I think I may have won the prize today for most awkward title, but I wanted to say it all at the outset lest I forget the purpose of this post, which is three-fold, at least.
First (if we take the last first, following Jesus' preference), my husband gave a spectacular talk at Christendom College in January for their St. Thomas Day lecture. My other name (when I'm not Miss Marcel) is Mrs. Tony Andres, and it was with great joy - really, joy beyond description - that I listened, wrapped in awe, to my better, taller, smarter half as he spoke on my confirmation saint, our patron, the man of the hour, St. Thomas Aquinas as Angelic Teacher. Tony asks why St. Thomas is called the Angelic Doctor and explores the question of how St. Thomas might be said to teach like the angels. This means he (Tony) has to say a lot about the angels, just like St. Thomas did! I promise, you'll learn so much, and without even trying! Here is the link, with thanks to so many at Christendom who made this talk and our visit not only possible, but beautiful. Dr. Tony Andres on St. Thomas Aquinas, Angelic Teacher My second purpose in writing today is to thank and honor St. Thomas for being such a dear friend and father. Wow! He's changed my life, and not so much because of his teaching (though finally I suppose that's at the heart of it), but because of his friendship. When I was a young girl looking for a confirmation sponsor, he reached down from Heaven and took my hand. I was delighted and took, in return, his "last name" - or so I thought, more or less - as my confirmation name. Later, a dear friend (God rest his funny soul) teased me that I had a city for my confirmation name, but we both knew it was a good thing I had it, because it brought me to Thomas Aquinas College. How wonderful, I thought (and still think), that there is a college named after my confirmation saint! Just for the record, I now looked up how many colleges are named after St. Thomas, who is, after all, the patron saint of universities and scholars. I can't even recount them all, there are so many! Suffice it to say that the Philippines has 3, Australia has 6 (tying with the U.S.A., unless you count my alma mater's two campuses as two colleges), and our beloved Nigeria has one too! Okay, so this was overkill for St. Thomas to get me to go to his school, because clearly you can't look for a college without stumbling over him, but nonetheless, THANK YOU, dear friend and big brother! Where would I be, if I hadn't found this one? Well, I could be in Sri Lanka, or New Brunswick, or in Lisbon, just to name a few places, but it would have taken longer to meet Tony Andres, and civilize him (the job God gives all women regarding their men, I think), and then who would have told us about Thomas Aquinas, Angelic Teacher? Or if we take the bright and cheery view and figure we would have found each other eventually, for true love conquers all, we might still ask when would we have heard about Thomas Aquinas, Angelic Teacher? It could have taken forever! But I'm getting a little sidetracked, as Miss Marcel (and Mrs. Tony Andres) tend to do . . . So my third purpose in writing today is to alert the media, or at least you, dear reader, that it is not only the 750th anniversary of St. Thomas' going home to Jesus - where does the time go, we might ask! - but this means we are in the middle of his jubilee, proclaimed by our Holy Father in benificent response to the prayers and petitions of the Dominican Order. And this is no little, tiny jubilee, but like that of St. Therese, it's in triplicate! For St. Therese we had, last year in 2023, a jubilee for the 150th anniversary of her birth and the 100th anniversary of her beatification, while next year in 2025 we'll celebrate the 100th year of her canonization. For St. Thomas, his dates fall nicely into three calendar years, and so we are happy to announce that his jubilee spans all three years! It began last year on January 28, 2023 and the first big date celebrated was July 18, the 700th anniversary of his canonization. Today, March 7, 2024, is the 750th anniversary of his entrance into eternal life, and next year the Jubilee will conclude on January 28, the 800th anniversary of his birth. Pope Francis released a letter (in Latin!) to celebrate the Jubilee, but even more thrilling, he granted a plenary indulgence available to all the faithful! I was going to describe the terms and conditions (price is absolutely free!), but I suddenly realized that one of the perks of being Miss Marcel is that I can redeem the internet (with the help of the angels) and copy and paste whatever we need so you get all the facts straight without my helpful obfuscation. Here, then, is the decree on the plenary indulgence available for St. Thomas' jubilee: * * * The Apostolic Penitentiary, with the intention of heightening the devotion of the faithful and for the salvation of their souls, by virtue of the powers conferred upon it in a very special way by Francis, Pope by divine providence from our Heavenly Father and our Lord Jesus Christ, considering the prayers recently addressed to it by the Reverend Gerard Timoner III, Master General of the Order of Friars Preachers, on the occasion of the solemn celebrations in honor of Saint Thomas Aquinas, which will take place between 28 January 2023 and 28 January 2025, the Apostolic Penitentiary, therefore, drawing on the heavenly treasures of the Church, willingly grants a plenary indulgence, which the truly penitent and charitable faithful can enjoy under the usual conditions (sacramental confession, Eucharistic communion and prayer for the intentions of the Supreme Pontiff), and which can be applied by way of suffrage also to the souls of the faithful departed still in purgatory, wherever they make a pilgrimage to a holy place connected with the Order of Friars Preachers, and there devoutly take part in the jubilee ceremonies, or at least devote a suitable time to pious recollection, concluding with the Lord’s Prayer, the symbol of faith and invocations of the Blessed Virgin Mary and of Saint Thomas Aquinas. The elderly, the sick and those who are unable to leave their homes for any serious reason will also be able to obtain a plenary indulgence. If, despising all their sins and with the intention of fulfilling the three usual conditions as soon as possible, they spiritually join in the Jubilee celebrations in front of an image of St Thomas Aquinas, offering to the merciful God their prayers as well as the sorrows and ills of their lives. To facilitate access to God’s forgiveness through the power of the keys in pastoral charity, the Penitentiary urges priests of the Order of Friars Preachers to offer themselves with prompt and generous hearts to celebrate the Sacrament of Reconciliation and to administer Holy Communion often to the sick. This Decree is valid only for this commemoration of St. Thomas Aquinas, notwithstanding any circumstances to the contrary. Given at Rome, from the Palace of the Apostolic Penitentiary, on 20 January 2023. * * * And I think my job is done, so now I get to celebrate with a solemnity! God's mercies are infinite, like His love, and among them He has eternally ordained that the chapels of both campuses of my particular Thomas Aquinas College were consecrated on March 7. That makes today a solemnity for us, and although my power is not quite as extensive as the Holy Father's, I'd like to extend to you the invitation to feast with the angels in whatever way you can today, in honor of our friend and patron's jubilee and the joy of all God plans to teach us through his writings. How about we end (and begin) with this: "For joy is caused by love, either through the presence of the thing loved, or because the proper good of the thing loved exists and endures in it; and the latter is the case chiefly in the love of benevolence, whereby a man rejoices in the well-being of his friend, though he be absent." That's from the Summa Theologiae, Question 28, Article 1. Isn't it marvelous? This is what it brings to my mind and heart, especially on this day when, nineteen years ago, I said the Rosary with lots of friends for my best friend who'd gone to Heaven a bit early (in our humble opinion, but just at the perfect time, according to God's wisdom): When we get to be with those we love, it is so wonderful! JOY! I love it! I have said before and I'll keep saying it, I really wish that instead of the cross, God had chosen JOY as the path to Heaven! But I guess St. Thomas is telling me that joy and the cross don't have to be at odds, because he says joy is also caused by love when the one loved is absent, but experiencing good. Since by love and in love I want, most of all, the good of the beloved - not just for me, but for the beloved - then even if we are apart, if my dearly beloved has The Good, then I feel joy, even while I may be wiping my own tears away surreptitiously until Jesus finally fulfills His promise and wipes those tears Himself. So hey! Grab someone you love who is present and give 'em a big hug, a kiss, or a friendly punch in the arm - we've got lots of people around us who are HUGE blessings if the angels will only help us recognize our good fortune. And as for those you love who have gone, along with St. Thomas, to their eternal LIFE and left you stuck in exile, well, let's rejoice that they've made us! Just like St. Thomas did so many years ago for me, they are ready to take us by the hand and lead us on to the amazing miracles that await us, if not at a college named after them, somewhere or other that God has prepared just as lovingly! Happy Feast, dear St. Thomas! I see St. Therese over there in the mansion right beside yours, and she's struggling with all those roses she's got to shower down. In honor of your eternal joy and in thanks to the Blessed Trinity overflowing with tenderness for us, please give her a hand! As to Jesus, the source of all our joy, we can only repeat: Draw me, we will run! “Brutal mechanical processes of reproduction, showing only the physical structure of the face, cannot capture the soul any more than they can capture refinement of manners or the perfume of a rose. What I always and only wanted to capture and show to others, as much as possible, was this ‘je ne sais quoi’, with the true picture of her soul beneath her features.” - Celine Martin (Sister Genevieve of the Holy Face)
Today is the feast of Sister Genevieve, that is our sister Therese's 3-year-older sister Celine, and therefore, our sister Celine too! We owe her so much for her photos of St. Therese, but even more for her portraits which could capture the true face of our little sister as known by those who knew her best. On Wednesday February 25, 1959, the day after her 63rd anniversary of profession as a Discalced Carmelite in Lisieux, and at the age of 89 and 10 months, Celine finally received what Jesus describes to Marcel (in their Conversations) as His first real kiss, which is also the last. Or is it the last kiss which is the first? It depends on your perspective, but as Therese put it, this "life" on earth is really exile, and real life begins with our supposed and apparent death. That means what seem like kisses from Jesus - no, not the Mother Teresa kind where we suffer, but the kind that means what we mean - big, loud, smacking kisses, in the words of our Therese - these kisses in this life, consoling as they are, well, they're just a shadow of the reality, that Kiss from the Bridegroom for which we beg when reading the very first line of the most poetic book of the Bible, the Song of Songs: Let Him kiss me with the kisses of His mouth . . . That kiss (or those kisses) which will happily end all sufferings and whoosh us up to Heaven instantly. I can't wait! I'm thinking a lot this morning about two friends of mine who got that kiss and that whoosh many years ago. I grew up with them - haha, I started to grow up with them, or was it growing down with them? I was quite a grown up in my childhood, and then in college I had the joy and glory of meeting Therese, along with these marvelous best friends ever, and I learned with them to grow down, just as Therese taught Celine to do in the Carmel in Lisieux. When Celine worried that she kept failing, Therese would explain to her as my friend Jon used to explain to me: Success is not where it's at! As Mother Teresa put it so beautifully, we are not called to be successful, but to be faithful. And as her friend and our Holy Father put it: Be not afraid! That was another lesson I learned from my two dear friends and their lives in exile, as well as what they tell me now from their front row seats at the Beatific Vision. Jon used to like to say simply: God is so good! Or was that his bride who said it all the time? Either way, it sunk in, and I learned to thank God for everything, even and especially His crazy love that whisked these two friends away from us way too early. But who's to say, actually? I have to thank Him that while many mourned their departure (even while we rejoiced in their newfound joy after that big, smacking kiss from Jesus) - and many of us still mourn their departure, I should say, and their ditching us while we're still stuck in exile - there are also many