O Bona Crux

On this day, Andrew the poor fisherman from Galilee, patron saint of Scotland, of Greece, and of Russia, passed into eternal glory after many ordeals. Here is an excerpt from the old Martyrology for November 30, Feast of St Andrew the Apostle, as quoted in Dom Gueranger's The Liturgical Year, Vol XV :

Andrew, having been brought to the place of execution, seeing the cross at some distance, began to cry out: O good cross, made beautiful by the body of my Lord! so long desired, so anxiously loved, so unceasingly sought after, and now at last ready for my soul to enjoy! take me from amidst men, and restore me to my Master; that by thee He may receive me, Who by thee redeemed me. He was therefore fastened to the cross, on which he hung alive two days, preaching without cessation the faith of Christ....

Hail and Blessed

Here is an old prayer which if meditated upon daily from the feast of St. Andrew until Christmas Eve is said to be instrumental in bringing many graces. An old Italian nun once told me it was supposed to be pondered fifteen times a day, rather like the prayer of the rosary, so that the soul comes to taste the meaning of the words, and enter into the ineffable mystery.

Hail and blessed be the hour and the moment when Jesus Christ was born of the pure Virgin Mary at midnight in Bethlehem in piercing cold. At that hour vouchsafe O my God to hear my prayer and grant my petition through the intercession of Jesus Christ and the Virgin Mary His Mother. Amen.

Novena to the Immaculate Conception

Drawing close to Our Lady in the mystery of her Immaculate Conception is one of the best ways I can think of to spiritually ready the soul for the great feasts that are to come. The novena in honor of the Immaculate Conception, patroness of the United States of America, begins today. And here is an excerpt from the Little Office of the Immaculate Conception, much of which is based on Sacred Scripture:

Holy Mary, Mother of God, I firmly believe in thy Immaculate Conception. I bless God for having granted thee this glorious privilege. I thank Him a thousand times for having taught it to me by the infallible voice of the Church. Receive my heart, O Immaculate Virgin; I give it to thee without reserve; purify it; guard it; never give it back to me, preserve it in thy love and in the love of Jesus during time and eternity. AMEN.

V. Thy name, O Mary, is as oil poured out.
R. Thy servants have loved thee exceedingly.

Let us pray.
O God, Who by the Immaculate Conception of the Virgin, did prepare a worthy habitation for Thy Son: we beseech Thee, that as in view of the death of that Son, Thou didst preserve her from all stain of sin, so Thou wouldst enable us, being made pure by her intercession, to come unto Thee. Through the same Christ Our Lord. AMEN.

 

AVE maris stella, Dei Mater alma, atque semper Virgo, felix caeli porta.	HAIL, O Star of the ocean, God's own Mother blest, ever sinless Virgin, gate of heav'nly rest.
Sumens illud Ave Gabrielis ore, funda nos in pace, mutans Hevae nomen.	Taking that sweet Ave, which from Gabriel came, peace confirm within us, changing Eve's name.
Solve vincula reis, profer lumen caecis mala nostra pelle, bona cuncta posce.	Break the sinners' fetters, make our blindness day, Chase all evils from us, for all blessings pray.
Monstra te esse matrem: sumat per te preces, qui pro nobis natus, tulit esse tuus.	Show thyself a Mother, may the Word divine born for us thine Infant hear our prayers through thine.
Virgo singularis, inter omnes mitis, nos culpis solutos, mites fac et castos.	Virgin all excelling, mildest of the mild, free from guilt preserve us meek and undefiled.
Vitam praesta puram, iter para tutum: ut videntes Iesum semper collaetemur.	Keep our life all spotless, make our way secure till we find in Jesus, joy for evermore.
Sit laus Deo Patri, summo Christo decus, Spiritui Sancto, tribus honor unus. Amen.	Praise to God the Father, honor to the Son, in the Holy Spirit, be the glory one. Amen.

Novena to St. Nicholas the Wonder-worker

Let us pray the novena to St. Nicholas of Myra, the patron saint of children, mariners, prisoners, miners and brides. Our children especially need his prayers to protect their innocence. As the charity of St. Nicholas once saved three young girls from a life of prostitution, so let us pray for his intercession for all those in sexual slavery, as well as for those who choose to live in a state of concubinage. And may he help all women and girls who seek an honorable marriage with a Christian husband. And deliver all those tormented by evil spirits. From the St. Nicholas Center:

St. Nicholas, Glorious Confessor of Christ,
assist us in thy loving kindness.

Glorious St. Nicholas,
my special Patron from thy throne in glory,
thou dost enjoy the presence of God,
turn thine eyes in pity upon me
and attain for me from our Lord
the graces and help that I need
in my spiritual and temporal necessities (and especially this favor provided that it be profitable to my salvation).
Be mindful likewise,
O Glorious and Saintly Bishop,
of our Sovereign Pontiff of our Holy Church
and of all Christian people.
Bring back to the right way of salvation all those who are living steeped in sin,
blinded by darkness of ignorance, error and heresy.
Comfort the afflicted,
provide for the needy.
Strengthen the fearful,
defend the oppressed,
give health to the infirm.
Cause all [people] to experience the effects
of thy powerful intercession
with the supreme giver
of every good and perfect gift. Amen.

Say one Our Father, Hail Mary and Glory Be to the Father.

Pray for us, O Blessed Nicholas,
that we may be worthy of the promises of Christ.

Let us Pray.

O God who has glorified Blessed St. Nicholas,
thine illustrious Confessor and Bishop,
by means of countless signs and wonders,
and who does not cease daily so to glorify him ,
grant we beseech thee,
that we, being assisted by his merits and prayers,
be delivered from the fires of hell
and from all dangers through Christ our Lord.
Amen.

The Miraculous Medal

Today is the feast of the Miraculous Medal. The apparitions of Our Lady to Saint Catherine Labouré at the convent of the Daughters of Charity on the Rue de Bac in Paris are quite famous. Many people are unaware that the novice from Burgundy also experienced a vision of Christ the King, which foretold to her the July Revolution of 1830, and the final fall of the House of Bourbon. The July Revolution sent the Duchesse d'Angoulême and her family into permanent exile, as is told in the novel Madame Royale.

Fr. Joseph Dirvin describes the vision of June 6, 1830 in detail in his biography of St. Catherine.

