I AM THE IMMACULATE CONCEPTION

St. John Paul II, a deeply loved Pope and theologian, a mystic, a brilliant and humble man, once wrote, "God seeks man in the womb of Mary". 

And his words continue to draw all of us who love Our Mother into an awed silence. Many are perplexed, perhaps confused, some may even be discomforted by his words. Perhaps we may be standing alongside Nicodemus:

"How can a man be born when he is old? Surely he cannot enter a second time into his mother's womb to be born?"  (John 3)

Even if there were an answer to the unanswerable question posed by Nicodemus, we are then confronted with an ever deeper, seemingly unsolvable question.... How could we, born in sin, enter into a womb so utterly pure? 

                      The Womb of the Immaculata is the CREATED Immaculate Conception just as the Holy Spirit, Sacred Spouse of the Mother of God, is the UNCREATED Immaculate Conception. 

The Uncreated Immaculate Conception conceives Divine life in the soul of Mary, His Immaculate Conception (St. Maximilian Kolbe; St. Francis of Assisi).

This is a union of Mary's very being with the Holy Spirit. He dwells in her, and He always will, for Eternity. He made her body virginal too, an Immaculate Space for the Divine Life of the God-Man to dwell.

St. Louis de Montfort describes to us how God rewarded His deeply humble Handmaid: 

"Mary has the authority over the angels and the blessed in Heaven, and as a reward for her great humility, God gave her the power and mission of assigning to saints the thrones made vacant by the apostate angels who fell away through pride.  Such is the will of the almighty God who exalts the humble, that the powers of Heaven, earth, and hell, willingly or unwillingly, must obey the commands of the humble Virgin Mary.  For God has made her queen of Heaven and earth, leader of his armies, keeper of his treasure, dispenser of his graces, mediatrix on behalf of men, destroyer of his enemies, and faithful associate in his great works and triumphs." 

AND THIS IS THE WOMAN WHOM THE LORD, THE CRUCIFIED ONE, GAVE TO US.

WE CALL HER, "MOTHER".

           The WOMAN whom our greatly loved Pope teaches us that God seeks us in her womb.

She herself replies to our trepidation in approaching her, this CREATED IMMACULATE CONCEPTION, this "WOMAN who sits at God's Right Hand as His Queen:

"Listen, and let it penetrate your heart, my dear little one; do not be troubled or weighted down with grief. Do not fear any illness or vexation, anxiety or pain. Am I not here who am your Mother? Are you not under my shadow and protection? Am I not your fountain of life? Are you not in the folds of my mantle? In the crossing of my arms? Is there anything else you need?" (Our Lady of Guadalupe to St. Juan Diego and to all of us)

In her womb of purity, God's Tabernacle, she teaches us spiritual childhood, sweet gentleness,  ardent charity, faith-filled obedience, how to practice the Presence of God every second of every day, purity of thought and action, patience in the harshest of trials, self-mortification to win souls for her Son, and wisdom from the one...

"...who was already spiritually the Seat of Wisdom through faith, became also the Seat of Wisdom Incarnate as Mother. "

                  AND GREATEST OF ALL ... SHE SHOWS US HOW TO LOVE AS SHE LOVES.

When our Mother, the Dispenser of God's graces, lovingly and gently leads us into the beauty of these, her virtues, she draws our soul into the Divine Silence that is her Womb, the Holy Place where dwells her Sacred Spouse. 

The answer to Nicodemus' question is revealed.  From Mary's womb, and as her spiritually gestating children, we give her our all as we pray for our all:

                 REMEMBER, MOST GRACIOUS VIRGIN, MARY, THAT NEVER WAS IT KNOWN,

                 THAT ANYONE, WHO FLED TO THY PROTECTION, IMPLORED THY HELP,

                 OR SOUGHT THINE INTERCESSION, WAS LEFT UNAIDED.

                 INSPIRED BY THIS CONFIDENCE, I FLY UNTO THEE, 

                 O VIRGIN OF VIRGIN, MY MOTHER.

                 TO THEE DO I COME, BEFORE THEE I STAND, SINFUL AND SORROWFUL.

                 O MOTHER OF THE WORD INCARNATE, DESPISE NOT MY PETITION, 

                 BUT IN THY CLEMENCY, HEAR AND ANSWER ME.                         

                 AMEN.

MAY GOD ALWAYS SEEK AND FIND US IN THE WOMB OF MARY.

--

Anna Rae-Kelly OCDS
www.annaprae.com

IN THE COMPANY OF ST ELIZABETH OF THE TRINITY

                                 
        "MAY I BE WHOLLY PURE, WHOLLY TRANSPARENT, SO THAT THE TRINITY CAN BE                                             REFLECTED IN ME AS IN A CRYSTAL." 

