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In a simple ceremony last Sunday, I was invested with the scapular of the Secular Discalced Carmelites, and am now officially a novice. It isn't the same as the brown scapular that many wear; it's larger, with two patches of brown cloth about a foot square each, laid over the chest and back, much like that in the photo to the right. After the novitiate, one proceeds to make temporary promises, and three years after that, definitive promises. If one wishes, one may afterwards make simple vows (according to one's state).
There is a danger of vulgarizing here a crucial truth of our Faith that needs rather to be contemplated. It requires a silence. Sometimes in reading Blessed John Paul II’s Catecheses, you read only half of a page and then have to stop … you cannot continue … because it provokes within you a kind of loving meditation of what God has made. You enter into the mystery. . . .
The beauty of the body reflects the presence of the spirit, which is a mystery. And yet, we still have to contend with the reality of sin. Man and woman have sinned, and in our bodies we bear the consequences of this wound in our nature. That’s why it’s unrealistic – even a kind of angelism – to imagine that we can discuss or express our sexuality in an indifferent manner. (Read entire article.)
With most intense and sacrificial prayer, decided upon a project to fight against the enemies of the Church, under the command of the universal Queen, of the invincible Warrior: the Immaculate Virgin.His close friend, Fr. Paul, gives this testimony: "Fr. Maximilian’s hope in Our Lord was unshakeable and infinite since it was strengthened by a great trust; because just as one can easily arrive through Mariam ad Jesum, in the same way, one may obtain everything from Jesus per Mariam. From the beginning, he had founded the Militia Immaculatae on the same hope with which he would often greet Our Lady: cunctas haereses interemisti in universo mundo." (Read entire article.)
[Bl. Teresa's] experience of darkness within union is very rare even among the saints because for most, the end is union without it.
Her suffering, then, to use the Dominican theologian Father Reginald Garrigou-Lagrange's term, is reparatory, much more for the sins of others, not purificatory, for her own sins. She is united to Jesus in enough faith and love to share in his experience in the Garden of Gethsemane and on the cross.
Mother Teresa made the comment that the suffering in the Garden was worse than the suffering on the cross. And now we understand where that was coming from, because she understood Jesus' longing for souls.
The important thing is that it is union, and as Carol Zaleski pointed out in her article in First Things, this kind of trial is a new kind of trial. It is a modern kind of experience for the saints over the last 100 years or so, to suffer the feeling that one does not have any faith, and that religion is not true.
Saint Peter Julian entertained the idea of founding a society of diocesan priest-adorers, not unlike the Oblates associated with monasteries: "I want to form . . . secular priests, to bind them together by prayer, by determinate statutes, and to sanctify them by the Blessed Sacrament of the Altar. This work is ours, but I do not want to undertake now on a large scale. Oh, when will the time come! Priests sharing in the life of the Blessed Sacrament, should live according to the Eucharistic life of Jesus, which consists above all in self-abnegation and the love of sacrifice. . . . They should perform all their duties under the protection of the Blessed Virgin, the Adoratrice of the Cenacle, for through that sweet Mother we more easily approach Jesus. Their studies, their energy, and their piety they should direct to the Blessed Sacrament of the Altar. They should bear in mind that adoration is their chief duty: Nos autem orationi instantes erimus -- But we will give ourselves continually to prayer" (Acts 6, 4). (Read entire post.)
It is this spirit of prayer that will give them the key of the treasures of the knowledge and the glory of God, enclosed and hidden in the Most Holy Sacrament. It will give them entrance to the cellar of the adorable Bridegroom's delicious wine; there they will drink great draughts of it and become inebriated with its sweetnesses and ineffable consolations. This spirit of prayer will give them the prerogative and privilege of all those virgins who follow the Lamb in all the tabernacles wheresoever He is encountered. (Read entire post.)
