Whispers from Carmel to encourage and inspire | Susurros del Carmelo Teresiano
Panajachel 16 de febrero de 2019 Guatemala”…pascua de quiebracajetes” (M.A.Asturias). Estamos viviendo un período en el que la amistad compite con la tecnología. Todos tenemos la necesidad de sentirnos apreciados y admirados, una palmada en la espalda, un abrazo, una sonrisa, un apretón de manos, un saludo, nos hace sentirnos bien….
via amistad versus tecnologia — Orden de Carmelitas Descalzos
Father John McGowan writes, “But there are people today, Christians, who live according to the Beatitudes, and they are special people, they are Saints. One such person is our Carmelite Bishop in Nicaragua.”
In his usual, humble manner, Bishop Silvio would most likely protest being called a Saint. He would quote this sentence: “Bishop Silvio isn’t a superman.”
But as his translator, we often remind him of the famous words of Saint Teresa of Avila, and so we remind you all: “humility is walking in the truth.”
6th Sunday of the Year ( C ) 2019
If you wanted to reduce Jesus teaching to a few words, look to the Beatitudes. Everything Christ wanted to say to us is contained in these few lines.When you begin to read them they seem innocent and easy enough. The first one is ‘Happy are you poor; yours is the Kingdom of God’. Not too threatening, not too challenging. The next is similar: ‘Happy are you who are hungry now; you shall be satisfied.’But then they become more challenging, to say the least: ‘Happy are you when people hate you, drive you out, abuse you, denounce your name as criminal, on account of the Son of man.” Not so easy. But there are people today, Christians, who live according to the Beatitudes, and they are special people, they are Saints.
One such person is our Carmelite Bishop in Nicaragua. As…
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Ernst Josephson (Swedish, 1851 – 1906)
Oil on canvas
Nationalmuseum – Stockholm
Love is something that touches all of our lives. Everyone has a pretty good idea what it’s like to be in love. If you haven’t ever experienced it yourself, you’ve at least observed it in the world around you: you know couples who are in love, you’ve seen love stories in movies, you’ve read them in books, and you’ve heard them in songs. When you think about it, love stories surround us everywhere in life! It seems that every popular movie or song has to do with love. It’s almost as if human beings are obsessed with being in love. It’s almost as if there is a great desire in us that yearns to be in love. It’s almost as if we were made to fall in love.
But why? Why is there this great fire in our hearts that desires to be in love?
Read more on the blog of the Discalced Carmelite Friars Washington Province
“I propose to have no other purpose in all my activities, either interior or exterior, than the motive of love alone, by constantly asking myself: ‘Now what am I doing in this action? Do I love God?’ If I should notice any obstacle to pure love, I shall take myself in hand and recall that I must seek to return my love for His love.”
Saint Teresa Margaret Redi
God Is Love
Edith’s six months of probation passed quickly. On 15 February 1934, following the custom of the Order, she knelt before the assembled community and asked to receive the habit of Our Blessed Lady of Mount Carmel. She was granted her request on 15 April. During the two months that she was preparing for her clothing, she grew in love and gratitude toward her superiors and her sisters. It was not easy for her to grasp that, as the “bride-to-be,” she should be the object of so much attention and solicitude on the part of her Sisters. Everyone was busy helping her to prepare for her clothing as it drew nearer. Besides the bridal dress, all the clothes she would need in the convent had to be made – a long white tunic of wool, a pair of rope sandals, a rosary with big beads and a coarse brown handkerchief. She had to go from one workroom to another to try on first one thing and then another; and though nothing more was done for her than for anyone else, she accepted each service as though it were a special token of love for herself.
Mother Teresia Renata of the Holy Spirit, O.C.D.
Edith Stein: The Life of a Philosopher and Carmelite
The patron saint of the missions is from your region. From Lisieux, Therese of the Child Jesus and the Holy Face has radiated her missionary ardor in the world. Her spiritual teaching, of a luminous simplicity, continues to touch the faithful of all conditions and all cultures. It is right that we should ask her to help the Catholics of France to follow her way of holiness and to develop their solidarity with their brothers in Europe, Africa, and other parts of the world to share the gifts received from Christ, our salvation.
