LAY FAST FOR PRIESTS 2026 - CLOSING THOUGHTS

THOUGHTS TO SHARE AT THE CLOSE OF THE 21ST GLOBAL LAY FAST DAY FOR PRIESTS.

(Due to time zone differences, some of us have concluded our fast already across the world while some of us are just beginning. And some of us in the West will begin ours tomorrow, Saturday.)

 

We believe the words of Hans Urs von Balthasar when in faith he reflected that "prayer causes the Heavens to pour down the Righteous One".

We believe the words of Pope Saint John Paul II when in his mystical reflections, he guides our thoughts into a desire to live our lives believing that "Prayer united with sacrifice is the most powerful force in human history".

Saint Therese of the Child Jesus and the Holy Face , Patroness of the Global Lay Fast for Priests, enclosed herself in an "impregnable fortress of prayer". During her lifetime, and within that fortress, she absorbed into herself all His gifts of sacrificial suffering that the Lord Jesus chose to share with her to give Glory to God, to join Him in winning souls for God,"... until the angel of the Lord says;  "Time is no more" (St Therese).

In our Fast for Priests, we have followed "a little way" in her footsteps. Our prayer for priests has caused the Heavens to pour down the Righteous One into the world and into the soul of every priest, all who reflect the paternal tenderness of our Father.. Our prayer for them has been offered through our sacrifice of fast this day and the most powerful Force in human history has drawn Spirit Lord to ignite His Flame in and around and through every priest in the world.

The Breath of the Spirit awakened us to prayer when the sun rose over the countries in the farthest east of the Pacific Ocean: like Kiribati.

There are 195 countries in the world. Souls in 192 of those countries united to pray and fast for priests today. 

As the sun continued silently to give light across the globe, Spirit Lord Breathed God's Love for Christ's priests through the prayerful sacrifice of us, His faith-filled and beloved children. 

We may not have raised our Spirit-empowered prayer and sacrifices in spoken languages that we all understand, but Spirit Lord heard, understood, translated the one language we all spoke together - the language of heart-prayer, self-sacrifice for other, the language of our Love and gratitude for these men who sacrifice their own lives to bring Christ Jesus, Our Lord, our Savior, into our midst, Hidden, in Sacred Silence, empowering  His "Alter Christus" to do what He Himself did for us in His ultimate Offering of Love: Through, with, in Jesus Lord, they too become  BREAD, BLESSED, BROKEN AND GIVEN FOR US. 

                              In, through and with Christ Lord, we love them and we thank them. 

MAY GOD WILL THAT WE UNITE AGAIN IN HIM ON SATURDAY , OCTOBER 16 , 2027 FOR ALL PRIESTS. 

                         

                        'Till then, we will continue to meet each other in the Most Holy Eucharist.

                                        To Jesus through Mary,                               Anna

www.layfastforpriests.com

LAY FAST FOR PRIESTS 2026

LAY FAST FOR PRIESTS 2026 - SATURDAY, 17 OCTOBER 2026

From Dawn until 3PM on Saturday, October 17, we will hold the Twenty First Annual, now Global, Lay Fast Day for Priests.

The Eucharist, brought to us through the Ordained priest, is the “source and summit” (Lumen Gentium) of our Catholic life.

Jesus Christ told St. Gertrude that for every Eucharist we receive with devotion, He will send a Saint to comfort us at our death.

St. Bridget of Sweden teaches us that at the moment of Consecration, numberless angels come down and surround and look upon the priest, bowing toward him in reverential awe as he holds high the Body of Christ. All evil takes flight in terror.

Pope Saint John Paul II taught us that during the Consecration, all time meets in the Eucharist. A mysterious “oneness in time” (Ecclesia de Eucharistia) happens and we are drawn into the mind and person of Christ present, on Calvary yet also mysteriously present at the Resurrection. Everyone who ever was and who has died in “the grace and friendship of God” (Article 988 CCC) and who now lives in Christ – our Great-Great Grandparents – are present in the Eucharist. Through Jesus in unity with the Holy Spirit, we get to say thank you to all of our ancients who are now “hidden with Christ in God” (Colossians 3:3) because their prayers helped us to be here today. And everyone who is still to become – our Great-Great Grandchildren – who will only ever see photographs of us, they too are held in the mind of God, Present in the Holy Eucharist. Through Jesus, in unity with the Holy Spirit, we may ask God to tell them that we love them that we will pray and offer small sacrifices for them until the day He calls us Home.

The priest lends his voice to Christ at the Consecration and the Lord becomes Present to us. Without the priest, we would not have the Eucharist.

God the Father told St. Catherine of Siena that priests are His “other Christs” (The Dialogue).

