Luisa Post-it, 'souls of all kinds'

   

Post-it
Souls of all kinds
the ones sleepy with love
the ignorant of love
the crazy of love
the learned of love
... what interests me the most

      And Jesus added: “I make souls of all kinds: I make the ones sleepy with love, the ignorant of love, the crazy of love, the learned of love.  But, of all this, do you know what interests me the most?  That everything be love.  Anything else which is not love is worth not even a glance.” 

July 23, 1912

The heart must be empty of everything.

Finding myself with my always lovable Jesus, I was lamenting to Him because, in addition to His privations, I also felt my poor heart insensitive, cold, and indifferent to everything, as if it no longer had life.  What a pitiful state mine is!  And even so, I myself am unable to cry over my misfortune.  ‘Since I myself am unable to have compassion for myself - You, have compassion for this heart, which You have loved so much, and which You intended so firmly to receive.’ 

And Jesus: “My daughter, do not afflict yourself for something that deserves no affliction.  Instead of having compassion for these laments and for your heart, I am pleased and I say to you:

‘Rejoice with Me, because I have made a complete purchase of your heart.  And since you no longer feel anything of your very contentment and of the life of your heart, I alone come to enjoy your contentment and your very life.’ 

“You must know that when you do not feel anything from your heart, I draw your heart into my Heart and I keep at rest, in sweet sleep, while I enjoy it.  If you do feel it, then the enjoyment is together.  If you let Me act, after I have given you rest in my Heart and enjoyed it from you, I will come to rest in you and I will make you enjoy the contentment of my Heart.”

“Ah, my daughter, this state is necessary for you, for Me and for the world.  For you: if you had been awake, you would have suffered very much in seeing the chastisements which I am sending now, and the others which I will send.  Therefore, it is necessary to put you to sleep so as not to make you suffer so much.  It is necessary for Me: how much I would have suffered had I not made you content - had I not condescended to what you wanted, since you would not permit Me to send chastisements.  So, it was necessary to put you to sleep.  In certain sad times, with necessity of chastisements, it is necessary to choose ways in the middle in order to be less unhappy.  It is necessary for the world: if I wanted to pour Myself out with you and make you suffer as a lance used to do - and therefore making you content by sparing the world the chastisements - faith, religion, salvation, would be banished even more from the world, especially considering how souls are disposed in these times.  Ah, my daughter, let Me act, whether I have to keep you awake or asleep.  Did you not tell Me to do with you whatever I wanted?  Do you perhaps want to withdraw your word?” 

And I: ‘Never, O Jesus!  Rather, I fear that I have become bad, and because of this I feel I am in this state.’ 

And Jesus: “Listen, my daughter, is it perhaps that some thought, affection or desire which is not for Me has entered into you?  If this were the case, you should fear; but if this is not, it is a sign that I keep your heart in Me and I make it sleep.  The time will come - it will come - when I will have it wake up; then you will see that you will take the attitude of before, and since you will have been at rest, this attitude will be greater.” 

Then He added: “I make souls of all kinds: I make the ones sleepy with love, the ignorant of love, the crazy of love, the learned of love.  But, of all this, do you know what interests me the most?  That everything be love.  Anything else which is not love is worth not even a glance.” 

   

Bruno, A Witness of the Absolute

COMMENT:  Bruno and Thomas M...
  The personal style of St. Bruno in letters of contemplation in life. Thomas Merton is the journalistic talent and prolific writings. It still awaits for me to browse the Letters of Merton.

St. Bruno's Family: A Life Free From Care – Thomas Merton: ( In August 1965, Thomas Merton was granted permission to live full-time in his hermitage. This is an excerpt from the last talk he gave to ...