On Trinity Sunday, June 6, 1830, Sister Laboure was given a special vision of Jesus in the Blessed Sacrament, or more specifically of Christ as King. This time she is precise as to the moment of the vision. Our Lord appeared to her, robed as a king, with a cross at His breast, during the Gospel of the Mass. Suddenly, all His kingly ornaments fell from Him to the ground—even the cross, which tumbled beneath His feet. Immediately her thoughts and her heart fell, too, and were plunged into that chasm of gloom that she had known before, gloom that portended a change in government. This time, however, she understood clearly that the change in government involved the person of the King, and that, just as Christ was divested of His royal trappings before her, so would Charles X be divested of his throne. 

It is a startling thing, this sacred vision of God Himself coming in majesty to foretell the fall of an earthly monarch, and the vision of Christ the King to Catherine Laboure seems to have had no other purpose than to foretell the fall of Charles X of France. The mystery of it will never be fully solved; yet here and there the mind may mull over certain clues. 

The greatest of these clues is the nature of the French monarchy itself, which, as Hilaire Belloc understood so well, was a holy thing, wedded to the people it ruled, and the prototype of all the monarchies of Europe. This ancient royalty had its roots in Rome and had received its Christian mandate in the crowning of Charlemagne by the Pope on Christmas Day, 800 A.D. It had lived for more than a thousand years in one line of men. 

No matter how great the goodness or wickedness of these royal men—and there was an ample supply of both—the sanctity of the monarchy itself and its mystical espousal to the French people is not to be questioned. In its institutions, its duties, its relationship to those it governed, its elaborate ritual, it was an imitation on a much lower plane of the Church of God. The French, kings and subjects alike, knew this well. Jeanne d'Arc was in an agony until the Dauphin should be crowned at Rheims and his body anointed and consecrated in the sacred rite which was so essential to this kingly religion; in a sense, it was her sole mission, and it is significant that her fortunes declined afterward. Louis XI had the Ampulla of holy oil brought from Rheims that his dying eyes might rest on it. 

Napoleon III sought to sanctify his usurpation by having himself anointed with the small, hard lump that was all that remained of the holy oil in 1853. The Kings of France, no matter how absolute their rule, had to be born and to die, had to eat and drink, take their recreation, and pray in the sight of the people. At the birth of her ill-fated Dauphin, Marie Antoinette almost died of suffocation, because of the press of the common people in her chamber, witnessing her lying-in; only the quick-witted action of a bystander, breaking a window to let in the fresh air, saved her. 

The double religious family to which Catherine belonged had had official relationships with the French monarchy. Louis XIII had died in the arms of Vincent de Paul. The Founder continued to serve his widow, Anne of Austria, during the early part of her Regency, both as her confessor and as an important member of the royal Council of Conscience, a body established for the reform of the Church. Under Louis XV and Louis XVI, the Vincentian Fathers had been royal chaplains at Versailles, and, after the restoration, had been privileged to form a guard of honor about the bier of Louis XVIII. 

That the vision of Christ the King had some intimate relationship with the end of the Bourbon dynasty seems evident, for Charles X was the last of the royal Bourbons; his cousin Louis Philippe, who succeeded him, belonged to a lateral line. Again we are confronted with the astonishing preoccupation of Heaven with the fortunes of France. 

Before leaving this vision, we must point out the noteworthy fact that Catherine Laboure was the first saint in modern times to be vouchsafed a vision of Christ as King. In the light of the great present-day devotion to the Kingship of Christ, we would seem justified in questioning whether the vision might not have a mystical meaning. In announcing the end of the oldest of monarchies, might not Christ have meant to point up the passing quality of all earthly authority, and to foretell present-day devotion to His Kingship as the index of the eternal quality of His own Reign? 

Certainly, however, Sister Laboure did not ponder thus in her heart. She knew only, as the common people know, that there was to be "a change in government," and that, as inevitably came to pass, "many miseries would follow." She knew only, as the common people know, that there had been too many changes of government in France over the last forty years, too many miseries following, and, with this instinctive knowledge of the people, she grew sad and feared. 

The statesmen and politicians of the land would have laughed at the long, prophetic thoughts of the little Sister, for national order seemed well established and peace reigned. Indeed, the government was enjoying the flush of esteem that had come with the brilliant victory of the French troops in Algiers, a victory which the nation had asked through the intercession of St. Vincent. In certain coffee houses and wine shops of Paris, however, there would have been no laughter. The brutal men assembled there would merely have smiled with grim satisfaction at this forecast of success for the revolution they were plotting.

(~from St. Catherine Laboure of the Miraculous Medal by Fr. Joseph Dirvin)

Solemnity of Christ the King

It would be a grave error, on the other hand, to say that Christ has no authority whatever in civil affairs, since, by virtue of the absolute empire over all creatures committed to him by the Father, all things are in his power. Nevertheless, during his life on earth he refrained from the exercise of such authority, and although he himself disdained to possess or to care for earthly goods, he did not, nor does he today, interfere with those who possess them. Non eripit mortalia qui regna dat caelestia.[27]

Thus the empire of our Redeemer embraces all men. To use the words of Our immortal predecessor, Pope Leo XIII: "His empire includes not only Catholic nations, not only baptized persons who, though of right belonging to the Church, have been led astray by error, or have been cut off from her by schism, but also all those who are outside the Christian faith; so that truly the whole of mankind is subject to the power of Jesus Christ."[28] Nor is there any difference in this matter between the individual and the family or the State; for all men, whether collectively or individually, are under the dominion of Christ. In him is the salvation of the individual, in him is the salvation of society. "Neither is there salvation in any other, for there is no other name under heaven given to men whereby we must be saved."[29] He is the author of happiness and true prosperity for every man and for every nation. "For a nation is happy when its citizens are happy. What else is a nation but a number of men living in concord?"[30] If, therefore, the rulers of nations wish to preserve their authority, to promote and increase the prosperity of their countries, they will not neglect the public duty of reverence and obedience to the rule of Christ. What We said at the beginning of Our Pontificate concerning the decline of public authority, and the lack of respect for the same, is equally true at the present day. "With God and Jesus Christ," we said, "excluded from political life, with authority derived not from God but from man, the very basis of that authority has been taken away, because the chief reason of the distinction between ruler and subject has been eliminated. The result is that human society is tottering to its fall, because it has no longer a secure and solid foundation."[31]
~Pope Pius XI "Quas Primas"

 

From Crisis:

 The feast of Christ the King trumpets a robust and sanguine Catholicism that brooks no compromise. It presents Christ as triumphant over the world, sin, and death. It proclaims Christ, Who mandates: “Go ye therefore and teach all nations” (Matthew 28:19) and, “So then because thou art lukewarm, and neither cold nor hot, I will spew thee out of my mouth” (Revelation 3:16). 