Fasting creates an impenetrable force around the one prayed for. Because priests bring us Christ Jesus in the Eucharist, and because all that is evil hates the Lord's Presence in the Holy Eucharist, priests need the power of our prayers to erect that impenetrable protection around them.

Fasting is praying with our whole body.

Will you join us on October 17 as we fast for all priests?

When the sun rises over Australia and New Zealand, all across the Far East, the Middle East and Europe, into the Americas when it finally sets in Hawaii, in every country, our brothers and sisters in Christ Jesus will be fasting for priests. We will all be one.

We fast from the time we get out of bed until the 3.00 PM Hour – the time of the Passion and Death of Christ Jesus. We fast from whatever we can – food or TV or social media use.

One year, a lady fasted from food and from talking. She decided it was best to stay in her room praying and reading until the 3.00 o’clock hour because she said had she come out of her room before that time, her mother would have made her speak.

We can fast wherever we are. If you are leaving for China that day, you can join us on the plane journey in prayer ! We close our fast with a private prayer at 3.00 PM.

And as one body United in His Body, the Eternal Father, our glorious God, our Prince of Peace and the Giver of our Spiritual life will be given great glory.

All are most welcome to join this global army of fasters.

Please sign up at:

https://www.annaprae.com/lay-fast-for-priests-2026.html

Seeking Spiritual Direction From St.Thérèse

October 1 is the Feast Day of Saint Thérèse of the Child Jesus and the Holy Face.

Since her death over 100 years ago many millions of souls have sought the spiritual wisdom of St. Thérèse. In her life of suffering in, through and with the Love of Christ Jesus, we discover depths of spiritual direction which guide us when we are lost in the fog of our sin. Often, when we willingly re-engage in situations which have brought about spiritual darkness in our past and which we know may cause risk to our souls once again, we may find our thoughts caught in a fleeting pause for just a moment to ask: “Why does God decline to prevent my headlong descent into my repeating sin?"

Multiple responses flood the mind in answer to that challenge. 

Perhaps we might immediately remember that we are made in God's Image, that we are empowered with free will which allows us the dignity to reason and control and shape and take responsibility for our lives in the choices we make (CCC 1731). 

In His Self-emptying and Self-Sacrificial Love for us, God will never violate His gift to us of free will. However, knowing our inclination to sin, but never compromising our free will, God gifts us in advance with a grace which gives us strength to reinforce the spiritual fortress around our soul. With this gift, God then patiently and gently and with deep respect invites and encourages and enables us to choose to do good.

Yet, still we fall. 

And after our fall, and despite our acknowledgement of God's gift of free will, our question may hold a little change in our verb tense ...

"Why DID God decline to prevent my headlong descent into my repeated sin?"

As we reflect, we may recognize that when we choose to sin, we endure the consequences of our decision. And they usually always bring sorrow, or pain, or isolation or spiritual darkness or all four. Knowing that we may continue to subject ourselves to such consequences, we find ourselves asking again:

"Why does God decline to prevent my headlong descent into my repeating sin?"

When we have indeed given way to commit sin, we may finally, on bended knee, beseech God's response to our question but now we ask it in the humility of prayer. And now, God immediately responds because He cannot resist a humble soul. 

Spirit Lord will rush to that humble heart and He may direct us to the words of St. Paul:

"God disciplines us for our good, in order that we may share in his holiness” (Hebrews 12:10).

St. Paul is revealing God's astonishing desire, His invitation to a sinner. His invitation to us.

Our Saint is telling us that, even after a moment, a day, a year, a lifetime of endlessly falling into willing sin, God, Who never abandons us especially when we sin, is disciplining us in the painful consequences of those sins, not because He is punishing us, but because He yearns to share His very Holiness with us. 

GOD WANTS TO MAKE US, SINNERS, DIVINE LIKE HIMSELF. 

St. Peter reinforces this almost unbelievable Desire of God when he teaches us that we may become "partakers of the Divine Nature" (2 Peter 1:14).

We may sit in awe, wondering if what these two great figures of the Apostolic Era are saying to sinners, us, is true.

St. John of the Cross replies:

"A total transformation in the Beloved, in which each surrenders the entire possession of self to the other with a certain consummation of the union of love. The soul thereby becomes divine, becomes God through participation, insofar as is possible in this life" (Spiritual Canticle).

With every fall into sin, no matter the grievousness of our sin, the Lord God waits for us to turn back to Him. And when we seek Him, even if we are still a far way off, Our Father sees us, has deep compassion and love for us, runs to us with arms wide, catches us in a huge embrace and kisses us, and then gives us everything He owns (Luke 15:11-32).