                                            (SAINT ELIZABETH OF THE TRINITY)

(THE FOLLOWING IS AN EXCERPT FROM: "A SPACIOUS PLACE: A 16 DAY RETREAT WITH ST ELIZABETH OF THE TRINITY," Anna Rae-Kelly OCDS)

                                                                         Day Three

 

 "TO CONTEMPLATE HIMSELF IN HIS CREATURE AND SEE REFLECTED THERE ALL HIS PERFECTIONS." (SAINT ELIZABETH OF THE TRINITY)

On November 8th, we celebrate the Feast Day of St Elizabeth of the Trinity. We sit together with her in a prayer time of silent awe, meditating on the spiritual depths of God which her words probe.

 In these words, it is Spirit Lord alone who may open our minds to understand that St Elizabeth is revealing the astonishing humility of Father God, Jesus Savior, Spirit Lord, our Triune God. 

           He longs to pour Himself, like an ocean-sized waterfall of love, into every soul. 

Questions to ponder...

1) What aspects of God do I reflect in my spiritual desires, my spiritual thoughts and words, my obedience, my sorrows, my physical pain, my loneliness, my 'mundane' daily actions?

If the Beloved Three are Present in every action / second of our lives, can anything we do ever be "mundane"?

2a) In my prayer life, do I seek a relationship with the Divine which would "lift you above the high places of earth"? (Ibid) 

OR

2b) Do I use a light dimmer switch to limit God's brightness from flooding into my soul? 

What limiting measures do I use? (My time? Do I silence His beckoning to prayer? Fatigue? Company?)

What causes me to silence the sound of God's Voice in my soul?  

2c) What spiritual deprivation do I bring about in doing (b) ?

"O my God, Trinity whom I adore, help me to forget myself completely and to establish myself in you, as still and at peace as if my soul were already in eternity. Let nothing disturb my peace nor draw me away from you, O my unchangeable One, but let every minute carry me further into the depths of your mystery!

Give peace to my soul; make it your heaven, your beloved abode, and the place of your rest. Let me never leave you there alone; but keep me there totally present, completely vigilant in my faith, totally in adoration and wholly surrendered to your creative action.

O my beloved Christ, crucified for love, I want to be the spouse of your heart. I long to cover you with glory, to love you... until I should die of love… Yet I feel helpless. I ask you to clothe me with yourself, to identify my soul with all the movements of your soul, to submerge me, to fill me, to substitute yourself for me, so that my life may be only a radiance of your life. Enter me as Adorer, as Redeemer, and as Savior.

O Eternal Word, utterance of my God, I want to spend my life listening to you, I want to become totally teachable so that I might learn everything from you. Through all darkness, all emptiness, and all helplessness, I want to be centered on you always and remain in your great light; O my beloved Star, make me so captivated that I no longer move away from your radiance.

O consuming Fire, Spirit of love, let it be done that an incarnation of the Word may occur again in my soul. May I be for him another humanity in whom he may renew his whole mystery. And you, O Father, incline yourself toward your little creature, see in her only the Beloved in whom you are well pleased.

O my "Three," my all, my beatitude, infinite Solitude, Immensity in which I lose myself, I surrender myself to you as your prey. Bury yourself in me so that I may bury myself in you, until I go to contemplate in your light the abyss of your grandeur."

(ST ELIZABETH OF THE TRINITY, November 21, 1904)

---

Anna Rae-Kelly OCDS
www.annaprae.com

CLOSING THOUGHTS

THIS IS THE CENTENARY YEAR OF ST. THERESE OF THE CHILD JESUS AND THE HOLY FACE. PART OF HER MISSION DURING HER SHORT, SACRIFICIAL LIFE WAS TO PRAY FOR THE SOULS OF PRIESTS. 

GOD HAS PERMITTED HER MISSION TO CONTINUE TO BE LIVED OUT TODAY, IN A PARTICULAR WAY, IN EACH OF US.

Today, millions across the world have prayed and fasted for priests. Many have asked, why?

St John Mary Vianney, patron saint of priests, helps us to understand something of the beauty of a priest: 

 "The priesthood is the Love of the Heart of Jesus." If the priest loses sight of his calling to be Love, St Vianney describes the eternal devastation that awaits both the priest and all the little souls entrusted by Love to his care:

"A priest goes to Heaven or a priest goes to hell with a thousand souls behind....when we see priests, we should first see Jesus Christ, and second, the thousands of souls behind him."

This day, in our embattled offering, we have raised our "prayer, united with sacrifice to make it the most powerful force in human history" (St. John Paul II).

Heaven has grasped our offering and the power and force of our sacrifice has protected the souls of priests who are assaulted by every imaginable temptation ... As was Our Savior in Whose Image priests are formed. 

IPSE CHRISTUS.

St. Therese of the Child Jesus and the Holy Face, the Patroness of the Global Lay Fast for Priests, gives voice to the gratitude of every priest this day who has been lifted to God by our hidden and probably unseen sacrifice and who humbly acknowledges that today, we have borne, like Simon of Cyrene, just a little of their burden for them:

"How often have I thought that I may owe all the graces I've received to the prayers of a person who begged them from God for me, and whom I shall know only in heaven."