It is a feast that does not sit well with dialogue, equivocation, and “respecting the process.” Or with those who would like to finesse the Faith with more “nuance.” Even the word “triumph” makes a certain kind of Catholic bristle. After all, Catholics have been solemnly taught for decades to fit in and embrace a carefully massaged Catholicism that makes no demands except to prescribe (in Maritain’s arresting phrase) “kneeling before the world.” (Read more.)

 

And you shall see the Son of man sitting on the right hand of the power of God, and coming with the clouds of heaven.
- Saint Mark 14:62

St. Catherine of Alexandria

Today is traditionally the feast of the virgin martyr St. Catherine of Alexandria, one of the saints who spoke to St. Joan of Arc.

From the tenth century onwards veneration for St. Catherine of Alexandria has been widespread in the Church of the East, and from the time of the Crusades this saint has been popular in the West, where many churches have been dedicated to her and her feast day kept with great solemnity, sometimes as a holy-day of obligation. She is listed as one of the Fourteen Holy Helpers of mankind among the saints in Heaven; she is the patroness of young women, philosophers, preachers, theologians, wheelwrights, millers, and other workingmen. She was said to have appeared with Our Lady to St. Dominic and to Blessed Reginald of Orleans; the Dominicans adopted her as their special protectress. Hers was one of the heavenly voices heard by St. Joan of Arc. Artists have painted her with her chief emblem, the wheel, on which by tradition she was tortured; other emblems are a lamb and a sword. Her name continues to be cherished today by the young unmarried women of Paris.

Fr. Mark had a magnificent post about this great saint, who was removed from the Roman Calendar but has been put back again. To quote:

Saint Catherine of Alexandria vanished from the reformed Roman Calendar in the reform of 1969 and, Deo gratias, reappeared in 2002. Why? Part of the answer can be found, I think, by comparing the lovely old Collect for Saint Catherine with the one newly composed for the 2002 edition of the Roman Missal. In the traditional liturgy, which we celebrate here at Silverstream Priory, on November 25th the Church prays:

O God Who gavest the Law to Moses on the summit of Mount Sinai,
and didst miraculously place the body of Thy blessed virgin-martyr Catherine in the selfsame spot by the ministry of Thy holy angels,
grant, we beseech Thee, that her merits and pleadings
may enable us to reach the mountain which is Christ.

The Collect focuses on the image of Mount Sinai, the sacred mountain which prefigures Christ himself. The first phrase of the prayer takes up Exodus 31:18, the inspiration of the Great O Antiphon that we will be singing on December 18th:

O ADONAI, and Ruler of the House of Israel, who appeared unto Moses in the burning bush and gave him the Law on the summit of Sinai: come to redeem us with an outstretched arm!

 

 Here is an article on the historicity of the life of St. Catherine, Virgin and Martyr.

Blessed Miguel Pro

From Blessed Miguel Pro Catholic Academy:

 Blessed Fr. Miguel Pro was a Jesuit priest who was executed by a firing squad in Mexico for exercising his priestly ministry during the persecution of the Catholic Church in Mexico during the presidency of Elias Plutarco Calles.

Fr. Pro was born into a mining family in Guadalupe, Zacatecas on January 13, 1891. He was the third of eleven children, four of whom had died as infants or young children. Two of his sisters joined a convent. He was known for his great charity and for being a playful and prayerful man. He was known for the long periods he spent in the chapel. He was known for his great joy and love, even as he suffered from years of stomach illness that resulted in having to have multiple stomach surgeries.

Pro studied in Mexico until 1914 when a massive wave of governmental anti-Catholicism forced the novitiate to dissolve and the Jesuits to flee to Los Gatos, California, in the United States. He then went to study in Granada, Spain (1915–19), and from 1919 to 1922 taught in Nicaragua. Sadly, in Mexico, beginning in 1917, anti-Catholic laws were passed that did not allow priests to minister publicly, or even to wear clothing that identified them as priests in public. People had to be ministered to in their homes and in an underground manner. During this time the League for the Defense of Religious Liberty began to fight back against the oppression. They came to be known as the cristeros or Soldiers of Christ.

Fr. Pro took on many disguises in order to minister secretly to the persecuted Church and avoid being captured by the federales for carrying out ministry illegally. He was known to dress as a ‘dandy’ on the streets of Mexico City. He even disguised himself as a mechanic in order to give a conference to a group of cab and bus drivers.

Fr. Pro was also known for his great works of charity. The poverty level in Mexico at the time was so extreme that Fr. Pro, in addition to carrying out his spiritual duties, had an active ministry providing the poor with food, clothing, and shelter.

A  failed attempt to assassinate Álvaro Obregón in November 1927, provided the state with a pretext for arresting Pro, this time with his brothers Humberto and Roberto. A young engineer who confessed his part in the assassination testified that the Pro brothers were not involved. However, President Calles gave orders to have Pro and his brother Humberto executed for the assassination attempt.

On November 23, 1927, as Fr. Pro walked from his cell to the courtyard and the firing squad, he blessed the soldiers, knelt, and briefly prayed quietly. Declining a blindfold, he faced his executioners with a crucifix in one hand and a rosary in the other and held his arms out in imitation of the crucified Christ and shouted out,

“May God have mercy on you! May God bless you! Lord, Thou knowest that I am innocent! With all my heart I forgive my enemies!”

Before the firing squad was ordered to shoot, Pro raised his arms in imitation of Christ and shouted,

“Viva Cristo Rey!” – “Long live Christ the King!”. (Read more.)

St. Cecilia

While in Rome, my mother bought me a small statue of Saint Cecilia, the Roman martyr from the turn of the early third century. It is based on the life-size one in her basilica, sculpted after her incorrupt body was exhumed in the sixteenth century. She is lying on her side in her dressing gown with her neck half-severed. Cecilia was killed in her bathroom, and the executioner who hacked at her neck was put off by her calm dignity. It took her three days to die. The prelude to her ordeal was an attempt to scald her, which was why she was found near the bath - one of those huge Roman baths. For Cecilia belonged to one of the ancient Roman families and possessed great wealth. She was young, beautiful, and desired, but she died because she refused to renounce her Savior.

While journeying through life it is easy to understand why so many of the martyrs were very young. When people are young they do not understand what it is to lose life. Sacrifices are easier when you do not fully grasp what is being renounced. There is a special valor, a reckless courage, possessed by young soldiers which old soldiers do not always have. And yet Christians of every age are called to be soldiers of Christ and martyrs in spirit if not in body. The fortitude that seemed so effortless in my grandparents in their old age I see now was no small thing.