He gives us Himself. 

He makes us a sharer in His Divinity.

He makes us Divine, like Himself. 

St. Thérèse of the Child Jesus and the Holy Face understood the pain of falling into sin, how it offends Love and wounds Him, how it brings suffering upon and into ourselves. She offers us a "little way" to subject our sin to God and so give Him glory, even when we have sinned and wounded the One Who loves us, even when we are unable to attend the Sacrament of Reconciliation.

Our giant of a Saint gives us the profound Spiritual Direction of THE ART OF FAILURE. 

Thérèse was most aware of the pain of suffering, spiritual suffering, emotional, and the heights of physical suffering and these were gifted to her from God, not always consecutively, but often simultaneously. She recognized these as His "favours", lovingly sent to her.

When she was asked if her Good God is happy when we suffer, she replied with a touching tenderness:

"Never does our suffering make Him happy, but it is necessary for us; and so He sends it to us, while, as it were, turning away His Face ... I assure you, it costs Him dearly to see us suffer…"

St. Thérèse is reminding us that when we have chosen to sin, our Saviour suffers to witness what suffering our own actions have caused us but He also knows that "suffering is the only means of preparing us to know Him as He knows Himself, and to become ourselves Divine" (Thérèse).

And so it is that in her life-events of every suffering she endured, she was inspired by Spirit Lord to seek and to find how she could use these, especially how she could use even her sinfulness and her failings to give God glory.

                                 She teaches us the Art of Failure. 

When we have sinned or when we have failed God in some way that offends His Love, perhaps we may sit in a self-sorrowful way and ask ourselves, What good am I to God? I've sinned again: I've failed again. 

St. Thérèse directs us to reflect on the poverty within our failures in a quite different way, the way of holy listening, when in prayer we silence our minds and our mouths to hear God speak to our depths: 

"How fortunate you are to be poor. That is why you will receive much."

Blessed Marie Eugene of the Child Jesus reminds us that when Thérèse failed or sinned, she saw poverty as a treasure because it produced an aptitude for receiving God. When she sinned, she "hastened to say to the Good God: my God, I know that I have deserved this feeling of sadness (for my failing), yet allow me to look upon it as a trial which Thy love sends me. I regret my sin, but I am glad to have this little suffering to offer Thee. If Thou dost remain veiled-- well then -- I consent to be benumbed with cold, and I rejoice in the suffering, howsoever merited."

And again, "If I had been faithful, I would have received the reward of merit. I was unfaithful, I am humiliated, I am going to receive the reward of my poverty and humiliation."

Thérèse rejoiced in every experience of impoverishment which showed her her own littleness (Pere Marie Eugene of the Child Jesus). 

"Why does God decline to prevent my headlong descent into my repeating sin?"

In St. Thérèse's humble and trusting response to sin and failure, we see the Light of God's Love and the light of her, and our own, poverty. We begin to understand that with His Love and Mercy, we, like Thérèse, can give great glory to God. This may be our prayer of gratitude to Him after we have sinned against Him and He rewards us by disciplining us. If we have served Him with humility and purity of heart, He rewards us in ways uniquely for our souls. 

God's Love may be a time of disciplining for our souls.

God's Love may be a time of sweet consolations for our love.

Both are rewards from His Loving Heart.

We have been graced by Spiritual Direction from St. Thérèse of the Child Jesus and the Holy Face.

She has led us toward a spiritual understanding of The Art of Failure.

She has given us insight into how we may humbly give God Great Glory in the aftermath of our sin or in the holy joys of serving Him.

Through her direction, Spirit Lord offers us an enlightenment as we continue to live in, through and with the One Who is Love, God, Goodness longing to pour Himself lavishly into us ... that we may become "partakers of the Divine Nature."

AUGUST 15 : THE ASSUMPTION OF THE BLESSED VIRGIN MARY

"Finally the Immaculate Virgin, preserved free from all stain of original sin, when the course of her earthly life was finished, was taken up body and soul into heavenly glory, and exalted by the Lord as Queen over all things, so that she might be the more fully conformed to her Son, the Lord of lords and conqueror of sin and death. The Assumption of the Blessed Virgin is a singular participation in her Son's Resurrection and an anticipation of the resurrection of other Christians..." (Catechism of the Catholic Church, Article 966)

When we stop in prayer and turn our gaze to look at Mary, Mother of God, our Mother; when we kneel in our great need to beseech her to help us; when we find our prayer-lives in darkness or our dear ones in deep distress: what do we see in her features as she returns our gaze?

We see the reflected love of the Son Whom she carried in her womb. We see a Woman-made-prayer, the one ordained to be our Mother, the one whose faith is loving, pure, hidden, obedient, sacrificial, humble, filled with self-emptiness, the spotless Window without stain through whom the Son shines.

