Exaltation of the Cross

So must the Son of Man be lifted up, that whoever believes in Him may have eternal life (Jn 3:14-15) 

Lord Jesus, I have received the cross, I have received it from Thy hand: and I will bear it until death, as Thou hast laid it upon me. indeed the life of a good religious man is a cross, but it is cross that conducts him to Paradise. (Imitation of Christ, Bk 3)

Instead of reproaching Our Lord for having sent us this cross, I cannot fathom the depths of divine love which  move Him so to treat us. God must love Father very dearly to sent him such suffering. What a joy for us to share this humiliation with him! (St Therese, Letters)

Let us not believe that it is possible to love without suffering, without suffering a great deal...That is our poor human nature and it is not there for nothing!...It is our wealth, our livelihood! It is so precious that Jesus came on earth just to have it. (St Therese, Letters)

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Transfiguration of the Lord - Feast

He was transfigured before them, and his face shone like the sun, and his clothes became dazzling white (Mt 17:2) 

Your Face is my only wealth, I ask for nothing more. By continously hiding myself in it, I will look like you, Jesus. Leave in me the Divine imprint of your Features, filled with kindness. And soon, I will become a saint, and to you, I will draw hearts (St Therese, Poems)

You reign on the Almighty's Throne, also in transfigure human form, Ever since the completion of your work on earth (Edith Stein, I will remain with You)

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Feast of St Ignatius of Loyola - click to read previous posts

Saint Ignatius of Loyola spent nine months in convalescence from March 1522 to February 1523, in Manresa, close to the Benedictine monastery of Montserrat in Spain, in the diocese of Barcelona, due to a war wound. Ignatius had a vision that he shared in his autobiography.

One night, he was awoken and he saw the Blessed Virgin with the Holy Child; during this vision, which lasted a good length of time, he received great spiritual consolation and the memory of his past life became very distasteful to him, especially the things concerning the flesh. He had the impression that all the images that had been imprinted in his heart before had been completely removed. From that moment until August 1533, when he wrote these words, he never again gave even the smallest consent to the things of the flesh. Without indicating the origin of this vision, he simply recorded the fruits, which in their sobriety, were never doubted. ('Dictionary of Apparitions')

credit: quoted after 'A Moment with Mary', picture represents Black Madonna of Montserrat, Spain. To visit the breathtaking photo gallery of Montserrat shrine, click HERE

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St John of the Cross Novena to Our Lady of Mt Carmel, 7-15th of July

Prayer for every day

Immaculate Virgin and Queen of Carmel, thou art the hope of the sufferer and the consolation of the afflicted. Look not upon my sins, but remember only that I am apoor soul redeemed by the Precious Blood of thy Son, and that my heart is sealed with thy holy scapular. Hear my prayer and if it be for the glory of God, thy honour and for the salvation of my soul, grant what I ask in this novena. Amen

July 7

First Day Prayer: The beauty of Carmel and the glory of Lebanon are given to Thee in thy Immaculate Conception, O Blessed Queen of Carmel! I also rise from the sea of this world, not like thee all pure and immaculate, but loaded with sin. Help me, look upon me with these eyes of mercy. Amen. Hail Mary (three times)

Flower of Carmel,

Blossoming vine

Splendour of heaven

Mother divine

None like to thee!

Mother of meekness

Peerless thou art

To the Carmelites

Favours impart,

Star of the sea!

July 8
Second Day Prayer:  I give thanks to thee, O Virgin Mother of Carmel, for the gift of the holy scapular, the sign of thy confraternity. O my Mother, make me worthy to wear that sacred livery and may my heart ever be pure, free from every stain of sin. Amen. Hail Mary (three times)

Flower of Carmel etc

July 9

Third Day Prayer: Virgin Mother of Carmel, remember me who am consecrated to thee by the holy scapular I place my trust in thee, O flower of Carmel, fruitful vine, ever Immaculate Queen, O Mother mild, implore thy Son to hear my prayer now and at the hour of my death. Amen. Hail Mary (three times).