As Abbot Gueranger wrote in The Liturgical Year, Vol XV :

The lesson will not be lost if we come to understand this much: had the first Christians feared, they would have betrayed us, and the word of life would never have come down to us; if we fear, we shall betray future generations, for we are expected to transmit to them the deposit we have received from our fathers.

Those who had faith and courage, whether it was Saint Cecilia in her agony, or my grandmothers in their nursing homes, where they spent many years before they died, have passed on to me a priceless gift.

Presentation of Mary

Presentation of Mary by Titian

Father Mark offers some history and thoughts to ponder on the feast commemorating Our Lady being taken to the Temple at the age of three by her parents.

In the hidden recesses of the old Temple, the Holy Ghost prepares the new Temple, the all-holy Virgin, to become the Mother of God . Destined to be the living Temple of the Word, Mary dwells in the Temple of the Old Dispensation. She hears the chanting of the psalms, the prophets, and the Law. Was it there that the Most Holy Virgin learned Psalm 118, the long litany of loving surrender to the Word? And was it from Psalm 118, held in her heart from so tender an age, that she drew her response to the message of the Angel, “Be it done unto me according to Thy Word” (Luke 1:38)?

There planted in the Lord, the dew of His Spirit made her flourish in the courts of her God, and like a green olive she became a tree, so that all the doves of grace came and lodged in her branches. (Saint John Damascene, Upon the Orthodox Faith, Book IV, ch. 15)

Virgin Mother of the Lamb

There Mary smells the fragrance of incense and burnt offerings. There she observes the faithful of Israel streaming towards Zion, filling the Temple, seeking the Face of the Lord. Priest, altar, and oblation are not unfamiliar to the Virgin who, gazing upon her Son, will recognize in Him the Eternal priest, the Altar of the New Covenant, the pure Victim, the holy Victim, the spotless Victim offered in unending sacrifice.

To Belong to God

In the seventeenth century — the age of France’s “mystical invasion” — the mystery of the Presentation of the Virgin in the Temple captivated the hearts of Monsieur Olier and of others on fire with zeal for the holiness of the priesthood, for the beauty of the consecrated life, and for the worthy praise of God. The so-called French School of spirituality, marked above all by the imperative of adoration and the virtue of religion, gravitated to the feast of November 21st as to the purest liturgical expression of the desire to be offered to God, to belong to God, and to abide in God’s house.

Virgo Sacerdos

When, in 1641, Jean-Jacques Olier (1608 – 1657) established the seminary of Saint-Sulpice, he placed it under the patronage of the Virgin Mary in the mystery of her Presentation in the Temple. The Child Mary, hidden in the Temple, learns the meaning of sacrifice and oblation; she is the sacerdotal Virgin, prepared by the Holy Spirit to stand at the altar of the Cross united to her Son, High Priest and immolated Lamb. Under the influence of the French Sulpicians, many religious congregations, established after the horrors of the French revolution, chose the feast of the Presentation of the Virgin Mary as their foundation day, the day of religious profession, and of the renewal of vows. (Read more.)

This feast is a wonderful prelude to Advent. According to Dom Gueranger:

Mary, led to the Temple in order to prepare in retirement, humility, and love for her incomparable destiny, had also the mission of perfecting at the foot of the figurative altar the prayer of the human race, of itself ineffectual to draw down the savior from heaven. (From Abbot Gueranger's The Liturgical Year, Vol XV )

"For better is one day in thy courts above thousands. I have chosen to be an abject in the house of my God, rather than to dwell in the tabernacles of sinners." Psalm 83:11 (The Vulgate)

Newman's Dialogues on "Doctrinal Corruption"

 From Stephanie Mann:

Matthew Levering's Newman on Doctrinal Corruption could be considered an alternative interpretation of Newman's Essay on the Development of Christian Doctrine. By exploring Newman's dialogues with the (deceased) historian Edward Gibbon, his friend Richard Hurrell Froude, his own younger brother Francis Newman, his erstwhile Tractarian friend E.B. Pusey, and his German contemporary Ignaz von Döllinger, Levering helps readers understand Newman's search for religious Truth and the moral certainty that he was living in the "one True fold of Christ" (as he wrote on October 8, 1845 before Blessed Dominic Barberi received him in to the Catholic Church the next day).

As the publisher, Word on Fire Academic, describes the book:

Newman on Doctrinal Corruption examines John Henry Newman’s understanding of history and doctrine in his own context, first as an Oxford student and professor reading Edward Gibbon and influenced by his close friend Hurrell Froude, then as a new Catholic convert in dialogue with his brother Francis, and finally as an eminent Catholic during the controversies over the dogmas of the Immaculate Conception (in dialogue with Edward Pusey) and papal infallibility (in dialogue with Ignaz von Döllinger).

Author Matthew Levering argues that Newman’s career is shaped in large part by concerns about doctrinal corruption. Newman’s understanding of doctrinal development can only be understood when we come to share his concerns about the danger of doctrinal corruption—concerns that explain why Newman vigorously opposed religious liberalism. Particularly significant is Newman’s debate with the great German Church historian Döllinger since, in this final debate, Newman brings to bear all that he has learned about the nature of history, the formation of Church doctrine, the problem with private judgment, and the role of historical research.

As Levering notes states in the Introduction, "Whenever Newman thinks about doctrinal development, he always has the threat of doctrinal corruption in view" (p. 5). Furthermore, "one of the Essay's [The Essay on the Development of Christian Doctrine] major subplots has to do with religious liberalism's impact upon all Christian churches and traditions" (pp. 6-7) because by embracing doctrinal corruption--denying the necessity and the fact of authentic doctrinal development--"religious liberalism ultimately leaves little in Christianity worth retaining" (p. 34). So Newman's concern that he find and defend the Church that has through the centuries retained, with true development, the Deposit of the Faith, is essential to all of the following chapters in Levering's book. 

The book fulfills all the claims of the blurb: Levering does justice to each of Newman's correspondents, exploring their own efforts to understand Christian history as they sought to know how to love, worship, and serve God (except perhaps Gibbon, who imposed on his own view on history of Christians in the The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire as being the source of the corruption of the that fine, humane, and tolerant culture and civilization, with Nero burning Christians like torches in the Colosseum). (Read more.)

St. Raphael Kalinowski

Today on the Carmelite calendar is commemorated a saint who worked for true ecumenism, without compromising his convictions. His motto was: "Mary, always and in everything." From the Discalced Friars website:

St. Raphael of St. Joseph was born as Joseph Kalinowski on September 1, 1835. In spite of losing his mother early on, Joseph was a happy child and grew up in a very warm and affectionate Christian home. The phrase, “To be a Catholic and to be a Pole,” summed up his youth. 