Saint John Paul II
Ad Limina address to bishops from western France
14 February 1992
Gema Juan, ocd Puzol (Valencia)
Una de las claves principales para entrar en el universo teresiano es la amistad. La extremada capacidad de relación de Teresa, su ingenio para crear la mejor complicidad y camaradería, para comunicarse y recibir al otro, su capacidad de adaptación y de atención, hacen de ella una mujer especialmente dotada para la amistad. Por ello, vivir en relación es el humus de un carisma que tiene raíces en esta experiencia tan humana.
Cuando empezó a hablar de oración cristiana, no habló de otra cosa: orar es tratar de amistad con quien sabemos nos ama, estando muchas veces a solas tratando con Él. Se trata de vivir en relación, de crecer en amistad.
Teresa entendió algo que Juan de la Cruz expresó muy bien: que hay que ir con todo a Dios, sin dejar nada de lo que constituye como ser…
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SERVA DI DIO SR. MARIA LUCIA DI GESÙ E DEL CUORE IMMACOLATO
Lucia dos Santos
Aljustrel [Fatima, Portogallo]
22 marzo 1907 – Coimbra, 13 febbraio 2005
Veggente di Fatima, Carmelitana scalza
Nella plurisecolare storia delle Apparizioni della Vergine Maria, suor Lucia (come era comunemente conosciuta) è stata la veggente vissuta più a lungo; nel quasi un secolo di vita (98 anni), ella ha vissuto la sua vicenda umana e personale, come veggente dialogante con la Vergine e come suora consacrata nella clausura del Carmelo, proiettando per tutto il secolo XX, la luce di un messaggio accorato e materno di Maria, preoccupata della salvezza delle anime, specie quelle dei peccatori…
via Order of Discalced Carmelites General Postulation of the Causes of the Saints
“I want my life to be a trail of light that shines in the way of my siblings showing their faith, hope, and charity.”
Servant of God Sister Maria Lúcia of the Immaculate Heart
http://lucia.pt/
In memoriam de nuestra hermana María Guadalupe de Espíritu Santo, Carmelita Descalza Al cumplirse el primer año de su paso a las moradas eternas, compartimos el testimonio de su vida, con los recuerdos que ella misma contaba y algunos más que escribimos como semblanza de esta carmelita generosa y consumada en el amor. Son muchas […]
via Hermana María Guadalupe de Espíritu Santo, in memoriam — Carmelitas Descalzas Cádiz
‘Nada te turbe’ de Marco Frisina NADA TE TURBE, de Teresa de Jesús, interpretada por el Coro y Orquesta “Nicola Vitale” bajo la dirección del Maestro Mons. Marco Frisina, durante el Concierto con motivo del XX Aniversario de su fundación. 29 de septiembre 2018. Solistas: Serena Scarinzi, Mezzosoprano; Sebastiano Giotta, tenor. El poema teresiano fue musicalizado […]
via ‘Nada te turbe’ de Marco Frisina — Teresa, de la rueca a la pluma
If he so loved God during his life, he did not love him any less at his death. He made continuous acts of love, and when a friar asked him if he loved God with all his heart, he answered, “Ah! If I thought that my heart did not love God, I would tear it out right now.”
The next day, Monday, February 12, 1691, at nine o’clock in the morning, fully conscious, without agony or convulsions, Brother Lawrence of the Resurrection died in the embrace of the Lord and offered his soul to God with the peace and tranquility of one asleep.
Joseph de Beaufort’s Eulogy for Brother Lawrence of the Resurrection
The Practice of the Presence of God
She is there at the foot of the Cross, standing, full of strength and courage, and here my Master says to me: “Ecce Mater tua.” He gives her to me for my Mother. . . . And now that He has returned to the Father and has substituted me for Himself on the Cross so that “I may suffer in my body what is lacking in His passion for the sake of His body, which is the Church,” the Blessed Virgin is again there to teach me to suffer as He did, to tell me, to make me hear those last songs of His soul which no one else but she, His Mother, could overhear.
When I shall have said my “consummatum est,” it is again she, “Janua coeli,” who will lead me into the heavenly courts, whispering to me these mysterious words: “Laetatus sum in his quae dicta sunt mihi; in domum Domini ibimus!”
Saint Elizabeth of the Trinity
Last Retreat, Fifteenth Day
That superabundant share of divine light and grace enkindled in Thérèse so ardent a flame of love, that she lived by it alone, rising above all created things, till in the end it consumer her; so much so that shortly before her death she could candidly avow she had never given God anything but Love…
Therefore do We desire earnestly that all the Faithful of Christ should render themselves worthy of partaking in the abundant profusion of graces resulting from the intercession of “little Thérèse.” But We desire much more earnestly that all the faithful should study her in order to copy her, becoming children themselves, since otherwise they cannot, according to the oracle of the Master, arrive at the Kingdom of Heaven.
