Soul-Pain

I enjoy reading Father Lawrence Lovasik's book The Hidden Power of Kindness (Sophia Institute Press, 1999) over and over again. The following is a passage which never fails to leap out at me:

Soul-pain is the price of conversions. No sin can be blotted out except by the soul-pain we know as supernatural contrition. If you want to win souls for Christ, you must be willing to endure the anguish for sin that sinners do not experience, in order to win ultimately the grace of repentance for them. You may have to go through the agonies of delayed hopes for many hearts, and even seeming failure at the end, for someone whose soul has been your deep concern. But your sincere devotion to bring a soul to Christ will not be in vain. God knows the secret workings of His grace in souls.

I recommend Fr. Lovasik's book as spiritual reading for any time of the year.

"A Tranquil Mediocrity"

 From Laudem Gloriae:

"God does not give Himself wholly until He sees that we are giving ourselves wholly to Him." --St. Teresa of Avila

St. Teresa laughs somewhat mischievously at those who are afraid of doing too much for God, and under pretext of prudence, measure their acts of virtue with a yardstick: "You need never fear that they will kill themselves; they are eminently reasonable folk! Their love is not yet ardent enough to overwhelm their reason. How I wish ours would make us dissatisfied with this habit of always serving God at a snail's pace! As long as we do that we shall never get to the end of the road. Do you think that if we could get from one country to another in a week, it would be advisable to take a year over it?" (Int. Castle, III, 2).
...
To become generous, we must learn to do with our whole heart, not only what is a duty, but also what, though not obligatory, will give more glory to God...[to do otherwise is] settling down into a tranquil mediocrity.

--Divine Intimacy, Fr. Gabriel of St. Mary Magdalen, O.C.D., 290

2015: The Year of Prayer

According to Communicationes:

ROME-ITALY (11-09-2011).- The Carmelite bishops who came to the Extraordinary Definitory have petitioned the Holy See to declare 2015 a year of prayer. In a letter addressed to the Pope our Carmelite bishops are requesting this declaration from Benedict XVI in view of the celebration of the Fifth Centenary of the Birth of Saint Teresa.

They announced this on Sunday afternoon to the superiors of the Extraordinary Definitory just before it ended.

It was the turn of the Latin American group to plan the Eucharist for Sunday morning. Bishop Gustavo López (presider at it) invited the members of the Extraordinary Definitory and the bishops present to live to the full their allegiance to Christ and take seriously St. Paul’s message in the second reading and let one’s ability to forgive grow to the measure desired by Christ in the day’s Gospel passage (“seven times seven”).

Work in the meeting hall resumed at 9:45 a.m. when the bishops were introduced and asked to share a little about their experiences as Carmelites and bishops.

Following that Bishop Braulio Sáez delivered a conference on what local churches expect of the Discalced Carmelites. His talk stood in for that of Bishop Silvio Báez who, unfortunately, could not attend the get-together of our OCD bishops. Father General read a note from Bishop Báez which received a sympathetic reply from the entire Extraordinary Definitory through an expression of solidarity for the very difficult situation currently found in his diocese.

Bishop Braulio asked those present not to try to find excuses for the hard times we are in, nor a scarcity of vocations, nor for secularization. . . The Lord goes on inviting us in these times and believers are expected to answer Him. Bishop Braulio re-evoked the reference made by Father General to Saint Teresa earlier in the meeting and called his Carmelite brothers to live in suchwise as to incarnate and prove the identity given them by the Teresian charism.

“We Carmelites ought to consider ourselves one of those creative minorities mentioned by Pope Benedict XVI—called to help the societies in which we live find again the best of their heritage.” Just as Blessed John Paul II said, religious life benefits from a glorious past, but has much to accomplish in the future.

Following what was noted by the Aparecida Document, Bishop Braulio challenged us not to complain, but to re-read the Gospel as Good News for the reality in which Carmel finds itself.