Because of his many intellectual gifts, Joseph left home to study agronomy in St. Petersburg at the age of sixteen. All around him the spirit of irreligion reigned, so Joseph himself stopped attending Mass and receiving the sacraments. After graduation he joined the Czarist army as an engineering officer. Joseph struggled with poor health and was sent to Warsaw to be treated at a sanitarium. There he became friends with a young woman who was on fire with her faith. Their conversations were so powerful that a process of conversion began in him. In Warsaw, he discovered the terrible plight of his countrymen under Imperialist Russia. When a patriotic cousin was going to be sent into exile in Siberia, Joseph sought to procure a crucifix for him from his sister. She agreed to give it to him on one condition: he must go to confession! He sheepishly agreed, bringing about the final push in his conversion. Afterward, he simply said: “It was an exhilarating experience.” 

Around this time, Joseph was asked to join the secret Polish government behind a plot of insurrection. He knew this was futile and would lead to much bloodshed, but he also saw that it was necessary to make this sacrifice for the sake of his fellow Poles. In very little time he was discovered, arrested, and sentenced to ten years of labor in the salt mines of Siberia. In the camp, 100-200 prisoners shared a barracks with only wooden planks for beds in the freezing cold. He took care of his fellow prisoners, giving money and food to those who needed it, often going hungry himself. He loved to take time alone for quiet prayer and also helped organize prayer services for the men. He said in a letter: “God empties my heart of all natural attachment, probably to fill it with things more pure, of which nothing surpasses the desire to do good to my neighbor.” In Siberia, he also felt a strong attraction toward religious life. 

After serving his sentence, Joseph was released and returned home a changed man. He was hired to tutor a young Polish nobleman, Prince Auguste Czartoryski. In Krakow, he met a cousin of the young prince who had become a Carmelite nun. She gave Joseph a book on the spirituality of St. Teresa of Jesus and St. John of the Cross. Through his reading, he also discovered that Carmel was placed under Mary’s patronage in a unique way. His newfound love for Carmelite spirituality and deep devotion to Our Lady sealed the deal; he knew God was calling him to become a Carmelite. 

While the young Prince Auguste was saddened to be without his tutor, he also went on to religious life. Eventually, he entered the Salesians, receiving the habit from the hands of St. John Bosco. Father Auguste would help bring the Salesians to Poland and was himself beatified by Pope John Paul II in 2004. Joseph entered the Discalced Carmelite Friars on November 26, 1877, at the age of forty-two and took the name Raphael of St. Joseph. He made solemn profession and was ordained a priest on January 15, 1882, in Czerna, Poland. (Read more.)

More HERE.

St. Elizabeth of Hungary

On November 17 the Church gives us the feast of Saint Elizabeth of Hungary (1207-1231) who in her twenty-four years on earth embodied virtues which in today's world have almost ceased to exist: honesty, modesty, courage, chastity, self-denial and fidelity. She was not queen of Hungary, as many people think, but a princess. Her parents were the king and queen. Being royal in those days meant that your life was not your own. Marriages between two ruling families would form an alliance between countries and keep two countries from going to war. So from her infancy, Elizabeth was a living pledge of peace, since she was promised in marriage to the heir of Thuringia.

Elizabeth was sent to Germany at the age of four to be raised in the household of her betrothed, Louis of Thuringia, as was the practice of the time. It was heartbreaking for her parents to separate from their lively, dark-haired little girl, but they commended her to God and Our Lady. Louis' family disliked her, as was often the case with foreign royal brides, but he always cherished and protected his little fiancée. Elizabeth, although far from home, was a Magyar princess, and there was an intensity in her commitment to God and her husband which was repugnant to the placid Thuringians. They were married when Elizabeth was fourteen and Louis was about seventeen; he had inherited the dukedom of Thuringia from his father by then. Thuringia is roughly where Hesse-Darmstadt is now. In the thirteenth century it was a prosperous and powerful territory, although Louis was a duke, not a king.

Elizabeth had always shown a strong inclination toward piety as well as a great love of helping the needy and downtrodden. She opened a hospital for the poor in one of her castles and ran a soup kitchen. She was passionately in love with her husband, which is one of her most appealing aspects - she was a saint but she was also very much a woman. Louis truly loved his wife and sought for a fervent priest to guide her spiritual life. Unfortunately, her later confessor, the overzealous Conrad of Marburg, was excessively harsh with Elizabeth.

As Duchess, she established the Franciscan order in Thuringia and became herself a tertiary (with St. Louis of France, she is the patroness of tertiaries.) . Louis and Elizabeth had three children.

When Elizabeth was twenty, her husband died while on crusade. She ran shrieking through the castle, as if she had lost her mind. Her brother-in-law coveted the inheritance; he evicted Elizabeth and her three small children from their home. He forbade everyone in Thuringia to give them shelter. The little family had to hide in a pig pen from the rain. Poverty, loss and persecution did not embitter Elizabeth, as it would have embittered others, especially when it involved the suffering of her small children. She accepted everything from the hand of God.

Finally, someone got word to Elizabeth's father the King of Hungary, and he prevailed upon the Holy Roman Emperor to intervene. Elizabeth's lands were restored to her but she voluntarily chose holy poverty. After securing her children's welfare, she lived in a small room in the hospital she had founded and cared for the sick and the lepers. That would be like someone going to live with AIDS patients today.

Emperor Frederick begged for Elizabeth's hand in marriage but she refused. She died at the age of twenty-four and as she passed from this world a great light filled the room. Many miraculous cures were reported at her grave site. She was buried wearing the imperial crown which she had refused in life.

Thinking of St Elizabeth can help us when ever we feel afraid of poverty, or of being alone. Her spirit of humility and the renunciation of worldly honors can be imitated by all.

St. Margaret of Scotland

St. Margaret (1045-1092) was a royal Saxon princess. From a dethroned and exiled family, riches and power meant nothing to her, for she saw how quickly such things can pass away. Consequently, she was deeply drawn to the monastic life. However, the Scottish King Malcolm Canmore sought her hand in marriage, so attracted was he by her beauty and virtue. They were married. Malcolm was on the wild side, but he and Margaret loved each other completely, and died three days apart.

As Queen of Scots, St. Margaret bore eight children, was devoted to the poor, and helped to reform the liturgy. As one article states:

Under Queen Margaret's leadership Church councils promoted Easter communion and, much to joy of the working-class, abstinence from servile work on a Sunday. Margaret founded churches, monasteries and pilgrimage hostels and established the Royal Mausoleum at Dunfermline Abbey with monks from Canterbury. She was especially fond of Scottish saints and instigated the Queen's Ferry over the Forth so that pilgrims could more easily reach the Shrine of St. Andrew.