SACRIFICIAL LOVE; HIDDEN PRAYER; A GIANT OF FAITH; OBEDIENT; HUMBLE; EMPTY OF SELF

                                                   MARYAM : MARY.

In his Meditations, St. Thomas of Aquinas teaches us that the virginal body of Mary, as well as her soul, overflowed with grace. "The soul of the Blessed Virgin was so full of grace that it overflowed into her flesh, thus fitting it for the conception of God's Son."

Her immaculate heart, her feelings, mind and will were all involved in the conception and care of her Son, just as it is in helping each of us conceive and bring forth Christ in our soul.

                                MARY NOT ONLY BRINGS CHRIST TO US :
                                   SHE ALSO BRINGS US TO CHRIST.

"... the Holy Spirit will come on you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you. So the holy one to be born will be called the Son of God." (Luke 1:35)

When Spirit Lord came upon Mary, overshadowed her, He became "... present in all the pores of her soul, in all the molecules of her body, penetrating her entire being with his light and his love..." (Pere Marie Eugene OCD)

"... she belonged to Christ, sharing in the salvific and sanctifying grace and in that love which has its beginning in the ‘Beloved’, the Son of the Eternal Father, who through the Incarnation became her own Son. Consequently, through the power of the Holy Spirit, in the order of grace, which is a participation in the divine nature, Mary receives life from him to whom she herself, in the order of earthly generation, gave life as a mother. The liturgy does not hesitate to call her "mother of her Creator" and to hail her with the words ‘… daughter of your Son. 'And since Mary receives this ‘new life’ with a fullness corresponding to the Son's love for the Mother, and thus corresponding to the dignity of the divine motherhood, the angel at the Annunciation calls her ‘full of grace.’" (Pope St. John Paul II)

... Mary will live her obedience of faith in suffering, at the side of the suffering Savior, and that her motherhood will be mysterious and sorrowful. Our beloved Mom said Yes to a share in the shocking mystery of the self- emptying of her Son, and endured perhaps the deepest "kenosis" of faith in human history (excerpts from Redemptoris Mater, Pope St. John Paul II).

This Mother's eyes will be filled with a Love that understands our suffering, a Mother of our sorrows, a Mother who is full of Grace, a Mother who will make present to us the mystery of Christ in our pain.

When we read these reflections from St. John Paul II, the Holy Spirit, our Mother's Sacred Spouse, deepens our understanding of ...

       MARY NOT ONLY BRINGS CHRIST TO US :
      SHE ALSO BRINGS US TO CHRIST.

WHY I LOVE YOU, O MARY

Oh! I would like to sing, Mary, why I love you,

Why your sweet name thrills my heart,

And why the thought of your supreme greatness

Could not bring fear to my soul.

If I gazed upon you in your sublime glory,

Surpassing the splendour of all blessed,

I could not believe that I am your child

O Mary, before you I would lower my eyes!

If a child is to cherish his mother,

She has to cry with him and share his sorrows,

O my dearest Mother, on this foreign shore

How many tears you shed to draw me to you!

In pondering your life in the holy Gospels,

I dare look at you and come near you.

It’s not difficult for me to believe I’m your child,

For I see you human and suffering like me…

When an angel from Heaven bids you be the Mother

Of God who is to reign for all eternity,

I see you prefer, O Mary, what a mystery!

the ineffable treasure of virginity.

O Immaculate Virgin, I understand how your soul

Is dearer to the Lord than his heavenly dwelling.

I understand how your soul, Humble and Sweet Valley,

Can contain Jesus, the Ocean of Love!

Oh! I love you, Mary, saying you are the servant

Of God whom you charm by humility.

This hidden virtue makes you all powerful,

It attracts the Holy Trinity into your heart.

Then the Spirit of Love covering you with his shadow,

The Son equal to the Father became incarnate in you,

There will be a great many of His sinner brothers,

Since He will be called: Jesus, your first-born

At least you find Him and you are overcome with joy,

You say to the fair Child captivating the doctors;

“O my Son, why have you done this?

Your father and I have been searching for you in tears.”

And the Child God replies (O what a deep mystery!)

To his dearest Mother holding out her arms to him:

“Why were you searching for me? I must be about

My Father’s business. Didn’t you know?”

The Gospel tells me that, growing in wisdom,

Jesus remains subject to Joseph and Mary,

And my heart reveals to me with what tenderness

He always obeys his dear parents.

Now I understand the mystery of the temple,

The hidden words of my Lovable King.