Flower of Carmel etc 

July 10
Fourth Day Prayer: I thank thee, my Lady and Mother, for the gift of thy holy scapular. Thou knowest well my weakness and my malice, but I trust in thee and under thy protection I take refuge. O holy Mother of Mt Carmel, despise not my petition in my necessities, but deliver me from all danger. Amen. Hail Mary (three times).

Flower of Carmel etc 

July 11
Fifth Day Prayer: Queen and Beauty of Carmel, thy glance is love, hope, and sweetness. As the rays of the sun colour the flowers, so also thy glance gives to the soul strength and beauty. May I remain ever before thee, my Mother, turn thine eyes of mercy on me. Amen. Hail Mary (three times).

Flower of Carmel etc 

July 12
Sixth Day Prayer: O my dear Mother of Carmel, I love thee more than I can express, more than my very soul can conceive. I reverence thee, I praise thee, O sacred Virgin, whose chaste womb bore the Son of the Most High God. Bless me and deliver me from all evil. Amen. Hail Mary (three times)

Flower of Carmel etc 

July 13
Seventh Day Prayer: Most loving Virgin of Carmel, I acknowledge gratefully thine immense goodness toward me, hear my prayer and after this exile, show unto me the blessed fruit of thy womb, Jesus. O most clement, O most loving, O most sweet Virgin Mary. Amen. Hail Mary (three times)

Flower of Carmel etc 

July 14
Eight Day Prayer: O Mother of Carmel, when my last hour shall sound, when I shall take thy holy scapular into my trembling hands, fill my heart with confidence in it, and do thou, my loving Mother, receive my soul and offer it to thy sweet Jesus. Amen. Hail Mary (three times)

Flower of Carmel etc 

July 15
Ninth Day Prayer: O Mary, most holy Mother of Carmel, Virgin of virgins, sanctuary of the Blessed Trinity, mirror of angels, assured refuge of sinners! have compassion on me in my suffering, listen to my sighs with clemency and appease the anger of thy Son. Amen. Hail Mary (three times)

Flower of Carmel etc

Text from 'Carmelite Devotions and Prayers'

Alternative Novena Prayer to Our Lady of Mount Carmel here

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Immaculate Heart of Mary

Devotion to Immaculate Heart of Our Lady is connected on many points with that to the Heart of Jesus. The attention of Christians was early attracted by the love and virtues of the Heart of Mary. The Gospels recount the prophecy delivered to her at Jesus' presentation at the temple: that her heart would be pierced with a sword. This image of the pierced heart is the most popular representation of the Immaculate Heart. The Gospels further invited attention to Mary's heart with its depictions of Mary at the foot of the cross at Jesus' crucifixion. St. Augustine said of this that Mary was not merely passive at the foot of the cross; "she cooperated through charity in the work of our redemption"

"O most pure Mary, I offer and give myself to you, not only with that purity and innocence that I received when I consecrated myself to you, but adorned beyond that, and then repurified, and then adorned again. Receive me, therefore, O Mary, and keep me within yourself". St Mary Magdalen de Pazzi.

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Most Sacred Heart Solemnity

St Teresa Margaret Redi, Carmelite nun best known for her devotion to the Sacred Heart of Jesus wrote during her spiritual exercises in 1768: "My God, I only wish to become a perfect copy of Thee, nothing else. Because Thy life was a hidden one of humility, love and sacrifice, so must mine be, since Thou knowest that I desire nothing else but to become a victim of the Sacred Heart entirely consumed in the fire of Thy Divine Love"

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The Body and Blood of Christ, Corpus Christi solemnity

"There is an especially beautiful moment in the Mass when the priest, as he holds the host, makes the sign of the cross three times over the chalice and twice between himself and the chalice. Then he raises the chalice and says: “per ipsum et cum ipso et in ipso…”"  Père Jacques de Jésus Conference 3, To See Christ, after Carmelite Quotes.

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The Holy Trinity Sunday

Masaccio, The Holy Trinity with Virgin Mary, St John and donors fresco 

Santa Maria Novella, Florence 

"God chose us in Him before creation, that we should be holy and immaculate in His presence, in love"(Eph 1:4.) 

