MARY BRINGS GOD INTO A HOME

MARY BRINGS GOD INTO A HOME.

                                                               IT IS CHRISTMAS. 

                                           THE WEDDING OF GOD AND FLESH.

 THE MAGNITUDE OF THE ANNUNCIATION UNFOLDS INTO THE NATIVITY OF THE LORD                    THE OBJECT OF HIS COMING IS THE GREAT AFFAIR OF OUR SALVATION.

                                     

HIS SACRED BEING HOLDS THE REASON FOR THE SEASON: ALL SEASONS: SPANNING ALL  AGES.

WE REMEMBER :

              "The Angel of the Lord declared unto Mary, and she conceived of the Holy Spirit" (Luke 1:26 - 38).

                  

                                                                Mary said YES.

                Human flesh became God's dwelling place: God's chosen home on earth.

                 And Mary is ordained by God to bring Him into every home of every age. 

    

                                   When Mary brings God into each "home" in the Gospel, 

                                        we may reflect on the welcome that awaits Him.

                           

We walk alongside her on the dusty roads as she travels "in haste" to the "hill country" carrying the Child within her. We maybe contemplate her silent, gentle, contemplative facial expression. 

                                     

                                   Her journey to the "hill country", on foot, takes about 3 days.   

                                                        She is carrying our Lord, God. 

When she finally arrives in Judea, she enters the house of Zachariah and Elizabeth, a home where the word of God was disbelieved and where a lifetime of sorrow overshadowed an aged barren woman. 

                                                            Mary brought God into that home. 

              And the Lord God, dwelling in Mary's womb, re-forms a doubting soul, fills another with the Holy Spirit Who empowers a new life to recognize the Presence of God in Mary's womb and that new life leaps for joy (Luke 1 :41-42).

                                                 

                                                   A SOUL THAT DOUBTS IS RE-FORMED.

                                  A SOUL THAT LOOKS BEYOND WHAT THE HUMAN EYES SEE,

                                      A SOUL THAT RECOGNIZES GOD'S HIDDEN PRESENCE.

                                                                A SOUL THAT LEAPS FOR JOY.

                                                              . 

                                                              Mary brings God into a home ...

              

                                                             THE HOME OF THE SOUL.

"This is what the Lord says: Are you the one to build me a home to dwell in?" (2 Samuel 7:5)

             

--

Anna Rae-Kelly OCDS
www.annaprae.com

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

LAY FAST FOR PRIESTS 2025 - CLOSING REMARKS

The United Nations tells us that there are 195 countries in the world. In this 20th year of our Lay Fast for Priests, Catholics, in numbers that can't be counted, from every one of these countries have participated in this year's Lay Fast for all priests, those who were, those who are, those who are yet to be ordained. 

We have prayed for all priests of all times because St. Therese of the Child Jesus and the Holy Face teaches us that through, with and in Christ Jesus, loving prayer soars beyond space and time.

When the sun rose over New Zealand yesterday, October 18, the first prayerful sacrifices were raised to Heaven for the souls of all priests. When it finally set over American Samoa , millions of people had united in our prayerful, hidden Fast for priests who were, who are now, and who are yet to be ordained. St. Therese, Patroness of the Lay Fast for Priests, had led us all, silently and prayerfully, in our hidden fast for these, Alter Christus, and Therese's mission to protect their souls was rekindled by Spirit Lord in every one of us. We fasted from food, talking, internet, social media, unnecessary travel, and many more gifts of small sacrifices, parceled up in our prayer. Yesterday, we may have embraced our frustrations with joy ... and Spirit Lord may have blessed a priest with an abundance of patience in confronting a spiritual challenge; we may have been tormented by doubts about our faith and endured a glimpse of "dark night" in our souls ... and Spirit Lord may have blessed a priest in doubt, gracing him with God's Light; we may have experienced strong physical hunger, unexpected in its intensity, if we fasted from food ... and through our small act of mortification, Spirit Lord may have protected a priest's soul from any "food" that could endanger his relationship with God.

Every hidden sacrifice and small act of self-denial that we may have endured in loving prayer for priests has been transformed by Spirit Lord into powerful intercessory prayer to protect their souls. Yet, all the while, in His great love and generosity, God doesn't forget us, His 'Fast-ers'.

St. Ignatius of Loyola reminds us: "God will not be outdone in generosity". And the generosity and love of God, grateful for the sacrifices we've offered Him for Alter Christus, touches all of our dear ones from years gone by, all who are facing challenges today in their lives, and all of our little ones held lovingly in the Mind of God until it is their time to be born. Love soars beyond space and time.

"Truly I tell you, whatever you did for one of the least of my brothers, that, you do unto me (Matthew 25: 40).

There are hundreds of thousands of testimonies to the power of this year's Global Lay Fast for Priests. Among the millions, there are members of the American Armed Forces, mothers of current or future priests, whole organizations like the Serra Club, the Cenacle for African Priests, Legion of Mary communities, Carmelites world-wide, millions of individual 'Fast-ers', like you and I, and so many many more. We have been deeply humbled by the astonishing bravery of persecuted Catholics all across the globe in countries where our priests have been and are being attacked.