Previous;

A Witness of the Absolute

_______ Pierre-Marie Dumont         ____________

Front Cover Artwork

Monday, 6 October 2014

Saint Bruno Saint of the day: 6th October

By courtesy of MAGNIFICAT.com   

A Witness of the Absolute

_______ Pierre-Marie Dumont         ____________

Front Cover Artwork

1 n 1084, Bruno decided to withdraw to the "desert", to an isolated wilderness where he might give himself up to spiritual devotions without danger of distraction from the clamour of the world. He founded a hermitage in the heart of the Chartreuse Mountains, in the Alps-the source of the name "Carthusian". adopted by the religious of his order, as well as the "charterhouses", which their monasteries came to be called. In the background, the painter Mignard depicts Brunos first six companions occupied in the various tasks of  eremitical life. In 1090, Bruno founded a second charterhouse in a "desert" of Calabria, Italy. While building work was underway, Bruno lodged in a cave. Wishing to meet him, the lord of the domain, Count Roger of Sicily, scoured the countryside for days but could find him nowhere. And so he returned with his pack of hunting dogs. One of them tracked Bruno down to his cave, in rapt contemplation of God. Mignard pictures the hound here in the foreground. Before him, we find Bruno, his whole being turned toward the divine light which floods down over him through a fissure in the rock. The rosary hanging from the saint's belt is an anachronism, a witness to the fact that this devotion, popularised by the Dominicans, was actually first conceived by the Carthusians. On the ground, in the opposite corner, a skull recalls the vanity of all human existence whose goal is not life in God. For, to a Christian, each vocation is a religious one: through faith working through love (Ga 5:6), to make of one's existence on this earth a life that endures for eternal life. But the perfection of the vocation of each member of the Church is only fully realised through the complimentarily of the gifts encompassed by the mystical Body of Christ. Thus, while some devote their lives to preaching the Gospel, while others witness to Christ's charity in service of their brethren, and still others consecrate themselves to God through a conse­cration to one another by love in marriage-certain members of the mystical Body are called to withdraw from the world to act as perpetual witnesses of the Absolute, ensuring that Christ's prayer to his Father is never extinguished from his Body. 

Saint Bruno praying in the wilderness (1638), Nicholas Migard. Calvet Museum, Avignon, France.

Artist. NICOLAS MIGNARD 1606/1668

Saint Bruno praying in the wilderness (1638)

Nicolas Mignard is anything but an isolated provincial painter. In 1635, he moved to Rome in the suite of the Ambassador of France Alphonse de Richelieu. This is former Carthusian and very attached to the figure of St. Bruno, the founder of the order. This may be to flatter his powerful protector that Mignard realizes this painting, his first masterpiece.

Pope Francis speaks about Thomas Merton in his address to Congress on Thursday, 24 September.

17 24 September, 2015 - Pope Francis speaks about Thomas Merton in his address to Congress