If the way of spiritual childhood became general, who does not see how easily would be realized the reformation of human society which We set ourselves to accomplish at the commencement of our Pontificate…
Pope Pius XI
Homily for the Canonization of St. Thérèse of the Child Jesus
17 May 1925
5th Sunday of the Year ( c ) 2019
Isaiah is so right about human nature in today’s first reading; we so often see the worst in ourselves.“What a wretched state I am in! says the Prophet,I am lost for I am a man of unclean lips”. So many people could and do say that today.They wouldn’t use the words “unclean lips” they would more likely say simply “a sinner”: “I am lost for I am a sinner”. Indeed, isn’t that what Peter says in the Gospel. He falls as Christ’s feet and says, “Leave me Lord, I am a sinful man”. Peter felt the full weight of his sins when he was in the presence of Christ.It was if a light had shone into his heart, showing Peter all that was dark. Peter felt so uncomfortable he asks the Lord to leave: “leave me Lord, I am a sinful…
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SAINT TERESA OF AVILA
Spiritual Testimonies, No. 6
(Malagón, Feb. 9, 1570)
Our Lord encourages her to make more foundations and to write their history
Right after I received Communion, on the second day of Lent, in St. Joseph’s at Malagón, our Lord Jesus Christ appeared to me in an imaginative vision, as He usually does.
While I was gazing upon Him, I saw in place of the crown of thorns a crown of great brilliance on His head, there where the wounds must have been made.
Since I am devoted to this episode of the Passion, I was very much consoled and began to think how great the torment must have been since there were so many wounds; and I became afflicted. The Lord told me that I shouldn’t grieve over those wounds, but over the many that were now inflicted upon Him. I asked Him what I could do as a remedy for this because I was determined to do everything I could.
He told me that now was not the time for rest, but that I should hurry to establish these houses
He told me that now was not the time for rest, but that I should hurry to establish these houses; that He found his rest with the souls living in them; that I should accept as many houses as given me since there were many persons who did not serve Him because they had no place for it; that those houses I founded in small towns should be like this one, for, by desire, as much could be merited as in the other houses; that I should strive to put all the houses under the government of a superior; that I should insist that the interior peace not be lost through a concern for bodily sustenance; that He would help us so nothing would be lacking; that the sick especially should be cared for; that a prioress who did not provide for and favor the sick was like Job’s friends; that He made use of the scourge for the good of souls, and that in such an event they should practice patience;
and that I should write about the foundation of these houses.
I thought of how in regard to the house at Medina I never understood anything in a way that I could write of its foundation. He told me that that was all the more reason to write of it since He wanted it to be seen that the Medina foundation had been miraculous. He meant that He alone founded that house since it had seemed absolutely impossible to found.
And as a result I decided to write about the founding of these houses.
With profound gratitude to the translator, Father Kieran Kavanaugh, O.C.D., who with his Spanish collaborator Father Otilio Rodriguez is the sine qua non of all of the texts of St. Teresa of Avila and St. John of the Cross that we publish on this blog. Father Kieran died 2 February 2019, just days shy of his 91st birthday. His funeral Mass is celebrated today, 9 February in the monastery chapel in Washington DC and his interment will be at the provincial cemetery in Holy Hill, Wisconsin, 14 February. To learn more about Father Kieran and his remarkable career as a translator and Discalced Carmelite, visit the Washington Province blog.
But no apostolic cause was dearer to the heart of this great man of faith than that of the unity and harmony within the Church. It was as if he had always before his mind the prayer of Jesus, on the night before his Sacrifice on the Cross: “That they may all be one; even as you, Father, are in me, and I in you, that they also may be in us”.
Today the Church solemnly recalls with love and gratitude all his efforts to resist threats of disunity and to encourage the clergy and faithful to maintain unity with the See of Peter and the universal Church. His success in this, as in all his many undertakings, was undoubtedly due to the intense charity and prayer which characterized his daily life, his close communion with Christ and his love for the Church as the visible Body of Christ on earth.
Saint John Paul II
Homily for the Beatification of Kuriakose Elias Chavara
8 February 1986, Kottayam
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