stone upon a stone because thou hast not known the time of thy visitation."' St Teresa of Jesus says: "O Jesus, what bitter tears You shed over the city which refused to recognize You! And how many souls, like Jerusalem, go to perdition on account of their obstinate resistance to grace! For them I pray with all my strength. "My God, this is where Your power and mercy should be shown. Oh! what a lofty grace I ask for, O true God, when i conjure You to love those who do not love You, to answer those who do not call to You, to give, to give health to those who take pleasure in remaining sick!...You say, O my Lord, that you have come to seek sinners. Here, Lord, are the real real sinners. But, instead of seeing our blindness, O God, consider the precious Blood which Your Son shed for us. Let Your mercy shine out in the midst of such great malice. Do not forget, Lord, that we are Your creatures, and pour out on us Your goodness and mercy" (Exclamations of the Soul to God).
Pope Francis blesses the Palms - St Peter's Square
Palm Sunday Procession - St Peter's Square
"A second word: why does Jesus enter Jerusalem? Or better: how does
Jesus enter Jerusalem? The crowds acclaim him as King. And he does not
deny it, he does not tell them to be silent (cf. Lk 19:39-40). But
what kind of a King is Jesus? Let us take a look at him: he is riding
on a donkey, he is not accompanied by a court, he is not surrounded by
an army as a symbol of power. He is received by humble people, simple
folk, who sense that there is more to Jesus, who have the sense of
faith that says, "This is the Savior."
Jesus does not enter the Holy City to receive the honours reserved to earthly kings, to the powerful, to rulers; he enters to be scourged, insulted and abused, as Isaiah foretold in the First Reading (cf. Is 50:6). He enters to receive a crown of thorns, a staff, a purple robe: his kingship becomes an object of derision. He enters to climb Calvary, carrying his burden of wood. And this brings us to the second word: Cross. Jesus enters Jerusalem in order to die on the Cross. And it is here that his kingship shines forth in godly fashion: his royal throne is the wood of the Cross! I think of what Benedict XVI said to the cardinals: "You are princes but of a Crucified King"that is Christ's throne. Jesus takes it upon himself..why? Why the Cross? Jesus takes upon himself the evil, the filth, the sin of the world, including our own sin, and he cleanses it, he cleanses it with his blood, with the mercy and the love of God. Let us look around: how many wounds are inflicted upon humanity by evil! Wars, violence, economic conflicts that hit the weakest, greed for money, which no-one can bring with him. My grandmother would say to us children, no shroud has pockets! Greed for money, power, corruption, divisions, crimes against human life and against creation! And - each of us knows well - our personal sins: our failures in love and respect towards God, towards our neighbour and towards the whole of creation. Jesus on the Cross feels the whole weight of the evil, and with the force of God’s love he conquers it, he defeats it with his resurrection. This is the good that Christ brings to all of us from the Cross, his throne. Christ’s Cross embraced with love does not lead to sadness, but to joy! The joy of being saved and doing a little bit what he did that day of his death." (Excerpt from Pope Francis Palm Sunday (homily)
Jesus does not enter the Holy City to receive the honours reserved to earthly kings, to the powerful, to rulers; he enters to be scourged, insulted and abused, as Isaiah foretold in the First Reading (cf. Is 50:6). He enters to receive a crown of thorns, a staff, a purple robe: his kingship becomes an object of derision. He enters to climb Calvary, carrying his burden of wood. And this brings us to the second word: Cross. Jesus enters Jerusalem in order to die on the Cross. And it is here that his kingship shines forth in godly fashion: his royal throne is the wood of the Cross! I think of what Benedict XVI said to the cardinals: "You are princes but of a Crucified King"that is Christ's throne. Jesus takes it upon himself..why? Why the Cross? Jesus takes upon himself the evil, the filth, the sin of the world, including our own sin, and he cleanses it, he cleanses it with his blood, with the mercy and the love of God. Let us look around: how many wounds are inflicted upon humanity by evil! Wars, violence, economic conflicts that hit the weakest, greed for money, which no-one can bring with him. My grandmother would say to us children, no shroud has pockets! Greed for money, power, corruption, divisions, crimes against human life and against creation! And - each of us knows well - our personal sins: our failures in love and respect towards God, towards our neighbour and towards the whole of creation. Jesus on the Cross feels the whole weight of the evil, and with the force of God’s love he conquers it, he defeats it with his resurrection. This is the good that Christ brings to all of us from the Cross, his throne. Christ’s Cross embraced with love does not lead to sadness, but to joy! The joy of being saved and doing a little bit what he did that day of his death." (Excerpt from Pope Francis Palm Sunday (homily)
Text of meditations below are excerpts from 'Divine Intimacy' chapter on Passion Sunday. The post is illustrated by Tissot picture representing procession leading Jesus into Jerusalem
HOLY WEEK WITH THE SAINTS OF CARMEL - SHORT, SELECTED REFLECTIONS
Tuesday of the Holy Week
In today's Mass Epistle, Jeremiah (11:18-20) speaks to us as the suffering Saviour: "I was as a meek lamb that is carried to be a victim." This sentence expresses the attitude of Jesus towards the bitterness of His Passion. He knew every one of these sufferings in all their most concrete particulars; His heart had undergone them by anticipation, and the thought of them never left him for an instant during the course of His life on earth. If the Passion, in its historical reality, took place in less than twenty-four hours, in its spiritual reality it spanned his entire life.