On this astonishing day, our sacrifice has kept their  

"anointed hands which daily touch Christ’s sacred body be unstained, their lips which are purpled by Your precious blood be unsullied by the world's contagion.” (St. Therese)

We are those persons whose sacrifices this day have begged God for graces for all priests. We are those persons whose names these priests will hear called out by God when they meet us in Heaven.

The "Gaze of God" (1 Kings 18:15) has held each one of us this day and His reward for us and for all of our dear ones has been touched by His Holy Gaze. 

St. Therese describes our beauty:

"We often think we receive graces and are divinely illuminated by means of brilliant candles. But from whence comes their light? From prayers, perhaps of some humble, hidden soul, whose inward shining is not apparent to human eyes."

We are those hidden souls whose inward shining has not been apparent today to human eyes. This is the beauty that God sees in us. 

And what unspeakable Spiritual and Eternal Treasures will our priests give to us for the rest of their lives?

When we see them, we will first see Christ; we will receive Christ from their anointed hands; when they speak in the Sacrament of Reconciliation we will hear Christ's Voice lovingly forgiving us; and their holy ointments will embalm our souls for our final journey; we will be one of those thousands of souls entering Heaven behind them.

                    

MAY WE MEET AGAIN, DEEP IN THE HOLY AND PRAYERFUL AND SACRIFICIAL HEART OF OUR SAVIOR, IN OCTOBER OF NEXT YEAR.  GOD WILLING, WE WILL RE-UNITE IN PRAYER FOR EVERY PRIEST WHO WAS, IS AND WHO IS YET TO BE ORDAINED.

IN CARMEL,

 ANNA (OCDS)

LAY FAST FOR PRIESTS 2023

18th ANNUAL LAY FAST FOR PRIESTS

- SATURDAY, 21 OCTOBER 2023

WHY FAST FOR PRIESTS?

“ 'As God lives, before whose face I stand…' spoke Elijah"

(1 Kings 18:15), for Elijah recognized the Lord’s gaze upon him at every moment.

The gaze of God is

holy, loving, sacrificial, transformative, healing, life giving.

Therefore, under that holy gaze, endlessly, every thought that loves, every word spoken in love, every small sacrifice offered in love, becomes what God's gaze holds

... holy, loving, sacrificial, transformative, healing, life-giving.

Every offering becomes a sacrament in Him in every moment.

All time meets in Him, therefore, every soul for whom sacrifice is offered is drawn under that same gaze and He draws them into Himself to transform, heal, transfigure.

This is the power of our sacrificial prayer for priests, all priests, those who were, those who are, those who are yet to be ordained. These are men who are ordained by God to forgive our sins in His name, who give us the most Holy Eucharist, whose voice will walk us into eternity.

It is the souls of these men whom we will offer to God in our sacrificial prayer on October 21.

In our Global Fast, we will beseech God to hold them, endlessly, under His gaze so that each of them will "stand before His face."

Prayer causes the heavens to pour down the Righteous One. Through our world-wide united prayer, each priest will become

... holy, loving, sacrificial, transformative, healing, life-giving.

We beseech God that their "anointed hands which daily touch Christ’s sacred body be unstained, that their lips which are purpled by Your precious blood be unsullied by the world's contagion.”

(St. Therese of Lisieux,

Patroness of the global Lay Fast for Priests)

Who gives power to our prayer?

It is Spirit Lord, the same Spirit Who brooded over the waters in Genesis, Who raised Jesus Savior from the dead, Who will speak now in us through our sacrificial offering...

“... it is not you who speak, but it is the Spirit of your Father who speaks in you” (Matthew 10:20)

and we, every one of us, will give God the Father deep delight.

We are engraved on the palm of His Hand (Isaiah 49).

SIGN UP LINK: http://www.annaprae.com/lay-fast-for-priests-2023.html

OUT OF CHAOS - 5 DAY RETREAT

 

"OUT OF CHAOS"  -  A 5 DAY RETREAT WOVEN TOGETHER BY THE WISDOM OF ST. THERESE OF THE CHILD JESUS AND THE HOLY FACE. WE HAVE CELEBRATED HER FEAST DAY ON OCTOBER 1 OF THIS, HER CENTENARY YEAR. AND BEFORE EACH DAY OF REFLECTION, WE HAVE SAT SILENT, IN THE PRESENCE OF SPIRIT LORD FOR A BRIEF TIME OF SELF-OFFERING. WITH THE GUIDANCE OF ST. THERESE WE ALLOWED SPIRIT LORD TO TRANSFORM OUR WOUNDS AND OUR PRAYERS TO BECOME THE CONTEXT OF OUR HOLINESS. 

TO ACCESS THE DAILY CONTENT OF THIS FIVE DAY RETREAT, 

PLEASE CONTACT US AT:

jraekelly@proton.me

WHAT IS REALLY HAPPENING?

                                         WHAT IS REALLY HAPPENING?

                                                       We go to prayer. 

                                                             We pray.

                  We must always recognize what Christ is doing when we are going to pray.

