The Apostolate of the Carmelite

This is our work: seeking union with God.

Carmelites devote themselves to the spiritual life. This does not mean that we shut ourselves up as hermits, living in isolation from others where we can live quiet, undisturbed lives. Our concern is for others and their welfare. This means that we are not only to desire, but to work, act and  suffer for the salvation of others. To do this we concentrate all our efforts on seeking God and trying to live a holy life in order to please Him. Then we will be “acquiring a power of action and impetration capable of obtaining the salvation of many souls.” (Divine Intimacy, #317 by Fr. Gabriel of St. Mary Magdalen, OCD)

Little Flower Novena

The Little Flower Novena begins today. The novena can be found here. Ask our friend in heaven for a favor!

The Little Flower…really was a saint

“I was doing a lot of spiritual reading – Lives of the Saints – Joan of Arc, St. John Bosco, St. Benedict, I was going through St. John of the Cross’ Ascent of Mount Carmel and the first parts of the Dark Night for the second time in fact, but for the first time with understanding.

The big present that was given to me, that October, in the order of grace, was the discovery that the Little Flower really was a saint, and not just a mute pious little doll in the imaginations of a lot of sentimental old women. And not only was she a saint, but a great saint, one of the greatest: tremendous! I owe her all kinds of public apologies and reparation for having ignored her greatness for so long, but to do that would take a whole book, and here I have only a few lines to give away.

… However, no sooner had I got a faint glimpse of the real character and the real spirituality of St. Therese, than I was immediately and strongly attracted to her – an attraction that was the work of grace since, as I say, it took me, in one jump, clean through a thousands psychological obstacles and repugnances.

And here is what strikes me as the most phenomenal thing about her. She became a saint, not by running away from the middle class, not by abjuring and despising and cursing the middle class, or the environment in which she had grown up; on the contrary, she clung to it in to as far as one could cling to such a thing and be a good Carmelite. She kept everything that was bourgeois about her and was still not incompatible with her vocation: her nostalgic affection for a funny villa called “Les Buissonnets,” her taste for utterly oversweet art, and for the little candy angels and pastel saints playing with lambs so soft and fuzzy that they literally give people like me the creeps. She wrote a lot of poems which, no matter how admirable their sentiments, were certainly based on the most mediocre of popular models.

To her, it would have been incomprehensible that anyone should think these things ugly or strange, and it never even occurred to her that she might be expected to give them up, or hate them, or curse them, or bury them under a pile of anathemas. And she not only became a saint, but the greatest saint there has been in the Church for three hundred years – even greater than the two tremendous reformers of her Order, St. John of the Cross and St. Teresa of Avila.

….What can such a one do with his new idol? Stare at her picture until it makes him dizzy. That is all. But the saints are not mere inanimate objects of contemplation. They become our friends, and they share our friendship and reciprocate it and give us unmistakable tokens of their love for us by the graces that we receive through them. And so, now that I had this great new friend in heaven, it was inevitable that the friendship should begin to have its influence on my life.”

(Thomas Merton, The Seven Story Mountain)

Whose Mouth Christ Put His Own Words

St. Albert of Jerusalem

The Lawgiver of Carmel

Albert Avogadro was born in Italy in the middle of the twelfth century. He became a Canon Regular of the Holy Cross and was elected prior in 1180. In 1184, he was named Bishop of Bobbio and of Vercelli in 1185. In 1205 he became Patriarch of Jerusalem. Sometime between 1206 and 1214 he was approached by the hermits living on Mount Carmel with the request that he would prepare for them a written rule of life based on the traditional patterns of their contemplative communal life.

This Rule inspires Carmelites all over the world. It is one of the shortest of the great rules giving the Carmelites a Way of Life.  It is obvious when reading the Rule that St. Albert lived every moment the Gospel, having internalized it so completely that the words of the Bible are used to express his thoughts. Writing the Rule for the hermits on Mount Carmel, it is quite notable that he relied on the Scriptures.  The Rule is steeped in the Gospel’s message; though there are not any explicit passages quoted, there are many allusions to Sacred Scripture.