The Holy Trinity created us in its image, according to the eternal design that it possessed in its bossom before the world was created, in this beginning without beginning of which Bosuet speaks following St John: "In principio erat Verbum" (John 1:1). In the beginning was the Word; and we could add: in the beginning was nothing, for God in His eternal solitude already carried us in His thought. The Father contemplated Himself in the abyss of His fecundity, and by the very act of comprehending Himself He engendered another person, the Son. His eternal Word. The archetype of all creatures who had not yet issued out of the void eternally dwelt in Him, and God saw them and contemplated them in their type Himself. This eternal life which our archetypes possessed without us in God, is the cause of our creation.
Our created essence asks to be rejoined with its principle. The Word, the Splendour of the Father, is the eternal archetype after which creatures are designed on the day of their creation. This is why God wills that, freed from ourselves, we should stretch our arms towards our exemplar and possess it, rising above all things towards our model. This contemplation opens the soul to unexpected horizons.In a certain manner it possesses the crown towards which it aspires. The immense riches that God possesses by nature, we may possess by virtue of true love, by His dwelling in us and by our dwelling in Him. It is by virtue of this immense love that we are drawn into the depths of the intimate sanctuary where God imprints on us a true image of His majesty. Thus it is, thanks to love and through love, as the Apostle says, that we can be holy and immaculate in God's presence (Eph 1:4), and can sing with David: I will be unblemished and I will guard myself from the depths of sinfulness within me.(Ps 17:24)
Bl Elisabeth of the Trinity, Prayer One, Day Seven, Collected works, vol 1

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THE ASCENSION OF OUR LORD

PRESENCE OF GOD - O Jesus, who ascended into heaven, grant that I, too, may live there in spirit.

MEDITATION1. The central idea in the liturgy today is the raising of our hearts toward heaven, so that we may begin to dwell in spirit where Jesus has gone before us. "Christ's Ascension" says St Leo, "is our own ascension; our body has the hope of one day being where its glorious Head has preceded it" (RB). In fact, Our Lord had already said in His discourse after the Last Supper, "I go to prepare a place for you, I will come again and will take you to Myself; that where I am, you also may be" (Jn 14:2,3). The Ascension is, then, a feast of joyful hope, a sweet foretaste of heaven. By going before us, Jesus our Head has given us the right to follow Him there some day, and we can even say with St Leo, "In the person of Christ, we have penetrated the heights of heaven" (RB). As in Christ Crucified we die to sin, as in the risen Christ we rise to the life of grace, so too, we are raised up to heaven in the Ascension of Christ. This vital participation in Christ's mysteries is the essential consequences of our incorporation in Him. He is our Head; we, as His members, are totally dependent upon Him and intimately bound to His destiny. "God, who is rich in mercy," says St Paul, "for His exceeding charity wherewith He loved us...hath quickened us together in Christ..., and hath raised us up...and hath made us sit together in the heavenly places through Christ Jesus" (Eph 2:4-6). Our right to heaven has been given us, our place is ready; it is for us to live in such a way that we may occupy it some day. Meanwhile, we must actualize the beautiful prayer which the liturgy puts on our lips: "Grant, O almighty God, that we, too, may dwell in spirit in the heavenly mansions" (Collect)."Where thy treasure is, there is thy heart also" (Mt 6:21), Jesus said one day. If Jesus is really our treasure, our heart cannot be anywhere but near Him in heaven. This is the great hope of the Christian soul, so beautifully expressed in the hymn of Vespers: "O Jesus, be the hope of our hearts, our joy in sorrow, the sweet fruit of our life" (RB).