                                He asks this of us....."Let us look at reality together". 

The best way to be by the Side of Christ Jesus in our prayer is on the Cross where He hangs.

                                                        Naked.

                                                      Elevated. 

                                              Look at reality with Him.

                                                 What do you see.

                                                

--

Anna Rae-Kelly OCDS
www.annaprae.com

ON THE SOLEMNITY OF THE ASSUMPTION

       BENEATH YOUR VEIL

“O, SWEETEST STAR OF HEAVEN! 

O VIRGIN, SPOTLESS, BLEST,

SHINING WITH JESUS' LIGHT, 

GUIDING TO HIM MY WAY!

MOTHER! BENEATH YOUR VEIL 

LET MY TIRED SPIRIT REST

FOR THIS BRIEF PASSING DAY.”

              

       - St Therese of the Child Jesus and the Holy Face

--

Anna Rae-Kelly OCDS
www.annaprae.com

                                                 From the spiritual writings of Saint Teresa Benedicta of the Cross

Ave Crux, spes unica!

We greet you, Holy Cross, our only hope! The church puts these words on our lips during the time of the passion, which is dedicated to the contemplation of the bitter sufferings of our Lord Jesus Christ. The world is in flames. The struggle between Christ and antichrist rages openly, and so if you decide for Christ you can even be asked to sacrifice your life.

Contemplate the Lord who hangs before you on the wood, because he was obedient even to the death of the cross. He came into the world not to do his own will but that of the Father. And if you wish to be the spouse of the Crucified, you must renounce completely your own will and have no other aspiration than to do the will of God.

Before you, the Redeemer hangs on the cross stripped and naked, because he chose poverty. Those who would follow him must renounce every earthly possession.

Stand before the Lord who hangs from the cross with his heart torn open. He poured out the blood of his heart in order to win your heart. In order to follow him in holy chastity, your heart must be free from every earthly aspiration. Jesus Crucified must be the object of your every longing, of your every desire, of your every thought.

The world is in flames: the fire can spread even to our house, but above all the flames the cross stands on high, and it cannot be burnt. The cross is the way which leads from earth to heaven. Those who embrace it with faith, love, and hope are taken up, right into the heart of the Trinity.

The world is in flames: do you wish to put them out? Contemplate the cross: from his open heart, the blood of the Redeemer pours, blood which can put out even the flames of hell. Through the faithful observance of the vows, you make your heart open; and then the floods of that divine love will be able to flow into it, making it overflow and bear fruit to the furthest reaches of the earth.

Through the power of the cross, you can be present wherever there is pain, carried there by your compassionate charity, by that very charity which you draw from the divine heart. That charity enables you to spread everywhere the most precious blood in order to ease pain, save and redeem.

--

Anna Rae-Kelly OCDS
www.annaprae.com

OUR LADY OF MOUNT CARMEL

                                                 כַּרְמֶל         KARMEL

 

Karmel (Carmel) means "garden", "orchard", "vineyards of God". In each of these places, a mystical Beauty lives and thrives and transforms. Carmel is God's Garden, a place of Encounter. Carmel is God's space where He chooses to dwell. God's Space: His Garden which He tends, His Orchard where He brings forth the sweetest of fruits, His Vineyard where His oils and aromas of Himself make holy every branch that He encounters on His Way.  Carmel is the spiritual room gloriously decorated with every sign of God's Presence within and in this Garden of God, His "Word is a spring which never runs dry" (St Ephrem). 

Our soul is His Garden, His place of Encounter, His Vineyard where His inexhaustible spring of love never runs dry.

WE ARE CARMEL AND MARY IS QUEEN IN THIS GARDEN WHERE GOD DWELLS.

              Queen and beauty of Mount Carmel, Virgin of the solitude,

              In the wilderness of Carmel lies the world's eternal good.
              Draw us into deep seclusion And make God alone our goal,
              In the mystical Mount Carmel That lies hidden in the soul.

                                                   (Sr Miriam of the Holy Spirit OCD,1905–1988).

Our soul is God's chosen dwelling house, the space where He longs to meet us. 

              SOLITUDE      WILDERNESS         SECLUSION              HIDDENNESS.

We need a Mother's touch to guide us into such unknown and often untrod places.

God allures us to desire Him in the depths of our soul where He waits within the scars of our life-wounds, silently, longing for even a glance from us in our busy-ness. His deepest desire is for us to give Him permission to inhabit our raw memories, our still-festering spiritual and emotional sores, to allow Him to give us sight to see how every hurt can become the context of our holiness* as He heals and transforms us into Himself: 

"Therefore, behold, I will allure her, and bring her into the wilderness and speak comfortably unto her."  (Hosea 2:14)

And our Beloved Mother, ordained to "reveal the thoughts of many", gently helps us to recognize His Voice. 

When her Sacred Spouse, Spirit Lord draws us to pray the Rosary, we remember the words of St Louis de Montford: "When we say Mary, she says God." As we pray the Rosary, and at every utterance of her name "Mary", she turns our weary thoughts to Jesus, Lord, God. 