Mother, your sweet Child wants you to be the example

Of the soul searching for Him in the night of faith.

Since the King of Heaven wanted his Mother

To be plunged into the night, in anguish of heart,

Mary, is it thus a blessing to suffer on earth?

Yes, to suffer while loving is the purest happiness!

All that He has given me, Jesus can take back.

Tell Him not to bother with me….

He can indeed hide from me, I’m willing to wait for Him

Till the day without sunset when my faith will fade away…

Mother full of grace, I know that in Nazareth

You live in poverty, wanting nothing more.

No rapture, miracle, or ecstasy

Embellish your life, O Queen of the Elect!

The number of little ones on earth is truly great.

They can raise their eyes to you without trembling.

It’s by the ordinary way, incomparable Mother,

That you like to walk to guide them in Heaven.

While waiting for Heaven, O my dear Mother

I want to live with you, to follow you each day.

Mother, contemplating you, I joyfully immerse myself,

Discovering in your heart abysses of love.

You motherly gaze banishes all my fears.

It teaches me to cry, it teaches me to rejoice.

Instead of scorning pure and simple joys,

You want to share in them, you deign to bless them.

At Cana, seeing the married couple’s anxiety

Which they cannot hide, for they have run out of wine,

In your concern you tell the Saviour,

Hoping for the help of his divine power,

Jesus seems at first to reject your prayer:

“Woman, what does this matter,” he answers, ”to you and to me?”

But in the depths of his heart, He calls you his Mother,

And works his first miracle for you…

One day when sinners are listening to the doctrine

Of Him who would like to welcome them in Heaven,

Mary, I find you with them on the hill.

Someone says to Jesus that you wish to see him.

Then, before the whole multitude, your Divine Son

Shows us the immensity of his love for us.

He says: “Who is my brother and my sister and my Mother,

If not the one who does my will?”

O Immaculate Virgin, most tender of Mothers,

In listening to Jesus, you are not saddened.

But you rejoice that He makes us understand

How our souls become his family here below.

Yes, you rejoice that He gives us his life,

The infinite treasures of his divinity!

How can we not love you, O my dear Mother,

On seeing so much love and so much humility?

You love us, Mary, as Jesus loves us,

And for us you accept being separated from Him.

To love is to give everything. It’s to give oneself.

You wanted to prove this by remaining our support.

The Saviour knew your immense tenderness.

He knew the secrets of your maternal heart.

Refuge of sinners, He leaves us to you

When He leaves the Cross to wait for us in Heaven.

Mary, at the top of Calvary standing beside the Cross

To me you seem like a priest at the altar,

Offering your beloved Jesus, the sweet Emmanuel,

To appease the Father’s justice…

A prophet said, O afflicted Mother,

“There is no sorrow like your sorrow!”

O Queen of Martyrs, while remaining in exile

You lavish on us all the blood of your heart!

Saint John’s home becomes your only refuge.

Zebedee’s son is to replace Jesus…

That is the last detail the Gospel gives.

It tells me nothing more of the Queen of Heaven.

But, O my dear Mother, doesn’t its profound silence

Reveal that The Eternal Word Himself

Wants to sing the secrets of your life

To charm your children, all the Elect of Heaven ?

Soon I’ll hear that sweet harmony.

Soon I’ll go to beautiful Heaven to see you.

You who came to smile at me in the morning of my life,

Come smile at me again … Mother… It’s evening now!…

I no longer fear the splendour of your supreme glory.

With you I’ve suffered and now I want

To sing on your lap, Mary, why I love you,

And to go on saying that I am your child!

(St. Thérèse of the Child Jesus and the Holy Face, May 1897)

Feast of Our Lady of Mount Carmel

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

PENTECOST - LORD, SEND OUT YOUR SPIRIT

"The Spirit prepares men and goes out to them with His grace, in order to draw them to Christ. The Spirit manifests the risen Lord to them, recalls His word to them and opens their minds to the understanding of His Death and Resurrection. He makes present the mystery of Christ, supremely in the Eucharist, in order to reconcile them, to bring them into communion with God, that they may 'bear much fruit.' " (Catechism of the Catholic Church, article 737)

"The Spirit prepares men and goes out to them with His Grace, in order to draw them to Christ."

Have our minds ever been brought to a full stop when reading Sacred Scripture? One word, or one complete sentence may suddenly grasp our faculties: our intellect, our memory, our emotions. Perhaps the Holy Spirit may have animated every molecule, every pore in our body to the very 'tip of our fingers, to the tip of our toes' and a 'holy shiver' rushes through our being as He gives Light to our seeking mind.