Mass was changed from the many dialects of Gaelic spoken throughout Scotland to the unifying Latin. By adopting Latin to celebrate the Mass she believed that all Scots could worship together in unity, along with the other Christians of Western Europe. Many people believe that in doing this, it was not only Queen Margaret's goals to unite the Scots, but also Scotland and England in an attempt to end the bloody warfare between the two countries.

In setting the agenda for the church in Scotland Queen Margaret also ensured the dominance of the Roman Church over the native Celtic Church in the north of the country.

It is interesting how St Margaret championed the practices of the Roman rite over the Celtic traditions, although I have no doubt that the Celtic liturgy and devotions were quite beautiful. St. Margaret, however, saw the importance of harmony of worship for the people of her country, especially after the upheavals of their century.

All Carmelite Souls

On the Carmelite calendar to day is the feast of All Carmelite Souls. We pray for all those united in the Order of Carmel who have passed from this world. Here is a meditation on purgatory by Fr. Angelo, based on the writings of St. Catherine of Genoa. To quote:

Remembrance of the holy souls is self-forgetfulness. It is the cure . . . for them, and for us. Unless, God forbid, we go to hell, someday we will forget ourselves and remember the ultimate realities: God and our obligations toward one another. We can do it now or we can do it later. The souls in Purgatory would have us do it now.

They remember us. Do we remember them? This is no time to sleep. Rest will come, but until now, we have not toiled for God nearly enough.

The good men we have canonized at their funerals will not thank us for the kind and laudatory eulogies. We forget the sufferings of others so as to console our families, and ourselves and in this no one is served, not ourselves, not our families, and certainly not the souls of the departed. Oh, sweet sleep. How we crave rest, yet we will not find it unless we give it. During this November we would do well to do more than a casual visit to a cemetery or a write a check and conveniently hand it to our pastor for yearly masses, though both of these we should do. Indeed, nothing can be more efficacious than the Mass, except a Mass that is dedicated by the stipend of our own hearts.

The apostles slept through Our Lord’s agony and we sleep through the agony of the poor souls. It is so easy to do. Perhaps we could offer time with Our Lord in the Blessed Sacrament, or more frequent communions for the grace to understand better the extremity of the situation and how the deliverance of the poor souls from their suffering will help protect us against our own peril, and how our imitation of their selfless desire for purity may save us from their present distress.

Love is not loved. But it need not be that way. Now is not the time for us to rest. (Read more.)

 

All Carmelite Saints

"With zeal have I been zealous for the Lord God of Hosts." ~3 Kings 19:10

Today the Carmelite Order commemorates the members of our Order who have ascended the mountain of perfection to their heavenly home. They sought God alone, conversing with Him in the depths of their hearts. Our Lord once said to the Holy Mother St. Teresa: "I desire that you no longer hold conversation with men, but with angels," and in many ways those words can be applied to all who follow the Carmelite way. The habits of the interior life, of recollection and mortification, must be cultivated amid our daily duties in order to create an atmosphere conducive to contemplation. In the Rule of St. Albert, the medieval hermits were told: "In silence and hope shall your strength be." (Isaias 30:15) During the theophany on Mt. Horeb, Elias the prophet experienced the Lord God, not in the earthquake, or in the fire, but in a "whistling of gentle air." (3 Kings 19:12) It is in silence and solitude that generations of Carmelites have sought to live in imitation of Elias, "meditating day and night on the law of the Lord and watching in prayer." (Rule of St. Albert)

The primary example of the saints and blessed of the Order has been Our Lady, the Queen and Beauty of Carmel, both in her hidden life at Nazareth and in her anguish at the foot of the Cross. St. Teresa enjoined her nuns to meditate on the lives of Christ's Mother, and His saints. "We need to cultivate and think upon and seek the companionship of those who, though living on earth like ourselves, have accomplished such great deeds for God." (The Interior Castle, p.172)

Speaking particularly of the hermits of old, the Holy Mother exhorts her daughters in The Way of Perfection:

Let us remember our holy fathers of the past, those hermits whose lives we aim to imitate. What sufferings they endured! What solitude, cold, hunger, and what sun and heat, without anyone to complain to but God! Do you think that they were made of steel? Well, they were as delicate as we. (The Way of Perfection, p.81)

The Powerful Friendship of the Holy Souls

 From Catholic Exchange:

It’s an unusual place for friendship, the cemetery. In life, we usually make friends who were born a few years, or maybe a few decades, apart from us. In this cemetery, built in the 1800s, people born in different centuries, who never could have known one another on earth, are buried side by side. Nowhere in society is there a greater variety of people spanning all walks of life than in the cemetery.

Coming here is not only a reminder of death; it is a reminder of life. For these people, though dead, once lived. Their headstones are a testament to their births as well as their deaths. They were babies once; then children, mothers, fathers, sisters, brothers, grandparents, friends. They woke in the morning and read the paper over breakfast; they agonized over bills and rejoiced over homecomings and sat with coffee mugs at the kitchen table and opened their front doors to friends. And in their dying, they entered a new phase of living; for just as I entered the stone gate to this long driveway lined with trees and graves, so these souls entered the celestial gate after a long journey on earth, and their eternal life lay before them.

Were they ready? Were they prepared to meet the Lord when they died? I don’t know, and so I walk, and read the headstones, and pray.

No, these souls don’t live here. Their eternity is elsewhere, but this hallowed ground is a place to honor their memories, and I can’t think of a better way of doing that than praying for them. Our faith assures us that our prayers for the dead can help their souls reach heaven sooner; and not only can we help free souls from Purgatory, but we can also help them at the moment of their death. For, as Padre Pio said, “For God, everything is an eternal present, …so that even now, I can pray for the happy death of my great-grandfather!” (Read more.)

St. Josaphat, Martyr

 It is the feast of St. Josaphat the Martyr. There is a fascinating passage in Dom Gueranger's The Liturgical Year, Vol XV for his feast, dealing with the conversion of the Russian Empire. The Liturgical Year was written long before the apparitions at Fatima in 1917, and so the mention of the "conversion of Russia," that is, the return of Russia and the East to the union with the Holy See, is remarkable. (No offense to my many dear Orthodox friends, but I hope our churches are truly united someday.) Here is what Dom Gueranger said over a hundred and fifty years ago, in the days of the tsars:

Russia becoming Catholic would mean an end to Islamism, and the definitive triumph of the cross on the Bosphorus, without any danger to Europe; the Christian empire in the East restored with a glory and a power hitherto unknown; Asia evangelized, not by a few poor isolated priests, but with the help of an authority greater than Charlemagne; and lastly, the Slavonic race brought into unity of faith and aspirations, for its own greater glory. This transformation will be the greatest event of the century that shall see its accomplishment; it will change the face of the world.