Our hearts may join in the Hymn to Our Lady for all priests, sung so beautifully by a brave group of young students from Nigeria AT THE LINK BELOW (for their safety and protection, we have removed the video of their 3 Pm Closing Prayer Service for Priests. May God surround them and their teachers with His protection because "the angel of the Lord encamps around those who fear him" - Psalm 34:7).

LINK (please press): https://drive.google.com/file/d/17bFfIsZV_0zXpya1wQHn_eY94mVxcU1t/view?usp=drive_link

St. Therese said that she would "let fall a shower of roses" after her death. What has arrived in our website and social media has not been a "shower". We have received nothing less than a magnificent deluge of roses from her. One rose for each person who offered their sacrifice for all priests this year.

May St. Therese's deluge of roses continue to fall on the whole world of Fast-ers on October 17, 2026.

In Carmel, 

In Christ Jesus,

Anna and the Lay Fast for Priests team

LAY FAST FOR PRIESTS 2025 - OPENING REMARKS

This month, twenty years ago, the LAY FAST DAY FOR PRIESTS began in response to a crisis in the priesthood that had shocked and wounded the Faithful.

That first Saturday, a group of just over 200 people from Our Lady's Shrine at La Salette, Massachusetts committed to offer the prayerful sacrifice of a Fast for all priests: those who were, those who are, those who are yet to be ordained.

Saint Therese of the Child Jesus and the Holy Face became our Patroness. Over these 20 years, her powerful intercession has drawn people from across the globe to come together for this one Saturday each October to offer sacrificial prayer for all priests. That small group of 200+ 'Fast-ers' 20 years ago who responded to the Little Flower's invitation have grown into millions and from almost every country in the world.

St. Therese once said: "LET US SAVE, ABOVE ALL, THE SOULS OF PRIESTS. WE PRAY, WE SUFFER FOR THEM. AND ON THE LAST DAY, JESUS WILL BE GRATEFUL."

Under that direction of our St. Therese, we further learn from another greatly loved saint who taught us how to do as St. Therese suggests, to "pray and suffer" for other. St. John Paul II guides us....

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

We offer our "prayer" and our "suffering" in our Fast for Priests and our united Sacrifice will once again, for the 20th year, become a "most powerful force," all across the world for God's priests, His "Ipse Christus". The Spirit of God, "hovering" (Gen. 1) over the face of the earth will breathe His Love into souls from across the Globe and we in turn will breathe His love out into our unitive prayer for all priests, all who were, who are and who are yet to be ordained. Millions of souls will offer 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.

St. Therese has given us many humbling testimonies of the sacrifices of our sisters and brothers in recent years.

We remember how in one of the poorest countries in Africa, an entire village fasted from food and water for all priests. Their sacrifice brings Therese's words to life.... "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."

We remember a grandmother, her daughter and son-in-law, four sons and grandsons who fasted in their country where priests were being 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, perhaps we too may be inspired this year to pray and offer any small sacrifice for those priests on our Fast Day 2025. Is any sacrifice "small"? Our St. Therese reminds us: "Jesus does not look so much at the greatness of our actions, or even at their difficulty, as at the love with which we do them."

We remember the Bishop who invited his entire Diocese to fast ... "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 will offer our fast for all of them this year. 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.

Last year, 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 in the week prior to the Global Lay Fast. "O Jesus, for your young priests, for your dying priests, for the souls of your priests in Purgatory."

We pray and sacrifice in our Fast for all of these and all priests: 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 makes present the mysticism of the ordinariness of the 30 years of their High Priest in Nazareth. 

THE WORLD OF 'FAST-ERS' WILL BE PRAYING AND SACRIFICING FOR YOU ON OCTOBER 18.

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

“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, especially (...name here any particular priest whom you wish to pray and fast for). 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, and bless them abundantly in time, and in eternity."

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 this year, on Saturday October 18th, to pray and sacrifice 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)

"O Jesus, I pray for Your faithful and fervent priests, for Your unfaithful and tepid priests, for Your priests labouring at home or abroad in distant mission fields, for Your tempted priests, for Your lonely and desolate priests, for Your young priests, for Your dying priests, for the souls of Your priests in purgatory. But above all, I recommend to You the priests dearest to me, the priest who baptized me, the priests who absolved me from my sins, the priests at whose Masses I assisted and who gave me Your Body and Blood in Holy Communion, the priests who taught and instructed me, all the priests to whom I am indebted in any other way. O Jesus, keep them all close to Your Heart."

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

All are most welcome to join this global army of fasters at the link below:

https://www.annaprae.com/lay-fast-for-priests-2025.html

THE TRIUMPH OF THE “TRIFLES” OF ST. THERESE

       On the Feast of Saint Therese of the Child Jesus and the Holy Face -

                                           

                                         THE TRIUMPH OF “TRIFLES”

Few of us have met, or live close to a person who levitates during prayer. Few there are among us too whose faculties have been suspended by Spirit Lord and for whom human time is silenced for that soul to experience mystical union with God during those God-ordained moments.