	Pope Francis addressed the United States Congress on Thursday, 24th of September, 2015. During his address, he used four Americans as examples of the type of vision which needs to be applied to today's world problems. The people he chose were Abraham Lincoln, Martin Luther King, Dorothy Day and Thomas Merton. Here are some excerpts from this address.
	My visit takes place at a time when men and women of good will are marking the anniversaries of several great Americans. The complexities of history and the reality of human weakness notwithstanding, these men and women, for all their many differences and limitations, were able by hard work and self-sacrifice – some at the cost of their lives – to build a better future. They shaped fundamental values which will endure forever in the spirit of the American people. A people with this spirit can live through many crises, tensions and conflicts, while always finding the resources to move forward, and to do so with dignity. These men and women offer us a way of seeing and interpreting reality. In honoring their memory, we are inspired, even amid conflicts, and in the here and now of each day, to draw upon our deepest cultural reserves. I would like to mention four of these Americans: Abraham Lincoln, Martin Luther King, Dorothy Day and Thomas Merton. … A century ago, at the beginning of the Great War, which Pope Benedict XV termed a “pointless slaughter”, another notable American was born: the Cistercian monk Thomas Merton. He remains a source of spiritual inspiration and a guide for many people. In his autobiography he wrote: “I came into the world. Free by nature, in the image of God, I was nevertheless the prisoner of my own violence and my own selfishness, in the image of the world into which I was born. That world was the picture of Hell, full of men like myself, loving God, and yet hating him; born to love him, living instead in fear of hopeless self-contradictory hungers”. Merton was above all a man of prayer, a thinker who challenged the certitudes of his time and opened new horizons for souls and for the Church. He was also a man of dialogue, a promoter of peace between peoples and religions.
	From this perspective of dialogue, I would like to recognize the efforts made in recent months to help overcome historic differences linked to painful episodes of the past. It is my duty to build bridges and to help all men and women, in any way possible, to do the same. When countries which have been at odds resume the path of dialogue – a dialogue which may have been interrupted for the most legitimate of reasons – new opportunities open up for all. This has required, and requires, courage and daring, which is not the same as irresponsibility. A good political leader is one who, with the interests of all in mind, seizes the moment in a spirit of openness and pragmatism. A good political leader always opts to initiate processes rather than possessing spaces (cf. Evangelii Gaudium, 222-223). Being at the service of dialogue and peace also means being truly determined to minimize and, in the long term, to end the many armed conflicts throughout our world. Here we have to ask ourselves: Why are deadly weapons being sold to those who plan to inflict untold suffering on individuals and society? Sadly, the answer, as we all know, is simply for money: money that is drenched in blood, often innocent blood. In the face of this shameful and culpable silence, it is our duty to confront the problem and to stop the arms trade. Three sons and a daughter of this land, four individuals and four dreams: Lincoln, liberty; Martin Luther King, liberty in plurality and non-exclusion; Dorothy Day, social justice and the rights of persons; and Thomas Merton, the capacity for dialogue and openness to God. Four representatives of the American people.  …. A nation can be considered great when it defends liberty as Lincoln did, when it fosters a culture which enables people to “dream” of full rights for all their brothers and sisters, as Martin Luther King sought to do; when it strives for justice and the cause of the oppressed, as Dorothy Day did by her tireless work, the fruit of a faith which becomes dialogue and sows peace in the contemplative style of Thomas Merton. In these remarks I have sought to present some of the richness of your cultural heritage, of the spirit of the American people. It is my desire that this spirit continue to develop and grow, so that as many young people as possible can inherit and dwell in a land which has inspired so many people to dream.
	For a full transcript of Pope Francis' address to Congress: Related Links: The Thomas Merton Collection at Bellarmine University The International Thomas Merton Society

Abbey of Gethsemani  

     http://www.monks.org/

   

Saint Bruno - letter to Cartusians

COMMENT: Night Office.

Moving by the letter to his Carthusian sons by Saint Bruno

San Bruno (Bruno) Priest and monk

October 6 - Optional Memory

iBreviary

Tuesday, 6 October 2015

Tuesday of the Twenty-Seventh Week in Ordinary Time

Tipo: Feriale - Tempo: Ordinario

Office of Readings

---

For the Memorial of Saint Bruno:

SECOND READING

From a letter to his Carthusian sons by Saint Bruno, priest
(Nn. 1-3: SC 88, 82-84)

My spirit rejoices in the Lord

From the frequent and pleasant reports of our most blessed brother, I know of your reasoned and truly praiseworthy discipline, carried out with unwavering rigor. Since I have heard of your holy love and constant pursuit of honesty and virtue, my spirit rejoices in the Lord. I rejoice and am drawn to praise and give thanks to God, and still I long to love him. I rejoice, as I should, in the growing fruits of your strength, and yet I grieve and grow ashamed that I lie idle and senseless in the mire of my sins.

Therefore rejoice my dearest brothers, because you are so blessed and because of the bountiful hand of God’s grace upon you. Rejoice, because you have escaped the various dangers and shipwrecks of the stormy world. Rejoice, because you have reached the quiet and safe anchorage of a secret harbor. Many wish to come into this port, and many make great efforts to do so, yet do not achieve it. Indeed many, after reaching it, have been thrust out, since it was not granted them from above.

Therefore, my brothers, you should consider it certain and well-established that whoever partakes of this desirable good, should he in any way lose it, will grieve to his death, if he has any regard or concern for the salvation of his soul.