To do this the children of Saint Teresa–just as Latin America’s Carmelite Major Superiors stated at their recent meeting in Londrina, Brazil—are called to return to the true heart of their vocation and remain alert to the teaching of their Foundress and Teacher, go to the very essence of the Carmelite charism, with fidelity to the Church, by living consistently its contemplative and apostolic dimension (Martha and Mary must always coexist).

Each community, Bishop Sáez went on to say as he cited once again the document of the Aparecida meeting [of the Latin American episcopal conferences], has to share an outpouring of the life of Christ (= “pastoral conversion”). This is valid not only for any Christian community at all, but most especially for Teresian Carmelite communities. This means to live in Christ by prayer, the liturgy and fraternal community life, so as to thereby share what one lives out as he/she meets others, particularly the most materially and spiritually poor and needy.

Bishop Braulio referred again to the Aparecida document, as well as to Bl. John Paul II in Pastores Dabo Vobis, no. 23, and asked the Major Superiores mayores to live and induce the practice of “pastoral charity” in their circumscriptions: grafted onto Christ Christ –with one’s eyes fixed on our Spouse. We are to open ourselves to the reality of the Church and not avoid the problems, needs, hopes and plans for evangelization of the local churches with the joys and suffering of their people, as we think to safeguard our charism.

He see three keys to assist Discalced Carmelites in this process of responding to the demands of shared local church life: 1) live an intense experience of life in Christ within ourselves, that transforms us,(according to Benedict XVI writing in Deus Caritas Est; 2) live intensely community life in a Teresian manner so as to serve as an example of communion for the local church; and 2); live intensely a commitment to mission so as to announce openly the Gospel, thus rendering specialized service to the ecclesial communities in which our Teresian Carmel is present.

In the late afternoon the Extraordinary Definitory, happily accepted the letter that the bishops had drawn up and will send to His Holiness the Pope, in order to ask of him the dedication of the year 2015 as a Year of Prayer with Saint Teresa as its Patron Saint. (Read entire article.)

Mystical Substitution

Fr. Mark has been sharing some magnificent meditations from Mother Mechtilde de Bar on reparation and the Holy Eucharist:

If then, a religious of the Holy Sacrament wants to understand the spirit of her vocation, let her hold herself always in a state of victimhood in Our Lord's holy Presence, and if she wants to live in a state of true victimhood, let her, at times, see herself as an object of love and of good pleasure before her Divine Lord, who willingly receives the reparation she makes to His glory and, at other times, see herself as an object of horror and of wrath before her Sovereign Judge, who demands in justice the expiation due Him for so many profanations. Let her, on the one hand, believe herself called to all that is most holy and divine in the spiritual life; and on the other hand, believe herself called to what is most mortifying, most crucifying, and most annihilating in the life of penitence. Finally, let her remain in a state of indifference with regard to the effects of Mercy and Divine Justice, which she is bound her honour equally in the Most Holy Sacrament of the Altar by virtue of her profession.

Let there be no cross, disdain, suffering, death, or annihilation that she will not embrace with joy out of zeal for Divine Justice, for the expiation of all the sins of profanators of the Most Holy Sacrament; just as there are no virtues, graces, merits, perfections, holiness, blessings, praises, adorations, prayers, and good works, that love and piety would not cause her to seek with ardour for the reparation of the honour and infinite glory, the grandeurs, and the excellences, of the same Holy Sacrament. (Read entire post.)

The Silence of God

It is only apparent. From VIS news:

VATICAN CITY, 14 SEP 2011 (VIS) - This morning the Holy Father travelled by helicopter from the Apostolic Palace at Castelgandolfo to the Vatican, where he held his weekly general audience in the Paul VI Hall. In his catechesis he dwelt on the first part of Psalm 22, focusing on the theme of prayers of supplication to God.

The Psalm, which reemerges in the narrative of Christ's Passion, presents the figure of an innocent man persecuted and surrounded by adversaries who seek his death. He raises his voice to God "in a doleful lament which, in the certainty of faith, mysteriously gives way to praise".