Most of us live and laugh and love and experience sorrow and joy and concerns and hurts in lives that reflect the ordinariness of the 30 years of the days of the Holy Family in Nazareth. But God dwelt in those ordinary days and they were therefore mystical. 

The mysticism of ordinariness. 

October 1 is the Feast Day of St. Therese of the Child Jesus and the Holy Face. We may wonder if St. Therese, like us, lived a mysticism of ordinariness. We look to her own words for answers.

When she received Holy Communion for the first time, Therese reveals to us that a "fusion" of love caused her to write: "Therese had vanished as a drop of water is lost in the immensity of the ocean."

Therese was telling us that she and the Lord had become One.

Later in her life, Therese offered herself as a "victim of holocaust to God's Merciful Love". 

Her own words describe this mystical moment:

    "... all at once I felt myself wounded by a dart of fire so ardent that I thought I must  die. I do not know how to explain it; it was as if an invisible hand had plunged me wholly into fire. Oh, what fire, and what sweetness at the same time! I was burning with love, and I thought one minute, nay, one second more, and I shall not be able to support such ardour without dying.” 

Therese underwent a "spiritual wounding of the heart" or transverberation.

And yet, it was this same Therese who gave all souls, for the rest of time, that pathway to holiness we know as “The Little Way."

This pathway to God is centered on knowing and accepting our own nothingness, totally abandoning ourselves to God's Merciful Love, the way a small child trusts in his parent. In Therese's doctrine of her "little way", she teaches us how to offer small, hidden, daily acts of love, totally surrendering them and abandoning them to God for his glory alone, trusting that He will transform them from our ordinary into His Extraordinary acts of Love.

Therese's mystical experiences suggest that she lived an extraordinary life. And yet, her gift to all of us revealed a call to holiness through "little ways", raised in love in the ordinariness of our days, lives. 

So, we may wonder what "ordinary" looked like for St. Therese.

Many sources, including her own "Story" of her soul and her Letters, reveal to us that she lived a short life filled with anonymity, rejection, humiliations, great emotional sorrows, profound interior spiritual darkness, physical sufferings beyond description.

Such traumas were Therese's experiences of days and years of "ordinary", traumas that would make many of us question if God is present in our sorrows, pain.

It's from her writings that we recognize the Presence of God dwelling within her, guiding and strengthening her, letting her "borrow" His Love, His fortitude, His perseverance, His patience. 

Therese lived with Him, and in Him, and He in her, in the mysticism of her "ordinariness”. 

She teaches us that where God is, "the Uncreated Word" is speaking endlessly. To her, and to us:

          “To live by love is closely to enfold
            The Uncreated Word ---- Voice of my Lord!
            And with Thee, in my heart of hearts, to hold
            The Spirit sending forth His flame adored.
            Thus, loving Thee, the Father too is mine:
            My feeble heart hath drawn Him from above.
            O Trinity, the Prisoner Divine.
            Oh, my poor love."

Therese lived by Love.

Therese helps us to dig and discover how and where God dwells in the mysticism of our ordinariness, how our "feeble heart" draws Him, to willingly become the "Prisoner of Love" in our souls.

And so Therese introduces us to one of her Little Ways of enthralling God, to hold Him in our heart of hearts in our ordinary days, years.

St. Therese writes to us about the power of a "trifle" and we begin to understand its triumph because Therese's "trifles" involve interior self-denial: self-denial of the will and the mind. 

"There are trifles which please Our Lord more than the conquest of the world: a smile or a kindly word, for instance when I feel inclined to say nothing, or appear bored. Believe me, the writing of pious books, the composing of the sublimest poetry, all that does not equal the smallest act of self-denial."

We read of a moment when a novice had promptly answered a knock at the door. We are astonished at Therese's reaction to that novice's prompt action :

"You have done something more glorious, than if, through clever diplomacy, you have procured the goodwill of the government for all religious communities and had been proclaimed throughout France as a second Judith."

We may wonder why Therese applauded this behaviour with such joy. Perhaps because in the ordinariness of our days, fidelity to trifles requires greater heroism than doing great things which bring praise from many. 

Her words help us to understand how these trifles, these small, hidden acts, filled with self-denial and unsought recognition, offered out of pure love for God , may, because they are unseen, offered “… in the dark... may obtain the conversion of the heathen, help the missionaries, and gain for them plentiful alms both spiritual and material  dwellings for our Eucharistic Lord."

Maybe we too name dear ones every day , those whose souls we plead with Spirit Lord to grasp and convert into dwellings for our Eucharistic Lord. And we may be irresistibly drawn by Spirit Lord to pray too for His dear ones, whose names are unknown to us but for whom the Savior "thirsts". (John 19:28)

Our "Trifles", winning souls for God, trifles that triumph because they are filled with self - denial, hidden, enshrouded in humility, anonymously offered in Love, giving all glory to the Father alone. Trifles that make present to others the Voice of Our Lord, The Uncreated Word speaking in the mysticism of our ordinariness.

