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How often do we fail to recognize the Lord when he speaks to our hearts and opens his mind to us? The Risen Lord is ever ready to speak his word to us and to give us understanding of his ways. Do you listen attentively to the Word of God and allow his word to change and transform you?
My dear mother's name was Teresa, and celebrated her saint’s day October 15th under her Saint Teresa of Jesus. She felt towards her patroness a very special devotion, that wasn’t only fruit of her faith but also had a very important intellectual component, because my mother admired Teresa of Avila also as a woman do to her writings and her attitude towards life.
Not only she considered her poems and prayers as the most brilliant pages of our literature, but also, and above all, she understood that Teresa of Avila was a model and example of a liberated woman and of a character worthy of being followed by all women.
When my mother passed away in her night table she had the complete works...of Saint Teresa BAC edition. The book was completely underlined, filled with marginal notes and, among the pages, there were many articles of the press and magazines related, not only with Saint Teresa, but also with women that my mother admired, such as Madame Curie, Golda Meir or more recently Oriana Fallaci. With that book in my hands I understood perfectly that Saint Teresa was always a light bold in my mother’s life, not only in love and quest for God, but also as a point of reference in her life.
These intimate experiences helped me to understand better the true dimension of the book of Saint Teresa “Way of Perfection” that is, simply (and none the less), a perfect prayer manual but, as my mother would say, written not only for the cloistered nuns of the Saint’s time, but addressed possibly to all men and women of modern days.
It is not just a matter of knowing how to pray, but also to get acquainted with prayer and ever more in a world like ours, in which Catholics, within the walls of a convent or in everyday life, have lost the custom of small gestures: a sign of the cross when passing along a church, a visit to the most Sacred Sacrament, small prayers when working… and I am not talking about the rosary prayed in family or in community, simple attitudes that we consider proper of old times, in the desire of not recognizing that, or we either feel embarrassed of them for considering them naïve, or that they express that sad reality of modern times of not having time for God.
Saint Teresa shows us how to pray taking as a guideline the prayer of prayers, the same one taught by Jesus: the Our Father, the only gospel prayer, apparently brief and simple, but to which Teresa dedicates 22 chapters of her book, showing us the profound depths that the dialog with Jesus can reach and the wonderful way that we can express God’s love.
When I was a child and my mother showed me how to read and pray she always told me “vocalize well as Saint Teresa ordered her nuns”; thanks to that a person like me who, along life has to talk in pubic many times, may that be in big meetings or in conferences, can’t thank enough that, through Saint Teresa, had learned ever since a boy the principles of speaking in public, and to let oneself be understood with clearness, just as the Saint explained to her nuns when she was defining the requirements of mental prayer.
And I finish by giving thanks once again to my mother’s Teresian testimony that the faith is, besides many other considerations, the ground of living joyfully.
In her memory and also in my fathers, a man of strong and firm faith, may these words be addressed as a pondering of the “Way of Perfection”.
At that time, all of Christendom groaned under the weight and confusion of the Great Schism. At 15, while ice-skating with her friends, Lydwine broke a rib, forcing her into a bed she would never leave.
Over the next 38 years, she would frightfully endure every known ailment of the time with the exception of leprosy. Swollen with liquids, her stomach would expand to such an extent that she appeared to be with child; intolerably sensitive, her eyes would shed blood whenever they were struck by light and transfixed by agony, she bore the side wound of Christ’s passion through the stigmata.
Although in the onset of her sickness, she was given to despair, and rejected this torrent of sufferings, she soon became inflamed with an intense love of God that no pain could extinguish. Then, crippled by the agony of her infirmities, she donned a hair shirt and took to an insufficiently thin mattress of straw strewn on the floor, to augment her already unspeakable pain.
The History of a Soul, from this point of view, is also a spiritual treasure. St. Thérèse of Lisieux clearly suffered much from the lack of education and manners in some of the other nuns. She learned the holy art of using every single irritation for God's glory, including the nerve-racking noise that a sister made in the stall next to hers, which prevented her from praying and being recollected. Still, Thérèse emerged victorious through love.
Surprisingly, this can also bring happiness to the best of marriages, even though the being we love has wounded our hearts. A true lover whose love is baptized will use these insignificant sacrifices as they did in the Middle Ages, when artists used some bits of wool to make superb tapestries.