My dearest lay brothers, of you I say: My soul magnifies the Lord. For I have learned of the generosity of his mercy toward you from the report of your prior and dearest father; he rejoices and takes great pride in you. And let us rejoice that since you are unacquainted with the knowledge of letters, almighty God will inscribe in your hearts with his finger not only his love but also the knowledge of his holy law. By your work you show what you love and what you know. When you observe true obedience with prudence and enthusiasm, it is clear that you wisely pick the most delightful and nourishing fruit of divine Scripture.
RESPONSORY
Psalm 55:7-8; 1 John 2:17

Had I but wings like a dove
to fly away and find my rest,
– I would flee far away
and encamp in the wilderness.

The world and all its allurements will pass away,
but whoever does God’s will shall live for ever.
– I would flee far away
and encamp in the wilderness.

CONCLUDING PRAYER

Let us pray.

Father,
you called Saint Bruno to serve you in solitude.
In answer to his prayers
help us to remain faithful to you
amid the changes of this world.
Through our Lord Jesus Christ, your Son,
who lives and reigns with you in the unity of the Holy Spirit,
one God, for ever and ever.
– Amen.

San Bruno (Bruno) Priest and monaco October 6 - Optional Memory

Cologne (Germany), around 1030 - Serra San Bruno (Vibo Valentia), October 6, 1101 Born in Germany in 1030 and then lived between his country, France and Italy, where he died in 1101, Bruno and Bruno, a professor of theology and philosophy, soon chooses the way of life of a hermit. Find so six companions who think like him and Bishop Hugh of Grenoble helps them settle in a place called wild "chartusia" (chartreuse in French). There they build an environment for common prayer, and seven barracks where everyone lives praying and working: a life of a hermit, with community events. When Bruno taught in Reims, one of his students was the Benedictine Odo of Chatillon. In 1090 if it finds as Pope Urban II, who chose him as an adviser. Get him recognition and autonomy for the monastery founded at Grenoble, then known as the Grande Chartreuse. In Calabria in Forest Tower (now in the province of Vibo Valentia) founded a new community. Later, at a short distance, it will build another monastery for the community life. It is the place next to which will arise then the first houses of the Serra San Bruno.(Avvenire) Etymology: Bruno = alludes to the color of complexion Martyrology: San Bruno, a priest, who, born in Cologne in Lotharingia, in the territory of today's Germany, after having taught theology in France, eager to lead a solitary life, founded with a few disciples in the deserted valley Chartroux an Order in where the solitude of a hermit you could combine with a minimal form of community life. Called to Rome by Pope Blessed Urban II, to help him in the needs of the Church, however, he was able to spend the last years of his life in a hermitage near the monastery of La Torre in Calabria.

Fr. Raymond Homily Sun 27th.B 2015

        

Homlly; Fr. Raymond

Sunday, 04 October 2015

Twenty-seventh Sunday in Ordinary Time - Year B

People were bringing little children to Jesus for him to bless them and embrace them. 

This seemed to be just a bit of a nuisance as far as his disciples were concerned; to them it was just a waste of time;  something that interrupted his much more important work of preaching; something that interrupted his wonderful ministry of healing. But Jesus obviously felt very differently about it. He even felt quite indignant about it. This must be the only time in the Gospels that we learn that Jesus felt indignant about anything. I suppose he must have felt a sense of indignity when he saw the buying and selling that was going on in the temple. But that was a sense of indignity on account of the sacredness of the temple, God's House. But in today's gospel he is obviously feeling a sense of personal indignitY.lt1~as a personal affront that really hurt him. It is so obvious that he felts not fully understood even by his closest disciples and that must have been hurtful.

This is an awesome thought: that Jesus was so indignant that his own disciples should feel that he was demeaning himself by associating with children in such a way. He must have felt how little they yet understood him. How much he still had to teach them!

This tells us so much about the character of Jesus. It tells us so much about him both as God and as man. The proud find it hard to associate with children. They are out of their depth with children. But Jesus was perfectly at ease with them and they with him.