One might say the old monk was dreaming, but I thought it interesting in light of what followed.

More HERE.

Martinmas

It is the feast of St. Martin of Tours, the great thaumaturgus who converted large parts of France. The cloak of St Martin was one of the most precious relics of France, borne before her armies, hence the word chape gave rise to our English words "chaplain" and "chapel." St. Martin spoke out against capital punishment for heretics. The shrine of St. Martin at Tours was one of the holiest of French pilgrimage sites; he is considered one of the patrons of the Holy Face devotion which also originated there. According to New Advent:

The Church of France has always considered Martin one of her greatest saints, and hagiographers have recorded a great number of miracles due to his intercession while he was living and after his death. His cult was very popular throughout the Middle Ages, a multitude of churches and chapels were dedicated to him, and a great number of places have been called by his name. His body, taken to Tours, was enclosed in a stone sarcophagus, above which his successors, St. Britius and St. Perpetuus, built first a simple chapel, and later a basilica (470). St. Euphronius, Bishop of Autun and a friend of St. Perpetuus, sent a sculptured tablet of marble to cover the tomb. A larger basilica was constructed in 1014 which was burned down in 1230 to be rebuilt soon on a still larger scale This sanctuary was the centre of great national pilgrimages until 1562, the fatal year when the Protestants sacked it from top to bottom, destroying the sepulchre and the relics of the great wonder-worker, the object of their hatred. The ill-fated collegiate church was restored by its canons, but a new and more terrible misfortune awaited it. The revolutionary hammer of 1793 was to subject it to a last devastation. It was entirely demolished with the exception of the two towers which are still standing and, so that its reconstruction might be impossible, the atheistic municipality caused two streets to be opened up on its site. In December, 1860, skilfully executed excavations located the site of St. Martin's tomb, of which some fragments were discovered. These precious remains are at present sheltered in a basilica built by Mgr Meignan, Archbishop of Tours which is unfortunately of very small dimensions and recalls only faintly the ancient and magnificent cloister of St. Martin. On 11 November each year the feast of St. Martin is solemnly celebrated in this church in the presence of a large number of the faithful of Tours and other cities and villages of the diocese.

St. Leo the Great

From Nobility:

Leo’s pontificate, next to that of St. Gregory I, is the most significant and important in Christian antiquity. At a time when the Church was experiencing the greatest obstacles to her progress in consequence of the hastening disintegration of the Western Empire, while the Orient was profoundly agitated over dogmatic controversies, this great pope, with far-seeing sagacity and powerful hand, guided the destiny of the Roman and Universal Church.

Leo was descended of a noble Tuscan family, but born at Rome. His father’s name was Quintianus. Our earliest certain historical information about Leo reveals him a deacon of the Roman Church under Pope Celestine I (422-32). Even during this period he was known outside of Rome, and had some relations with Gaul, since Cassianus in 430 or 431 wrote at Leo’s suggestion his work “De Incarnatione Domini contra Nestorium” (Migne, P.L., L, 9 sqq.), prefacing it with a letter of dedication to Leo.

During the pontificate of Sixtus III (422-40), Leo was sent to Gaul by Emperor Valentinian III to settle a dispute and bring about a reconciliation between Aëtius, the chief military commander of the province, and the chief magistrate, Albinus. This commission is a proof of the great confidence placed in the clever and able deacon by the Imperial Court. Sixtus III died on 19 August, 440, while Leo was in Gaul, and the latter was chosen his successor. Returning to Rome, Leo was consecrated on 29 September of the same year, and governed the Roman Church for the next twenty-one years.

Whilst the Eastern empire was distracted by heretical factions, the Western was harassed by barbarians. Attila the Hun, enriched with the plunder of many nations and cities, marched against Rome. The Huns, a savage nation from that part of Scythia which now lies in Muscovy, had passed the Palus Mæotis, in 276, and made their first inroads upon the coasts of the Caspian Sea, and as far as Mount Taurus in the East. Almost two hundred years after this, Attila, the most powerful and barbarous of all the kings of that nation, in 433, had marched first into the East, then subject to Theodosius the Younger, and having amassed a vast booty in Asia, returned into Pannonia, where he was already master of a large territory. (Read entire article.)

Dedication of the Lateran Basilica

"How awesome is this place! This is none other than the house of God and the gate of heaven."
~Gen. xxviii. 17

Today the Roman Catholic Church celebrates the feast of the Dedication of St John Lateran, also called the Basilica of the Savior. As the Pope's official church, it is known as the "Mother Church of the World." Every Christian is called to be a Temple of the Lord, a tabernacle for the Divine Indwelling. This feast celebrates the holiness of the house of God, of every church building consecrated to His glory, of every Christian who through baptism becomes a sanctuary of the Most High. We look beyond the scandals of this world to the Bride of Christ, coming down out of Heaven from God, to the nuptial banquet at the end of time, of which we have already partaken. For every church is a miniature heaven, and every Mass is the marriage supper of the Lamb.

The purpose of the feast is here described:

By making the dedication of the papal church a feast throughout the world, the Church intends to stress Catholic unity without detracting from the glories of lesser churches. Other churches also have feasts, and each diocese celebrates the anniversary of its cathedral's dedication. Every church consecrated with chrism and marked on its stone-work with twelve crosses has its anniversary. But today, all churches everywhere, even bare rooms in poor towns, or huts in tropical missionary lands, align themselves in prayer with the Church's church: "Grant that whosoever enters this temple to ask good things from thee may rejoice in the obtaining of all his petitions" (Collect).

While we have one great High Priest, Jesus Christ, one Sacrifice in the holy Mass, one Faith, one Baptism, still it is for our convenience that in thousands of places we have God's temple, with thousands of human priests through whom Christ acts. The underlying unity of the Catholic Church compares with Christ's seamless robe: it is a mark of true Christianity.

For more than a thousand years successive popes ruled the true Church from their home near the Lateran basilica. Now, basilica means "house of a king," and you will recall that Pilate styled Jesus "King of the Jews" in mockery. Today the Lateran basilica is home of the King of Kings, and occasions a feast of praise. But the feast's special significance is that the Vicar of Christ the King maintains this church as his cathedral. The Pope lives now on the Vatican hill, near St. Peter's church, but he keeps the tradition of St. Sylvester: "This is that holy place in which the priest prays for the offenses and sins of the people" (Breviary).