The true lover always has the word "thank you" on his tongue. It is also easy for him to say "forgive me," for in the best relationship, one inevitably falls into mistakes. If someone imagines that he can find himself in a situation in which he will never make a mistake, that person should not get married, or have children, or enter a convent. The holy art of living is to know that we will make mistakes, to recognize them, to repent, and, with God's grace, to have the readiness to change. Simultaneously, it is important that both lovers recognize their mistakes. We all know cases in which one of the lovers is always critical of the other and easily forgets that "the readiness to change" should be reciprocal, and that he too is affected by original sin.
While we look not at the things which are seen, but at the things which are not seen. For the things which are seen, are temporal; but the things which are not seen, are eternal.
~2 Corinthians 4:18Many people have the experience of a certain book coming along at just the right time. The Invisible World
by Anthony DeStefano was such a book for me. In bringing me back to the basic truths about God and the supernatural it freshened my perspective about earthly events, helping me to once more view the trials and tragedies of life in a supernatural light. Sometimes going back to the beginning and contemplating on a deeper level the simple truths of faith which we were taught in childhood can be the most worthwhile spiritual exercise. God is pure spirit, Who created us and Who loves us, yet He permits us to have free will because He does not want mindless automatons. Reflecting upon the greatness and power of God, knowing that such a great God sustains our very beings, can be overwhelming as well as humbling. Nobody likes crosses. Nobody likes to suffer. But oftentimes that's exactly what we need most, because that's what works best. In the end, it's the crosses and trials and tests that are most effective in shaping us into the kind of human beings we're meant to be. Crosses change us. They change us by exposing the invisible truth about life — the truth that the devil wants to keep secret from you, the truth that the devil wants to stay hidden — the truth that we're in the midst of a colossal invisible battle. (p.151)
was sent to me by the author's representative in exchange for my honest opinion.)
The hermitage isn't what you'd expect: a small home in a quiet neighborhood of Essex, Maryland, that was originally built as a one-room fishing shack 100 years ago. But then, the hermit who lives there isn't what you'd expect, either. Mary Zimmerer, now Sr. Maria Veronica of the Holy Face, is a bubbly widow who discerned a call to the contemplative life after her husband passed away five years ago. Having made a public profession of vows last fall, she is now one of only two canonical (or diocesan) hermits in the Archdiocese of Baltimore.
Sometimes we do something with the intention of pleasing another and the whole thing is misunderstood. We can find ourselves harshly treated in a circumstance where we might have anticipated joy.
Other times we do something convincing ourselves it is for the good of another when in fact it is a self-serving action – something we hope will elevate us in the eyes of others, or from which we will personally gain.
But God sees through us – and for that alone we ought to be eternally grateful. There’s no-one better at helping us remove the veils of self deception , for God loves us so much we can be assured that anything he ever does is to help us grow in virtue, closer to Him and in conformity to His will – the hand that wounds is the hand that heals.
To know that God sees everything and looks at the heart can then, depending on how you look at it, be an assurance or a caution. It’s certainly worth remembering.
The crowd was speechless with emotion as they beheld this young priest who went to his death filled with such inner peace. Just before the execution Fr. Peter-Adrian said: “My God, I place my life in Your hands! I pray for the restoration and preservation of Your Holy Church. Forgive my enemies.” After the execution the hangman grabbed the bloody head by the hair and held it up to show the people. It was 4:30. His body was taken to the cemetery of St. Peter in a cart.
“Humility is truth,” said Saint Teresa of Avila. To live this “truth” means we never deny the gifts in ourselves, but thank God for them. Conversely, we should never deny the gifts in others, especially if theirs are greater than our own.
Humility practiced in this way becomes a fundamental virtue for cordial social relations and harmonious life in society.
It is hard to keep the balance after Original Sin, since we live in an era of pride. Egalitarianism deeply pervades the modern mentality
Her expression was kindly and peaceful. It is said that the eyes are the windows of the soul and from out the abundance of the heart the mouth speaketh! There was the sweetest reflections of peace in the eyes of Mother Therese and since she had learned to keep her interior in order from tender childhood, her deep spirituality could not but reveal itself even in her very countenance and she showed, unknowingly however, that her heart was immersed in Him Whom she loved above all. The refinement of her person, her extreme modesty, and the gentle dignity with which she treated persons and affairs, together with her extraordinary business capacities, gave her all that one would wish to find in a Foundress and an exemplary religious.
The purity of her gaze and the peacefulness which she constantly endeavored to maintain around her, gave a sweet and heavenly expression to her features, which were not beautiful but singularly attractive, so that one felt instinctively drawn to her. Her eyes were grey-blue, rather deep-set and penetrating, but clear and innocent as those of a child. They would sparkle merrily and light up with pleasure, and she could make her nuns laugh gayly too.
