Advent

  ADVENT : THE SAVIOR PREPARES TO COME. THE WORLD PREPARES TO RECEIVE HIM.     

"I will go and tell the world: I will go seek my bride and take upon myself her weariness and labors in which she suffers so; and that she may have life, I will die for her, and lifting her out of that deep, I will restore her to you”        

                                       "...the Lover becomes like the one he loves"      

 "....for He would make himself wholly like them, and He would come to them and dwell with them; and God would be man and man would be God, and He would walk with them and eat and drink with them; and He himself would be with them continually until the consummation of this world" (St John of the Cross).

"IN THE BEGINNING WAS THE WORD, AND THE WORD WAS WITH GOD, AND THE WORD WAS GOD.” (John 1:1)

AND MARY ANSWERED,

"BEHOLD! I AM THE DOULY (BOND-SLAVE) OF THE LORD. LET IT BE DONE UNTO ME ACCORDING TO YOUR WORD." (Luke1:38)

“AND THE WORD WAS MADE FLESH AND DWELT AMONG US." (John 1:14)

We journey together again through Advent. The greatest love story of all time is being re-told. A mystical door is opening from Heaven to inflame earth in the "burning Furnace of Love" that is God's passionate Love affair with His people. He is madly in love with our soul and His love is revealed in and through "The Word." 

We search and dig and pray to try to hear and understand what this "Word" is saying to us. His language is sometimes beyond us because we are finite. He is Infinite. He is totally Other. We are totally dependent on Him.  

                                             "When God loves us, He is loving Himself in us."

Inherent in these words is a staggering truth... that if God loves Himself in us, then He must be Present within us. 

                                   

                                      How to fathom such a profound and eternal meaning?

In Sacred Scripture, The Word speaks, so we go there to "sit at His feet" to hear His Voice. 

                                   

And to hear Our Father's response.

Jesus, The Word, spoke in the darkness of the stable of His Birth. We sit at the mouth of that cave and we look inside. We see His Poverty. In this, we hear Him inviting us to let go of attachments that make our hands stick to things that can do damage to our souls. "Attachments can be dangerous because they prevent us from relying on faith. And they can ultimately make us prey to the devil. Detachment is non-possessiveness and opens a soul-space for God to fill it with poverty of spirit."

Like Mary, the Douly of the Lord, we say our own YES to that gift of poverty.

And the Father sees His Son's Poverty growing within us. God the Father is seeing and loving in us something of what He saw and loved in His Son. As He gazes on us, we hear His delight with our small gift and He proclaims to all the hosts of Heaven: 

                  "BEHOLD! MY BELOVED... IN WHOM I AM WELL PLEASED." (Mt 3 :17)

                    

During His life on earth, we see Jesus, Savior, Son, as Humility enfleshed. He is the Doulos, the Bondslave of God. Everything He said and did and had, came from His Father. In Matthew 3:6, John is baptising many in the waters of the Jordan. To be submerged in the waters was an external marker for an interior confession of sin and a desire to repent. Jesus, Son of God, Redeemer before time began, approaches John to ask to be baptised. In that moment, He, the Innocent One, not only aligned Himself with my sins, He was expressing ownership of them. For all of us. In full view of the great number of sinners waiting to confess and to repent, He, the Christ, waited in line and was submerged in our place. 

And when the Savior came out from the waters, the Voice of God was heard:

                       "BEHOLD! THIS IS MY BELOVED... IN WHOM I AM WELL PLEASED."

When we wait in line to confess our sins and our spiritual pride tempts us with a hundred reasons to abandon such a place of humiliations, we may be given the grace to attend to another whisper: God can use even my sins for the salvation of my soul. But more, much more, we can offer our humiliation to God for the soul of another, one who never prays and who will not do penance, to be brought back to God through my offering. 

 And at the words of absolution, the Father sees more of His Son in us and we hear His delight:

                                 

                       "BEHOLD! MY BELOVED... IN WHOM I AM WELL PLEASED." 

It was a shocking and terrifying and electric moment when Jesus, Lord raised his friend Lazarus from the dead. The scorching sun must have blazed on that scene among the caves of tombs. And into that stunned silence, Christ Jesus walked to the entrance of the tomb. Suddenly, He raised His hands and arms high into the air. His head was thrown back and His eyes stared up toward Heaven. And then He gave a great shout that must have rocked the silent crowd. 