who gained life because they lost theirs on this earth. "Unless a grain of wheat die," Jesus said. Then what? Well something like unless a grain of wheat die, you can't get what comes next. Hmmm, I'm so not a farmer. Give me a second . . . Ah, thank you Google elves! "I tell you the solemn truth, unless a kernel of wheat falls into the ground and dies, it remains a single kernel; but if it dies it produces a great harvest." - Jesus in John 12:24 I know a certain Luke C. who is so much fun and doing such good for his family and friends (and for one of my sons, even, and what an incomparable joy to see the generations continue in friendship and charity!), and he - not to mention several irreplaceable, irrepressible older brothers and an amazing younger sister - wouldn't exist if not for Jon's falling into the ground. Not to mention the joy that transformed Luke's dad Jack's humdrum existence when a small family of three discovered him sometime after Jon exited stage left. Then there's a bunch a blonde kiddos who wouldn't have seen the light of day if another Jack hadn't departed for Real Life . . . So weird, this life that poses as LIFE and is really just a kind of preamble. How it confuses us and makes us think it is The Real Thing, and yet how like Plato's cave, or just a shadow. Well. Thank you Celine for giving us Therese (and your parents) in so much more living color than we could ever have otherwise known them in exile. And thank you for sticking around until 1959 so that we could realize how close our sister (and you) were and still are to us. And finally, thank you Jesus for at last sipping up dear Celine, the remaining Martin, like the drop of dew she was, so that she could be re-born into that eternal reunion more fun than anything we've ever known here, even when what You've given us, yes even here in exile, is a life with the saints so spectacularly lovely. Jon and Jack (and Celine, Marcel, et al), miss you guys and can't wait to see you again! Don't forget to pray for all our special intentions - you've got His ear right there - whisper to Him we love Him, give Him a big smacking kiss for us, and ask Him to stop sending messengers and come remain within us as within so many tabernacles! See you soon! And as I'm trying to get the photo to show up, I realize I'm hearing these words from the early days, the days when I was a pretender, but oh, how soon I was to meet Truth in Person, and in you guys! I found a picture of you, oh, Well, it hijacked my world . . . To a place in the past we've been cast out of, Now we're back in the fight . . . I found a picture of you, oh, Those were the happiest days of my life Like a break in the battle was your part, oh, In the wretched life of a lonely heart . . . Exackel! but I have to add that those days were merely the beginning of the happiest days, and thanks to Jesus, Our Love, many have been happier yet . . .and the wretched life of a lonely heart is now the beautiful life of a heart so full of His friends that I can never be grateful enough. Celine, you must have longed like I do to capture the scent of our sister's roses and share them like photos, or better yet, like portraits, but it seems impossible! No matter, we'll keep doing our heartfelt best to share everything we can while we're in this pretend life, and when it's time to go, may we leave with the joy that suffused your face so many years after it brightened the face of your little sister Therese! Draw me, we will run! The seasons are flying by, and somehow we've gone from Christmas to Lent in one fell swoop. That's okay, because the faster time flies, the faster we get to eternity, and that's where the real fun begins! Speaking of fun, I just put up a whole new page at this website, and in it you'll find more fun than ought to be legal during Lent! Thanks be to God, He actually only wants our joy, and so here, for your enjoyment, is my new page of TALKS. You'll find there a talk I gave last St. Therese day in St. Therese dorm to the ladies of Thomas Aquinas College, and also a vintage recording (a film, even) of me giving a talk on Novel Writing - and if you haven't given up reading novels for Lent, Marcel and I highly recommend our favorite novel (right after Pride and Prejudice, Enchanted April, and The Scent of Water), namely, The Paradise Project! Speaking of giving up novels for Lent, I once tried it, only to discover it was a really dumb idea. It reminds me a little of a friend who was working the 12 steps and, in a moment of foolish generosity, decided for Steps 6 and 7 ("6. Were entirely ready to have God remove all these defects of character. 7. Humbly asked Him to remove our shortcomings") that she'd give up all her "escape mechanisms." In other words, in order to help God do miracles, she'd offer her good will by no longer eating fun things, watching fun things, reading fun things, and basically give up having any fun at all! Bad idea, mustard seed! Reminds me of another Miss Marcel (not me, I promise, though I've had my share of abandoning Lenten resolutions, just like Elizabeth in The Paradise Project) who loves, loves, loves chocolate, and so decided to give it up for Lent a few years in a row. And almost died! It's one thing to empty ourselves so God can fill us, it's another to give up something that might crack us on Day 2! . . . I've been realizing how very kind God is to give us the period between Ash Wednesday and the First Sunday of Lent. Plenty of time to revamp our entire Lenten program after we realize we've bitten off more than we can chew. Okay, that seems like the wrong metaphor, but as an old and holy Carmelite friar once said, "Food is our only consolation!" I'm reminded now of friends who were having the worst Lent ever - they'd moved far away to a new place, they missed family and friends and even the weather of their old home, and to top it all off, their well stopped giving water and their sewage system backed up. At least that's how I remember the story! And so, to save their sanity, when the wife's beloved (and fun!) mother came to visit, they had champagne and shrimp cocktail on a Friday in Lent. Was it Good Friday? I don't remember, but if so, they did it while fasting and abstaining. They've been my role models ever since! My favorite Lenten story, though (oh, but there are so many!), may be the one I've already told a few times in as many days since the recent Ash Wednesday: My husband and I were at Mass on a college campus (haha, we've been on many authentically Catholic college campuses, or at least 4 that I can think of, so no one in particular need be implicated!), it was in Lent - perhaps Ash Wednesday or a Friday in Lent - and the earnest priest was doing that hilarious thing a priest can do - that is, preaching against another priest's preaching! And while God didn't strike him down, He did strike down a couple others in order to make His point. (You see why I love capitalizing personal pronouns that refer to God - so much easier to know which "He" is acting and which is being acted upon!) In particular, the priest was saying from the pulpit, "I know there are those who say you are students, and thus you shouldn't fast in Lent. This is absurd! Of course you can fast in Lent!" And then, CLUNK! Down went a girl in a dead faint in one of the pews! After a brief pause to make sure other students came to her aid, the indefatigable priest continued preaching: "It's true, you are called to study, but there is no reason you can't fast and study!" CLUNK! Yes! Another girl in another part of the church fainted dead away . . . we could only imagine from fasting! I can't remember how the sermon ended, although I know the girls were fine (phew! No Flannery O'Connor morals or allegorical endings here!) and while I can't recall when exactly, at the end of that year or the next the priest was transferred to a better assignment (better for us all!), and as far as I know and trust, he is doing great things for God. The moral of the story? There is such a thing, especially among earnest Catholics, as fasting too much. Haha, yes, you may be sensing a theme here. I call it "The Little Way!" But back to giving up novels for Lent. I really shouldn't say it's a terrible idea, because it helped bring my novel to publication. Not because I was writing instead of reading, and not because my novel was a Lenten penance (heaven forbid!) but because a very dear friend to whom I'm indebted for about a million things (okay, I'm exaggerating, I probably owe her for only seven thousand things) once gave up reading novels for Lent, and luckily for both of us, it was after I'd not only written the first draft of my novel, but the year after I'd had a year or two to polish it up. This friend is also good enough to have her birthday in Lent every year, so for her birthday that year I gave her two fat binders with the latest draft of the manuscript that would become the book The Paradise Project. This was not unsolicited. I had been at her home when her very artistic family was doing Pysanki, making the Ukrainian Easter eggs that are so beautiful. Over the course of this Lenten evening, one of her numerous talented daughters had just made an exquisitely gorgeous egg while we visited - they making lovely eggs, me drinking tea and sharing in the magnetic warmth of their happy home. When I realized what daughter #4 had accomplished, I oohed and aahed as anyone would have done. Except to my surprise the girl herself, who was pointing out to me the defects of this gorgeously pysankied egg. And then to my further surprise, her mom (the artistic font from which the talent of these girls flowed) agreed with her. "It's not perfect," she said in answer to my exclamations of wonder. "You wouldn't sell it anywhere." WHAT?!?!?! I argued that if it wasn't perfect, it was absolutely marvelous, and then I realized what was happening. They were so talented that they had a very high standard of perfection, plus they were afficionados, so they knew what perfectly pysankied eggs looked like. Thus what I as an amateur would admire was not all that wonderful to them. I explained this, but in the heat of my admiration I may have sounded a little critical. And so my friend, let's hope inspired by the Holy Spirit, shot back, "Oh yeah! Well what about your novel? You've never let us read it even though you've been working on it for years! You probably think it isn't any good just because it isn't Jane Austen!" I paraphrase, but that was the gist of our conversation, and the consequence was life changing. A few days later I handed my friend two large binders full of my manuscript freshly printed out, all wrapped up nicely for her birthday gift. And so that you can see the whole story play out, lest I failed to give a clear enough description of this friend let me add that she has long sun-kissed, burnished auburn tresses AND, possibly more to the point, she LOVES reading. Finally, she's full of charity, and so in charity she had to read my novel even though she had given up reading novels for Lent and was, happily for me, starving for fiction at the exact moment that charity compelled her to stay up all night reading mine! Suffice it to say that there can be a happy sequel to giving up novels for Lent. She read mine, she over-rode my objections to its imperfections, and the next thing we knew, she and her daughters were helping me create the cover for my new publisher because said publisher was amenable to my choosing what went on the front of the book. This is in contrast to most publishers (so thank you from the bottom of my heart, dear Margot!), and it helps the author not only feel good about what's on the cover, but also prevents the author and future readers from wondering what drugs the cover-makers were taking (whether legally or illegally) while working on the book. One of the funniest examples that comes to mind (lest you think I'm exaggerating again, which I promise I'm not) is the complaint by a favorite author, Elizabeth Goudge, who commented that the publishers clearly didn't actually read her books, or at least they didn't convey any knowledge of the contents to the cover designers. She was so right! My copy of The Scent of Water featured on the cover a picture of a man and a woman embracing in a field. It's true there was a field in the book, and there were men and women in the book, but this couple represented none of them, and the story wasn't a typical boy-meets-girl with the conclusion of a clinch! Now I can't close without showing you the beautiful cover to this fun novel (that is, mine!) which I'm happy to report is quite seasonal, as it features a chapter on Lenten resolutions. Not to spoil the story, but it does proceed throughout the months of a full year, so it can be read in any season, but there's no better time than the present to help the time swoosh by and get us quickly to Easter! I almost forgot! On the TALKS page, you'll also find an invitation to contact me to get a copy of another seasonal book, Stations of the Cross with Our Sister St. Therese. It's available in English, but also in bilingual Spanish/English and Vietnamese/English editions, and I've got copies of all three versions on hand, so ask and it shall be given!