'Learn of me', Jesus said 'Because I am meek and humble of heart'.

The next very telling phrase in this gospel is: 'Anyone who does not welcome the Kingdom of God like a little child will never enter it'.

In these words Jesus isn't teaching us to be childish in the sense of that immaturity, that self-centredness that is so typical of young children. He is drawing our attention to other qualities that children have. For instance, a child has no worries for tomorrow, it trusts absolutely in its parents to provide for its needs. This is an attitude we should all have to our heavenly Father. A child knows that it is loved and it subconsciously feels secure in that love. We too should feel secure in the certainty that God loves us too. A child rushes to its parents for comfort when it is hurt. We too must learn to turn spontaneously to oow en we are hurting. And-how many are the hurts that life brings us! A child is terrified of the barking dog, but once its Father picks it up it feels secure. How many are the dangers and fears we face in life that are too big and scary for us to cope with on our own. We stand so much in need of a Father to run to at times.

God is good and loving, but the lessons he has to teach us can be hard at times and the greatest lesson we learn from the hardest of these times is how to be as little children and turn to our heavenly Father in all our needs.

COMMUNITY  SUNDAY MASS  

St. Teresa of Avila

   

MEDITATION from MAGNIFICAT com

Coming to Jesus Like Children

O Son of God and my Lord! How is it that you give so much all together in the first words? Since you humble yourself to such an extreme in joining with us in prayer and making yourself the Brother of creatures so lowly and wretched, how is it that you give us in the name of your Father everything that can be given? For you desire that he consider us his children, because your Word cannot fail. You oblige him to be true to your Word, which is no small burden since in being Father he must bear with us no matter how serious the offences.

If we return to him like the prodigal son, he has to pardon us. He has to console us in our trials. He has to sustain us in the way a father like this must. For, in effect, he must be better than all the fathers in the world because in him everything must be faultless. And after all this he must make us sharers and heirs with you.

SAINT TERESA OF AVILA Saint Teresa of Avila (t 1582), Doctor of the Church, reformed the Carmelite Order.

Front cover; Saint Teresa of Avila

Divinely human!

In Seville, in 1576, Brother Juan de la Miseria, o.c.d., was the first to paint a portrait of Teresa. Referring to the beauty of the saint, María de San José ends her comments with the affirmation that “she was perfect in all things, as we can see from [this] portrait”. Teresa herself had some reservations about the likeness of the painting: “May God forgive you, Brother Juan, for having painted me ugly and bleary-eyed.” Whatever the case, his portrait was to serve as the model for all future versions.

In this month’s cover portrait by José Ribera, the artist gives free rein to his tenebrist style of naturalism. A Caravaggio-inspired distribution of light and shade can be seen in the Carmelite habit as well as in the rendering of the cape, worn for liturgical prayers. The depiction of Teresa in the act of writing is a recurrent theme in Teresian iconography. For, indeed, in obedience to her confessors, Teresa undertook the writing of her autobiography, followed by numerous texts on the life of prayer.

Light descends from above to illumine the beautiful face of the saint. Her gaze, peering at the origin of this supernatural light, attests that her whole being is turned toward God. The dove symbolises the Holy Spirit, the source of her divinely-inspired writings. “Most of the things I write do not come from my own head, but from the heavenly Master who inspires them within me,” wrote Teresa. Her writings, which earned her the honour of becoming the first woman Doctor of the Church, are an inexhaustible resource for the devout soul.

Note the skull in the foreground, a “vanity” that the saints of the Catholic Reformation kept always in view to aid meditation on the fragility of earthly existence and the grandeur of death—a death to be wished for as the ultimate baptism opening the way toward true Life: “I die because I do not die!” exclaimed Teresa. How far we are here from the attitude of our contemporaries to the prospect of death!

Saint Teresa of Ávila (1515–1582), José de Ribera, called Lo Spagnoletto (1591–1652), Museum of Fine Arts San Pio V, Valencia, Spain.   