The Psalmist's opening cry of "my God, my God, why have you forsaken me?" is "an appeal addressed to a God Who appears distant, Who does not respond", said the Holy Father. "God is silent, a silence that rends the Psalmists heart as he continues to cry out incessantly but finds no response". Nonetheless, he "calls the Lord 'my' God, in an extreme act of trust and faith. Despite appearances, the Psalmist cannot believe that his bond with the Lord has been severed entirely".

The opening lament of Psalm 22 recurs in the Gospels of Matthew and Mark in the cry the dying Jesus makes from the cross. This, Benedict XVI explained, expresses all the desolation the Son of God felt "under the crushing burden of a mission which had to pass through humiliation and destruction. For this reason He cried out to the Father. ... Yet His was not a desperate cry, as the Psalmist's was". (Read entire post.)

Bride of Christ

Rosalind Moss becomes Mother Miriam of the Lamb of God. Te Deum laudamus!  To quote Bishop Slattery:

In every age and place, the Holy Spirit, Lord and Giver of Life, is at work in the Body of Christ to regenerate and extend the various forms of consecrated life by which the Church is enriched and made present in the world.

Beginning with the vocation of Saint Antony of Egypt, the Father of every form of consecrated life in East and West, and continuing through the charisms of Saint Pachomius, Saint Basil, Saint Augustine, and Saint Benedict, and of the myriads of holy founders and foundresses in every century the Church has never been without new and varied expressions of the call to follow the poor and virginal Christ, obedient unto death, even death on a Cross.

Moreover, from Apostolic times, unmarried women and widows have sought to imitate the Daughter of Sion, the Blessed Virgin Mary in her unconditional surrender to the will of the Father and the overshadowing of the Holy Spirit. Having said her "Yes" in response to the message of the Archangel Gabriel, the Virgin of Nazareth became blessed above all women, the Joy of Israel, and the Glory of Jerusalem.

Among the women who seek to imitate the Blessed Virgin Mary and aspire to share in her spiritual motherhood today, are the Daughters of Mary, Mother of Israel's Hope. The mystery of the Presentation of Jesus in the Temple is the luminous pattern of their ecclesial mission to all peoples: Jew and Gentile, young and old, rich and poor.

Contemplating that mystery, they rejoice that the Light of the World has come, and receive the Child Jesus, Israel's Hope and Consolation, from the arms of His Blessed Mother as did Simeon; their mission is to teach others to do likewise, and so find hope in this valley of tears.

They listen to Simeon's prophetic utterance and recognize in his arms the Promised One, who from the altar of the Cross will offer Himself to the Father as the Atoning Lamb. Thus are they compelled to undertake works of catechesis so that all peoples may find in the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass the wellspring of salvation, life, and resurrection.

They observe Anna, the Daughter of Phanuel, who gave thanks to the Lord and spoke of Him to all who were looking for the redemption of Israel; strengthened by holy Anna's courage and zeal, they will devote themselves to a missionary outreach to "those who dwell in darkness and in the shadow of death," to apostolic works of evangelization, to the consolidation of family life, and to the promotion of a Catholic culture of goodness, beauty, truth, and life.

New foundations of consecrated life are fragile undertakings; they must welcome the wisdom of past generations with humility and gratitude, learning from the teaching and example of the saints who never grow old. It is by a sure and praiseworthy instinct, then, that the Daughters of Mary, Mother of Israel's Hope, have chosen to graft their tender shoot onto the age-old tree of the Benedictine tradition. (Read more.)

Monks as Outcasts

Here are some words which can be applied to all who are trying to live the contemplative life.

From the beginning, monks have elected to live outside the conventional configurations of power, both ecclesiastical and secular. The Church is essentially eschatological, a community of outsiders in the world. Within the community of outsiders that is the Church, the fathers and mothers of the desert constituted yet another community of outsiders. The monastic heart suffers a certain affinity with the outcast, with the person who lives on the edge, with those who question "the done thing," with those who risk intoning "a new song" (Ps 97:1). This is the price of life in the light of the Kingdom. (Read entire post.)