Let us reflect on the gravity of sin with St Teresa: "O Lord of my soul, how quick we are to offend You! But how much quicker are You to forgive us! What am I saying, Lord! 'The sorrows of death have encompassed me' Alas! What a great evil is sin, since it could put God Himself to death with such terrible sufferings! And these same sufferings surround You today, O my Lord! Where can You go that You are not tortured? Men cover You with wounds in all Your members." (Exclamations of the Soul to God: 10)
Wednesday in the Holy Week
Today's Mass contains two lessons from Isaias (62:11-63:1-7, 53:1-12) which describe in a very impressive way the figure of Jesus, the Man of Sorrows, covered with the shining purple of His blood, wounded from head to foot, "Why then is Thy apparel red, and Thy garments like theirs that tread in the winepress? I have trodden the winepress alone, and of the Gentiles, there is not a man with Me." All alone Jesus trod the winepress of His Passion. Let us think of His agony in the Garden of Olives, where the vehemence of His grief covered all His members with a bloody sweat. Let us think of the moment when Pilate, after having Him scourged, brought Him before the mob, saying: "Behold the Man!".
'Ecce Homo' by Simon Bening
Jesus stood there, His head crowned with thorns, His flesh lacerated by the wipes; the brilliant red of His Blood mingled with the purple of His cloak, that cloak of derision with which the soldiers had clothed their mock king. Christ was offering Himself as a sacrifice for men, shedding His Blood for their salvation, and men were abandoning Him. "I looked about and there was none to help, I sought, and there was none to give aid" (Roman Missal). Where were the sick whom He had cured, the blind, who at the touch of His Hand recovered their sight, the dead who were raised to life, the thousands whom He had miraculously fed with bread in the wilderness, the wretched without number who in countless ways had experienced His goodness? Before Jesus there was only an infuriated mob clamoring: Crucify Him! Crucify Him! Even the Apostles, His most intimate friends, had fled; indeed one of them had betrayed Him: "If he that hated Me had spoken great things against Me, I would perhaps have hidden Myself from him! But thou, a man of one mind, My guide, and My familiar, who didst take sweetmeats together with Me" (Ps 54:13,14). We read these words today, as on all the Wednesdays of the year, in the psalms of Terce. To this text which so deeply expressive of the bitterness Jesus felt when betrayed and abandoned by His own, there is a corresponding response in Matins: "Instead of loving Me, they decried Me, and returned evil for good, and hate in exchange for My love" (Roman Breviary).
Jesus stood there, His head crowned with thorns, His flesh lacerated by the wipes; the brilliant red of His Blood mingled with the purple of His cloak, that cloak of derision with which the soldiers had clothed their mock king. Christ was offering Himself as a sacrifice for men, shedding His Blood for their salvation, and men were abandoning Him. "I looked about and there was none to help, I sought, and there was none to give aid" (Roman Missal). Where were the sick whom He had cured, the blind, who at the touch of His Hand recovered their sight, the dead who were raised to life, the thousands whom He had miraculously fed with bread in the wilderness, the wretched without number who in countless ways had experienced His goodness? Before Jesus there was only an infuriated mob clamoring: Crucify Him! Crucify Him! Even the Apostles, His most intimate friends, had fled; indeed one of them had betrayed Him: "If he that hated Me had spoken great things against Me, I would perhaps have hidden Myself from him! But thou, a man of one mind, My guide, and My familiar, who didst take sweetmeats together with Me" (Ps 54:13,14). We read these words today, as on all the Wednesdays of the year, in the psalms of Terce. To this text which so deeply expressive of the bitterness Jesus felt when betrayed and abandoned by His own, there is a corresponding response in Matins: "Instead of loving Me, they decried Me, and returned evil for good, and hate in exchange for My love" (Roman Breviary).