Here is a beautiful quotation from Butler's Lives for November 9:

Hence churches have been usually consecrated by solemn rites and prayers, and it is a grievous sacrilege to profane them, or do in them anything but what has an immediate relation to the divine service: the church being the house of God. Though he be everywhere, he is said to reside particularly in heaven, because he there displays his presence by his glory and gifts. In like manner he honours the church with his special presence, being there in a particular manner ready to receive our public homages, listen to our petitions, and bestow on us his choicest graces.

Saint Elisabeth of the Trinity

As the Bride of Christ, she meditated on the Divine Indwelling. In her own words:

O my beloved Christ, crucified for love, would that I might be for you a spouse of your heart! I would anoint you with glory, I would love you - even unto death! Yet I sense my frailty and ask you to adorn me with yourself; identify my soul with all the movements of your soul, submerge me, overwhelm. me, substitute yourself in me that my life may become but a reflection of your life. Come into me as Adorer, Redeemer and Saviour.

O Eternal Word, Word of my God, would that I might spend my life listening to you, would that I might be fully receptive to learn all from you; in all darkness, all loneliness, all weakness, may I ever keep my eyes fixed on you and abide under your great light; O my Beloved Star, fascinate me so that I may never be able to leave your radiance.

 

More on her life, HERE. And HERE.

Blessed Francisco Palau y Quer

A saint with a passion for the Church.

In 1860-61 he (Bl. Francisco Palau) founded the Congregations of the Carmelite Brothers and Sisters in Balearic Islands. In 1867 the Apostolic Commissary of the Discalced Carmelites of Spain appointed Fr. Francisco to be the Director of the Tertiaries of the Order and in 1872 he wrote the Rules and Constitutions of the Tertiary Order.

His spiritual life centered on the Church as a "loved person", a Mystical Body, but also a Mystical Person with whom he could relate. No where in Christian history do we have anyone else with this Church-centered mysticism. He sees the personality of the Church is mystical and the living reality of the Church is an unfathomable mystery. One of the aspects of this mystery is the joining of Her visible structures with the supreme reality of love among men and their love of Christ in the Holy Spirit, Who gives Her life and gathers Her into unity. He teaches that Christ and mankind cannot be separated from each other and he sees the Church as The Whole Christ, The Mystical Christ. This is a bountiful topic for meditation that can bring us a deeper love of, and Obedience to, the Church.

His second original intuition for the spiritual life, and later corresponded with Vatican II, is that to think of Our Blessed Mother independently of the framework of the Church would distort her person and her mission. Mary is the perfect model of the Church's holiness and purity and the mirror in which all the perfections of the Church are reflected.

Our beloved brother in Carmel left us with an indispensable condition for keeping our apostolic service free from purely human interest and professional attitudes. He taught that supernatural motivation nourished by prayer is required. And he stressed that prayer and the theological virtues are the double cornerstone of the spiritual life, but it cannot endure without a constant attitude of self-denial. This is shared from his personal experiences.

Bl. Palau enlarged the spirituality of the Teresian Carmel. He challenges us to press on tirelessly whenever love may call us in the service of our brothers and sisters and of the Church. He says, "I live and will live for the Church; I live and will die for her."  (Read more.)

More HERE.

Saint Nuno

The great champion of Portugal and devoted servant of Our Lady of Mount Carmel is a canonized saint of the Order. According to the late Pope Benedict XVI:

The seventy years of his life take place in the second half of the 14th Century, and the first half of the 15th Century, which saw that nation solidify its independence from Castille and extend through the Oceans - not without a particular design by God -, opening new routes which would lead to the arrival of the Gospel of Christ unto the ends of the Earth.

Saint Nuno considers himself an instrument of this higher design, and engages himself in the militia Christi, that is, in the service of testimony that every Christian is called to give to the world. His characteristics are an intense life of prayer, and an absolute trust in Divine help.

Even though he was a superlative soldier and a great leader, he never let his personal gifts be placed above the supreme action which comes from God. Saint Nuno made an effort not to place obstacles to the action of God in his life, imitating Our Lady, to Whom he was most devoted, and to Whom he publicly ascribed his victories. At the end of his life, he retired to the convent of the Carmel [Lisbon], which he had ordered to be built.

HERE is a biographical account. More HERE.

Blessed Frances of Amboise, Duchess of Brittany

 

Here is the life of Blessed Frances d'Amboise, the duchess who became a Carmelite nun:

Bl. Frances D'Amboise was born in 1427, probably at Thouars, France. At fifteen years of age, she was married to Peter II, Duke of Brittany and crowned with him in the cathedral at Rennes in 1450. She was widowed in 1457 and, not wanting a second marriage, she turned towards religious life. For this purpose, she built a Carmel for sisters at Bondon in 1463 following the advice of Blessed John Soreth, Prior General of the Carmelites. However, she herself only entered the monastery in 1468. In 1477 she transferred to the monastery at Nantes, another of her foundations. The records show that, as prioress, she had a strong personality but coupled with a motherly understanding and considerable psychological awareness. Some of the inspired spiritual direction which she gave to her sisters has been preserved. To her is due the introduction of frequent communion (daily for those who were sick) and the fourth vow of strict enclosure. She died on 4th November 1485 and her last testament was the phrase which she had said most often during her life: "In everything, do that which will make God loved the more!" Her cult was approved in 1863 by Pope Pius IX, as a recognition of the faithfulness of the Bretons to the Catholic Church and to their duchess. She is considered the foundress of the Carmelite nuns of France. She was beatified by Pope Pius IX in 1866.(Read more.)

 

A quote from the writings of Blessed Frances:

Whatever the troubles and difficulties that weigh you down, bear them all patiently and keep in mind that these are the things which constitute your cross. Offer your help to the Lord and carry the cross with Him in gladness of heart. There is always something to be endured, and if you refuse one cross, be sure that you will meet with another, and maybe a heavier one. If we trust in God and rely on His help, we shall overcome the allurements of vice. We must never let our efforts flag nor our steps grow weary, but must keep our hearts under steady discipline.

Consider the afflictions and great trials which the holy Fathers endured in the desert. And yet the interior trials they suffered were far more intense than the physical penances they inflicted on their own bodies. One who is never tried acquires little virtue. Accept then whatever God wills to send, for any suffering He permits is entirely for our good.

More HERE.