                     THE TRIUMPH OF THE "TRIFLES" OF LITTLE THERESE.

--

Anna Rae-Kelly OCDS
www.annaprae.com

THE BIRTH OF THE BLESSED VIRGIN MARY (8 September)

"GOD SEEKS MAN IN THE WOMB OF MARY" 

- St. John Paul II

Image Source:  St. Maximilian Kolbe's Perpetual Adoration Chapel in the Niepokalanów Monastery in Poland

APPROACHING AUGUST 9, THE FEAST OF ST. TERESA BENEDICTA OF THE CROSS

                                  THOUGHTS AS WE APPROACH AUGUST 9

       THE FEAST OF ST. TERESA BENEDICTA OF THE CROSS: EDITH STEIN

"This spiration of love is the Holy Spirit himself, who in the Father and the Son breathes out to (the soul) in this transformation in order to unite her to Himself" (St. John of the Cross, Spiritual Canticle 39:3).

How can we understand 'spiration' as a way of transformation and how might we explain it to someone who wishes to grow in love of God and the Christian life?

St. Teresa Benedicta of the Cross (Edith Stein) directs our seekings when she intertwines the concept of the "mystical night" with that of the "cosmic night." She teaches us that both are crucial for the soul's transformative journey into union with Christ through our offerings of our prayer and of our sufferings. When our souls are drawn into these "nights", the "spiration of love....the Holy Spirit Himself" ceaselessly breathes the love of Father and Son into our souls as He de-forms, re-forms and trans-forms our disordered spiritual life .

To understand 'spiration' as a way of transformation necessarily requires a statement concerning the meaning of the word 'spiration' within Catholic theology. This is almost impossible for a lay person to define in a book let alone in a sentence but even a feeble effort is appropriate.

The God of St. John of the Cross is Trinitarian.

God's act of Self-knowing generates the Son. The love of the Father and the Son, proceeding from a single spiration and a single substance results in the spiration of the Holy Spirit, third Person of the Most Holy Trinity (adapted from Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologiae).

Therefore, when the Spirit breathes, the Ruah of Father and Son breathe their single breath of unified love, never not creating, never not transforming, healing, beckoning, drawing all of creation into Self. 

We might liken this endless act of God breathing His life and healing and knowledge of Himself into our souls to a sort of Mouth to mouth spiritual resuscitation, born from within, endlessly breathing Breath of Life into our soul, desiring to lift us in our sinfulness out of spiritual disorder into His own Life. His Breath becomes intermingled in ours, we become one, yet He always leaves our will and our identity as distinct and uniquely our own.

"Through the Spirit, Father and Son breathe out into the soul in order to unite her to Himself" (St. Elizabeth of the Trinity).

And in our union with the Divine Three, Their Desire becomes our desire ... we then long to breathe Him out to other. 

"Spiration is the love of Spirit Lord," God, Ruah, breathing His continuous life-giving Breath into souls and into all of His creation. The Hearts of the Divine Three, Father, Son, breathing through the Holy Spirit, endlessly breathe into and pour Self into Self. The same Breath is breathed into us by the Spirit, the Breath of God. 

We breathe the Breath of God.

Pere Marie Eugene's words silence us unto awe ... "He penetrates us and envelops us. There is not a molecule of our being where He is not; there is no movement of our members nor our faculties that He has not animated."  

Just as Father and Son dialogue through the Spirit, that same Spirit draws us into Their communication teaches us their language, their language of love, total self-giving, goodness pouring itself into other. This awareness in itself is transformative. The humility of the Holy Trinity cannot but cause awe when we pray. 

Our initial attempts to speak the language of the Divine Three may involve a great deal of stuttering. Our spiritual speech impediments can be gradually corrected. When we pray, the Holy Spirit will inspire us to find ways to identify our obstacles to becoming spiritually fluent. We humbly seek His Wisdom. And He begins to reveal to us the multitude of worldly attachments that keep us firmly rooted in self. Spirit Lord blesses us with a desire for detachment. 

This invites us to meditate on how 'spiration' could be a way of transformation for our souls as well as for those whom we meet and who also want to be transformed into love of God.  St Elizabeth of the Trinity desired to be transformed  to resemble Christ. Spirit Lord empowered her to rest in the Heart of the Trinity and this was the means of that transformation for her. 

"The Trinity dwells in my soul in order to transform me into Itself" (St. Elizabeth, Letter 185).

These are uplifting and encouraging and inspiring words for our soul and for us to share with others. Our Saint is telling  us that it is the desire of the Trinity to transform our souls into Itself.  When we pray about what means of transformation Spirit Lord may give us to begin to resemble the Savior, we can pray and beseech the Holy Spirit to breathe a profound desire in our soul for detachment from my self, to make a spacious place in our soul for the Trinity to enter, make a home in us, let us put His Name on our mailbox, give Him our house keys. And lovingly invite anyone who seeks Him to find Him in us and in everything we used to own that now belongs to Him.