As we contemplate Jesus in His Passion, each one of us can say to himself, dilexit me, et tradidit semetipsum pro me - He loved me, and delivered Himself for me (Gal 2:20); and it would be well to add, "How have I repaid His love?"
Holy Thursday - the Gift of Love
Jesus, I want to tell all little souls of the wonder of your love (St Therese).
Today's Mass is , in a very special way, the commemoration and the renewal of the Last Supper, in which we are all invited to participate. Let us enter the Church and gather close around the altar as if going into the Cenacle to gather around Jesus; Here we find, as did the Apostles at Jerusalem, the Master living in our midst, and He Himself, through the person of His minister, will renew once again the great miracle which changes bread and wine into His Body and Blood; He will say to us, "Take and eat...take and drink." Jesus reveals to us the perfection of fraternal charity on the same evening that He instituted the Eucharist, as if to indicate that such perfection should be both fruit of the Sacrament of the Eucharist and our response to this great gift. Says St Teresa: "O good Jesus, to sustain our weakness and to stir up our love, You have chosen to remain always in our midst, although You well foresaw the way that men would treat You and the shame and outrages from which You would have to suffer. O eternal Father, how could You permit Your Son to live with us, to endure fresh insults every day? O my God! What great love in that Son! and also, what great love in that Father!...O Holy Father who art in Heaven, if Thy divine Son has left nothing undone that He could do for us in granting sinners so great a favour as that of the Blessed Sacrament, do not permit Him to be so ill-treated. Since Thy holy Son has given us this excellent way in which we can offer Him up frequently as a sacrifice, let us make use of this precious gift so that it may stay the advance of such terrible evil and irreverence as in many places is paid to this most holy Sacrament (Way of Perfection). Let us pray with St Augustine: O Lord, Lord, how small and narrow is the house of my soul for You to enter! Enlarge it Yourself. It is in ruins; repair it. I know and admit that there are things in it that are offensive in Your sight. But who will cleanse it? Or to whom but You shall I cry, purify me, Lord, from my hidden sins?"
Good Friday - The Mystery of the Cross
St John of the Cross says Good Friday is the day which invites us more than any other to 'enter into the thicket of the trials and pains...of the Son of God' (Spiritual Canticle), and not only with the abstract consideration of the mind but with the loving heart and willingness to unite our sufferings with His. Says St John: "the purest suffering brings with it the most intimate and the purest understanding" (Spiritual Canticle). The atrocious martyrdom, which within a few hours will torture His body, has not yet begun, and yet the agony of Jesus in the Garden of Olives marks one of the most sorrowful moments of His Passion, one which best reveals the bitter suffering of His soul. His most sacred soul finds itself immersed in inexpressible anguish; it is extreme abandonment and desolation, without sligthest consolation, either from God or from man.
The Saviour feels the weight of the enormous burden of all the sins of mankind; He the Innocent One, sees Himself covered with the most execrable crimes, and made, as it were, the enemy of God and the target of the infinite justice which will punish all our wickedness in Him. As God, Jesus never ceased, even in the most painful moment of His Passion to be united to His Father; but as man, He felt Himself rejected by Him, "struck by God and afflicted" (Is 53:4). This explains the utter anguish of His spirit, much more sorrowful than the dreadful physical sufferings which await Him, explains the cruel agony which made Him sweat blood; explains His complain, "My soul is sorrowful even unto death" (Mt 26:38). His humanity finds itself facing the hard reality of the fact, deprived of the sensible help of the divinity, which seems not only to withdraw, but even more, to be angry with Him, and Jesus groans: "My Father, if it be possible, let this chalice pass from Me!" But this anguished cry of human nature is immediately lost in that perfect conformity of His will to the Father's: "Nevertheless not as I will, but as thou wilt" (Mt 26:39)
The Agony in the Garden is soon followed by the treacherous kiss of Judas,
the arrest, the night passed in the interrogation by the high priest and insults from the soldiers who strike Jesus, spit on His face and blindfold Him, while in the outer court, Peter is denying Him.
Good Friday - The Mystery of the Cross
St John of the Cross says Good Friday is the day which invites us more than any other to 'enter into the thicket of the trials and pains...of the Son of God' (Spiritual Canticle), and not only with the abstract consideration of the mind but with the loving heart and willingness to unite our sufferings with His. Says St John: "the purest suffering brings with it the most intimate and the purest understanding" (Spiritual Canticle). The atrocious martyrdom, which within a few hours will torture His body, has not yet begun, and yet the agony of Jesus in the Garden of Olives marks one of the most sorrowful moments of His Passion, one which best reveals the bitter suffering of His soul. His most sacred soul finds itself immersed in inexpressible anguish; it is extreme abandonment and desolation, without sligthest consolation, either from God or from man.