She is the stainless Window through which the Sun shines in His glory.

She is the Virgin of solitude, and, as she taught Therese of Lisieux, when we love someone, we want to be alone with them. 

Our Mother of Carmel directs our soul to yearn for her solitude where she is endlessly adoring God. She walks us silently and gently into our interior wilderness where our spiritual courage is under fire, yet, it's in that very fire, "with fasting, with weeping, and with mourning" (Joel 2:12), that we find Him again, His arms open, waiting for us to come back to Him with all our heart. 

Mary, our Queen of Carmel, whose Heart was Immaculate, still was human. St Therese reminds us that Mary was more a Mother than a Queen, she was one of us, not someone above us. Therese used to ask, what kind of a Mother would Mary be if her children could not imitate her? Mary "walked the ordinary days we all must travel. She was preserved from sin, but she was not spared the suffering which is its consequence. Just like us, she was often puzzled by the Will of God... She suffered pain as we all do, from privation and the cold, from misunderstanding, from anxiety and care... and yet she said... "LET IT BE DONE."** 

When this Woman draws us "into deep seclusion...to make God alone our Goal/In the mystical Mount Carmel That lies hidden in our soul" we can follow her there without fear, knowing that she has trodden that path of solitude and seclusion and hiddenness before us. In the Carmel of our soul, our Mother will lead us into purity, simplicity, holy poverty, to become completely open to God's wishes. She will give to us 'all that she gave to her Son.... her steadfast Mother's love'**.

In the Carmel of our soul, we will indeed hold the spiritual room gloriously decorated with every sign of God's Presence within, and in this Garden of God, His Word will be a "spring which never runs dry." 

                                                                               Flos Carmeli

 O beautiful Flower of Carmel, most fruitful vine, Splendour of Heaven, holy and singular,

 who brought forth the Son of God while still remaining a Pure Virgin, assist me in this necessity.

 O Star of the Sea, help and protect me! Show me that Thou art my Mother.

References: 

* Mark Foley OCD

** Bishop Patrick Ahern

--

Anna Rae-Kelly OCDS
www.annaprae.com

FINDING CHRIST IN OUR WOUNDS (THERESE OF LISIEUX)

On April 29, 1923 Pope Pius XI beatified St. Therese of the Child Jesus and the Holy Face. Her pathway to Canonization was underway.

One hundred years have gone by and the deep love for her held by millions has never stopped. We might ask, why? She did not write a compendium outlining specific intellectual argument, nor an encyclopedia of thoughts to excite a century of brilliant minds, nor tomes which outlined scientific breakthroughs in nuclear fusion.

When we enter into dialogue with St. Therese of the Child Jesus and the Holy Face, we do not do so to engage in an intellectual discourse. Therese's soul was the "tillage field" (1 Cor. 3:9) of God. In every moment of her life we see a living theology where God Himself is "concealed in the storm cloud" of her suffering (Psalm 81) and it is there that, not an intellectual, but a profound theological discourse begins, there, where God is tilling the soil of her soul.

"Jesus needs neither books nor Doctors of Divinity in order to instruct souls; He, the Doctor of doctors, He teaches without noise of words."

When we read the story of her soul, which she wrote in an act of obedience, we gradually begin to recognize that the depths and heights of her suffering reveal glorious mysteries of God and His actions in her soul as well as in our own. Her life, so brief in years, could have provided us with equivalent numbers of compendia, encyclopedias, tomes which fill libraries to capacity with such books giving voice to our limited human knowledge.

"Our Beloved needs neither our brilliant deeds nor our beautiful thoughts. Were He in search of lofty ideas, has He not His Angels, whose knowledge infinitely surpasses that of the greatest genius of earth?"

We turn instead the pages of her Story of a Soul, authored at times with a hand that was too weak to hold her pen. We read of her lived sufferings and in each suffering that she endured we find the Word of the God, speaking His Living Suffering in her soul. The depths of her immersion into His Suffering Love causes our own soul to soar beyond every human thought and yet descends into spiritual depths which require a holy knowledge that spans far beyond the intellect. The splendor and the power of Suffering Love dwelling in Therese will never be fully known because she was held in the Mind of God and "Who has known the Mind of the Lord?" (Romans 11:14)

Therese did not love suffering. She loved our Lord. And Our Lord suffered. For us.

"Pain, lifted up to Him, is pain no more: Joy casts aside the weeds that sorrow wore."

He ordained that Therese would be drawn into His Suffering Love and so we might say that she, sharing in His Suffering, becomes our theological discourse, our dialogue. We see her life through the Lens of God's Eye.

It is an interior journey and Spirit Lord's inspirations as we travel cause the intellect to become the footstool of the soul, where Divine Silence quiets every brilliant thought that is not of Himself and a miracle of fusion, union, gradually happens.

"God alone can sound the heart."