As He breathes this gift ever more deeply into our soul, He empowers our own journey into transformation in Christ and to share this knowledge with other. On our soul's journey of descent into transformation, empowered by Spirit Lord, He never "imposes Himself from without" but rather, this transformation begins in and affects the interior of our soul alone. 

In "Science of the Cross", Edith Stein describes painful experiences which will arise when the soul is being purified by God as He draws us ever closer to Himself. When we offer Him our will, the war against self rages. With His grace, we battle my fallen nature. With every new call to deeper surrender to His Will, we experience  " loneliness, desolation and emptiness ... ( a cessation of ) ... my faculties, ...(fear) ...by threatening horrors." This is "mystical night" in the soul. The "nocturnal light"  that pierces this darkness is God's Presence, a distant Beacon that never flickers but that endlessly lights the way. 

The "cosmic night" described by St. Teresa Benedicta involves that other force which opposes the surrender of our soul and our desire for union of our will to God. This is the  spirit of the world, coordinated and strategized by Satan, warring against all that seeks God. Spirit Lord blesses us with the same "nocturnal light" and illumines the outer world where horrors are concealed but which assault the soul. His grace makes clear their presence and their motive. The spirit of the world has no power against us except the power given to it by God, therefore, every painful  and frightening life-circumstances which seeks to damage the soul has already been measured to our faith by God. 

We endlessly pray the words of St. Therese of the Child Jesus and the Holy Face:

"Your lot indeed is a beautiful one, since Our Lord has chosen it for you, and has first touched with His own Lips the cup He holds out to yours."

Through the gifts of the Spirit, our soul and our prayer offerings are enriched in mystical understandings which reveal to us how this "outer world is given back to us entirely transformed." When the soul suffers the pains of its own sins, we can offer to willingly bear that pain for another who does not pray and does not do penance and who has separated themselves from God. In small acts of vicarious suffering/atonement He draws us into His Act of Redemption in the saving of that lost soul.

"God has imprisoned all in disobedience that He may have mercy on all" (Romans 11: 25, 30-36).

--

Anna Rae-Kelly OCDS
www.annaprae.com

OUR LADY, QUEEN OF MOUNT CARMEL

It is July 16 ... IT IS THE FEAST OF OUR LADY, QUEEN OF MOUNT CARMEL

Do we call her Mother? For St. Therese of the Child Jesus and the Holy Face Mary is "much more Mother than Queen."

"If a child is to cherish his mother, she must cry with him and share his sorrows." 

Knowledge and love can only deepen for our tender Mother Mary when we seek wisdom about her from her Sacred Spouse: Spirit Lord. 

In prayer, He may direct our thoughts by drawing us into the revelations about our Beloved Mother that He has inspired in holy souls throughout the centuries. Through His Wisdom, revealed through them, a contour of her gentle, sweet features begins to take shape. 

Mary was described by St Louis de Montfort as "our powerful Sovereign, our beloved mistress, ... the world of God."

We have therefore a world of reflections to explore in our search to glimpse her beauty: her interior silence, her profound humility, the light of her faith that will shine through the darkness of our mind, her total self-emptiness, her willing enslavement to God's Will. When we accept Mary as our Spiritual Mother, she will "reveal our thoughts" (Luke 2) to us and we begin to grow in self-knowledge, that gift which gives us deep humility under the Gaze of God. 

There is an abyss between God Who is Infinite, Numen, and we, who are finite. The depths of the abyss are highlighted in a conversation between Our Father and St Catherine of Siena. The Father asked her: "Do you know, my daughter, who you are, and who I am? ... You are she who is not; I am He Who is."

1200 years before God illumined Catherine about her finiteness, her nothingness, the Archangel Gabriel appeared to Mary at the  Annunciation. When we stand, in unobtrusive silence listening to their dialogue, it becomes clear to us that Mary, the Immaculata, the God-bearer, the Hodogetria, was fully aware that she was the one "who is not."  We hear her describing herself  as the "handmaid of the Lord" (Luke 1:38).

This word, "handmaid", holds profound meaning. We remember that this was the same ancient word that St. Paul used to describe the Savior in Philippians 2:7: Jesus "emptied himself, by taking the form of a slave, (doulos) being born in the likeness of men..."

Mary His Mother, the self-described handmaid, the douly of the Lord, the bondslave of God, His total possession, the one whose Owner had all rights to do with her as He willed, even and including should His Will be to take her life. 

Mary was empty of self. She was, as it were, the "prelude" (St John Paul II) to her Son's total self-emptiness, God's Doulos. 

And God accepted His Son's self-sacrificial death on the Cross, Christ, the Saving Victim. 
 
Mary, Queen of Carmel, embodies the beauty of a Carmelite heart and life in her love for the Saving Victim. In her self-emptiness, Mary embodies the being who could be filled with God. It is Spirit Lord Who "opens her lips and her mouth declared His praise" at the Visitation. 