The Agony in the Garden is soon followed by the treacherous kiss of Judas,
the arrest, the night passed in the interrogation by the high priest and insults from the soldiers who strike Jesus, spit on His face and blindfold Him, while in the outer court, Peter is denying Him.
At dawn they commence anew the questioning and accusations; the going back and forth from one tribunal to another begins - from Caiphas to Pilate, from Pilate to Herod, and back again to Pilate,
- followed by the horrible scourging and the crowning with thorns
Finally, clothed as a mock king, the Son of God is presented to the mob which cries out: "Away with this man, and release Barabbas"
for Jesus, the Saviour, the crowd can only shout: "Crucify Him, crucify Him!" (Luke 23: 18-21). Loaded down with the wood for His torture, Jesus is led away to Calvary where he is crucified between two thieves.
These terrible physical sufferings reach their climax when the Saviour, in agony on the Cross, utters the cry: "My God, My God, why hast thou forsaken Me? (Mt 27:46). Although personally united to the Word, His humanity is, by a miracle, deprived of all divine comfort and support, and feels instead the weight of all malediction due to sin: "Christ," says St Paul, "has redeemed us from the curse...being made a curse for us" (Gal 3:13). Here we touch the most profound depths of the Passion of Jesus, the most atrocious bitterness which He embraced for our salvation. Yet, the last words of Jesus are an expression of total abandonment: "Father, into Thy hands I commend My spirit" (Lk 23:46). Thus Jesus teaches us to overcome the anxieties and anguish caused in us by sorrow and death, by acts of complete submission to the will of God and trustful abandonment into His hands.
"I weep for You, my King, my Lord, and Master, my Father and Brother, my beloved Jesus" (St Bonaventure)
Pictures illustrating the Good Friday post are by Rembrandt, Tissot and Dore
HOLY SATURDAY - THE VICTORY OF THE CROSS
As soon as Jesus expired, "the veil of the Temple was torn in two....the earth quaked, the rocks were rent. And the graves were opened; and many bodies...arose," so that those who were present were seized with a great fear and said: "Indeed this was the Son of God" (Mt 27:51-54). St John of the Cross, describing the agony of Jesus on the Cross, affirms: "He wrought herein the greatest work that He had ever wrought, whether in miracles or in mighty works, during the whole of His life, either upon earth or in Heaven, which was the reconciliation and union of mankind, through grace, with God. And this, as I say, was at the moment and the time when this Lord was most completely annihilated in everything. Annihilated, that is to say, with respect to human reputation; since, when men saw Him die, they mocked Him rather than esteemed Him; and also with respect to nature, since His nature was annihilated when He died; and further with respect to the spiritual consolation and protection of the Father, since at that time He foresook Him...". And he concludes: "Let the truly spiritual man may understand the mystery of the gate and of the way of Christ, and so become united with God, and let him know that, the more completely he is annihilated for God's sake, according to these two parts, the sensual and the spiritual, the more completely he is united to God and the greatest is the work which he accomplishes" (Ascent of Mt Carmel, 2:7,11).
HOLY SATURDAY - THE VICTORY OF THE CROSS
As soon as Jesus expired, "the veil of the Temple was torn in two....the earth quaked, the rocks were rent. And the graves were opened; and many bodies...arose," so that those who were present were seized with a great fear and said: "Indeed this was the Son of God" (Mt 27:51-54). St John of the Cross, describing the agony of Jesus on the Cross, affirms: "He wrought herein the greatest work that He had ever wrought, whether in miracles or in mighty works, during the whole of His life, either upon earth or in Heaven, which was the reconciliation and union of mankind, through grace, with God. And this, as I say, was at the moment and the time when this Lord was most completely annihilated in everything. Annihilated, that is to say, with respect to human reputation; since, when men saw Him die, they mocked Him rather than esteemed Him; and also with respect to nature, since His nature was annihilated when He died; and further with respect to the spiritual consolation and protection of the Father, since at that time He foresook Him...". And he concludes: "Let the truly spiritual man may understand the mystery of the gate and of the way of Christ, and so become united with God, and let him know that, the more completely he is annihilated for God's sake, according to these two parts, the sensual and the spiritual, the more completely he is united to God and the greatest is the work which he accomplishes" (Ascent of Mt Carmel, 2:7,11).
Barocci. The Entombment
If
you would understand that the Cross is Our Lord's triumph, hear what He
Himself said:' If I am lifted up, I will draw all people to myself'. In
sharing His Cross, you are seeking His glory (St John of the Cross).
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