When we enter into dialogue with St. Therese of the Child Jesus and the Holy Face, we find solace for our soul . We find this hidden in the depths of her love for Suffering Love. Her words can cause our soul to soar, to touch eternity, and then return and in our daily moments, to try to live how she loved. The spirituality of her "little way" is our door of entry.

When one feels drawn to walk Therese's way of "littleness”, one learns very quickly that there is nothing "little" about the journey into spiritual littleness. From Therese's own profound sufferings we learn that when we approach God "...weakness is not a liability. It is in fact an asset."

We learn that her "little doctrine" is the "essence of her spirituality" and it involves sacrifice and love. These hold painful lessons in humility through humiliations, lessons in self-forgetfulness, self-emptiness, self-denial, self-abandonment to make interior space so that the soul becomes totally available for the arrival of the Divine, the Trinitarian Presence.

"How few there are who accept failure and weakness, who are content to see themselves on the ground and to be found there by others."

Jesus, Divine Humility whose Name is Love, gratefully accepts whatever limited space that we measure out to Him. And His Presence makes holy our littleness.

Therese teaches us her "Way" to hasten our steps on this spiritual and interior journey. When we follow her own steps into spiritual "littleness", we learn that love and suffering are inseparable, that if we are not prepared to suffer, then we cannot love.

"My penance consisted in breaking my will, always so ready to impose itself on others, in holding back a reply, in rendering little services without recognition."

The Greek word for wound is trauma. Therese was deeply traumatized and suffered from life-long emotional wounds which gave shape to her "shadow self". These shapes were formed from the devastating effects of maternal separation and other events which profoundly impacted her emotional development.

What must strike us is that GOD DID NOT REMOVE THESE TRAUMAS, THESE WOUNDS, FROM THERESE.

He gave her His grace to understand that her emotional wounds were not obstacles to spiritual growth but rather were the context of her growing in holiness. Therese chose to battle to find Jesus Christ within her permitted suffering, within the wounds of her shadow-self until she died.

"It is God's Will that I fight right up until death."

In our emotional wounds, our daily sorrows, trials, long-held memories that still hurt, Therese teaches us that, if we ask for God's grace, these become THE CONTEXT FOR OUR HOLINESS, OUR SANCTITY.

Her early years show us that woundedness dominated her emotions and for us, they may also silence God's Voice in our soul. She helps us to see that it is within our very wounds that God's gifts of courage, humility, fortitude give us victory over our hurts, past and present. From her terminal illness, we find wisdom about her abandonment into God's Will. We meditate on her "way" of embracing His love WITHIN our suffering and with God's grace, we try to emulate her in our own trials of faith.

With Therese, we will "enjoy the reward promised to those who fight courageously..."

"Always keep lifting your foot to climb the ladder of holiness, and do not imagine that you can mount even the first step... 

All God asks of you is good will."

(Referenced: Sacred Scripture; Therese of the Child Jesus and the Holy Face; Mark Foley OCD, Aloysius Rego OCD)

THE RESURRECTION AND THE LIFE

"BEHOLD! I AM WITH YOU, ALWAYS, YES, EVEN UNTIL THE END OF THE AGE." (Matthew 28:20)

We have searched for His Presence, hidden in His gifts. We have stumbled along interior pathways in our souls where perhaps we'd maybe rather not have gone. We've been instructed by St. Therese, St. Teresa, St. John of the Cross and through them, we've learned that it has been Christ Himself Who has been the Giver of priceless gifts, among them, self-knowledge, humility, courage, perseverance. We have borrowed them all from Himself. The Living Flame of Love will teach us how to return them to the Giver, with interest. 

  
God desires to make us His equal. He desires to lavishly and without measure pour Himself into our brokenness, our solitude, our woundedness, our finite being which is so limited in its ability to love. His Being is a burning Furnace of Love that desires to be one with us. How could such intimate contact with the Divine Word ever be possible in the depths of my sinful soul, to be with me, every moment of my days when I neglect Him, offend Him, ignore Him, to stay with me, always, yes, even until the end of my age?

In 2003, St. Pope John Paul II gave us ECCLESIA DE EUCHARISTIA, his last and mystical encyclical. In one particular paragraph, our dear saint offers us an astonishing reply to that question. He wrote that when the Church was born at Pentecost, 

  "...a decisive moment in her taking shape was certainly THE INSTITUTION OF THE EUCHARIST IN THE UPPER ROOM....in this Gift, Jesus Christ entrusted to His Church THE PERENNIAL MAKING PRESENT OF THE PASCHAL MYSTERY. With it, He brought about a mysterious ONENESS IN TIME BETWEEN THE TRIDUUM AND THE PASSAGE OF THE CENTURIES."

Through the wisdom of our Pope, Jesus Lord is telling us, clearly and without possibility of misinterpretation,

"BEHOLD! I AM WITH YOU, ALWAYS, YES, EVEN UNTIL THE END OF THE AGE."