This Pentecost Sunday, when Spirit Lord inflamed Christ's frightened apostles huddling together in that upper room around Mary, the Spirit's Immaculate spouse, we too are present, because wherever God is, we, born or yet to be born, are held in His Loving Mind.

Do we too look on the Flames of His Love as He hovers over us, over every soul in whom He moves in all times and places? And in each one of us, He animates our thoughts and we experience that Living, rushing Flame as He enlivens our minds and we are drawn into unknown depths of Sacred Scripture. Holy words that we may have read or heard so often throughout our lived years, suddenly flood into our minds and our spiritual awareness is set on Fire.

This may have happened when, after decades of praying the Psalms, one word, one line may reveal an astonishing depth of a life-changing meaning. 

When we proclaim Psalm 139 aloud and substitute our own voice for that of King David's, using his words to address our Creator, Spirit Lord may inspire our own magnificat in our souls, and give us His Power to explain and unite our prayer with the psalmist: 

“May the spoken words of our mouth and the hidden thoughts of our heart win favour with you, O Lord our God” ... so that You may see and love in us what You saw and loved in Your Son, Jesus Christ.

When Spirit Lord animates our thoughts and our words, it is He Who prays through us in glorious praise of God's indescribable love for each soul whom He has created. It is Spirit Lord Who inflames our soul and our prayer soars to new heights of awe and gratitude.

Spirit Lord has prepared us, has now come to us, and is drawing us to Christ by empowering us to sing our magnificent prayer of praise as we sit to meet Him in silent solitude in our candle-lit room.

O Lord, you have searched me and known me.

You know when I sit down and when I rise up;

you discern my thoughts from far away.

You search out my path and my lying down

and are acquainted with all my ways.

Even before a word is on my tongue,

O Lord, you know it completely.

You hem me in, behind and before,

and lay your hand upon me.

Such knowledge is too wonderful for me;

it is so high that I cannot attain it.

Where can I go from your spirit?

Or where can I flee from your presence?

If I ascend to heaven, you are there;

if I make my bed in Sheol, you are there.

If I take the wings of the morning

and settle at the farthest limits of the sea,

even there your hand shall lead me,

and your right hand shall hold me fast.

If I say, “Surely the darkness shall cover me,

and night wraps itself around me,"

even the darkness is not dark to you;

the night is as bright as the day,

for darkness is as light to you.

                   (from Psalm 139)

Psalm 139 reveals God's deeply loving, intimate crafting and infinite knowledge of each human being, uniquely and wonderfully made by Him.

God's intimate touch and knowledge of our soul is further detailed in the mystery of verse 16 which reads "... your eyes saw me unformed, in your book all are written down."

Some have translated these words of King David to describe the time when God will open that "book" and have interpreted it to means that God will see all of our actions which will justify His condemnation of us. This understanding of Verse 16 is also at times supported by the verse from St Luke 12:2:

"Nothing is covered up that will not be revealed, or hidden that will not be known."    

But in prayer, perhaps Spirit Lord might draw us into a deeper discernment of "your book."

Edith Stein guides us.

She speaks of the "BOOK OF THE CROSS ..."

To open that Book, we must sit humbly available, before a Crucifix.

And we look on the One Whom we have pierced as He lovingly returns our gaze. 

In His Sacred Body, Jesus Lord let flow unquenchable oceans of mercy. All sins were absorbed and consumed into His Suffering Sacred Humanity and the Cross, holding and giving witness to His ocean of suffering, is where the pages of our lives reveal the story of our "actions."

The Cross that pins Him is where we can't run from His spirit, or flee from His face, or climb the mountains of our wrongdoings. The Cross is where He will never stop longing for us to give Him our broken selves, wounded and scourged by our own sins. Even if we lie in the grave, He is there, where His right hand holds us fast (Psalm 139).

The Book of the Cross is the story of our lives, our life-sufferings and death. 

The Book of the Cross is Christ's Book and our book.

In every page of this sacred Book the profound and hidden meanings of every incident, suffering, joy, of our lives are best read under the guidance and inspirations of the Holy Spirit. Wherever in our lives we travel, whatever we become, we are ever under the Gaze of God, a Gaze of utter love, never condemning, ever redeeming.

The glorious Spirit of God has "made present ... the mystery of Christ" and has "opened our minds" through Sacred Scripture to further grasp an "understanding of His Death and Resurrection." 

"FATHER OF LIGHT, FROM WHOM EVERY GOOD GIFT COMES,

SEND YOUR SPIRIT INTO OUR LIVES

WITH THE POWER OF A MIGHTY WIND,

AND BY THE FLAME OF YOUR WISDOM

OPEN THE HORIZONS OF OUR MINDS.