As Carmelites, we too should be personally familiar with the Scriptures in our daily encounter with them. Then as St. Albert says of St. Paul in number 20 of the Rule we may have “both the teaching and the example of Saint Paul the Apostle, into whose mouth Christ put his own words.” The sacred texts should be in our minds and expressed in our thoughts and words. As Carmelites our day is filled with opportunities to meditate on the Scriptures: Mass, Morning and Evening Prayer, Night Prayer and the practice of Lectio Divina.

Saint Albert,
you have given us a Rule of Life
according to the Gospel
to guide us on our journey
towards perfect love.
Help us always to keep watch
at our prayers, to live in
allegiance to Jesus Christ,
and to serve him
faithfully until death.
Through Christ Our Lord.
Amen.

Sorrowful Mother

Mary lived only for her Son and accepted all that happened to Him. This was an excruciating martyrdom for any creature to endure. Her love cost her indescribable suffering – to see her child in so much pain. Yet, this scene at the foot of the cross expresses her love for us too. Her love aided Christ in His mission. She united herself to Jesus by her presence at the foot of the cross uniting her will to the Father’s will at this moment and for this purpose, joining with this her prayers and sacrifices.

She will continue to carry out her mission to lead souls to her Son until the end of time. It is still her mission to help convert sinners and to help believers to grow in holiness.

Oh! What love our Mother has for us! In order to bring us to life she had to give her Son up to death!

The Triumph of the Cross

“Had there been no cross, Christ could not have been crucified. Had there been no cross, life itself could not have been nailed to the tree.  And if life had not been nailed to it, there would  be no streams of immortality pouring from Christ’s side, blood and water for the world’s cleansing. The legal bond of our sin would not be canceled, we should not have obtained our freedom, we could not have enjoyed the fruit of the tree of life and the gates of paradise would not stand open. Had there been no cross, death would not have been trodden underfoot, nor hell despoiled.”

 (Taken from the Office of Readings – A discourse by Saint Andrew of Crete, bishop)

Silence and Peace

 

Truly I have set my soul
in silence and peace.
As a child has rest in its mother’s arms,
even so is my soul. (Psalm 131)

 

Blessed are the Peacemakers

In order to bring peace to others we need to be first grounded in it our own hearts. Peace comes from order, from a well-ordered life, one lived where everything is directed toward God. When all disorder is removed from the heart and all our desires, thoughts, words and deeds are fully ordered toward God following His commands, doing His will, then we possess peace and radiate peace to others.

Once we posses this peace, continue to take care to remain in this peace, and spread peace to those around us – we can be called a peacemaker.

Nothing disturbs a peacemaker because a peacemaker knows that all things are permitted by God and work out for our good.

To cultivate peace and become a peacemaker we need to persevere in prayer, that intimate dialogue with God, and surrender completely with trust to His Holy will.

The fruit of this relationship with God is a calm interior peace, seeing God in all things, even hardships and suffering without being disturbed or upset, and with the ability to see God in all. Another fruit of this peace is seen in relationship with others. All are seen as children of God, all are loved and the peaceful soul wishes good to all and wants to live in peace with them.

“Our God is the God of peace; therefore, it is perfectly right that the peaceful man, he who possess and diffuses peace, should feel in a very special way that he is God’s child. If men generally do not feel themselves to be children of God, it is because they are so little disposed to peace, so ready for disputes, quarrels and war. They talk about peace but do not make peace, for they do not accept the guidance of the Spirit of Wisdom. In their ignorance they prefer to be guided by themselves, and as a result they are dominated by pride, self-interest, and cupidity; they live in disorder and they sow disorder around them.