Meanwhile, we have a novena to start. Today is not only the First Sunday of Lent, but also the most unexpected and very little known feast of St. Alberic Crescitelli, P.I.M.E. which happens to be a very special day for me. On this day in 2001, St. Alberic did me an enormous and priceless favor, and I owe him. So, let's give him what he wants more than anything - the chance to help St. Therese with her mission of making God more loved! (This may sound like it's just Therese, Therese, Therese around here, and it is, but you can also be sure that every saint worth his salt is simply about loving God and making Him more loved - a win/win for everyone!) Here is a link to some info on St. Alberic and some of his best friends, but if you don't have that extra moment to click over just now, I'll cut to the chase and tell you he was an Italian missionary priest who went to China around 1900 and in thanks for his giving his all for God, he got his head chopped off! Which meant he swiftly flew to Heaven where he now knows it was SO worth it, and where he is in a great position to ask the Blessed and Adorable Trinity for favors for us. What shall we ask for? I hope you have a dozen or a couple hundred dozen things to ask for - let's ask for them all! - but I'm putting on the top of our list a super special triple intention that I'll leave nameless for now, except to call it The Most Important Things I've Been Wanting and Asking for seemingly Forever. Hmm, that's rather unwieldy. We'll just call it my special intention. And how shall we pray? I'm super excited that I've been invited to give a couple of talks in the near future, one on St. Therese and the Blessed Sacrament for our parish and one on Prayer (and St. Therese will come into that one too, no doubt) to the girls at our West Coast campus of Thomas Aquinas College again. I don't know everything I'll say, but one thing I want to mention is that We Should Pray as We Can (not as we Should)! I recently re-read a great piece by Monsignor Ronald Knox from A Retreat for Lay People. I'm not sure if I already mentioned it on a former post, but I'll try to post it here soon because it is so spectacular. It's called "Liberty of the Spirit in Prayer" (if I'm remembering rightly), and the main point I can tell you is the same as St. Therese told us and is quoted in the Catholic Catechism: "Prayer is a simple look turned toward heaven, it is a cry of recognition and of love, embracing both trial and joy." Or in the words of our dear Marcel Van, as quoted in the epigraph to Stations of the Cross with Our Sister St. Therese: "May your soul, may your heart, may everything about you be filled with candour in your relations with Jesus." Even as I'm finding these quotes, my heart and mind are filling with petitions so important and pressing for those I love. Let's pray! Dear St. Alberic and friends, St. Therese, Marcel, and Leonie, Sts. Louis and Zelie, St. Joseph and Blessed Mother, come to our aid and plead for us before the throne of God. We have many needs today, and those we love have many more. We want to help make God loved, we want to do His will, we want those who make decisions to make them according to the desires of the Most Sacred Heart of Jesus our Love. Please obtain from the Blessed Trinity an outpouring of the Holy Spirit so that wounds and divisions will be healed and hearts transformed! As we anticipate the feast of the Chair of St. Peter, prevail upon our loving Heavenly Father to fill our Holy Father and all Bishops and priests with the fullness of His Wisdom and Love. Ask that He may send us more laborers for the harvest, especially in mission fields, and bring back our countries to the center of His Will. Finally, as we approach the feast of Therese's sister Celine, please grant the grace that Therese received when Celine was allowed and even warmly invited, against all expectation, into the Carmel which already harbored three of her sisters. We ask again that hearts be transformed, and may every one of our dearest hopes be fulfilled. We ask this through Jesus' sweet and powerful name. Amen. There! And now, in case none of us remembers to say this for nine days in a row, let's ask our angels to say it for us: Angel of God, my guardian dear, To whom God's love commits me here, Ever this day, be at my side, To light, to guard, to rule, and guide. And for our short cut novena prayer: Little Flower, in this hour, show your power! Draw me, we will run! It's hard to believe Christmas has already come and seemingly gone (don't worry, I won't let it really go without a fight!), but the New Year promises to be here for a while, and as a dear 91 year old priest I know says, "Everything is amazing!" Just one example: My family had the grace to be in Lisieux for Christmas! We took Marcel with us (in the form of his Conversations), and I practiced my French by often repeating "Joyeux Noël et Bonne Année" to new friends and old. I'd say it to potential new friends as well, those some might call complete strangers, but who is really a stranger at Christmas? As James Taylor sings in a Christmas carol I love (and thanks to crazy modern technology, I can listen to it while I type in the comfort of Mathis House, a Victorian tea house bed and breakfast in Toms River, New Jersey where I'm staying, praise God! . . . except that I have to listen to James and Yo-Yo Ma play Here Comes the Sun first!) - but as I was saying, and as my stay in Toms River has shown me: Who is a stranger at Christmas-tide? Who comes this night, this wintry night, As to the lowly manger? The Shepherds and the Kings did come To welcome in the stranger. Who sends this song upon the air, To ease the soul that's aching? To still the cry of deep despair And heal the heart that?s breaking. Brother Joseph bring the light Fast, the night is fading. And who will come this wintry night To where the stranger's waiting? Who comes this night, with humble heart, To give the fullest measure A gift of purest love to bring What good and worthy treasure. Brother Joseph bring the lamb For they are asking for him The children come this starry night To lay their hearts before him. For those who would the stranger greet Must lay their heart before him And raise their song in voices sweet To worship and adore him. Brother Joseph bring the light Fast, the night is fading And who will come this wintry night To where the stranger's waiting Brother Joseph bring the lamb For they are asking for him. The children come this starry night To lay their hearts before him. Pure of heart this starry night To lay their hearts before him. * * * If you ever find yourself needing to stay on the East Coast, might I suggest Mathis House? It's one of a kind and would require you to stay in Toms River, but that would only add to the beauty and joy that God pours so sweetly into your life. Meanwhile, if you find yourself, like we did, in Lisieux for Christmas, might I make another suggestion? First, please take me with you! But even if I'm not there, I'd suggest that if you can manage a late night, head over to Saint-Pierre Cathedral and see what we saw on Christmas Eve. The photo atop this post shows the main altar of St. Pierre, the parish church of the Martin family, Thought the early Gothic Cathedral dated from the 13th century, in 1888 the rector wanted to beautify the church to glorify God, and when he asked for donations for the new altar, St. Louis up and offered the whole enormous amount, and offered himself to boot. I'm told it was at least the cost of Les Buissonnets (which means "the little bushes"), the house the Martin family leased and which is now a place you can visit, and even (if you have a few extra shekels) contribute to so that it will be repaired in places it's falling apart. It was a delight to discover Les Buissonnets open for visitors when we were there. It was supposed to be closed for an extended period for very necessary repairs, but in a bizarre (to my American mind) turn of events, they have no money to do the repairs, none of the needed donations to pay the workers, so it is not yet repaired and thus not currently closed. I don't want it to close, even temporarily, but I do want it to be repaired so it can remain a refuge of joy for pilgrims for all the years to come . . . Here is what the Sanctuary of Lisieux website says: "In November 1877, shortly after Madame Martin's death in Alençon, the family settled in Lisieux and became a tenant of the Maison des Buissonnets located a little outside the city, on the road to Pont-l'Evêque, in the alley “Chemin du Paradis”. Thérèse spent eleven years of her life there until she entered Carmel. "Rented by Louis Martin, the house of Buissonnets was acquired in 1909 by the cousin of Thérèse who lodged successive tenants there, often devoted to the cause of the young Carmelite. From 1911, the house became a place of pilgrimage. In 1931 the Buissonnets were entrusted to the Oblates of Sainte-Thérèse. The sisters welcome visitors, pilgrims and tourists every day. Donations from visitors help maintain the garden and the house." Not enough donations, though, so if you want to donate something, oh generous reader, rich or poor as you are, here is a LINK to the Sanctuary where you can specify you want your donation to go to Les Buissonnets. I'm going to try and be the first to make my donation because, wouldn't you know it, when we were there in the flesh and I wanted to drop a sizable donation (at least for us!) into the place where you could drop donations, I had my credit card, and it seemed impractical to drop the whole card into the box . . . so the kind sister helping us with our tour in English explained that I could give later, just be sure to say the donation was for Les Buissonnets (since there are many workers and buildings connected with the Sanctuary, that is St. Therese's places, that need donations) . . . Thanks to the angels' help, I just went to the link and made my donation, and sure enough there's a place you can type in that your donation is for Les Buissonnets. On the page that takes your billing information (name, address, email), you can add a note in "Further Information" in a box marked "Order Notes." I wrote there, "I would like to make my donation for Les Buissonnets." But back to Therese's family's parish church . . . one of the many things I love about our little sister's hometown is that if you lived there, you could still have this 13th century Gothic Cathedral as your parish church! We discovered that the two diocesan priests stationed there belong to the Society of St. John-Mary Vianney, so the Mass we went to near midnight on Christmas Eve was stunningly reverent and beautiful. Not to mention the lovely creches in the church, of which the one on the main altar pictured above, with darling baby Jesus strapped in between good St. Joseph and Mama Mary so He won't fall off, was possibly my favorite. The statue of Our Lord in death which lies under the altar is amazing, as are the two huge marble angels keeping watch (not pictured in my photo which sadly couldn't capture all the glory, so you'll just have to go see it for yourself), but I think my favorite thing of all here is just St. Therese's insistence on showering her roses EVERYWHERE for the glory of God so that we won't miss the message of God's infinite love for us. The cathedral was full of them, as was the town of Lisieux. Ah, roses! Thank You Jesus! But now I must come to the real point of this post . . . On July 11, 1897, Mother Agnes was speaking to St. Therese (who was ill in the infirmary and would enter eternal life 10 weeks later) about the manuscript of the Little Flower's Life which would become Story of a Soul, and about the good it would do to souls. Therese replied, " . . . But how well they will understand that everything comes from God; and what I shall have of glory from it will be a gratuitous gift from God that doesn't belong to me; everybody will see this clearly." I love this! "What I shall have of glory from it will be a gratuitous gift from God that doesn't belong to me; everybody will see this clearly." I had the most wonderful talk with a new friend yesterday. He said that it's not what we can do, it's not about fixing ourselves, but it's about what God can do in us. Yes, Frank is so right! Therese saw this and alluded to it at every opportunity. It was not her, this goodness that attracted the other sisters to her (and later the whole world) as iron to a magnet or a moth to the flame . . . This goodness in her is God living within her and loving through her, just as He wants to love through us. And whatever we have, it is a gift, it is from the giver of all good gifts. Even our fatherhood and