"Father, I thank you that you have heard me. I know that you always hear me but I said this for the benefit of the people standing here, that they may believe that you sent me." (John 11:38-44)

Jesus was addressing His Father and His Voice was filled with holy joy.

In deeply challenging circumstances, when even friends don't fully stand by us, when all that should be just isn't, do we ever throw our hands and arms high in the air and shout a great shout of utter holy joy in the midst of our storm: Father, Thank you. I know that you always hear me?

And the Father's Gaze sees the faith and holy joy of His Son alive in our soul, and He replies:

                                        

                          "BEHOLD! MY BELOVED... IN WHOM I AM WELL PLEASED." 

Our fallen human nature is being pursued by Love in every passage and event in Sacred Scripture. The Word is speaking Himself into life in, through and with us. Christ is the Father's "entire Locution and Response, given to us as Master, Brother, Companion, Ransom, Reward." (St John of the Cross)

This is never more miraculous and powerful and uncontained than at that moment when we leave our seats to walk forward to the Altar where the Unbloodied Sacrifice has been offered to the Father at the hands of the priest. On our way up the aisle, we offer ourselves: all that we were, all that we are, all that we have, all that we will be.  

                                

We receive the Word made Flesh, Body, Blood, Soul and Divinity.

To give Himself to us, the Son had to be totally annihilated so that we can be totally filled with God. The Breath of the Father, through the Spirit, breathes in the Son, now actually and Physically Present on our tongue or in our hand. We are breathing the Breath that empowers us to communicate with God and the Hearts of the Trinity are now beating in our own. 

           

AS HE GAZES ON AND IN US, THE FATHER CAN NOW PROCLAIM IN FULLNESS TO ALL OF HEAVEN:

                              "BEHOLD! MY BELOVED... IN WHOM I AM WELL PLEASED." 

                                                      And the Word speaks into our depths...

                                                   "DON'T CLING TO ME... GO AND TELL" (John 20:17).

“WHEN GOD LOVES US HE IS LOVING HIMSELF IN US. HE THUS MAKES US HIS EQUAL" (St. John of the Cross).

Feast of the Immaculate Conception

MAY WE REFLECT TOGETHER ONCE MORE ON THE "KECHARITOMENE" (LUKE 1:28), THE ONE WHO IS FULL OF GRACE, THE ONE IN WHOM GOD'S ACTION OF LOVE WAS COMPLETED YET WHICH STILL GOES ON....

                     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. FROM BEFORE TIME BEGAN, AT HER CONCEPTION, AT THE ANGELIC PROCLAMATION, AT THE FOOT OF THE CROSS, AT HER SON'S RESURRECTION, AND ON UNTIL TIME IS NO MORE, MARY ALWAYS WAS, IS AND ALWAYS WILL BE, FOR ALL ETERNITY, FILLED WITH GOD'S GRACE. 

"KECHARITOMENE" ... FULL OF GRACE ... 

                  IMMACULATE.

CLOSING MESSAGE - LAY FAST FOR PRIESTS 2024

 

"LET US SAVE, ABOVE ALL, THE SOULS OF PRIESTS.

WE PRAY , WE SUFFER FOR THEM.

AND ON THE LAST DAY, JESUS WILL BE GRATEFUL."

        (Saint Therese of the Child Jesus and the Holy Face, Patroness of the Lay Fast For Priests)                

Under that direction of our Saint Therese, we further learn from another greatly loved Saint, John Paul II:

                                  How can we "pray and suffer" for other?

                                                    He guides us....

                                    "PRAYER UNITED WITH SACRIFICE
                    IS THE MOST POWERFUL FORCE IN HUMAN HISTORY."

Our "prayer" and our "suffering" have met today in our nineteenth Lay Fast for Priests and our Global Sacrifice has been a "most powerful force,"  raised by millions all across the world for God's Ipse Christus. 

Today, the Spirit of God, "hovering" (Gen. 1) over the face of the earth has breathed His Love into souls from across the Globe. People from 186 countries have in turn breathed His love out into a prayer for all priests, all who were, who are and who are yet to be ordained.