The more our soul becomes firmly established in peace, and the more we become messengers of peace, to that degree will the Holy Spirit infuse into us this delightful sense of our divine sonship and this will become for us a source of immense happiness, a true prelude to eternal beatitude.” (Divine Intimacy, #314, Fr. Gabriel of St. Mary Magdalen, OCD)

 “Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called sons of God” (Matt 5:9)

Pray for Peace

Pope Francis has asked for prayers for peace. In an appeal that can be found here, the Pope  has made an appeal for peace in light of the many conflicts present in the world today. He is asking for the whole Church to keep vigil September 7th with fasting and prayers for peace in our world, especially in Syria and the Middle East. He is asking all of us to participate in any way we can. I am going to pray and fast this day and hopefully will join with others in my local community to gather and pray in one of the churches.

“Humanity needs to see these gestures of peace and to hear words of hope and peace!” said the Pope.

“All men and women of good will are bound by the task of pursuing peace,” he charged.

This appeal is to take place on the vigil of the Birth of Mary.Noting Mary’s universal motherly concern, Pope Francis said, “Let us ask Mary to help us to respond to violence, to conflict and to war, with the power of dialogue, reconciliation and love. She is our mother: may she help us to find peace; all of us are her children!”

Mary, Queen of Peace, pray for us!

False Peace from the World and the Flesh

Our own sensuality and the world can give us peace. The riches we have can be a source of great peace, and our downfall. These riches are not our own but are given to us by God. As His good stewards they are to be shared among the poor. Instead we often store up our treasures or gather stuff into our barns “while delaying and putting off the poor who are suffering”. What St. Teresa stresses to her “daughters” in this matter is that they “be content with little”. She tells them that if they don’t “you will find yourselves frustrated because God is not going to give you more, and you will be unhappy.” (Meditations on the Song of Songs, 2,10)

Another false peace that St. Teresa says the world gives is through honors. She begins by mentioning that “the poor are never honored very much.” Praise can do great harm because “once it starts it never ends – if you are not careful” and humble yourself afterward. So she cautions that we are never to seek peace for ourselves through words of praise because “little by little they could do you harm and make you believe that the truth was spoken”. Her counsel is then to never let words of praise pass without waging war interiorly.

“Remember your sins, and if in some matters people speak the truth in praising you, note that the virtue is not yours and that you are obliged to serve more. Awaken fear in your soul so that you do not rest in the kiss of this false peace given by the world; think that it is a kiss from Judas. Although some do not praise you with such an intention, the devil is watching to see how he can take away the spoils if you do not defend yourself against him. Believe that you have to stand here with sword in the hand of your thoughts. Although you think the praise does you no harm, do not trust it. Remember how many were at the top and are now at the bottom. There is no security while we are alive. For love of God, Sisters, always wage an interior war against these praises, for thus you will come away from them with the gain of humility, and the devil and the world who are on the lookout for you will be abashed.” (Meditations on the Song of Songs, 2, 13)

Another false peace comes from seeking one’s peace in comforts. This, too, is very dangerous. St. Teresa brings to mind Our Lord and His life which was far from a life of comfort. He suffered many trials. “Who has told us that comfortable living is good?”, she asks. “The body grows fat and the soul weakens.” Herein lies the danger, that the peace in comforts keeps us from thinking of the care of our soul. She gives examples of the harm that comes, without being aware of it that the craving of comforts give. Our bodies are fickle. One day “it will hurt you to take the discipline and eight days later perhaps not. Another day or number of days you will be unable to bear the coarse tunics, but this won’t be permanent. Some days eating fish may hurt you, but once your stomach gets used to it, it will not harm you.” What she is trying to tell us is to not grow lax and to keep in mind that the flesh is “deceptive and that we need to understand it”.

To sum up her thoughts on “false peace” we must remember that peace does not come without war. So let’s take up the battle, armed with God’s grace, and manfully attack the enemies or our souls: the world, the devil and the flesh.