Luisa Divine Will Prayer Part 1

Billy at Dalmally Retreat.
   www.divinewill.cc/divine_will_prayers.htm

Divine Will Prayers Part 1

    www.divinewill.cc/divine_will_prayers.htm  

·        Home

Prevenient Act
“Most Holy Trinity, I thank and praise You for this new day. Setting my will in Yours, I affirm I want only to live and act in Your Will. Thus, making my “Prevenient Act,” I set all my acts of the day in order in You. (Vol. 14: May 27, 1922)

Good morning, Blessed Mother. I love You. Come, help me offer my first act of the day as an act of love in the Divine Will of God.

Dear Jesus, I desire to fuse myself to Your holy, adorable and Divine Will. I tie these and all my acts to each and every act that the creatures who live in the Divine Will of God have, will, and are doing, unto the last one that will be completed upon the earth. I love You, I adore You, I bless You, I praise You, and I thank You with Your Will. Amen!

Morning Prayer in the Divine Will
As our eyes open to the light of day, let us make our whole being rise in the Light of the Will of God, and let us begin our Rounds.

The first act must be an act of love in the Divine Will. Let us make this act diffuse in all intelligences of the creatures, in all gazes, in the words, in the motion, in the steps, in the heartbeats, in each breath.

Then let us bind all of these acts of ours with those done by Adam in the Holy Will of God, with those that the creatures who will live in the Divine Will will do, up to the last one that will be done on Earth.

Let us take all this love spread throughout Creation and make it our own, and then let us offer it to our Creator.” 

Let us rise a little higher, then, into Creation. For love of the creature God created the sun, the stars, the sea, the earth, the birds, the flowers; and we, let us take all this love spread throughout Creation and make it our own, and let us offer it to our Creator as so many acts of homage, of love, of blessings and of praises.

And now, let us go higher up there in Paradise. Let us go through all the Angels and through all the Saints; let us unite ourselves with the whole celestial Court, and let us give an act of love to Jesus for all and for each one.

Then, let us draw near the Virgin, our dear Mother. She is ready to give us all of Her merits as gift, and we with the confidence of children, let us take all that She has done, from the very first moment of Her Conception up to Her last breath, and let us offer it to our God as if everything were our own.

And then let us go to the Word, and ask Him to let us take part in all of His acts: His Conception, His birth, the flight to Egypt, the thirty years of his hidden life, the three years of His public life, His Passion, His death, His Ascension into Heaven. He has done all this for us; let us make it our own, and let us offer it to the Sacrosanct Trinity. Only in this way, miserable creatures as we are, can we offer the most complete and holy act, because in this way the creature gives nothing of her own, but gives back to God all the glory that comes to her from what He Himself 

has done.

Luisa's prayer to bring Jesus to her
O Jesus, come, give me your hand; let me enter into your Holy Will, that I may fill the whole atmosphere, the blue Heaven, the Light of the Sun, the air, the sea, everything — everything, with my “I Love You”, with my kisses; so that, everywhere You may be, if You look, You may look at my “I Love You” and at my kisses; if you hear, You may hear my “I Love You” and the smacking of my kisses; if You speak and breathe, You may breathe my "I love You" and my anguishing kisses. If You work, may my “I Love You's” flow in your hands; if you walk and tread the ground may my “I Love You”and the roaring of my kisses be under your steps... May my “I Love You” be the chain that draws You to me, and may my kisses be the powerful magnet that, whether You want it or not, force You to visit the one who cannot live without You.” (Volume 16, August 1, 1923)

Luisa's goodnight to Jesus in
the Blessed Sacrament
O my Jesus, celestial Prisoner, the sun is now setting, the darkness invades the earth, and you remain alone in the Tabernacle of love. I seem to see You there in an air of sadness for the loneliness of the night, because You don't have around You the crown of your sons and of your tender spouses, who may at least keep You company in this voluntary imprisonment.

Guardian Angels, St. Bernard 'That they might guard you in all your ways'

Community Liturgy Office - drawings

We thank iBreviary for the St. Bernard illuminations on our Guardian Angels.