In every one of these countries, 93% of the entire world,  millions of souls have raised sacrificial 

prayer to God for priests who forgive us in Jesus' Name; who consecrate the Bread and Wine and give us Christ Himself in the Most Holy Eucharist; priests whose hands anoint us when we are at last called Home and whose voice will walk us into Eternity.

In one of the poorest countries in Africa, an entire village fasted from food and water today for all priests. 

We join those beloved children of God in the prayer of St Therese :

"O Jesus, for the priest who baptised me;

the priests who have absolved me from my sins;

the priests at whose Masses I have assisted and

who have given me Your Body and Blood in Holy Communion".

This day, a grandmother, her daughter and son-in-law , four sons and grandsons fasted in their country where, yesterday, priests were dragged from Altars and those who were attending Mass were made to leave the Churches at gunpoint. 

We pray with St Therese :

"O Jesus, for your priests labouring at home or abroad in distant mission fields;

for your tempted priests; for your lonely and desolate priests..."

With that grandmother, all of us prayed and suffered for those priests this day.

The Bishop who invited his entire Diocese to fast with us today...

"O Jesus, I pray for your faithful and fervent priests...

keep them all close to your heart and bless them abundantly

in time and in eternity." (St Therese)

We fasted for all of them this day. 

Therese teaches us that "Love, because it is Eternal, embraces every time and space."

We can therefore raise our prayer and sacrifice for all priests, those who live today, those who were, those who are yet to be.

In a country where poverty and corruption are life-threatening, a mother joined the Fast but she alone in the family could fast for priests "because the children need the food". This is a country where two priests were murdered yesterday.

"O Jesus, for your young priests; for your dying priests;

for the souls of your priests in Purgatory."

 We suffered in our Fast for all of them this day.

For the quiet priests who live and give and are faith-filled and suffer and pray and are obedient and offer sacrifice in an anonymity that resembles the mysticism  of the ordinariness of the 30 years of their High Priest in Nazareth. 

THE WORLD OF FAST-ERS PRAYED AND SUFFERED FOR YOU THIS DAY. 

We conclude our prayer and suffering for all priests in union with St Therese as she prays: :

“O Almighty Eternal God, Look upon the Face of Thy Christ, and for the love of Him,

Who is the Eternal High Priest, have pity on Thy priests.

Remember, O most compassionate God, that they are but weak and frail human beings.

Stir up in them the grace of their vocation which is in them

by the imposition of the Bishop’s hands.

Keep them close to Thee, lest the enemy prevail against them,

so that they may never do anything in the slightest degree

unworthy of their sublime vocation..."

WILL YOU PRAY FOR GOD'S IPSE CHRISTUS AGAIN AS ONE BODY IN HIM FOR THE 20TH GLOBAL LAY FAST FOR PRIESTS ON THE 18th OF OCTOBER, 2025?

May it please our loving God that we will all unite again to pray and suffer together for all priests, for their protection, their faith, their hope, and above all, for their love. 

"THE PRIESTHOOD IS THE LOVE OF THE HEART OF JESUS.

WHEN YOU SEE A PRIEST, THINK OF OUR LORD JESUS CHRIST."

(St John Vianney, patron Saint of Priests)

 IN CHRIST'S LOVING HEART,

Anna Rae-Kelly OCDS

WHY WE PRAY AND FAST FOR PRIESTS

  “O Jesus, eternal Priest,
keep your priests within the shelter of Your Sacred Heart,
where none may touch them.
Keep unstained their anointed hands,
which daily touch Your Sacred Body.
Keep unsullied their lips,
daily purpled with your Precious Blood.
Keep pure and unearthly their hearts,
sealed with the sublime mark of the priesthood.
Let Your holy love surround them and
shield them from the world’s contagion.
Bless their labors with abundant fruit and
may the souls to whom they minister be their joy and consolation here
and in heaven their beautiful and
everlasting crown.”

 (St. Therese of the Child Jesus and the Holy Face)

 

TO FAST AND PRAY FOR PRIESTS.

We pray and fast for the priest who baptizes our soul.