2. Besides the hope and the joyful expectancy of heaven so characteristic of the Ascension feast there is a note of melancholy. Before the final departure of Jesus, the Apostles must have been very much disturbed: each felt the distress of one who sees his dearest friend and companion going away forever, and finds himself alone to face all the difficulties of life. The Lord realized their state of mind and consloed them once more, promising the coming of the Holy Spirit, the Comforter: "He commanded them," we read in the Epistle (Acts 1:1-11), "that they should not depart from Jerusalem, but should wait for the promise of the Father....you shall be baptized with the Holy Ghost, not many days hence." but even this time the Apostles did not understand! How much they neede to be enlightened and transformed by the Holy Spirit, in order to accomplish the great mission which was to be entrusted to them! Jesus continued: which was to be entrusted to them! Jesus continued : "You shall receive the power of the Holy Ghost coming upon you and you shall be witnesses unto Me...even to the uttermost part of the earth". For the moment, however, they were there, around the Master, weak, timid, frightened, like little children watching their mother leave for a distant, unknown land. In fact, "while they looked on, He was raised up, and a cloud received Him out of their sight." Two angels came to distract them from their great amazement and to make them realize what had happened. Then, placing their trust in the word of Jesus, which would henceforth be their only support, they returned to Jerusalem where, in the Cenacle, they awaited in prayer the fulfillment of the promise. It was the first novena in preparation for Pentecost: "All these were persevering with one mind in prayer with...Mary, the Mother of Jesus" (ibid 1:14).
Silence, recollection, prayer, peace with our brethren, and union with Mary: these are the characteristics of the novena we too should make in preaparation for the coming of the Holy Spirit.

COLLOQUY
..."Ah! my works are poor, my God, even if I could perform many! Then why should I remain in this life, so full of misery? Only to do Your will. Could I do anything better than that? Hope, therefore, my soul, hope. Watch carefully, for you know not the day nor the hour. Everything passes quickly, even though your desire makes you struggle, the greater the proofs of love you will be giving to your God, and afterwards the more you will enjoy your Beloved in happiness and felicity without end" (T.J. Exc., 15). 

Text after 'Divine Intimacy' - Ven Gabriel of St Mary Magdalen, OCD

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Novena to St Joseph starts today - click to read

Novena to St Joseph should be prayed between 10th of March and 18th of March - vigil of the Feast.

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St Therese and the sword - Arbp Fulton Sheen meditations

Lent has just began and we may need to think about our spiritual needs, imperfections, wants etc. What is the better way than to enjoy a crush course in the Little Way of our beloved Carmelite Saint, St Therese, the Little Flower, given by her disciple and third Order Carmelite, Archbishop Fulton Sheen? Let us see what he has to say....

The new way of St Therese is not to start thinking about how wicked you are, how sinful, but to begin looking at our Lord. And from that, you will see that you are not as good as you ought tobe, but yo will try to please the one you love. Let me give you some of her words along these lines. She said:

Jesus! i would so love Him, love Him as he has never been loved in the history of the world.

And one of the novices - for she was the Mistress of Novices - came to her one day, and she said, "Oh, I have so many virtues to aquire."

The Little Flower said, "No, you've got a lot of things to lose!"

That's the trouble. Our spiritual books tell us how to acquire humility. I told you about the 12 ways of St Bernard. Well now, you'll go crazy trying to develop those 12 ways. One of them is to love to be stomped on and trampled on. The Little Flower says, no, start loving the Lord, and then you'll no longer be proud. You cannot start acquiring, for example, the virtue of humility or fortitude. You can never fall in love with abstraction. You can only love a person. No one in the world ever fell in love with a theorem of geometry.

This is the trouble with secular humanism and materialism: There's no person to love. So then the new way of the Little Flower is....fall in love. Love the Good Lord, and then you will strive to please Him. And because you see that there are imperfections in you, you will love Him more so that they may washed away. This is not a little way, it's the new way because we've forgotten it. It's buried in Scripture. It's buried in Isaiah, buried in Psalms, buried in Zechariah, and she digs it out for us.

Now we come to the second point. What effect did it have on her? Now when we look at the picture of this frail little French girl, we think of her, yes, as the little Therese, frail, meek, humble. But does love make one that way? Real lovers are courageous.

Do you know what she wanted to be? She wanted to be a soldier. She used to dream about it. In one of her dreams, someone was conscripting soldiers for an army. And she heard a voice saying, "Maybe we ought to ask for Therese." And she said, "Well, I'm ready." She said, "I'm sorry it's not a holy war, but I'm ready to fight anyway."

Now we never think of the Little Flower as having a saint whom she wanted to be like more than anyone else, but she did. Do you know who that was? Joan of Arc. Can you imagine her seated on a horse clad in armour? And she said: "If I were Joan of Arc, it would not be voices from heaven. It would be only the voice of my Beloved."