LOOSEN OUR TONGUES TO SING YOUR PRAISE

IN WORDS BEYOND THE POWER OF SPEECH

FOR WITHOUT YOUR SPIRIT

MAN COULD NEVER RAISE HIS VOICE IN WORDS OF PEACE

OR ANNOUNCE THE TRUTH THAT JESUS IS LORD,

WHO LIVES AND REIGNS WITH YOU AND THE HOLY SPIRIT."

                             (Liturgy of the Hours, PENTECOST SUNDAY )

RISEN WOUNDS

"He is risen from the dead and He is Lord"

(Matt 28:6, Confession from Romans 10:9)

                                              "Put your finger here and see my hands,

                                             and bring your hand and put it into my side, 

                                                 and do not be unbelieving, but believe."    

                                                                        (John 20:27)  

                                                                                  

It is Easter Sunday morning. 

On this glorious, astonishing day of miraculous and eternal moments, a day filled with holy joy,

our Savior, Lord, God, directs our inner eye to look on the miracles held in His Sacred Risen Body, to meditate on the five deep canyons where we hide when we are in our darkness and pain and fear and sinfulness. His Sacred Risen Body is the Same Sacred Body that will rush to embrace us when we are finally called Home, His arms open wide, utter joy on His Face. 

                                                      He is our Promised Land.

                                          "Put your finger here and see my hands,

                                           and bring your hand and put it into my side, 

                                               and do not be unbelieving, but believe." 

Pope Benedict XVI described that moment of encounter between Christ Jesus and His apostles... us ... in the barricaded room when our "wounded God " stands among us and His Wounds are laid bare. His "wounds of love," the wounds He longed for when He took on "the passion of man," made evident in the Shroud of Turin, in the "Icon written in blood." 

These Wounds make visible the unquenchable love of God for each of us. These "Risen Wounds" reveal the essence of God, His Divine Vulnerability, that will be made present on His Sacred Body for all time. 

We may continue to ponder for the rest of our lives how and why our souls are so deeply moved by the fathomless depths in the Pope's description: His "Risen Wounds."

On this day of the Risen Lord, when the torrents of God's Mercy are flooding into souls of all time, perhaps we may be inspired to take that phrase to prayer : Risen Wounds. 

Spirit Lord may grace us with a question ... why would the Savior retain the Wounds from the nails on His Sacred Body if His Flesh, after 3 days, had otherwise completely healed from lashings, thorns, punches, blows, bruises. 

In the words, "Risen Wounds", Pope Benedict was drawing on the teachings of St. Thomas Aquinas who had helped us to begin to understand that the Savior's Wounds, retained in His Glorified Body, are Wounds that would remain visible until the end of time and beyond.

St. Thomas described them as wounds of dignity, not deformity, beacons of hope, signs of victory won through humility and self-surrender, evidence of a love filled with mercy, gifted to His Father in self-emptying obedience (Summa Theologiae).

Christ Jesus will never not have these Sacred Wounds, visible to all souls for all eternity.

And St. John of the Cross draws us deeply into each wound to locate our souls in those places of healing, redemption: St. John helps us to locate our broken selves, our 'violated ' soul, our fragile and finite humanity  as we hide in the 'clefts' of these Sacred Risen Wounds. There, with our permission, Spirit Lord begins to purify us, consumes our egoism, and we find mercy, restoration, healing, redemption, always encloaked in Love.

“O my dove, in the clefts of the rock, in the secret places of the cliff, 

let me see your face, 

let me hear your voice” 

(Song of Songs 2:14).

Our Divine Saviour, the Rock, pleads with us in a great longing, to enter into His Risen Wounds, especially the 'secret place ' of the Wound in His Side where He yearns to 'see our face, hear our voice.' 

At the Last Supper, Jesus pronounced,

"This is my body ... This is my blood."

St. John Paul II teaches us that in the Lord's use of the present tense, "IS",  He brought about a "mysterious 'oneness in time' between the Triduum , the Last Supper, Passion, and Resurrection, and the passage of the centuries".

The Pope is teaching us that at every Holy Communion, every Holy Eucharist for all time when a priest consecrates the bread and wine, Jesus Lord becomes Present, Body, Blood, Soul and Divinity.

We step forward, in awe and trembling, to receive His Sacred Body. This is the same Sacred Body that holds the Risen Wounds. All time meets in Him, Divine Time and God's human time. And hosts of Angelic Beings bow low before us because we now carry on our tongue or in our hand the Lord of Hosts : because we have become His living Tabernacle, His enfleshed Ark of the Covenant. If we manage to navigate our way back to our pews, we may be graced to realize that God's Divine Vulnerability is now subject to ourselves. We now hold in our being the One Who bears the Wounds of Love, our Wounded God who is the Icon written in Blood, Who now "sees our face and hears our voice."  