Hidden in our priest is the Holy One Who waits and yearns to be revealed in the humility and innocence of a child. The powerlessness of this little child is absolute when they are lowered into the Baptismal Font.

And Spirit Lord, unseen, unheard, obeys the voice of our priest and rushes into the soul of that little one. In the Name of Father, Son and Spirit, justifying and sanctifying grace floods that soul and their life in the Spirit of God has begun, sealed with the mark of Christ.

We pray with St Therese ...

"Keep pure and unearthly the heart (... of a loving, humble priest),

sealed with the sublime mark of the priesthood."

We wait in line to be forgiven in the Sacrament of Confession / Reconciliation.

Sitting beside us, we see our Savior, waiting with us.

In His Image, our priest sits, kneels beside us, weeps with us in deep compassion 

in this Sacrament of spiritual healing and graces to defeat our sins.

As the embodiment of the One Whose Name is Humility,

our priest's demeanor, tone, gentleness,compassion speak to us.

Through holy listening, Spirit Lord empowers us 

to hear our priest tell our wounded soul that 

the Confessional is a Sacred Space where our soul is safe ...

and in His Name, our priest absolves us from our sins.

"Go! I forgive you. Borrow My strength. Sin no more."

And with St Therese, we pray for our priest....

"Bless their labors with abundant fruit and may the souls to whom they minister be their joy and consolation here, and in heaven, their beautiful and everlasting crown."

 We fast and pray for the priest whose voice God obeys at the Consecration of the Mass.

"THIS IS MY BODY. THIS IS MY BLOOD."

PRIEST. IPSE CHRISTUS.

At the command of the priest,

the bread and wine are transubstantiated

into the Body, Blood, Soul and Divinity of the Savior.

Our Savior, in His Divine Silence, in His Glory, in His Strength,

before Whom angels are prostrating themselves,

is placed on our tongues, our outstretched hands.

His powerlessness is total again. As it was on the Cross.

He enslaves Himself again to our love,

whether our love for Him is little or much.

And He gives us His Father, His Spirit, His Mother, His All.

THROUGH HIS PRIEST.

"Keep unstained their anointed hands,

which daily touch Your Sacred Body.

Keep unsullied their lips,

daily purpled with your Precious Blood.

Keep pure and unearthly their hearts,

sealed with the sublime mark of the priesthood.

Let Your holy love surround them and

shield them from the world’s contagion."

Jesus, High Eternal Priest, shares His earthly life with our priest

who is ordained

to be in His likeness.

His priests, His "other selves", will live and die like Him, for us.

 Our priest will be tempted (Matthew 4:1-11); 

he will be vulnerable (John 13:1-17);

he will be filled with anguish (Matthew 26:36-46);

his parishioners will desert him (John 6: 53-66);

his friends will reject him (Luke 22:57);

he will endure embarrassment and humiliations and suffering of soul and body

(Matthew 26 -27, Mark 14-15, Luke 22-23, John 12-19).

 This is why we pray and fast for our priests.

"O Jesus, High Eternal Priest,

keep your priests within the shelter of Your Sacred Heart,

where none may touch them ... let your holy love surround them."

(St Therese of the Child Jesus and the Holy Face,

Patroness of the annual Lay Fast for Priests)

The 19th, annual LAY FAST FOR PRIESTS will take place on

Saturday, 19 October 2024

from Dawn until 3 PM.

To join the global army of fasters, please sign up at:

http://www.annaprae.com/lay-fast-for-priests-2024.html

ON HER FEAST DAY (OCTOBER 1) … A GLIMPSE INTO THERESE'S CARMEL

A GLIMPSE OF CARMEL THROUGH THE EYES OF ST. THERESE 

When we first meet and read the inspired and inspiring words of St Teresa of Jesus, the Madre of St Therese of the Child Jesus and the Holy Face, our soul may be deeply moved with profound gratitude to God for this astonishing woman.  In her teachings, Teresa of Avila presents to us a radical understanding of friendship with God which does not distinguish the struggling yearning for holiness of a lay person from that of the great saints or the holiness of clergy and religious. St Teresa of Jesus, Doctor of the Church,  can, in turn,  become our own greatly loved Madre. Through prayer and following her teachings,  her astonishing mission can become our own : to try to proclaim to everyone we meet, in our words or in our actions, in our families , in our Church community and beyond, wherever we live or work, that Jesus Lord, God, Blessed Redeemer, longs for friendship with all.