motherhood, if we are parents, is from God and not for ourselves but for Him. My husband gets to read the greatest books ever because he works at a Great Books College, and he was telling me yesterday about a line from St. Augustine in The City of God. St. Augustine explains why something or other (it is awesome, but we've got to focus or we'll never get to our point here!) and in his explanation he says that then the sons of heaven (the Israelites) married the beautiful daughters of earth and had children for themselves. I was stunned and thought this was amazing - they didn't raise children for God and eternal life, but simply for themselves and this life. Ouch! There are so many amazing things on this earth, and one of the best is parents raising little eternal souls for heaven. So Beautiful! This was the case with our dear Marcel. His mom often gets a bad rap - at least she did from me until my dear friend and benefactor, Jack Keogan, recently pointed out that Marcel's Mama (or Mama-Marcel as we'd say in Nigeria) was an absolute brick of a woman. I like that expression (Jack said it much more elegantly and without my harsh sounding idiom) because it shows someone who is tough yet really comes through. Or maybe is tough and so really comes through. Or perhaps really comes through, and in doing so develops the toughness needed to live constantly in God's will. Here is what Marcel says to Fr. Boucher ("bearded Jesus," his spiritual director and novice master who requested he write the story of his life so far at 16) about his dear Mama in his Autobiography: My dear Father, I have pointed out to you already the love that God has shown towards me in placing me from birth into a privileged family, a family blessed materially, but above all spiritually. It is thanks to the practice of virtue in my family that I have learned from my childhood to turn towards the heart of God. He has given me a tender heart which loves to be happy and to be cared for. Let me say that these were equally the intimate feelings of little Therese. Hand in hand with this delicacy of feeling, God has also given to me, as I have already said, a virtuous and prudent mother. It is by the hands of such a mother that I have been fashioned. I once heard her say in speaking of me, "The more he grew, the happier I was with him." Yes, that was how it was. (41) When little Marcel was only seven, he wanted to stay with a priest at a parish a distance from his home so he could begin his studies for the priesthood. After he and his mama visited the priest for a few days, his mom consented to his wish to stay. Marcel writes: I learned that my mother had left that day at nine o'clock, and that the ten o'clock train took her back home. My heart continued to beat regularly, my eyes remained dry and my soul was ecstatic at the thought that I was following the example of Jesus remaining in the temple . . . But what were my mother's feelings? It was after five years of separation, in meeting me at the house when I had fled for the first time, that she opened her heart to me during an afternoon of intimate exchanges. "That day," she said, "what bitterness tortured my heart whilst thinking of you, my dearest child. I did not pay any attention to the countryside which unfolded along the route because it all brought back to me the memory of my little angel. When I got on the train I could only sit down, exhausted, and say the rosary. I thought the rosary would help me to forget your image but, on the contrary, it brought it back to me in a harrowing manner, because so many times have I told my beads whilst you sat on my knee. Honestly, each Hail Mary was a tear falling on my breast since my empty hands no longer felt the touch of your little fingers. I was sighing, 'Lord Jesus' . . . and I asked God to strengthen my soul. At that moment your voice was heard no longer saying repeatedly, to console me, 'Mammy, why are you crying like that? Enough! Don't cry any more, because we are the children of the good God.' You were an angel of peace sent by God to console me on days of darkness. Cousin Suu was very attentive and tried to console me, but I felt more and more alone and could only repeat: 'God understands me.' I was worried about you, asking myself if you would be able to persevere, or if, once the initial attraction had passed, your would give it all up, which, for me, wouldn't be a more painful trial still, since in separating myself from you at the cost of much bitterness and suffering, I wished by these sufferings to please the heart of God: that is to say, to obtain for you the strength to persevere in His service until the end." (127) Marcel comments: "My mother's words were words of good advice given to me." Oh Love! How you give us joys and sorrows in this life, our meetings, our friendships, our families, and our separations . . . and yet it is Your hand which guides everything! Help us to trust You and to open our hands as Therese and Marcel did following their parents' example. May we leave our hands open so You can freely take and give as You please, for Your will is our peace, our joy, our life, our all! What is there but goodness and love that come from Your hand and Your Sacred Heart? Nothing else but love and mercy - that's what You ARE as the Gospel and St. Therese teach us. Be merciful this day to all our friends, new and old, and all our potential friends, those who are as yet complete strangers, but in Your loving providence, not forever. Even if we meet them only in Heaven, may You bless our prayer for them now. For the whole world! Let no one be lost today . . . and for those who seem lost, send Your angels to guide and protect them and bring them safely Home - and bring us safely Home too! Draw me . . . we will run! She said: “Juanito, the most humble of my sons, where are you going?” He replied: “My Lady and Child, I have to reach your church in Mexico, Tlatilolco, to pursue things divine…” She then spoke to him: “Know for certain, dearest of my sons, that I am the perfect and ever-Virgin Mary, Mother of the true God, the Lord of all things and Master of Heaven and Earth. I ardently desire a temple to be built here, where I will show and offer all my love, compassion, help, and protection to the people and those who look for me. I am your merciful Mother, the Mother of all who live in this land and of all mankind. I will hear the weeping and sorrows of those who love me, cry to me, and have confidence in me, and I will give them consolation and relief. Therefore, so that my designs might be fulfilled, go to the house of the Bishop of Mexico City and tell him that I sent you, and that it is my desire to have a temple built in this place.” And a few days later, on the day which is today, she most beautifully says to Juan and to us: Hear and let it penetrate your heart, my dear little one: Let nothing discourage you, nothing depress you. Let nothing alter your heart or your countenance. Am I not here who am your Mother? Are you not under my shadow and protection? Am I not your fountain of life? Are you not in the folds of my mantle? In the crossing of my arms? Is there anything else that you need? Do not fear any illness or vexation, anxiety or pain. It's a tall order, to let nothing discourage us or depress us, but she absolutely IS HERE who is our Mother, and she is not only lovely and loving, but good and powerful. So let's heed her advice, snuggle up under her starry mantle, and enjoy her Advent embrace. Our Lord is in her womb, so by sitting on her lap we are already near to Him. Hello, little Jesus! Thank You for making Yourself so tiny for us - now You are our size! Please come soon! We're waiting! Is there anything else that you need? Perhaps a nap, a cup of coffee or tea, a gorgeous display of bright roses to brighten your day . . . ah, but who can imagine with what love Almighty God fashioned that Mama's dear face for us . . . He has given her to us as our own, and she has confirmed it as Our Lady of Guadalupe. As Archbishop Luis Martinez says: "There are words from Heaven in the apparition of Guadalupe that come from the immaculate lips of Mary and that enclose rich and unknown treasures of light, tenderness, and hope . . . Those words are ours, and with them Mary lulls us into a small dream. We sleep on her lap. Those words breathe tenderness and demand trust. Listen to what she says: 'Am I not here, I who am your mother? Are you not under my shadow and protection? Am I not life and health? Are you not on my lap and under my care? Do you need anything else?' We have not heard the same thing from the lips of our mother on earth. For our mother in heaven has a love more intense and passionate and a tenderness more exquisite and delicate than all that we know here below. Read and reread those words attentively . . . Read them and you will taste in the depths of your heart the softness that they contain. Read them, and your soul will be flooded with tenderness - with that tenderness that you feel but which no human language can explain." Ah! Let us love Mary as she desires - with the abandon of a child on its mother's lap . . . Our little sister St. Therese advised the same behavior with our Heavenly Father: "Holiness does not consist in this or that practice; it consists in a disposition of the heart, which makes us always humble and little in the hands of God, well aware of our feebleness, but confident to audacity in the Father's goodness." She said this on August 3, 1897 - this was the day (in 1992) on which my dear buddy Jon Syren did just that - abandoned himself so well that he got to go to Heaven. And what about us? On this day of December 12 (and every day after this Today of Guadalupe), we needn't be afraid of anything - life or death and all they contain! We need only remember Our Lady's words, along with the Little Flower's. Okay, talk about tall orders! I can't seem to remember much these days, but let's go for this, with or without remembering: Confident audacity in Mary's maternal love! That's it. I was thinking of saying we can strive for that confident audacity, but let's forget striving today, and let's just rest in her arms. Ah, Mamacita! Teach us your love, show us your love, let us drown in your love, let us be amazed by your love as the Bishop and his friends were on this day when you revealed not only the beauty of God in His flowers, but the beautifullest beauty of all - the beauty of your tender, loving gaze upon us. To Marcel you said, dear Mary: "My dear little one. You have just been looking at me. It is not surprising therefore that I hasten to ask you this question. It is something really astounding. My child, by a simple glance you have drawn to yourself my compassionate gaze. So what do you want? Are you very troubled? That is very unfortunate, my child. I am very sorry for you. Today, the feast day, when you should be relaxing , all you do is worry yourself. It is very painful. But, my child, why trouble yourself in this way? I was once in the same situation as you; my soul also needed to believe, to hope, and to love like you. Although aware of the wonders that God was working in me, I had, nevertheless, to believe, since I had no conception of the graces that the divine Father was granting to me. If , at that time, I had not had the need to call on the virtue of faith, I would no longer have been a humble creature like you, my children. If, therefore, I still had need to believe, with much greater reason have you, my child . . . "My dear child, remain in peace, all right? Little Jesus has not scolded you; neither have I. Our sole intention, both of us, is to get rid of your troubles. Do not worry. I love you dearly. See, I have more pity for you than for little Jesus. IN that case, it is He whos should be sad; but you, what reason have you to be sad? Come, my child, I am kissing you, I am giving you twice as many as I am giving little Jesus, nevertheless, little Jesus is very happy with that." (Conversations, 426) What have we to fear? Not a thing at all, not with Mary so loving and our mother, which she is. Let's heed the holy Archbishop's advice then, and read, and re-read: Hear and let it penetrate your heart, my dear little one: Let nothing discourage you, nothing depress you. Let nothing alter your heart or your countenance. Am I not here who am your Mother? Are you not under my shadow and protection? Am I not your fountain of life? Are you not in the folds of my mantle? In the crossing of my arms? Is there anything else that you need? Do not fear any illness or vexation, anxiety or pain. Draw me, dear Mother; we shall run! "Jesus, King of love, may the reign of Your love be deeply rooted in the hearts of priests."
