Carmelite wisdom to encourage & inspire
St. Raphael Kalinowski notes that as our culture rushes headlong to embrace technology, we can find a sure support in the midst of confusion: "devotion to the Most Holy Virgin" as we seek "the one thing necessary for salvation."
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St. Raphael Kalinowski received the Discalced Carmelite habit on 26 November 1877 and made his religious vows on the same date in 1878. Here is an excerpt from his conference for the Discalced Carmelite friars in Wadowice: “Mother of God, Hope of the World.”
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St Raphael Kalinowski’s years of hard labor in Siberia became a great grace that prepared him for life as a Carmelite: he knew that life’s biggest and most difficult problems are resolved on one’s knees.
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Raphael Kalinowski was born to Polish parents in the city of Vilnius in 1835. Following military service, he was condemned in 1864 to ten years of forced labor in Siberia. In 1877 he became a Carmelite and was ordained a priest in 1882. He contributed greatly to the restoration of the Discalced Carmelites in Poland. His life was distinguished by zeal for Church unity and by his unflagging devotion to his ministry as confessor and spiritual director. He died in Wadowice in 1907.
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On 17 November 1991, St. John Paul II presided at the Rite of Canonization for Raphael Kalinowski. A 7-year-old boy from Wadowice who was struck by a car and suffered massive brain trauma, experienced an astonishing miracle of healing. We have his story.
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In a letter to his parents written on this day in 1876 before entering the novitiate, St. Raphael Kalinowski says: “a year ago there came to me, like an echo, a voice from the grilles of Carmel.”
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St Raphael Kalinowski was aware of the news, even as he aged. We note that he greatly distrusted the Russian Church: "From Moscow with caution! You cannot trust her sincerity." And when delinquents attacked a Carmelite procession in Rome, he wrote, "how long, O Lord?!"
At the end of his canonical visitations to the Discalced Carmelite nuns in Poland, St. Raphael Kalinowski would offer words of encouragement to each monastery: "Love is strong as death. And just as nothing can resist death, love gives strength to triumph over every challenge. Then you don’t feel pain, and if you do you welcome it. From this fire of God’s love the flame of love of neighbor arises.
With gratitude for the life of biographer Father Timothy Tierney, OCD (1941-2022) he quotes Kalinowski saying, "All our actions are eternal; when you work with love for God and neighbor, our actions deserve an eternal reward."
St. Raphael Kalinowski understands the struggle of a people to defend their homeland against an occupying power. “Can I remain passive when so many people have sacrificed everything for this cause, undoubtedly a national cause?” A prisoner of war condemned to Siberia, he took the Gospels, his crucifix, and The Imitation of Christ.
If we obey the pope, we obey the Lord Jesus, according to his own words addressed to Peter and the other apostles
For all those who worked for the love of God and love of neighbor... may the merciful God reward them with his crown of glory...
St. Raphael of St. Joseph provides an answer to the question, "How does one become perfect and holy?"
St. Raphael Kalinowski contributed greatly to the restoration of the Discalced Carmelites in Poland. He founded a convent for the friars at Wadowice, where St. John Paul II visited as a young man and "received many graces there".
At the foot of the cross, seeing its savior drink the bitter chalice to the very dregs, solely out of love for her, seeing him immolate himself for her sins, the soul dissolves with love for him
Mary through her Divine Maternity takes on the closest degree of relationship with God himself
We who are doubly the children of Mary should imitate her, to be enriched as faithful children with the fruits of her maternity
Approaching confession from the abyss of her misery, she casts off everything, desiring to preserve in herself only the image of God according to which she was created
This is the best advice I can give to everyone: recognize the will of God.
Mary has brought it about that God, if we may say so, is glorified by God himself
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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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