4 February: Blessed Marie-Eugène of the Child Jesus Grialou

February 4
BLESSED MARIE-EUGENE OF THE CHILD JESUS GRIALOU
Priest

Optional Memorial

Henri Grialou was born in Aubin, in Aveyron (France), on December 2, 1894. After his priestly ordination on February 4, 1922, he was captivated by the doctrine of St. Therese of the Child Jesus and St. John of the Cross and decided to join the Discalced Carmelites. After serving as superior in France, in 1937 he was elected to serve as a General Definitor of the Order in Rome. In 1948, he was appointed Apostolic Visitor of the Discalced Carmelite nuns in France and religious assistant to their federations. From 1955 he was able to devote himself full-time to the secular institute Notre Dame de Vie, which he started in 1932. He died in Venasque on March 27th, 1967, the feast day of the institute. He was beatified in 2016 by Pope Francis.

From the common of pastors or of holy men (religious)

Office of Readings

Second Reading
I Am A Daughter of the Church, Fides, Notre Dame Indiana 1955, 665-666

From the writings of Blessed Marie-Eugene of the Child Jesus, priest

The saint in the whole Christ

It is especially in their common work that the Holy Spirit glorifies the instruments He has chosen. The Holy Spirit makes Himself lowly with saints in order to glorify them. Inspirer of the work by His light, efficacious agent by His omnipotence, yet He hides Himself under the human traits of the apostle. Anyone wanting to analyze the character of the works could, in fact, find the raison d’être of each one of them in the personality of the saint. The manifold works and institutions in which the Spirit has put His leaven of immortality and in which the Church takes just pride, show forth admirably the gifts, the desires, the diverse genius of their founder. The Holy Spirit appears in this world under a thousand human faces that reflect the power and grace of His hidden presence. The Spirit never repeats Himself in the exterior forms He chooses. Is this not the reason why Saint John of the Cross asks us never to take a saint for our model? This would be to expose oneself to failure in suppleness, in fidelity to the movement of the Spirit, who manifests His power and perfection as Spirit in the variety of His works and the perfection of His incarnation in each one of His instruments.

The delicate charms of this loving collaboration of God and the soul, these playings of the love that unites them, in turn, brilliant and hidden, all these splendors of lowliness and of power are only beauties of here below, a reflection that reaches us from the beauty of the work the Holy Spirit is building. This work is the Spouse who comes up from the desert, flowing with delights, leaning upon her Beloved; this is the masterpiece of Divine Mercy, the whole Christ in whom God has brought together and orientated all things. For the beauty of the Church of God, Jesus gave His blood; and the Spirit continues to immolate His victims after filling them with the marvelous gifts of His grace. We are all dedicated to the consummation of this work. Our gaze must rest on it lovingly and there remain fixed.

The saint is such only because he has entered by transforming union in the whole Christ. Identified with Christ Jesus, he continues Christ’s priestly prayer for union. With the Spirit of Love, he groans within himself, “waiting for the adoption as sons”; and under Love’s captivation, works to consummate in unity all those whom God has “predestined to become conformed to the image of his Son.”

Responsory

R/. We have the first fruits of the Spirit; * as we wait for adoption as sons, the redemption of our bodies.
V/. For in this hope we were saved. * As we wait for adoption as sons, the redemption of our bodies.

Canticle of Zechariah

Ant. What you say of me does not come from yourselves; it is the Spirit of my Father speaking in you.

Prayer

God, rich in mercy,
you gave Blessed Marie-Eugene of the Child Jesus
the grace and light to guide your people
along the paths of contemplative prayer
and missionary witness toward the fullness of Christ.
Grant us through his intercession
to grow in submission to the Holy Spirit
and to work, in faith, for the coming of your Kingdom.

Through Jesus Christ, your Son, our Lord,
who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit,
God, for ever and ever.

Canticle of Mary

Ant. This is a faithful and wise steward: the Lord entrusted the care of his household to him, so that he might give them their portion of food at the proper season.