--prayer taught by Jesus, King of love to little Marcel Van, spiritual brother of St. Therese of the Child Jesus, on the Feast of Christ the King, 28 October 1945 From Conversations (with Jesus, Mary, and St. Therese) by Servant of God Marcel Van translated from the Vietnamese into French by Fr. Anthony Boucher, CSsR, (Bearded Jesus) translated from the French into English by Jack Keogan, BFF (Best Friend Forever) 28 October 1945 (Feast of Christ the King) Marcel: Jesus, today on the feast of Your universal kingship, I ask that You reign in the hearts of all men. Does that please You? That's all I know how to say. I cannot find anything better. Jesus: You will repeat this prayer throughout today: "Jesus, King of love, may the reign of Your love be deeply rooted in the hearts of priests." The work I expect of my spouse is that she will go in search of souls. Even if this gives you a lot of pain in writing all the words that I am dictating to you and praying all your life in order to save a single soul and offering it to Me, I will welcome this soul with all My heart as I would do for a million other souls who would come back suddenly to Me. My little apostle, never allow yourself to be afraid by the effort that you must impose on yourself to write. Even if the words I am saying to you were useful only to a single soul, that would already be sufficient. The behavior of My spouses in their relations with Me must also be the same in their relations with My Mother. Mary, being My Mother, and My spouses being but one with Me, it follows that My Mother is equally the Mother of My spouses. It seems, however, that many of My spouses show evidence of indifference towards My Mother. Little friend, listen carefully to what I am going to say to You: do not be distracted. It is thanks to Mary that My spouses can unite themselves to My love in an intimate and lasting fashion. My little friend, never forget it: you must love My Mother just as I love her Myself. Marcel: Jesus, are You sad sometimes because of me? Jesus: My child, if that ever happens it is only when I see you sad. When you are happy, how could I be sad? So, be happy always. A single one of your joys suffices to console me very much. Marcel: Jesus, does it ever happen that I cause You pain? Jesus: Why not? Nevertheless, your negligences are like grains of dust in My eyes which tarnish your soul a little, but which disappear completely as soon as they have passed through the fire of My love. That is why I said to you: "The soul which burns interiorly by the fire of My love is always white with purity in My eyes." Marcel: Jesus, my sister Saint Therese gives You the name of banker. [In St. Therese's Letter 142, 6 July 1893 to Celine: "Your Therese is not in the best of form at the moment but Jesus teaches her, 'to profit from all the good and the bad that she finds in herself.' He teaches her to play at the bank of love, or rather, no, He plays for her without telling her how. He does so because that is His business and not Therese's; what concerns her is to abandon herself, to give herself without holding anything back, not even the pleasure of knowing how much the bank yields to her."] Marcel continues: So, do men confide to You many spiritual treasures every day? I love You a lot, dear Jesus, and my only wish is to confide huge spiritual treasures to You every day, while asking You to distribute them to souls. I admit that my spiritual goods have neither any importance nor any worth; but be happy, however, to accept them since that is all I possess. I know that, already, You understand me very well without my having to speak to You of it. Jesus: Little child of My love, listen to Me. In truth the tabernacle in which I reside resembles a telegraph room where news from everywhere arrives continually. And I, like the chief telegrapher, I must stay there all the time, always listening. News comes to Me every day, some sad, some happy; and although the latter are often of no consequence, they are still able to please Me to such an extent as to make Me forget all the bad news. Let us suppose that news from sinners comes to My ears from everywhere; some blaspheme My love, others address hard reproaches to Me and speak all the evil they can of Me. But if at the same time the words of My spouses come to Me from diverse places, these words make Me forget all the blasphemies, they even make me forget to punish the sin of the blasphemers. As if under the spell of a charm, I am unaware that they have offended Me, so that I give to them all the graces of which My hands are full. My child, do you know what these words are which charm Me so much? They are none other than parcels of sighs of love which are sent to Me by My spouses. This is fortunate for sinners since, if I had not received these words making My heart happy, I would have chastised them already. * * * I dare not turn the page of my well-loved (second copy) of Conversations lest I tire you or we forget (as I already half have) all that Jesus has said so far! O Love! How is it possible that You are full of so much Love? You are Love, Your beloved Apostle John has told us this - and yet, and yet . . . How is Love so full of Love? We have not known Love! We have not known You! We have no clue as to the infinite treasures and depths of Your compassion, Your tenderly solicitous attention to us, Your delight in our nothingness, Your salvific use of the least of our sighs - all of which are sighs of love, because what else is there in this silly valley of tears and occasional laughter? Dear reader, if you have read this far you have read that "A single one of your joys suffices to console Me very much." Your joy consoles Jesus, that is, but I assure you it consoles me too! Think of the laughter of a baby, a child, a teenager, a twenty-something, a young married couple, and so on up to the laughter of an elderly person. I can think of the laughter of my 87 year old mom and my nearly 94 year old mother-in-law. Oh how their laughter makes me laugh too! My mom is a bit forgetful, and my mother-in-law, in contrast, has a memory to beat all - but neither of these matters of memory matter when we are laughing together. Joy, like love, conquers all and emerges triumphant in the bright sunshine or on a cloudy day, in the wee hours of the night or early hours of the morning, amidst stars and moonlight, or even in the seemingly darkest of places. I read something recently that got me almost reconciled, almost understanding, almost happy about suffering. And then, thanks be to God, I forgot what I read. For the life of me I can't remember where or what I read that gave me this happy realization that the Cross is not our mortal enemy. Don't get me wrong - if Jesus is on that cross, I accept it. But it would be a bit much to say, as I was about to, "If Jesus is on that cross, I am content." No, not exactly content. Wriggling and restless, longing for a hot chocolate with marshmallows or a more comfortable outfit or some warm socks on my cold feet, and on and on . . . And I'm kind of relieved that I've forgotten why we can be, at least hypothetically, theoretically, and in the depths of our will if not at the top of our game, happy about suffering. Because if I lost my lament of "Woe is me - I HATE THE CROSS!" where would my charming relatability be? There must be other blogs or online sites or books to read by Saints who champion the glory of the Cross. There are lots of big people who love Jesus very much. But I am here to represent the little ones, to speak as a little one to little ones, to speak for St. Therese, and because she got BIG in Heaven, to speak for her little spiritual brother, the Servant of God Marcel Van who is not even venerable - well, sorry Marcel, I mean there is venerable, and there is Venerable, and in both senses (aged and worthy of our piety or having had one's heroic virtues acknowledged by the Church and thus entitled to the name Venerable), you aren't there yet! Thank You, Jesus, that our dear brother Marcel remains little even while he helps our sister Therese shower those innumerable roses that the angels keep handing them from the no doubt very beautiful and sparkly buckets of roses they have in Heaven. Because where would we little ones be without our fearful leader Marcel? (Okay, now he's fearless, but when he was in exile, he was often quite fearful and yet still hilarious because You, Jesus, were there to comfort him.) Where would we be without Marcel since we find it so much trouble to believe Therese - and, holy smokes, may You forbid it - we often have trouble believing, or perhaps it's trouble remembering, even YOU, dear Love - telling us that littleness is The Key to Your Heart, the Key that opens the doors of the Kingdom, the Key to Heaven. I'm such a bad Protestant, always forgetting, or better yet never having known Chapter and Verse, but didn't You say quite authoritatively that "Unless one becomes like a little child, one cannot enter the Kingdom of Heaven"? That question mark ruins the effect, but yes, You did! And then Therese repeated Your teaching by her life and doctrine, and she confirms this Little Way now by her Shower of Roses upon us . . . but it is Marcel Van, the littlest Redemptorist brother, the complaining, teasing, laughing and crying Marcel who lives out this littleness before our eyes when we read Your Conversations with him. But let's stop yammering (that would be me), and get to the point: Marcel: Jesus, are You sad sometimes because of Me? Jesus: My child, if that ever happens it is only when I see you sad. When you are happy, how could I be sad? So, be happy always. A single one of your joys suffices to console Me very much. I knew that. I had read those words a hundred times over a four year period, and still depression and anxiety and insomnia descended upon me and seemed to well up from within me, and they didn't finally leave for two whole years. Then thanks to the love of God and His angels (earthly and heavenly), and thanks to miracles and a big Miracle around the Feast of the Assumption this year, all that is past and I am joyful again. Full of renewed energy (please pray for those in my path - it is hard not to knock them down on my way to fulfill all of Therese's little tasks for me), full of laughter, and grateful for what turns out to be a freedom from fear that I want to say I've never experienced before, but I might more truly say I've rarely experienced before. So. Why do I tell you all this? Because if you find yourself wishing you could follow Jesus' advice and simply "Be happy always," thus making not only yourself and those around you happy, but making Jesus Himself happy (and this is our goal, after all) - and not even by any mortification, but simply by enjoying that ice cream cone or glass of wine (to each his own, I say!)(and there is absolutely NO accounting for taste, that's for sure) . . . but if amidst this desire to be happy for the sake of yourself and the universe, not to mention because Jesus just requested it of you (Oh glory be! - who could not love these Conversations between Jesus and Marcel?), as I say if amidst this desire to be happy you find yourself just as humdrum, ho hum, or even down in the dumps as any person might feel in this Valley of Tears (I hate to harp on the tears business, but in my experience it isn't called a Valley of Tears for nothin) - well, I get it. And I want to say this: Please don't feel guilty about it. If you could make yourself happy, you would! But you can't, only God can, so let me pray for you, and feel free to pray with me - Jesus, we trust in You! Please accept every single one of our sighs (even if they start out sounding like sighs of annoyance or frustration or anger or every other type of sigh) as sighs of love that will charm You and make You forget all the blasphemies and forget to punish sins, and let our sighs submerge You in joy so that You will be unaware of offenses against You and give to the whole world all the graces of which Your hands are full! And then, when You have had enough of pretending that our sighs of ennui and our sighs of upset are sighs of love, please miraculously turn our every breath into a sigh of love and then - THEN! - give us some of those kisses we've read about - You know, like, "Let Him kiss me with the kisses of His mouth" - and then may these kisses cheer us up so that we forget our sorrows and have plenty of joys to cheer You in return, to console You as You promised Marcel a single one of our joys would! We are fast approaching Advent, which means we are fast approaching Christmas, and a new dear friend cracked me up by talking (two weeks ago or so) about the next six weeks and how she was dreading them. What? A million things to do? And then the added pressure that we are the cognoscenti and if we don't live Advent as a season of penance, who will? Okay, I need to wrap this up so you can have your cupcake or wine, your snuggle under a warm blanket or your trip to the beach (depending where you are as you read this!) - and here is the scoop: 1. Happy Feast of Christ the King! To those in Virginia who taught me to love this feast so much (and I thank you with tears in my eyes) - and to those everywhere who would like to learn to love this feast, I can only sing: To Jesus Christ, our Sov'reign King, Who is the world's salvation, All praise and homage do we bring, And thanks and adoration! 