She liked her nuns to be always happy, always ready to smile, and if anyone of them would sadden over some trifling occurrences, she would remind her sweetly: "No long faces, Sister. We cannot stand long faces." And it never took long for the culprit to be wreathed in smiles even though her cheeks were still wet with the dew of tears, because Mother Therese never hesitated to portray on her own dear countenance the picture of the "long face" before her.
Great was her delight when with her nuns in recreation, especially on some of the major feasts or on days when her anniversaries were celebrated. On these occasions the Sisters would prepare "surprises" and enact scenes, both pious and amusing, from the lives of the Saints. Mother Therese enjoyed these little festivities and entered into them with a simplicity and a joyfulness that delighted her spiritual children. Unfailingly she had "surprise" for them too on such occasions, when she would herself prepare beforehand some little dainties or extra refreshments, different from the routine food, so that these happy events were sought after and eagerly looked forward to by all with child-like anticipation.
Some of them were aristocrats, such as Madeleine, Lady Dacre, whose religious opinions earned the respect of Queen Elizabeth I, and about whom Alice Hogge has written in God's Secret Agents, Lady Vaux and the other well-born ladies who appear in Fr. John Gerard's Autobiography, and Anne, Countess of Arundel, the wife of St Philip Howard.
As women of birth and rank they were able to exercise their authority in their local communities and in some cases protect their co-religionists.
Rather different was the story of the York housewife St Margaret Clitherow. As a regular visitor to York I have known her story virtually all my life.
There is no need for us to live with the ghosts of the past, with the memory of past sins and troubles weighing heavily upon our hearts and preventing us from moving forward. If we have been brought to Jesus Christ by the circumstances of life; if, by God's grace, we have come to Jesus Christ; if Jesus Christ Himself has sought us out, placed us upon His shoulders and carried us home, then "there is no need to recall the past, no need to think about what was done before" (Is 43:18). The excessive mercy of the Lord has swallowed up all our sins, leaving no trace of what was, and filling the present with the sound of his praise. "The people I have formed for myself will sing my praises" (Is 43:21.
The later developments in Liszt's life of prayer could shed some light on the apparent darkness of his final years. Most of the great spiritual writers have agreed on a certain pattern in a soul's ascetical progress. The initial conversion and discovery of God in prayer is usually a period of great joy and consolation. As a person grows in the spiritual life these delights gradually disappear, leaving the soul in what seems like darkness. This is not because God has deserted the person, but rather because He wants to draw him closer to Himself, helping the soul to seek and love God rather than His gifts.
This period of aridity can last for years, although it is seldom without some respite, and further progress in prayer depends largely on the generosity of abandonment and love we offer God during this time of refining. Thus it is entirely compatible with genuine spiritual progress that the Liszt of "Unstern" enjoyed a more intimate union with God than the Liszt of the Benediction -- in fact it is more likely. We know that the latter piece was written at the time of Liszt's return to the sacraments, and although the piece takes us into the world of high contemplation it is virtually impossible that Liszt could have experienced such a state of prayer at first hand. But perhaps at the end of his life, after so many years of disappointment and difficulty, still clinging tenaciously to his faith, Liszt could echo the following words of the Carmelite, St. Thérèse of Liseux, written at the end of her life:
I give thanks to Jesus for making me walk in darkness, and in the darkness I enjoy profound peace[ -- ]I am content, nay full of joy, to be without all consolation. I should be ashamed if my love were like that of earthly brides who are ever looking for gifts from their bridegrooms, or seeking to catch the smile which fills them with delight. Thérèse, the little spouse of Jesus, loves Him for Himself.
Kindness is a spark that reflects God’s Light, while hate engulfs us in an actual darkness.
When we’re kind, joy begins to creep into our being, and then to pervade it. Our bodies and emotions are both healthier. This spring -- this Lent -- ask the Holy Spirit to search the depths of your soul and guide you as to what needs to be cleared out. You may be surprised at what He says!
You also may be surprised -- once you cast out wrong emotions -- at how free and balanced you'll feel (if you keep casting the debris out). It's important to have "balance," which also means to have ease. We must be easy (not stiff). When we are ill at ease, we can become ill. There is hardness. There is dis-ease.
Life on earth is about seeking balance in every dimension. When we start with spiritual balance, emotional and physical equilibrium follow.
That means purifying our thoughts and it also means being "natural," simple, and caring.