The One Whose wounds of love, Whose Sacred Body holds the "clefts" where we hide, is now hidden within us, truly Present with Father and Holy Spirit, humbly asking for us to gaze on Him with our "feeble love that enthralls" Him.

                                                 "Put your finger here and see my hands,

                                                  and bring your hand and put it into my side, 

                                                    and do not be unbelieving, but believe." 

Our glorious, Risen Lord, ever-loving, ever-present, ever-pleading, ever-longing, ever-waiting, ever-forgiving, ever-redeeming, ever-imprisoned in our being ...

"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."

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

   HE IS ALIVE.

THE RADICAL POVERTY OF CHRIST DWELLING IN US

Our five week journey through Lent has perhaps held Spirit-blessed treasures. 

We may have been blessed to recognize that many of our human weaknesses have become uncloaked and hidden in them, the spiritual pride that estranges us from God may have been exposed; God's gift of humility may have begun to nurture a contrite heart and we have bent the knee in obedience; being subject to temptations may have gradually revealed to us the reality of our profound poverty in our world arena where having and being in control fills the tabernacle of our self; and we may have been graced at last with the desire to surrender our all into God's love.

Weakness: humility: obedience: temptations: poverty: surrender.

This may have been the story of our encounter with ourselves during our Lent this far. 

This was the Story of Christ Jesus' encounter with Satan in the desert, an encounter that was the prelude to the coming week which opens with Passion Sunday.

Christ's willing Weakness in His Sacred Humanity incurred the devil's assault on the Lord's Humility;

the devil's continued assault on Christ's Obedience to His gift to His Father of total Self-renunciation; 

the devil's strategized temptations against the Lord's radical poverty;

the devil's continued assaults on Christ's chosen and complete surrender to a total impoverishment held in His Sacred Humanity.

These reveal to us the Story of the Lord's Temptations in the Desert ...

He surrendered His Glory to become weak in His Sacred Humanity; 

He personified       Humility; 

                               Obedience;

                               Poverty. 

                                

Our own story of Lent holds the same...

                                       

            weakness; humility; obedience; poverty; surrender.

                                 Our Savior's Story holds our story.

"When the devil had finished every temptation, he departed from Him, for a time"  (Lk 4:1-13).

                              ".... FOR A TIME". 

                            

                                Holy Week is that time. 

During Holy Week, all hell finally released its utter hatred for the One Who had vanquished the devil's  temptations in the desert. Evil had waited for thirty-three years to despoil, mock, destroy the self-renunciation of our Savior. It is through His choice of total Self-renunciation that Jesus redeems us. 

He clothed Himself with the "dark robes of our frailty," with the utter poverty of our weak humanity.

Satan assaulted that radical poverty because in that choice of uncompromising poverty, our poverty, the Lord Jesus became utterly poor. 

"To become human means to become 'poor', to have nothing that one might brag about before God. To become human means to have no support, no power ... Jesus held back nothing. He clung to nothing, and nothing served as a shield for him": 

"Jesus did not deem equality with God something to be grasped at, but emptied himself" (Phil 2:6).

Satan despises this poverty, weakness, this humility, this obedience, this surrender to love because the devil has the deepest fear of virtues that he cannot fight.

This is Christ's Mighty Powerlessness. 

And when we allow Him to dwell in us, He becomes our Might in our powerlessness. 

When we humbly acknowledge our human frailty, our finiteness, our lack of control, our sinfulness, we allow Christ's power to work within us. 

And Spirit Lord speaks to our souls when we read and respond to the words of St. Paul:

"That is why, for Christ's sake, I delight in weaknesses, in insults, in hardships, in persecutions, in difficulties. For when I am weak, I am strong." (2 Cor 12: 9-11)

Perhaps in our prayer this holy week, we might sit with this reflection from Johann Baptist Metz :

    "Have we really understood the impoverishment that Christ endured? Everything was taken from him during the passion, even the love that drove him to the cross. No longer did he savor his own love, no longer did he feel any spark of enthusiasm. His heart gave out and a feeling of utter helplessness came over him. Truly he emptied himself (Phil 2:7). God's merciful hand no longer sustained him. God's countenance was hidden during the passion and Christ gaped into the darkness of nothingness and abandonment where God was no longer present. He reached his destiny, stretched taut between a despising earth that had rejected him and a faceless heaven thundering God's 'NO' to sinful humanity. Jesus paid the price of futility." 

                                     And the Savior asks only this of us:

             "Couldn't you keep watch with me even for one hour?" (Mk 14:37)