Blessed Marie-Eugene of the Child Jesus OCD wrote that, "prayer finds its supernatural efficacy in the quality of the faith that animates it." Because she was totally empty of self, Mary's prayer was filled with supernatural efficacy, with a faith that animated every thought, word, action that she made.  Mary will gently mother us into an awareness of the abyss of our finiteness, helps us to offer ourselves as God's doulos/douly, leads us into the wisdom of self-knowledge where our awareness of our nothingness deepens in the perspective of the Infinite Who is God. 

If the awareness of our nothingness nips at our spiritual pride and disheartedness begins to lurk in the depths of such self-knowledge. St. Therese of the Child Jesus and the Holy Face encourages us:

"You, Lord, will descend to my nothingness and transform that nothingness into living fire.....and even when I have nothing....I will give Him this nothing."

And so, we may stand gazing into the vast abyss between the Infinite Who is, and the finiteness of we, "who are not". With St Therese, we may humbly offer all that we are to God ... and give Him our nothing. 

With Mary as our Queen of humility, we offer our Yes, ourselves, to be His douly, His doulos, to do with as He Wills.

And the mighty power of Spirit Lord will rush into our depths, fill our souls with Himself to the capacity pre-ordained by God, and transform our "nothingness into living fire". 

All who meet us, every moment of our days, will touch God as He moves in and through us and all will taste His sweetness as He transforms us into His own Image. And He will draw souls to God through our "nothing" that He fills with Himself. 

How?

When He fills the measure of ourselves that we give to Him, that measure becomes the property of Spirit Lord. He has one Desire....to draw us into winning souls for God and that Desire begins to propel us at disconcerting moments. We may be watching a tense TV movie when we feel His unmistakable invitation to join Him in prayer. Ten minutes before the exciting conclusion  of the movie. 

We obey, take ourselves off into solitude with Him and at the knee of Mary, we pray an urgent Decade of the Rosary......and our great, great grandchild, yet to be born, who will only ever see photographs of us, will be snatched by God away from a life of drugs, or pornography, or alcohol. St Therese teaches us that prayer soars beyond space and time and God already owns the decades where our great grandchild moves. What was, what is and what is yet to be are all one in Him. Through our small sacrifice, united with in and through Christ Jesus'  ultimate Sacrifice, we have won the soul of our loved one. 

 God has gratefully accepted the little space of ourselves that we have given Him, filled it with Himself and His Desire for souls,  and then waits to reward us in unimaginable ways for doing something that He gave us the power to do in the first place.

And we begin to understand how he transforms our “nothingness into living fire”, even beyond space and time.

More words from St. John Paul II come to our mind: “Prayer united with sacrifice is the most powerful force in human history.”

Mary was filled with self-emptiness. And filled with God.

Mary: "zealous for the glory of the one true God and the sanctification and salvation of souls"; Mary: the "Woman"-made-prayer; Mary: whose sacrificial suffering from the "sword" that pierced her heart so that she could reveal our thoughts to us;  Mary: "united with Christ Crucified and His omnipotent prayer as Saving Victim"; Mary: the pure and most powerful intercessor for all of God's children for whom the Savior shed His Precious Blood; Mary: whose "adoration and contemplation of the Most Holy Trinity" is inexhaustible; 

                                                Mary, filled with Love Himself ...
                                                Mary, Mother, Queen of Mount Carmel, pray for us. 

(Quotes used in the final paragraph are from the ancient charism of the Discalced Carmelite Hermits of Our Lady of Mount Carmel) 

PENTECOST

                                           Πεντηκοστ

                                            PENTECOST 

                                  A CARMELITE REFLECTION 

     

"On the day of Pentecost, when the seven weeks of Easter had come to an end, Christ's Passover is fulfilled in the outpouring of the Holy Spirit, manifested, given, and communicated as a Divine Person: of His fullness, Christ, the Lord, pours out the Spirit in abundance" (Catechism of the Catholic Church, 731).

The Holy Spirit of the Living God, the Third Person of the Divine Three. Where do we meet Him in Sacred Scripture? What does He reveal about Himself, this RUAH, the Holy One Who "brooded over the face of the waters" of our souls in our darkness? (Gen 1)

 

He is the Power of the Most High Who overshadowed Mary, filled her being, and she conceived the Lord God. 

His work reveals Himself. He is the Giver of Life, in abundance.

Mary, carrying the just-conceived three day old Saviour, greeted Elizabeth whose child in her womb leaped with holy joy when Spirit Lord released the soul of the unborn John the Baptist from original sin. 

At every Sacrament of Baptism, the Mighty Power of Spirit Lord, Giver of spiritual life cleanses the soul from original sin. We see the priestly vestments, the white Baptismal cloth, the holy water, we hear the child's cries. What we don't see is the rush of Spirit Lord pouring Himself into that soul, Self-giving Goodness, unseen, unheard, calling that child into Rebirth out of original sin.  Spirit Lord, Whose work reveals Himself. He is the Giver of spiritual life, in abundance. 