2. May your Advent be a season of joy! It may also be a season of shopping (penance and joy), a season of preparation (for meals and parties as well as for the coming of Jesus to our hearts once again), and a season of sighs - you don't even need me to explain those in a parenthetical remark - and let's admit it is unlikely to be a season of silence, but I pray now asking the intercession of our Blessed Mother and our guardian angels, Padre Pio and his angel, Saints Raphael, Gabriel and Michael, and St. Juliana: Dear Jesus, grant us a holy hour, just one holy hour if not more, in this coming Advent, a holy hour where we might exchange hearts with You and find ourselves in the womb of Mary with You, waiting Your first breath of the air You created . . . Thank You, little King of Love, for coming down for us! Thank You for everything, and may this Advent above all be a season of JOY because You, little Jesus, King of all hearts, can't resist visiting us again right in the thick of things. Thank You, Love, for Advent hymns and Christmas carols, and if they are all mixed up over the next several weeks, let us sing them with equal amounts of nostalgia and anticipation, earnestness and childish delight like Yours. 3. Meanwhile, we were saying a novena, and I forgot all about it - thank goodness we said Little Flower in this hour show your power 9 times in a row! 4. Because now we have a new novena! By all that is joyful and good, here in the Santa Barbara region of the Archdiocese of Los Angeles, today we have a new Polish bishop, Sławomir Szkredka, being installed at a Mass at San Buenaventura Mission. A friend who loves novenas even more than I do (impossible, you say! But don't forget: with God all things are possible!) wrote: "I was thinking it would be beautiful if we could say a novena together for Bishop "Swavek" as he begins his ministry here, starting on his first day. He'll have a challenging task, and the possibility to do much good -- let's help our new shepherd out with our prayers! Bishop Swavek has a devotion to St. John Paul II and is being installed at the last mission founded by St. Junipero Serra. So we're praying specially to those two great saints for his ministry here." Well, this dear praying friend then wrote: "Please share with anyone you think would like to join in praying for our new bishop!" And so, here is our prayer for those who would like to pray even for a moment with us for the newest bishop in the Church! Dear Lord, through the intercession of Our Lady, St. John Paul II, and St. Junipero Serra, we ask for Your special blessing on Bishop Sławomir. Almighty and everlasting God, have mercy upon Your servant our Bishop Sławomir, and order his goings according to Your mercy in the paths of eternal salvation, that by the gift of Your grace he may ever seek such things as to please You and with all his strength to lead his flock along the path of salvation. Give him a spirit of courage and right judgment, a spirit of knowledge and love. By governing with fidelity those entrusted to his care, may he at last share with them in the joy of seeing Your face forever in your Kingdom. Mary, mother of the Church, pray for us. St. Joseph, pray for us. St. John Paul II, pray for us. St. Junipero Serra, pray for us. St. Bonaventure, pray for us. St. Barbara, pray for us. Draw me, we will run!!! "Jesus does not ask great actions from us, but simply surrender and gratitude." (Story of a Soul)
"After my death, I will let fall a shower of roses. I will spend my heaven doing good upon earth." (Therese to her sisters) "What most draws down graces from our dear Lord is gratitude, for if we thank Him for a gift, He is touched and hastens to give us ten more, and if we thank Him again with the same sincerity, what an incalculable multiplication of graces! I have experienced this: try it and you will see. My gratitude is for all He gives me is boundless, and I prove this to Him in a thousand ways." (Therese to Celine) How was your Thanksgiving? I hope it was lovely, but if it had regrettable moments, or if you are just plum wore out, let's set all that aside and start fresh . . . Did you know that Jesus does not ask great actions from us, but just surrender and gratitude? And even for little tiny souls, surrender and gratitude are possible! In our last episode we were saying a novena to Therese for all priests, bishops, and the Holy Father, and all our intentions, and we finished on or around St. Raphael Kalinowski's feast on November 19, hidden behind the Sunday, or November 20, as it is celebrated in Poland. Well despite my hopes to write a post for the end of that novena and more fun anecdotes about St. Raphael (who apologized to the Carmel of Lisieux in 1902 for having doubted their little sister Therese and the universality of her message, and then proceeded to make amends by getting her Story of a Soul translated into Polish), what mostly happened this week was shopping. The grocery store on Monday. Trader Joe's on Tuesday. Costco on Wednesday . . . and now, before I know it, Thanksgiving is over and I've got a new slate of prayer intentions - well some old and some new. There's nothing quite as dear as the old, familiar prayer intention - like wrapping ourselves in a warm blanket we can snuggle up to Jesus' merciful Heart, immerse ourselves in HIs Mercy, and as if we're doing all this in a dimly lit bar we can't stop returning to despite ourselves, we can say to Jesus the Divine Bartender, "I'll have the usual!" And then, just when we think He Who knows our intentions and hearts and hurts so well has gone majorly deaf, He will hand us what we're asking for - the miracle we've been seeking for years. A father-in-law who allows Jesus to come to him after 60 plus years apart . . . the brother we pray will return to the Church and the sacraments becomes entirely converted in the Heart of the Church in Thailand . . . that "character defect" we've been struggling with for years is suddenly removed by Him in the blink of an eye . . . a child we love who has been suffering is healed . . . the cross that seems to crush us is at last and with great sweetness lifted and tossed to the ends of the earth while Jesus stays with us to make sure we're okay after all . . . we wake up one morning to find a renewed joy and energy and lo and behold, the sun is shining again! All things are possible with God, and so when you wake up to remember that your cross is still waiting for you or a new one has been delivered faster than amazon or Domino's could manage it, don't despair, simply take Therese at her word and God at His . . . Let's ask, so we will receive! Let's say together right now, "Jesus, I trust in You, Jesus, thank You for everything!" and then let's turn to the saint of His Heart, the Little Flower who promised to fill our lives with flowers, who promised to Come Down (not just watch over and help from Heaven but really come right down into the thick of it beside us). We can say the short version of our novena to her: Little Flower in this hour show your power! Or we can give it the longer version: O Little Therese of the Child Jesus Please pick for me a rose from the heavenly garden and send it to me as a message of love. O Little Flower of Jesus, please ask God to grant the favors I now place with confidence in your hands . . . that all our priests, bishops, and the Holy Father may become great saints, and for all the intentions we hold in our hearts. St. Therese, help me to always believe as you did, in God’s great love for me, so that I may imitate your “Little Way” each day. Amen. There! We're already a ninth of the way there, and if you fear you'll forget, let's make it a Mother Teresa "do it now" St. Therese novena - Little Flower in this hour show your power! Little Flower in this hour show your power! Little Flower in this hour show your power! Little Flower in this hour show your power! Little Flower in this hour show your power! Little Flower in this hour show your power! Little Flower in this hour show your power! Little Flower in this hour show your power! Little Flower in this hour show your power! Amen! I'm going to try and keep going for another eight days, and that will be for your intentions as well as mine! That will take us to . . . the Vigil of St. Francis Xavier, if I've done my finger counting right! Meanwhile, speaking of feasts and Saints, that imp Marcel from whom we take our name (that would be Marcel Van, but while I'm thinking of it, let's toss into our novena all the other Marcels we can think of - just sharing the name of our sweet brother is a grace for them, and may it bring them on his coattails - or rather on the tail of his too tight soutane - straight to Heaven into Jesus' loving eternal "My turn!" From mimes to priests to a freshmen at my alma mater, though she's a Marceline, may we who bear his name be blessed with gratitude and surrender!) - wow, that was a long parentheses, but now that we're out, let's get back to the point - that imp Marcel almost let me forget it's the day of his compatriots today! Happy feast of St. Andrew Dũng Lạc, and his companions, Martyrs. The Vatican tells us: "A young convert and priest gives his name to a group of 117 martyrs of his land, courageous witnesses to Christ whose blood was the seed of the Church in Vietnam. Their collective feast day is celebrated on November 24." And just for the record, they were martyred in the years 1850 to 1852. Our friends at Franciscan Media have told their story this way for us: Andrew Dung-Lac, a Catholic convert ordained to the priesthood, was one of 117 people martyred in Vietnam between 1820 and 1862. Members of the companions group gave their lives for Christ in the 17th, 18th, and 19th centuries, and received beatification during four different occasions between 1900 and 1951. All were canonized during the papacy of Saint John Paul II. Christianity came to Vietnam through the Portuguese. Jesuits opened the first permanent mission at Da Nang in 1615. They ministered to Japanese Catholics who had been driven from Japan. Severe persecutions were launched at least three times in the 19th century. During the six decades after 1820, between 100,000 and 300,000 Catholics were killed or subjected to great hardship. Foreign missionaries martyred in the first wave included priests of the Paris Foreign Mission Society, and Spanish Dominican priests and tertiaries. In 1832, Emperor Minh-Mang banned all foreign missionaries, and tried to make all Vietnamese deny their faith by trampling on a crucifix. Like the priest-holes in Ireland during English persecution, many hiding places were offered in homes of the faithful. Persecution broke out again in 1847, when the emperor suspected foreign missionaries and Vietnamese Christians of sympathizing with a rebellion led by of one of his sons. The last of the martyrs were 17 laypersons, one of them a 9-year-old, executed in 1862. That year a treaty with France guaranteed religious freedom to Catholics, but it did not stop all persecution. By 1954, there were over a million Catholics—about seven percent of the population—in the north. Buddhists represented about 60 percent. Persistent persecution forced some 670,000 Catholics to abandon lands, homes and possessions and flee to the south. In 1964, there were still 833,000 Catholics in the north, but many were in prison. In the south, Catholics were enjoying the first decade of religious freedom in centuries, their numbers swelled by refugees. During the Vietnamese war, Catholics again suffered in the north, and again moved to the south in great numbers. Now reunited, the entire country is under Communist rule. * * * My husband and I once lived in "the South" - we are so grateful for those years with such great and dear friends and such good work and Jesus - but it took me a while to figure out even the basics of North and South. I think I got it down, who was the blue, who was the gray, and why every street was named either Stonewall or Jackson or Stonewall Jackson . . . but you are here to witness my latest geographic and historic idiocy (I have a blonde soul, I used to say, and now that I have highlights it's migrating outward): Only in that last sentence above the asterisks did I totally realize there is no longer North and South Vietnam. Maybe that's because for me it's about Love. If you could see the sunrise over the mountains out my window you'd understand. And in love, there is always north and south, kind of like there are the wheat and the tares in the Kingdom, or the City of God and the City of Man still mixed up until that last day when the trumpet sounds and Padre Pio can go into Heaven and Therese can finally rest. Oh yeah, and Jesus comes and we get to party forever - or gaze forever, depending on your propensity. Well, let's pray so we all get there. I have my holy hacks and ways around losing any souls, and I have at least a smidge of Therese's insane confidence because it's true: prayer is SO powerful over His infinitely tender and eternally merciful Heart. Ha! I love it! We pray so He can do what He does and pour mercy over the whole world! What a fun game He's invented! Time to go to Mass where I'm going to pray for YOU! May He fill us always with the fullness of His Love, and before that first kiss that lands us smack in the center of the eternal adorable abode called Heaven, let's do our best to keep kissing Him - feet, knees, side, hands, FACE! St. Andrew and all your companions including Venerable Cardinal Francis Xavier van Thuan and your little Servant of God Marcel Van, pray for us and bring us to Jesus with joy and gratitude! Quickly! Draw me, we will run! Happy Feast of all the Carmelite Saints!