      

iBreviary

Friday, 2 October 2015

Friday of the Twenty-Sixth Week in Ordinary Time

Type: Weekday - Time: Ordinary

Office of Readings

SECOND READING

From a sermon by Saint Bernard, abbot
(Sermo 12 in psalmum Qui habitat, 3. 6-8: Opera omnia, Edit. Cisterc. 4 [1966], 458-462)

That they might guard you in all your ways

He has given his angels charge over you to guard you in all your ways. Let them thank the Lord for his mercy; his wonderful works are for the children of men. Let them give thanks and say among the nations, the Lord has done great things for them. O Lord, what is man that you have made yourself known to him, or why do you incline your heart to him? And you do incline your heart to him; you show him your care and your concern. Finally, you send your only Son and the grace of your Spirit, and promise him a vision of your countenance. And so, that nothing in heaven should be wanting in your concern for us, you send those blessed spirits to serve us, assigning them as our guardians and our teachers.

He has given his angels charge over you to guard you in all your ways. These words should fill you with respect, inspire devotion and instill confidence; respect for the presence of angels, devotion because of their loving service, and confidence because of their protection. And so the angels are here; they are at your side, they are with you, present on your behalf. They are here to protect you and to serve you. But even if it is God who has given them this charge, we must nonetheless be grateful to them for the great love with which they obey and come to help us in our great need.

So let us be devoted and grateful to such great protectors; let us return their love and honor them as much as we can and should. Yet all our love and honor must go to him, for it is from him that they receive all that makes them worthy of our love and respect.

We should then, my brothers, show our affection for the angels, for one day they will be our co-heirs just as here below they are our guardians and trustees appointed and set over us by the Father. We are God’s children although it does not seem so, because we are still but small children under guardians and trustees, and for the present little better than slaves.

Even though we are children and have a long, a very long and dangerous way to go, with such protectors what have we to fear? They who keep us in all our ways cannot be overpowered or led astray, much less lead us astray. They are loyal, prudent, powerful. Why then are we afraid? We have only to follow them, stay close to them, and we shall dwell under the protection of God’s heaven.
RESPONSORY
Psalm 91:11-12, 10

God gave his angels charge over you
to protect you in all your ways.
– They shall lift you up with their hands,
lest you strike your foot against a stone.

No evil shall harm you,
no plague shall come near your tent.
– They shall lift you up with their hands,
lest you strike your foot against a stone.

CONCLUDING PRAYER

Let us pray.

God, our Father,
in your loving providence
you send your holy angels to watch over us.
Hear our prayers, defend us always by their protection
and let us share your life with them for ever.
We ask this through our Lord Jesus Christ, your Son,
who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit,
one God, for ever and ever.
– Amen.

Saint Therese of the Child of Jesus 'Sent like Lambs'

Thursday 0f the Twenty Sixth Week in Ordinary Time
Night Office: from Ida Gorres.

Introduction to Mass

St Therese of the Child Jesus (1 October 2015) – Fr Hugh

Our Lord has told us that unless we become like little children we will not enter the Kingdom of Heaven.  Childlike not childish.  St Therese exemplified this.

One of the characteristics of a child is a sense of wonder.

At Confirmation the prayer over the candidates asks that they may receive the Spirit of Wonder and Awe at God’s presence.  This is one of the Seven Gifts of the Holy Spirit – Wisdom, Understanding, Counsel, Fortitude, Knowledge, Piety and Wonder and Awe at God’s Presence (also called Fear of the Lord.).

________________________________________________________________________________

Poem from St. Therese

. A LAMB.

Would you charm the Lamb of God?

In the path that He hath trod

Tread to-day with willing feet!

Leaving all things here below,

Seek alone His will to know;

Do His will surpassing sweet!

 cf. Lk. 10:3 'out like lambs'

A Reading about St. Teresa of Lisieux, from a Book by Ida Gorres*

IN Teresa herself, during every hour of her life, the sustaining foundation of the Church was made manifest. The details of this fabric were too small individually to be singled out by the eye; but together they formed the ground out of which everything else grew.