Throughout the Gospels, a limited profile of this Divine Person slowly emerges into our sin-restricted view. His Aroma reveals His Presence. He is Wonder Counselor and Consoler, the Revealer of our Salvation, the One Who endows God's people with glory, the Winnower of all souls destroying evil in His unquenchable Fire (Luke 1 to 3). He is the Dove Whose arrival at the Jordan River "tears open the heavens" (Mk 1:10) to descend upon the Lord, the One Who then propels Jesus with great force into the desert to confront and defeat and silence satan" (Mt 4:1-11). He is Holy Joy and He fills Jesus with that great joy and "anoints" Him to preach the Good News to the poor, to set souls free who are imprisoned and oppressed by sin in all its suffocating wiles, to give sight to the spiritually and physically blind, to raise the dead to life.

It's with awe and deep humility then that we read a reflection from Blessed Pere Marie Eugene of the Child Jesus OCD. His words help to open our spiritual eyes a little wider to grasp more about the Beauty of this Divine Person and His intimacy with and within our being:

"He penetrates us and envelops us. There is not a molecule of our being where He is not; there is no movement of our members nor of our faculties that He has not animated. He is around us and even in those regions more intimate and more profound than our soul itself. God is the soul of our soul, the life of our life, the great reality in which we are, as it were, immersed; He penetrates all that we have and all that we are by His active presence and His vivifying power....He is the Architect of our holiness, our supernatural beauty: 'In Him we live and move and have our being.' 

We are identified with Christ, that's true, but it happens through the action of the Holy Spirit present in all the pores of our soul, in all the molecules of our body, in all earthly and heavenly realities. 

It is not a matter of believing in the Holy Spirit in a vague sort of way. We must believe in Him as a living reality, a living, intelligent, all-powerful Person, a Person who knows what He wants, who does what He wills, and who knows where He is going" (Acts 17:28, Fr. Marie-Eugene OCD, I Want To See God).

A "Person, a Person who knows what He wants, who does what He wills, and who knows where He is going."

And Christ the Lord pours out this Spirit in abundance, this Divine Person whose deepest longing and joy is the sanctification of our souls, to rebirth us into friends of God.  

Pere Marie of the Child Jesus was one who knew well the Spirit of the Lord as his "friend": "This Spirit is our Guest, a living flame in us, a light. He is our friend."

Nevertheless, Pere Marie's disconcerting Friend pushed him, disturbed him and the soul of our Blessed Pere rejoiced in the discomfort:

  

"We need hardships, disappointments, we need to be thwarted in our thoughts and in our plans; we need God's breaking our framework in order to understand that there could be something different. And sometimes we don't want to break our framework, for we are prisoners of our thoughts, of our plans."

Through His grace, God communicates to the soul a participation in His Nature. We may therefore rejoice when our Friend disconcerts us with broken frameworks, thwarted plans, hardships. God's Jealous Hand is at work within us, rebirthing, reshaping, renewing our countenance to closely resemble that of the Second Person of the Divine Three. And when we meet Our Father, He will immediately recognize the Countenance of His Beloved Son, returning His Gaze with great joy.

"Spirit Lord is a Person Who does what He wills."

And He wills to transfigure all souls into His love, His beauty, His purity, His gentleness, His holiness, His understanding, His order in the design of God, His wisdom, His knowledge, His counsel, His fortitude, His gift of holy fear, His piety. 

The Catechism teaches us that the Saviour's "Passover is fulfilled in the outpouring of the Holy Spirit" (CCC 731).

We are all called to come sip at the ocean of the Spirit's love and power. Who are we, His apostles today? Our faces are many, but each one is unique, as unique as our service which He gifts to us to manifest Christ's Presence in His Church, His world: 

"It is especially in their common work that the Holy Spirit glorifies the instruments He has chosen. The Holy Spirit makes Himself lowly ... in order to glorify them. Inspirer of the work by His light, efficacious agent by His omnipotence, yet He hides Himself under the human traits of the apostle and in each of us, His works show forth His Gifts, His desires, His diverse genius. The Holy Spirit appears in this world under a thousand human faces that reflect the power and grace of His hidden presence. The Spirit never repeats Himself in the exterior forms He chooses". 

Mary, the Mother of God has been described as the Immaculata (St Maximilian Kolbe); "the fairest honor of our race" (Antiphon 2, The Liturgy Archive); "Beloved Daughter of the Eternal Father, Admirable Mother of the Son, Faithful spouse of the Holy Spirit" (St Louis de Montfort).

It therefore is fitting to conclude our thoughts by reflecting on the profound reflection of St. Teresa Benedicta of the Cross OCD as she seeks to discern the Spirit's Beauty through the eyes of Mary, Queen of Carmel, His faithful spouse:

                                             

POEM TO SPIRIT LORD.

"Are You the one who created the unclouded mirror

Next to the Almighty's throne,
Like a crystal sea,
In which Divinity lovingly looks at itself?
You bend over the fairest work of Your creation,
And radiantly Your own gaze
Is illumined in return.
And of all creatures the pure beauty
Is joined in one in the dear form
Of the Virgin, your Immaculate Bride:
Holy Spirit, Creator of All!"

