Carmelite wisdom to encourage & inspire
“I abandoned and forgot myself, laying my face on my Beloved…” Thank you for joining our St. John of the Cross novena; join us once again for our St. Joseph novena in March 2023.
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“Let Christ crucified be enough for you,” writes St. John of the Cross, adding: “with him suffer and take your rest…” O Lord, “even the darkness is not dark to you!” (Ps 139).
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The Virgin Mary’s charity at work in her Visitation to St Elizabeth highlights the teaching of St John of the Cross, “charity prepares the will and unites it with God through love.”
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St John of the Cross explains: “hope always pertains to the unpossessed object. If something were possessed there could no longer be hope for it.” The annunciation to St Joseph give us hope, as well.
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“When the soul is clothed in faith the devil is ignorant of how to hinder her,” says St. John of the Cross, because “faith gives her strong protection” against that “most astute enemy,” the devil.
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“Love is strong as death, passion fierce as the grave,” we read in the Song of Songs. Similarly, St. John of the Cross cautions us that love doesn’t consist “in feeling great things...”
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“O night that has united the Lover with his beloved, transforming the beloved in her Lover,” St. John writes. The Blessed Virgin’s “fiat” was her transforming moment!
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As the Eyptians pressed hard behind the Israelites, Moses told them, “you have only to be still.” In 'The Dark Night,' St. John of the Cross proclaims that he found “sheer grace” in darkness, hiddenness, and stillness.
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At the Annunciation, the Virgin Mary asked, “how can this be, since I am a virgin?” St John of the Cross says that “belief in God’s being” is the way to reach union with God, not by understanding.
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Father Quang D. Tran, S.J. leads our meditations this year on the theme of the night that guides our footsteps better than light and is brighter than the dawn: the night that gives sight.
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The day before she died, St. Elizabeth of the Trinity foresaw her death: “It is our Lady, full of light,” she said, “who will take me by the hand to lead me into heaven.” Thank you for joining our novena!
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Elizabeth summed up her heavenly calling thus: “My mission will be to draw souls into interior recollection, by helping them to go out from themselves.”
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In her song of praise to Jesus in the Holy Eucharist, Elizabeth exclaims that it is “God in us and we in him.” For Elizabeth, the Eucharist is “heaven on earth.”
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A good Teresian Carmelite, St. Elizabeth has her own concept of how “Martha and Mary” blend together: while we are in action, “the soul can remain buried in its contemplation.”
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Nuno was born in 1360 and fought for many years as a soldier for the independence of Portugal. After his wife’s death, he entered the Order of Our Lady of Mount Carmel as a brother in the house he had founded in Lisbon and took the name of Nuno of Saint Mary (1423). He died there in 1431, after distinguishing himself by his prayer, penance, and filial devotion to the Mother of God.
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“I believe that the secret of peace and happiness is to forget oneself,” St. Elizabeth says. St. Paul explains: “We are afflicted in every way, but not crushed… persecuted, but not forsaken.”
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St. Elizabeth quotes St. Paul’s letter to the Colossians, “set your minds on things that are above, not on things that are on earth, for you have died,” before she exclaims: “O blessed death in God!”
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St. Elizabeth defines her title, “Praise of Glory” as “a soul that gazes on God;” she also uses terms like reflector, bottomless abyss, and crystal. St. Paul’s letter to the Ephesians provides the original context.
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“I have found my heaven on earth,” Elizabeth explains, “because Heaven is God, and God is in my soul.” St. Paul explains that Christ, who descended to earth, ascended “far above all the heavens, so that he might fill all things.”
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“He dwells in me—and I in Him,” Elizabeth writes to a priest. “I have only to love Him and let myself be loved.” St. Paul prays that we may we strengthened in our inner being as we are “being rooted and grounded in love.”
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Let nothing disturb you, Let nothing frighten you, All things are passing away: God never changes. Patience obtains all things. Whoever has God lacks nothing; God alone suffices. ~ St. Teresa of Avila
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