When He instituted the Eucharist at the Last Supper , Jesus Lord embraced His Passion and His Resurrection. Oneness in time...when He made His Suffering and Death and Rising perennially Present down through the centuries, at every Mass, on every altar for all time. Yes, even until the end of the age. Every soul who has ever lived, all who are living now, all who are yet to be born: all held in the Being Who is Love, Who desires to be one with our soul, Who desires to make us His equal. 

Through, with and in Him, the Christ, the Eucharistic Presence, we can thank our great great grandparents for praying us into our faith; we can plead to His Sacred Heart for all those whom we love today but who have separated themselves from God; we can offer every life's trial from this day forward that we may endure for all those whom God is holding until He can no longer wait to breathe them into life, those who will only ever see photographs of us - those who are yet to be born.

St. Therese of the Child Jesus and the Holy Face reminds us that every single prayer and sacrifice offered in Love soars beyond place and time. No walls or time can imprison our prayer.  Through our Savior, all of our loved ones who were, who are and who are yet to be born, are touched by the prayer we pray today. We all become one in Him. And in His staggering love and generosity, Christ draws us into His mighty and eternal act of Redemption so that He can reward us for doing what He gave us the power to do in the first place. Oneness in time. 

"I am in them and you are in me, so that they may be made completely one." (John 17:2)

 

The Triduum, made Present, down through the centuries, in, with and through Christ Savior, Body, Blood, Soul and Divinity, in the Eucharist.

            
"BEHOLD! I AM WITH YOU, ALWAYS, YES, EVEN UNTIL THE END OF THE AGE."

OUR GLORIOUS LENTEN GIFT HAS REVEALED HIMSELF.

THE GLORIOUS GIFT OF LENT IS HUMBLY HELD OUT TO US

HOLY WEEK : Christ is preparing to offer Himself as an oblation to His Father. Jesus was created for sacrifice. The Sacrifice of Calvary  begins. On the hill of Calvary, Jesus is Priest and Victim, and the Redemption is taking place (Pere Marie-Eugene OCD). Our Redemption.

                               His reward?         Our souls.          Our Reward?      Himself.

He wants to make us His Equal. On this Lenten journey into deeper transformation into Himself, He has sent us, personally and intimately, the Holy Spirit, Spirit of Father and Son, the Fire of purifying Love that is God Himself. We've learned that It is a Flame that cauterizes and heals at the same time. 

And as we enter into Holy Week, we may ponder...when was the Fire most intense in my Lenten days? When was my self-love cauterized? How was I healed during the infliction of those Holy Wounds?

We look to St. John of the Cross to locate ourselves and our wounds and our spiritual healing in his mystical wisdom. John asks us to look around our family, our circle of friends, our community, our social gatherings. Is there someone among these who people our days who is especially difficult to deal with or accept or maybe even to meet? St. John teaches us that God Himself has placed that person before us to make saints of our souls. His Fire singes our hard hearts with His love. We are wounded, but a spark of Love is ignited, turning our self-love to ashes (adapted from Sayings of Light and Love).

The garment of patience is usually scratchy to wear. 

So we may have had strong reactions in trying to live that teaching from St. John. This self-knowledge causes us to confront our impatience or intolerance and a disquiet begins in our souls. The Living Flame is at work. Sometimes we may wonder if there is anyone who will describe for us what that transformation into Love feels like. We turn to the price paid by St. Therese of Lisieux.

In "Story of a Soul", we read:

"For a long time my place at meditation was near a sister who fidgeted continually, either with her rosary, or something else....I cannot tell you how much it tried me. I should have liked to turn around, and by looking at the offender, make her stop the noise; but in my heart I knew that I ought to bear it tranquilly, both for the love of God and to avoid giving pain. So, I kept quiet, but the effort cost me so much that sometimes I was bathed in perspiration, and my meditation consisted merely in suffering with patience."

 

"THE FIRE THAT PURIFIES IS AN INTELLIGENT FIRE. IT REGULATES THE VIOLENCE OF ITS FLAME ACCORDING TO EFFECT IT WANTS TO PRODUCE." (Pere Marie Eugene)

              

It is the desire of God to make us His equal. This is the effect the Living Flame wants to produce in us. 

And so we approach Holy Week. The Fire of the Flame may wound more fiercely this week as our features are being transformed into the beautiful Countenance of the Suffering Savior. 

We seek the wisdom of the woman who was known to levitate during prayer, was transfixed in visions, who experienced ecstasy during Transverberation, yet with deep humility, she laid all of her life struggles and mystical events before all of us for the rest of time to criticize or to emulate. She is sometimes known as Teresa of Avila. She is always known as Teresa of Jesus. Madre. 

We learn that the Loving Flame of purification uses distractions and dryness in prayer to enlighten our soul. When St. Teresa was pestered by distractions during prayer, which tormented her most especially during Holy Week, she teaches us that "... the fruits of the Passion and Death of Christ cannot penetrate deeply within a soul unless the soul shares in His redemptive suffering and death." 

The sufferings that we endure as we abandon ourselves to God deepen our self-knowledge and establish us in humility. By offering ourselves to Him without ceasing, with all of our sins as a continuing challenge to Divine Mercy, our soul breathes Love in and yearns for it, still further. His Love is reciprocated...we give ourselves to Him more deeply in Holy Week. He pours Himself lavishly into our souls, without limit, always.