COME, HOLY SPIRIT, FILL THE HEARTS OF YOUR FAITHFUL, ENKINDLE IN 

US THE FIRE OF YOUR LOVE, SEND FORTH YOUR SPIRIT, AND WE SHALL BE CREATED, AND THOU SHALT RENEW THE FACE OF THE EARTH.

--

Anna Rae-Kelly OCDS
www.annaprae.com

THE PASSION AND DEATH AND RESURRECTION OF THE LORD

                                                                     THE  GIFT OF SELF

"God is Love, and is therefore the Good, communicative of itself... to give of Himself is an essential movement of His Nature... His Free Will is captivated by the movement of His Love." 

Love is His Being. His Will is subject to the Self-emptying power of His Mighty Love. Wearing nothing but His cloak of Ignominy, we behold the Man of Sorrows Whose Passion reveals the depths of His Love: His Love pins Him to His Cross: In His Love He endures His loneliness, His abandonment, His isolation, and His tsunami of pain. 

                                  

                                                             LOVE IS HIS GIFT OF SELF.

                 "What power this gift has! ...It cannot fail to draw the Almighty to become one with our lowliness." 

                                                                  Our "lowliness". 

Our misery draws God... our "feeble love enslaves Him," captivates Him. 

When our free will is captivated by our desire to love Him, we begin to grow in self-knowledge.  And the awareness of our sins causes us to stumble on our own Via Dolorosa alongside our Beloved Savior this Good Friday,  When we skin our knees during our multiple falls under the weight of our pride, we are given to remember that it is Spirit Lord Who is endlessly inspiring a holy longing in our soul to pour ourselves, our will, our 'belongings', our security, into an ever-deeper self-abandonment into God's ocean of Love. 

                                                 In other words, to gift ourselves to God.

Maybe we may pause to wonder, during this Holy Week, are we too actually being invited to be so profoundly identified with our Savior, to love with His Love, to participate in His Redemptive Act of winning souls whom Jesus Lord can then give with great joy back to Our Father? To unite ourselves into Love, to give Him the total gift of 'myself'?

Could people whose lives are as ordinary as ours actually be called to such depths of holiness? Isn't that Way reserved for God's saints?

St Teresa of Avila answers our questions:

"... He didn't say, 'I will give drink to those whom I think fit for it'... He invites us all, without conditions..." 

Our great saint was teaching us that there is no two-tier holiness, that holiness is friendship with God and that He desires to call all of us His 'friend'.

 

And so we may further wonder... what measure of self should we give our Friend?

Once again, St Teresa of Jesus advises us:

"We think we are giving God everything, whereas what we are really offering Him is the revenue, or the fruits of our land while keeping the stock and the right of ownership of it in our own hands."

Perhaps these words of Teresa cause us to confront the reality that we have determinedly retained the right of ownership of everything God has given us. During our life-years, we have constructed illusions to avoid giving God the gift of self: illusions of self-importance, self-pride, self-opinion... these and many more 'selves'.  

We may have listened to and been imprisoned by the fears that the devil uses to paralyze our soul: if we give God ownership of our 'self', will He take our family, our bank account, our home, our loved ones? Our fears convince us that these losses will be the consequences of total self-surrender to Jesus Lord Whose own life and death encompassed all of these 'losses'. 

St Teresa speaks:

"He refuses to force our will. He takes what we give Him."

If all we can give Him is a mustard seed-measure of self, He grasps it with great joy because, "our feeble love enslaves Him". 

In Matthew 19, we hear Jesus Lord loving and reassuring response to our soul-destroying fears:

"...everyone who has left houses or brothers or sisters or father or mother or children or fields for 

my name's sake, will receive a hundredfold, and will inherit eternal life."

                                     Our God will never be outdone in generosity.

If we give Him ownership of family, He will grasp our gift and heal all the situations in our family that wound us deeply... the lost soul of a beloved brother, the illness of a grandmother, the daughter who has separated from us, the fear for a son bound over by addictions.

 

When we give over the rights of ownership to the "fruits of our land" as well as the "stock from the revenue," He will lovingly remind us that He is and always has been the CFO of our bank account and He will lead us to the purchase of a different "field" which, unlike our bank account, will not imprison our soul. It will transform our soul into the very likeness and beauty of our Savior Lord.

                           "...so that in eternal glory the Celestial Court shall marvel at the marked likeness of their features with my  Divine Countenance" (Our Lord Jesus Christ to St. Gertrude).

And while we are "still a great way off " (Luke 15:20), our Beloved Father will run all the way to meet us because He will behold in us the very Countenance of His own Son.

                   Our gift of self: the most perfect expression of love we can offer to God. 

                         

Quotations:

Blessed Marie Eugene of the Child Jesus. OCD

St. Teresa of Jesus OCD

St. Therese of the Child Jesus and the Holy Face OCD

                                        

                                          

                            

--

Anna Rae-Kelly OCDS
www.annaprae.com