                                                             We are one of His all.
 
                                              This is a glimpse of little Therese's Carmel.
 
Throughout our lives, we may have been spiritually challenged. These are the formation trials which are essential to growth on our spiritual journey. Perhaps during our years of trials, we have met and been taught by one of Carmel's true daughters, St Therese of the Child Jesus and the Holy Face, Doctor of Love. Our beloved Therese helps us as we stumble through the brambles and thorns of our ego on this Way of Perfection into the burning love of Christ's Great Heart. She lays out a table for us with a feast of “little ways" where prayer, offered in small sacrifices, hidden from the eyes of everyone but God's alone, can snatch souls for Christ Jesus Who "thirsts" for every one of them. This mission was Therese's vocation and passion in Carmel. It may become our own mission in most personal ways. A deeply loved family member who has lost their way is one for whom the Savior thirsts. 

With Therese as our spiritual director, she will reveal to us the power of her little way : to touch the heart of that loved one. In our deep sorrow and loving concern for that family member who has long since abandoned God, we may plead with them; try to convince them of the God's Presence throughout their years; in our love for them we may even argue with them. Yet, we seem to fail.

St Therese teaches us that “... strength lies in prayer and sacrifice; they are invincible weapons, and touch hearts more surely than words can do, as I have learned by experience.”

Our own words do not touch their heart. In humility we finally turn to our Savior. Through fasting and prayer, Therese’s "invincible weapons" begin to present themselves . We suddenly find that multiple suggestions of “little ways” of self-sacrifice and opportunities to offer hidden prayer for his/her soul are gradually  laid before us.

"The Creator of the universe awaits the prayer of one poor little person to save a multitude of
others, redeemed like her at the price of His Blood."

Spirit Lord graciously permits us to be one of those "poor little" ones to offer unseen sacrifices to pray that soul, and many more souls, into Heaven. We will meet them in their glorified state in Christ when we die. And their gratitude will be eternal. 

Winning souls for Christ Jesus Whose Heart thirsts and burns with love for each of God’s
children; hidden, sacrificial prayer and acts offered in "little ways" with great love.

                                         LOVE: one of the Carmelite principles. 

                                      This is a glimpse of little Therese's Carmel.

When we are struggling in the darknesses of desolation, one of God's treasured gifts to us, St Therese encourages us with this thought ...

"I know that He is better pleased to see you stumbling in the night upon a stony road, than walking in full light of day upon a path carpeted with flowers, because these flowers might hinder your advance."
 
Our disordered senses are some of those "flowers"; and they are being purified in the darknesses of desolation.

In those darkest of nights of purification, when nothing makes spiritual sense and everything  that should be just isn't, we may feel as though we have nothing to give to God. In those times of our soul's de-formation when our poorly formed spirituality is being re-formed into His Likeness, Little Therese moves quietly into our thoughts when she tells us what she did at such times …

"... when I have nothing to give Him, I give Him my nothing."

                         Perhaps we echo her words. 

                                   Very often.

And when we do,  our soul is quieted, our hope is strengthened, and we embrace our "nothing" in deep humility.

                                 HUMILITY: a second Carmelite principle.
 
                                  This is a glimpse of little Therese's Carmel. 
 
               St Teresa, St Therese, are among legions of the children of Our Lady, Queen of Carmel.
 
Mary, the Mother of Jesus and our own Blessed Mother, ever possessed by the Holy Spirit, the Pre-Redeemed one, the perfect model of loving, intimate union with God, the one filled with grace, the one whose self-emptiness was filled with God, the one who is mighty in her powerlessness, the Model of all saints, the one who was more perfect than her prayer, illumined and enflamed as she was with the Divine Fire.

                                              She is Mother in little Therese's Carmel. 

                           And our Mother taught her daughter that third Carmelite principle:

                                                              DETACHMENT.

In the depths of her gift of detachment, Therese was inspired to cry: 

"In the evening of life, I shall come before You with empty hands, for I am not asking You, Lord, to count my works."

Love filled her with Himself. 