In our trials and purifications, St. Teresa tells us that:

"it is the Lord's will to give us these tortures ...in order to test His lovers and to discover if they can drink of the chalice and help Him to bear the Cross before He trusts them with His greatest treasures".  

                     HE DESIRES TO MAKE US HIS EQUAL. 

                     HE HIMSELF IS "HIS GREATEST TREASURE".

And so, we set our faces like flint and head into Holy Week to join the Master on Good Friday and enter His Glory with Him: 

“For the Lord God helps me, therefore, I am not disgraced; therefore, I have set my face like flint, and I know that I shall not be ashamed.” (Isaiah 50: 7)

LAETARE REJOICE

                            "LAETARE"         "REJOICE"

St. Therese of the Child Jesus and the Holy Face was responding to one of God's children who had written to reveal to her all of his failures, all that he had done poorly in his own efforts to love God. Therese responds to him... and to us.....Look instead, not at what we have been doing but at what God has been doing during our Lenten journeying into Him. 

Her advice must cause us pause. 

We remember our heartfelt promises on Ash Wednesday.

Perhaps we are remembering our effort when on Ash Wednesday, we promised to keep a disciplined prayer time. Perhaps we are deeply discouraged if we have not kept our promise and are faced with the shallowness of our fidelity to Him. 

What has God been doing? In our seeming failure to our promise of prayer, Spirit Lord has been teaching us that He is the One Who graciously inspires and empowers and moves our soul, not just in our power to pray but in our very desire to pray.

What has God been doing? God has been giving us an astonishing grace...  poverty of spirit.

"Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the Kingdom of Heaven" (Mt 5).

Where the gift is, so too is the Giver.
           
                   LAETARE.. "Rejoice, highly favoured one, the Lord is with you" (Lk 1:28).

"The remembrance of my faults humbles me, draws me never to depend on my strength which is only weakness, but this remembrance speaks to me of mercy and love even more" (Letters of Therese of Lisieux).

                LAETARE...."Rejoice in the Lord always. I will say it again: Rejoice!" (Phil 4:4).

God does not shower His merciful love by measure. His is a tsunami of love and tenderness and mercy that He does not calculate. It is a love that is "supremely free and unmerited, yet it is also particular, and personal" and His Gaze penetrates a soul which desires not to ever resist His grace. This is "the humility of love, and it is the nature of love to humble itself." God, Lord, Love, Humility, accommodates Himself "according to our individual nature and our circumstances."

               LAETARE....."Rejoice always, pray continually, give thanks in all circumstances; for this is God's will for you in Christ Jesus" (1 Thessalonians 5:16-18).

Perhaps we have been blinded during this Lenten time by distractions that won't be silenced; or spiritual pride that justifies our judgement of others; or burdened by circumstances that cause us to wonder if God has abandoned us; or feeling that He must be displeased with us. St. Therese teaches us something that only Love could have revealed to her as a result of her own dark night of profound physical, spiritual and emotional suffering which God permitted her to endure all at the same time: "Rest assured, he (the Lord) has all the perfections that one could desire, but, if I may say so, he has one great weakness: he is blind! And there is one branch of knowledge that he is ignorant of --- mathematics. If he were able to see clearly and keep proper accounts, the sights of our sins would make him annihilate us. But no! His love for us makes him positively blind!"

This Laetare Sunday, perhaps we may stand in awe as we witness that astonishing moment in John 9:1-41 when Jesus Lord causes the blind man to see. Our Savior is making clear exactly what He means when He proclaims His Kingdom that "the blind see, the lame walk, those with leprosy are cured, the deaf hear, the dead are raised to life, and the Good News is being preached to the poor" (Luke 7:22).

We stand, blinded to His Presence in our Lenten purification, and like the blind man, our seeking and directionless and frantic arms are outstretched, our groping fingers are trying to touch Him. If our spiritual eyes were opened, we would be staring into His own, filled with loving compassion because He has never not been Present to us.

 LAETARE....Rejoice....."The Lord your God is with you, the Mighty Warrior Who saves.
                                         He will take great delight in you; in His love He will no longer

                                        rebuke you, but will rejoice over you with singing" (Zeph. 3:17).

And so, we can stand alongside our Beloved Mother, Mary. She will grasp our stiff fingers, pull our directionless arms high above our heads, bowed in sorrowful repentance, and she will invite us to join her in singing her own glorious song of rejoicing:

"MY SOUL PROCLAIMS THE GREATNESS OF THE LORD AND MY SPIRIT REJOICES IN GOD MY SAVIOUR, FOR HE HAS LOOKED WITH FAVOUR ON MY LOWLINESS."

We become one of those generations who will call her blessed. And we will give God, Father, Son, Spirit deep delight.

              LAETARE           REJOICE.


--

Anna Rae-Kelly OCDS

www.annaprae.com