Last week, November 7th was the Feast of All Dominican Saints. At the end of the month, November 29 is the Feast of All Franciscan Saints. On November 1st, we had the Feast of All Saints simpliciter. And today - the feast of all our dear Carmelite Saints! On this past Saturday, November 11 was the feast of the marvelous St. Martin of Tours (which I just realized this year is an octave away from the feast of St. Martin de Porres on November 3). I was with Carmelite friends and we began a novena to St. Therese for all priests, bishops, and our Holy Father. We wrongly guessed it would end on the Feast of Christ the King, but actually we jumped the gun, imagining Christ the King to be on Sunday November 19, when it's actually on Sunday November 26 in the new calendar this year . . . No matter! It turns out our novena is ending on the feast of St. Raphael Kalinowski hidden behind the Sunday....except in Poland his feast is celebrated on November 20, so we can end our novena on his day and his vigil, November 19, and then thank him with festivity on the 20th! What I LOVE about St. Raphael is his hilarious encounters with St. Therese, our dear patroness, little sister, and mischievous teaser of Marcel (and us too, come to think of it)! St. Raphael, when he was merely Fr. Raphael of St. Joseph, O.C.D. (no, not obsessive compulsive, but of the Order of Carmelites Discalced!), wrote to the Lisieux Carmel on October 9, 1902, only five years after Therese had flown the coop, leaving this exile for Heaven. She was still simply SIster Therese, no cause or process begun . . . Father's letter is in the "Shower of Roses" included as back matter in the 1911 French edition of Story of a Soul. Forgive me for taking some liberty with the translation of this letter. I'm dependent on my guardian angel for most of my French, and like Padre Pio's angel, not to mention Therese and Marcel themselves, the little imps, my angel likes to tease me. Regardless of my limitations, you'll get the gist. Fr. Raphael writes: October 9, 1902 Reparation Most Reverend Mother, The inscription at the head of this letter indicates my duty to make amends for a fault committed by me towards your little saint, Sister Therese of the Child Jesus. Two or three years ago, when the manuscript was presented to me to do a translation into Polish of the life of this little flower of Carmel, I took the liberty of remarking that the language of our country does not suit her; that it would in no way be in the style of the original, and that reading it would cause nothing but disgust. It was like putting a brake on the apostolate of this chosen one of God. She must have taken it to heart; and, on the other hand, not only knew how to act in such a way that the proposed translation would be brought to light, but moreover, took it directly from my person. About eight days ago I returned to my cell, my soul tossed about by the waves of a stormy sea of inner sorrows and not knowing where to find refuge for shelter. . . And now my gaze falls on the French book of the life of the vengeful sister . . . I open it, and I come across the poem "Living on Love." Suddenly, the storm subsides, calm returns, something ineffable invades my whole being and transforms me from top to bottom. This hymn was therefore for me the lifeboat: the amiable sister having offered herself as pilot. So I must note that today the promise, "I want to spend my Heaven doing good on earth . . . After my death I will cause a shower of roses to fall," has truly been realized. Fr. Raphael of St. Joseph, Discalced Carmelite, Vicar Provincial And there follows a parenthetical comment that Fr. Raphael Kalinowski died in the odor of sanctity in the year 1907 - on November 15 (tomorrow!), Feast of all Carmelite Souls. The note continues, "His cause for beatification is submitted to Holy Church." In fact, his cause was formally opened on March 2, 1952, when he gained the title "Servant of God." Pope St. John Paul II beatified Fr. Raphael in 1983 in Kraków, in front of a crowd of over two million people. On November 17, 1991, he was canonized when, in St. Peter's Basilica, Pope St. John Paul II declared his boyhood hero a saint. I'd say St. Therese got her revenge all right! After Fr. Raphael translated her Story of a Soul into Polish, she got to work polishing up his sanctity, whisking him off to heaven, and eventually making him, on November 17, 1991, when he was declared a saint by Pope St. John Paul II, the first Discalced Carmelite friar to be canonized since his holy father in Carmel, John of the Cross (1542–1591), was named a saint in 1726. Sounds like this brother and sister duo, Therese and Raphael, plus another Carmelite soul, Pope St. John Paul II, along with St. Martin of Tours on whose feast we began, would love to help us pray for our clergy, that they might be priests after Our Lord's own Heart, priests to please the Blessed Mother in their innocence, simplicity, and holiness, priests led by the guiding star that is St. Therese, the Little Flower, and Brother Marcel Van, the apostle of priests. Let's do it, then; let's pray! Don't worry that you're joining in late - and don't worry if you forget a day. Failure is the new success and the Little Way is a perfect venue for a little novena: O Little Therese of the Child Jesus Please pick for me a rose from the heavenly garden and send it to me as a message of love. O Little Flower of Jesus, please ask God to grant the favors I now place with confidence in your hands . . . that all our priests, bishops, and the Holy Father may become great saints, and for all the intentions we hold in our hearts. St. Therese, help me to always believe as you did, in God’s great love for me, so that I may imitate your “Little Way” each day. Amen. Draw me; we will run! A personal letter to you from St. Elizabeth of the Trinity:
When you read these lines, your little Praise of Glory will no longer be singing on earth, but will be living in Love's immense furnace; so you can believe her and listen to her as "the voice" of God. Cherished one, I would have liked to tell you all . . . but the hour is so serious, so solemn . . . and I don't want to delay over telling you things that I think lose something when trying to express them in words. What your child is coming to do is to reveal to you what she feels, or, to be more exact: what her God, in the hours of profound recollection, of unifying contact, makes her understand. "You are uncommonly loved," loved by that love of preference that the Master had here below for some and which brought them so far. He does not say to you as to Peter: "Do you love Me more than these?" . . . Listen to what He tells you: "Let yourself be loved more than these! That is, without fearing that any obstacle will be a hindrance to it, for I am free to pour out My love on whom I wish! 'Let yourself be loved more than these' is your vocation. It is in being faithful to it that you will make Me happy for you will magnify the power of My love. This love can rebuild what you have destroyed. Let yourself be loved more than these." Dearly loved one, if you knew with what assurance I understand God's plan for your soul; it appears to me as in an immense light, and I understand also that in Heaven I will fulfill in my turn a priesthood over your soul. It is Love who associates me with His work in you: Oh, how great and adorable it is on God's part! And how simple it is for you, and that is exactly what makes it so luminous! Let yourself be loved more than the others; that explains everything and prevents the soul from being surprised . . . If you will allow her, your little host will spend her Heaven in the depths of your soul; she will keep you in communion with Love, believing in Love; it will be the sign of her dwelling in you. Oh, in what intimacy we are going to live. Let your life also be spent in the Heavens where I will sing in your name the eternal Sanctus; I will do nothing before the throne of God without you . . . I also ask you not to do anything without me; you have granted me this. I will come to live in you . . . I will instruct you, so that my vision will benefit you, that you may participate in it, and that you too, may live the life of the blessed! As I leave, I bequeath to you this vocation which was mine in the heart of the Church Militant and which from now on I will unceasingly fulfill in the Church Triumphant: "The Praise of Glory of the Holy Trinity." "Let yourself be loved more than these": it is in that way that your Master wills for you to be a praise of glory! He rejoices to build up in you by His love and for His glory, and it is He alone who wants to work in you, even though you will have done nothing to attract this grace except that which a creature can do: works of sin and misery . . . He loves you like that. He loves you "more than these," He will do everything in you. He will go to the end: for when a soul is loved by Him to this extent, in this way, loved by an unchanging and creative love, a free love which transforms as it pleases Him, oh, how far this soul will go! The fidelity that the Master asks of you is to remain in communion with Love, flow into, be rooted in this Love who wants to mark your soul with the seal of His power and His grandeur. You will never be commonplace if you are vigilant in love! But in the hours when you feel only oppression and lassitude, you will please Him even more if you faithfully believe that He is still working, that He is loving you just the same, and even more: because His love is free and that is how He wants to be magnified in you; and you will let yourself be loved "more than these." That I believe is what this means . . . Live in the depths of your soul! My master makes me understand very clearly that He wants to create marvelous things there; you are called to render homage to the simplicity of the Divine Being and to magnify the power of His Love. Believe His "voice" and read these lines He spoke to St. Angela of Foligno as if they are coming directly from Him to you: Oh! I love you, I love you more than anyone else in this valley! . . . It is "I" who come, and I bring you unknown joy . . . . I will enter into the depths of your being. O My Spouse! I have rested and remained in you; now possess yourself and repose in Me! . . . Love Me! All your life will please Me, provided that you love Me! . . . I will do great things in you; I will be made known in you, glorified, and praised in you! * * * Happy Feast of St. Elizabeth of the Trinity! How wonderful that our sister Elizabeth, who left the house of Carmel in Dijon for the House of Our Father in Heaven on November 9, 1906, just 9 years after our sister Therese left the Carmel in Lisieux, should have read and loved Story of a Soul in the very scant 8 years between its publication and Elizabeth's departure from exile. Like our sister St. Therese, she beautifully articulates her mission, and like Therese she imagines, anticipates, and fully expects and promises to be very near to us and help us on our own little way to Heaven. Do stay with us Elizabeth, and help us let ourselves be loved! For further reading in this 10th anniversary year of the departure from exile of our own beloved Dr. Ronald P. McArthur, a huge fan of both these little Carmelites, click here: https://catholicexchange.com/books-and-friendship-with-the-saints/ And meanwhile, don't forget to let yourself be loved! + + + Draw me, we will run! Beloved Holy Father, Pope St. John Paul II, give to us your filial love for Mary and for her Rosary please, and may St. Padre Pio, whom you beatified in 1999 and canonized in 2002, obtain for us his love of Mary and the Rosary too!