Teresa thought and talked like a nun of her period. She had amazingly little understanding of "the world", of the natural, ordinary life outside the convent walls. But she lived the sanctity and transparency of ordinary human life. Her essential experiences of God, her conclusions from them, were not founded upon or inspired by the special insights of the mystics, nor upon the tradition of the Carmelite Order. They derived from the homely traditions of a good family, from the simple everyday, catechism-nourished devotion of father and mother. Thus she became–like Francis de Sales, her great spiritual ancestor–a teacher of that lay spirituality which is so much discussed nowadays; just as, conversely, all monastic piety has always been nourished by the primordial example of marital and parental love. Only God knows the number of souls who share in the honour and the reward of this one saint. In her glorification there is revealed, as through a rent in the curtain, both as consolation and promise, and comprehensible to the earthly heart, a gleam of that which awaits the lowliest in our Father's House.

St. Pius X is said to have prophetically called Teresa, whose full rise to fame he did not live to witness, the greatest saint of the century. May we be permitted to understand him in that way. He, the saintly Pope who restored to the ordinary Christian the forgotten heritage which for centuries had been the privilege only of the clergy or of the most devout–free access to the Eucharist; he who again recognized that the participation of the laity was the lifeblood of the liturgy and thus broke down the artificial dividing wall between clergy and people~ act of enormous significance may well have understood that this little Carmelite stands for innumerable souls, for the legions of those to whom she revealed it for the first time. Therefore she stands precisely on the crossroads between the "old" and the "new" piety. She is a remarkable example of the invincible powers of renewal in the Mystical Body of Christ, of the activity of the Holy Spirit, whose creative power is ever at work. And she is all that precisely because she lived so apart from and so innocent of all the discussions and disputes over reform and rebirth.

It is a, source of deepest...happiness to see in the Church this process of self-purification for once not manifesting itself in the form of protest against abuses, or conflict and strife with the world, but welling up from the clear spring of a child's soul.

In Teresa there gathered and became purified the deep, intimate essential unchanging elements of the Faith and of Love. As the perfected butterfly, breaks out of the chrysalis, so she emerges transformed from the shrivelling shell of her period and appears before us as the pure embodiment of Christian reality.

To be sure, she represents also a perfection of the period's religious ideal; but in fulfilling the law of her own being, she overcomes it. She who knew only obedience, only listening, unquestionably accepted the highly questionable elements in her contemporaries' piety. But the pruning purity of her touch melted away all the old slag. What she grasped and what she embodied is one again the beginning, the core, the original meaning. We see in her girlish face the hidden face of the Church, the Face of the Hidden Church, which in the chaos of time flowers, eternally young and beautiful, to greet the re­turning Lord.

* The Hidden Face, New York 1969, 412-414.

   

SAINT THERESE OF LISIEUX

MEDITATION      OF THE       DAY

From Magnificat com

Sent Like Lambs

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" (Saint John of the Cross). 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, 0 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 tasted more sweetness in my martyrdom and my folly than I shall taste in the bosom of the joy of the Fatherland, unless you take away the memory of these earthly hopes through a miracle. Allow me, then, during my exile, the delights of love. Allow me to taste the sweet bitterness of my martyrdom.

Jesus, 0 Jesus, if the desire of loving you is so delightful, what will it be to possess and enjoy this Love?

How can a soul as imperfect as mine aspire to the possession of the plenitude of Love? 0 Jesus, my first and only Friend, you whom I love UNIQUELY, explain this mystery to me! Why do you not reserve these great aspirations for great souls, for the eagles that soar in the heights?

I look upon myself as a weak little bird, with only a light down as covering. I am not an eagle, but I have only an eagle's EYES AND HEART. In spite of my extreme littleness I still dare to gaze upon the divine Sun, the Sun of Love, and my heart feels within it all the aspi­rations of an eagle.

SAINT THERESE OF LISIEUX Saint Therese of Lisieux (+ 1897) was declared a Doctor of the Church in 1997.

Prayer for the Evening