One of her favourite texts of Scriptures, therefore, was "I came not to bring peace, but the sword." (Matt 10:34)...And then St Therese said: "A sister showed me a photograph representing Joan of Arc, consoled by an interior voice. The saints encourage me from above, and they say to me, "So long as you are in fetters, you cannot fulfill your mission. But after your death, then will be the time of your conquest."

In other words, she said, "I'm going to be a warrior and a soldier after my death, I am in no battlefields, now except the battle of the spiritual life."

This figure gives you some idea of, for example, her powerful intercession. This, too, accounts for her love of missions. She is the patroness of the Propagation of the Faith, though she was never in mission lands. The reason she is the patroness of the Propagation of the Faith was because she loved missions, and she corresponded all her life with two missionary priests and offered up her sufferings for them.

Yes, that is true, but there is a deeper reason still. This woman was in love, and she wanted her Beloved known all over the world. That's why she loved the missions! As she put it:

"Like the prophets and the doctors, I would enlighten souls, I would travel the whole world to preach Your name and set up Your glorious cross in pagan lands. But one mission could never suffice for me. Would that I could, at one and the same time, proclaim the gospel to the world, even to the remotest of its islands. I  would desire to be a missionary not only for a few years but to have been one from the creation of the world and to continue to the end of time."

Love makes one a missionary. When we cease to love, we cease to be a missionary. Now it is sometimes asked, for example, why is there a decline of conversions today? It is  due to ecumenism? No, it's not due to ecumenism. It's due to the fact that we're not making Christ the center of our lives. And if we were deeply in love with Christ instead of with social programs and the like (all which have their place, but here I am speaking of primacy), if we gave the primacy to Christ, then we would be on fire to save souls. After all, the reason we are tired in body is because we are already tired in mind. We have no love. The fires have gone out. We are cinders, burnt out cinders floating in the immensity of space and time. And here is a young girl. It is almost as if she is locked up in a gilded cage, absolutely straining at the leash in order to become a missionary. Why? Simply because she loved!

As I told you, love does not mean just simply to have and to own and to possess. It's not sitting on the throne waiting for others to serve. It's the going out, the spending of oneself. Love is not the circle circumscribed bt self. It's like a cross outstreched to embrace the whole world.

Love isn't Buddha, fat, sleek, a well-oiled body, hands folded across the breast intently looking inward, thinking only of self. It's the picture of thin saints looking out for the mission to the world, as Therese looks out in many of her photos. And therefore, she loved this text, the sword. And she says many times in her writings that "I am entering Carmel to bring the sword to the monastery of Carmel." In other words, it needed a little fire. She entered it to change it. And her reason for doing so was right.

We are fond of talking peace today, but all we mean by peace is lack of disturbance. Our Lord said, "I came not to bring peace." God HATES PEACE in those who are destined for war! And we are destined for war, spiritual war. We've forgotten that we're in a combat. We are in genuine combat. When our first parents were driven out of the garden of Paradise, God stationed an angel with a flaming sword, a two-edged sword that turned this way and that. Why? To keep our first parents from going back to eat of the Tree of Life and thus immortalize their evil. And the only way we can ever get back again into paradise is by having that sword run into us. It's flaming because it's love. It's two-edged because it cuts, and it penetrates. It's not the sword that's thrust outward to hack off the ear of the servant of the high  priest as Peter did. It's the sword that's thrust inward to cut out all of our seven pallbearers of the soul, the pride and covetousness, lust, anger, envy, gluttony, and sloth.

This was the sword she loved. And this sword is what we've forgotten in our modern world with the dripping away of discipline, the ascetic principle. The disciplinary principle of the Christian world had moved to the totalitarian countries. And concerning the sword, I quoted the sword in relationship to the Garden of Eden, but in the prophecy of Zechariah, we read this:

"This is the very word of the Lord of Hosts: Oh sword, awake against my shepherd." (Zech 13:7)

Who is the shepherd? Our Lord. So Zechariah is having the heavenly Father say, "Sword awake! Awake against My shepherd, against My Son, against Him who works with Me." So when our Blessed Lord came to this earth, the sword of Herod was raised against Him. Did anyone ever raise a sword against a two-year-old Caesar? Or a six-month-old Stalin? Why the sword against Him? because He plays a role in salvation. It belongs to warriors. And as the heavenly Father ran the sword into His own Son, the Son ran the into His own Mother. Simeon said to Mary, "You, too, shall be pierced to the heart." (Luke 2:35) So the Father ran a sword into His Son, the Son into His own Mother, and Our Lord into us.