Teresa of Jesus taught Therese and teaches us how Mary's true joy lies in having listened to God, keeping His Word in her heart, meditating on it, and faithfully putting it into practice. Mary is the Woman made Prayer. 

                      This is a glimpse into little Therese's love of her Mother and Queen of Carmel.

Our Little Flower, Therese of the Child Jesus and the Holy Face, gave us that most profound self-abandoning tool ...THE LITTLE WAY. Yet, she beautifully directs our thoughts away from herself and invites us to give love and honor to Our Blessed Mother  when she describes Our Lady as "the Embodiment of the Little Way".

When we abandon ourselves in little ways of self-sacrifice to plead for the soul of another, our Beloved Mother, being entirely our Mother, our Immaculata, takes our pleading and makes it her own property: her complete and exclusive property. Our prayer is now her own, now offered without stain, immaculate, like herself. And her Sacred Spouse, Spirit Lord, enfolds her, and all that she owns, in His burning Love. Our petitions, now her petitions, are swaddled within the Divine Three. 

                                         THIS IS A GLIMPSE INTO THERESE'S CARMEL.

                                                                        AND OURS.

ON THE FEAST OF OUR LADY OF MOUNT CARMEL

                           THE FEAST OF OUR LADY OF MOUNT CARMEL,  JULY 16

         " You who came to smile at me

in the morning of my life,

Come smile at me again… Mother….

It's evening now!…"

(Poem 54, Stanza 25, "Why I Love You, O Mary!", 

Saint Therese of the Child Jesus and the Holy Face)

Who is this Queen, this Mother? Saint Brandsma (OCD) once described OUR WORLD WITHOUT HER AS:

                                               " A breeze without air,

                                              A rainbow without color,

                                               A heart without a beat....

                                     Such would be Carmel without Mary".

For Pere Marie-Eugene, OCD, Mary and Spirit Lord were his whole life, filling his being. With brilliant rays shining in her and through her and for her children, Mary keeps watch in the darkness: the darkness being endured by her spiritual children. She is our shining Star in the darkest of our nights. For Pere Marie and for St Therese and for St Brandsma, Mary is nothing but MOTHER, entirely MOTHER. Mary is our Mother, entirely our Mother, loving us discreetly, silently, working especially when our soul is engulfed in darkness and weariness. 

                                                   MARY MAKES OUR SOUL BEAR FRUIT.

                                                            THE FRUIT IS HER SON.

                                            "BLESSED IS THE FRUIT OF YOUR WOMB: JESUS"

This is why St John of the Cross named Our Lady as "the Mother of Life".

Our deeply loved St Teresa of Jesus rushes to join in the accolades that proclaim the beauty of our Beloved Mother, the one filled with grace, the Woman-made-prayer, the Pre-Redeemed one who is more perfect than her prayer, the one who gave a human Body to the One Whose Name is Humility:

"There is no Lady who makes Him yield as well as Humility; it brought Him from Heaven in the womb of the virgin and with it WE will bring Him ....to our soul" (The Way of Perfection).

                                     MARY IS THE ONE MOST CONFORMED TO JESUS CHRIST.

She can't but turn to us when in our great need we implore her: 

REMEMBER, MOST GRACIOUS VIRGIN MARY, THAT NEVER WAS IT KNOWN, THAT ANYONE, WHO FLED TO THY PROTECTION, IMPLORED THY HELP, OR SOUGHT THY INTERCESSION, WAS LEFT UNAIDED. 

And our Beloved Mother, being entirely our Mother, our Immaculata, takes our pleading and makes it her own property, her complete and exclusive property and offers it to Jesus as her own pleading . Our petition is now her own, now offered without stain, immaculate, like herself. AND JESUS OFFERS IT TO THE FATHER.

As we approach the Feast of Our Lady of Mount Carmel, we name our petition, our deep need, our soul's desire and we give it to her to make her own.

St Therese of the Child Jesus and the Holy Face will lead our thoughts and prayers and meditations as she guides us through each day, beginning July 8 in THE NOVENA TO OUR MOTHER, OUR LADY OF MOUNT CARMEL.

                             https://carmelitequotes.blog/2023/07/07/olmcnovena-intro/

He is Risen! Alleluia!