"I have come not to bring peace, but the sword." This , then, is the way of the warrior and the little girl who wanted to be a soldier. And there was not much difference in her mind between a soldier and a missionary.

to be continued...

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OUR LADY OF LOURDES

Today we celebrate the Feast of Our Lady of Lourdes, perfect moment to think about virtue of humility, and this virtue is most dear to God and Our Lady. St Bernadette, poor peasant girl, to whom Our Lady appeared in Lourdes, was made a very holy person through many trials in particular when she lived a hidden life of a nun. Her incorruptible body is preserved in the convent where she died in 1879. I recommend reading a very edifying story of her life written by Abbe Trochu more than fifty years ago in the book 'Saint Bernadette Soubirous' which may be found in some internet bookstores.

No sudden splendour broke the grey
And even tenor of your days,
No ecstasy made you forget
Your poverty in its high rays.


Mary, the lowliest can tread
With confidence the path you trod,
Your life the bright and shining star
That leads wayfarer to God. (St Therese)

"I was twelve years old when I first went to Lourdes, and the sight of some of those sick people was hard for me to bear. I wondered what the use was for some of them to travel, people who, logically, would have been much more comfortable in their beds.

Each day my father, as a doctor, went to the office of medical findings. On the third day, he came back very upset. In that office, he had seen a man seated at a table before a ham sandwich. Everybody watched with a sense of wonder a man who, that very morning, could not walk or eat normally. A few moments earlier he had stood up from his wheelchair and walked into the office. The medical certificates stating his condition declared that he was incurable.

The Church, being very cautious, acknowledged the authenticity of the miracle only later. "This man," I told myself, "was right to leave his room and come to implore Our Lady of Lourdes."

However, I later witnessed some events that in my mind were just as supernatural. As we boarded the train for our return journey, I saw some sick people embark, many of whom were very seriously ill. Overwhelmed with pity, I imagined that they felt some despair about not having been cured. But, on the contrary, many of those people had smiles on their faces. They looked happy, at peace, and a few of them even exchanged jokes.

And, in a more serious tone, a terribly crippled woman confided to her stretcher-bearer: "This trip did me so much good that I plan to come back next year... Maybe I'll see you again."

By Germaine Acremant and Jean Barbier in "For You, What Does Lourdes Represent?" After 'A Moment With Mary'
Photo credit to Fr Lawrence 

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The Presentation of Our Lord

When the time came for their purification according to the law of Moses, they brought him up to Jerusalem to present him to the Lord...and they offered a sacrifice according to what is stated in the law of the Lord (Lk 2:22-24) 

Jesus, your arms are the elevator which will lift me to heaven! To achieve this, I must not grow; just the opposite, I must remain small, I must become smaller and smaller. Oh Lord, you have gone beyond my expectations, and I want to sing of your mercies (St Therese, The Story of a Soul)

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Conversion of St Paul

'Let Thy name be praised, not mine, let Thy work be extolled, not mine; let Thy holy name be blessed, but to me nothing be attributed of the praises of men. Thou art my glory; Thou art the joy of my heart. In Thee will I glory and rejoice all the day; but for myself I will glory in nothing but in my infirmities (2 Cor.12; 5) (Imitation of Christ, B 3 ch 11) 

Someone had said to her: "You are a Saint!" "No, I am not a saint, nor have my deeds ever been those of a saint. I am a very little soul whom God has overwhelmed with graces. In Heaven you will see that I am speaking the truth" St Therese, Novissima Verba

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Christmas Novena - 16-24 December, starts today, click for link

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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 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.

  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')

All citation from the 'Story of the Soul' unless otherwise specified.

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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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Chirst the King Novena starts this year today and concludes on 29th November.

Pray Novena to Christ the King here

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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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)

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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.

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