Padre Pio, our dear father along with John Paul II, obtain for us a double portion of his and your love for Mary and the Rosary! Marcel and Therese, run quick and find St. Anthony (he's busy helping others look for lost things, but just tell him that we need help too!), and then together wake up St. Juan Diego (he's taking a siesta on Mary's lap). With them ask our Blessed Mother, our dear Lady of Guadalupe, to obtain for us from the Heavenly Father the graces to love her very much - as much as all the angels and saints put together and then some! - and to love her Rosary all that and more too! There! That should do it! That's a clean-up job of the sloppiest novena I've ever said, but I figure if we pray three times in honor of the Trinity (and a fourth for good measure in our post title), then someone as generous and sweet as Our Lady of Guadalupe can hardly resist! In fact, how can she resist any of our requests when we need only quote her own words to fill our hearts with confidence and remind her (as well as us) of all her promises? Hear and let it penetrate your heart, my dear little one: Let nothing discourage you, nothing depress you. Let nothing alter your heart or your countenance. Am I not here who am your Mother? Are you not under my shadow and protection? Am I not your fountain of life? Are you not in the folds of my mantle? In the crossing of my arms? Is there anything else that you need? Do not fear any illness or vexation, anxiety or pain. Phew! I feel like I've just run a big race, got to the finish line, and am ready to be taken care of by my race team! - Is that what happens at the end of a big race? I sure hope so! I've never really run a big race except maybe in 4th grade or so, and that was just at recess. And the ends of races I've seen in movies end up with the runner collapsing on the ground, happy but gasping for breath . . . Whereas I feel more like after my big race this past week, our team (you know, the ones that cheer us on and then help us at the end) - Marcel, Therese, JPII, Padre Pio, Our Blessed Mother and St. Joseph, the North American Martyrs, et al - obtained for me at the end a s'more (refueling food), followed by a hot bath and ten hours sleep! Lest you think I'm just painting a sweet but imaginary picture of that s'more (two marshmallows roasted over a gas flame stove and a little Hershey's special dark between the de rigueur graham cracker halves), let me add that the captain of my team is St. Thomas Aquinas. If you don't yet know his principal teaching for our times, let me insert it here - because what's a musing and a blog for, if not to share the wondrous treasures of our patrons? From the Summa Theologiae, Prima Secundae (that means first part of the second part or IaIIae in the biz), Question 38, The Remedies of Sorrow or Pain: Article 5. Whether pain and sorrow are assuaged by sleep and baths? Objection 1. It would seem that sleep and baths do not assuage sorrow. For sorrow is in the soul: whereas sleep and baths regard the body. Therefore they do not conduce to the assuaging of sorrow. Objection 2. Further, the same effect does not seem to ensue from contrary causes. But these, being bodily things, are incompatible with the contemplation of truth which is a cause of the assuaging of sorrow, as stated above (Article 4). Therefore sorrow is not mitigated by the like. Objection 3. Further, sorrow and pain, in so far as they affect the body, denote a certain transmutation of the heart. But such remedies as these seem to pertain to the outward senses and limbs, rather than to the interior disposition of the heart. Therefore they do not assuage sorrow. On the contrary, Augustine says (Confess. ix, 12): "I had heard that the bath had its name [Balneum, from the Greek balaneion] . . . from the fact of its driving sadness from the mind." And further on, he says: "I slept, and woke up again, and found my grief not a little assuaged": and quotes the words from the hymn of Ambrose [Cf. Sarum Breviary: First Sunday after the octave of the Epiphany, Hymn for first Vespers], in which it is said that "Sleep restores the tired limbs to labor, refreshes the weary mind, and banishes sorrow." I answer that, As stated above (I-II:37:4), sorrow, by reason of its specific nature, is repugnant to the vital movement of the body; and consequently whatever restores the bodily nature to its due state of vital movement, is opposed to sorrow and assuages it. Moreover such remedies, from the very fact that they bring nature back to its normal state, are causes of pleasure; for this is precisely in what pleasure consists, as stated above (I-II:31:1). Therefore, since every pleasure assuages sorrow, sorrow is assuaged by such like bodily remedies. Reply to Objection 1. The normal disposition of the body, so far as it is felt, is itself a cause of pleasure, and consequently assuages sorrow. Reply to Objection 2. As stated above (I-II:31:8), one pleasure hinders another; and yet every pleasure assuages sorrow. Consequently it is not unreasonable that sorrow should be assuaged by causes which hinder one another. Reply to Objection 3. Every good disposition of the body reacts somewhat on the heart, which is the beginning and end of bodily movements, as stated in De Causa Mot. Animal. xi. * * * Isn't St. Thomas the best ever? At least one of the best ever, since we can't exclude St. Therese from that category! But getting back to the need for assuagement, please don't worry that I needed a remedy for sorrow. I mean we all do while we're in this valley of tears, but with Our Blessed Mother watching our back (and rubbing it like a good mom does when her kid is sick - and who isn't, occasionally or frequently, as the case may be, in this exile?), we here at Miss Marcel's Musings have been feeling a lot better lately - especially after that 10 hours of sleep, no kidding! More interesting, though, than the pain and sorrow which require remedies, are the remedies themselves. Call me Pollysuzanna and you won't be the first! We like the glass full-full, not even half full, Marcel and I . . . which lead us to articles 3 and 4 by our big brother: Whether pain and sorrow are assuaged by the sympathy of friends and the contemplation of truth. And in the interests of time (yours!), let's cut to the chase and just say YES! Absolutely! No question! Which must be why this last week's (this last novena's) race has been not only exhausting but sheer delight! If you recall, it began a day late and five dollars short on our Holy Mother Teresa of Jesus' feast this past Sunday, October 15. What I didn't remember as I mused that morning was that the BIG MOMENT of that big day was going to be the current Holy Father's release of his Apostolic Exhortation on our dear sister St. Therese! Well he did and it was! WOWIE ZOWIE! I was going to say, "his Apostolic Exhortation on our dear sister St. Therese on the occasion of her anniversaries," but I'm stopped short by his magisterial words at the outset: "I have not chosen to issue this Exhortation on either of those dates [150th anniversary of her birth, January 2, or 100th anniversary of her beatification, April 29] or on her liturgical Memorial, so that this message may transcend those celebrations and be taken up as part of the spiritual treasury of the Church. Its publication on the liturgical Memorial of Saint Teresa of Avila is a way of presenting Saint Therese of the Child Jesus and the Holy Face as the mature fruit of the reform of the Carmel and of the spirituality of the great Spanish saint." If you want to read that letter in full, you can go HERE to our previous post or HERE to the Vatican website (a place where you can find tons and tons of wonderful documents, if these heavenly pronouncements weighed more than the feather of an angel's wing). If you're feeling less frenetic and don't want to leave us even for a moment, I'm happy to present, here and now, with Marcel, a few of the points that thrilled me to the core . . . 1. The title is "C'est la confiance" which comes from the first line of the apostolic exhortation, which our Holy Father quotes in French (and then, happily for us mono-linguists, in English) from Letter 197 of St. Therese to her Sister Marie of the Sacred Heart: “C’est la confiance et rien que la confiance qui doit nous conduire à l’Amour.” “It is confidence and nothing but confidence that must lead us to Love.” 2. He then goes on to say (are you sitting down? This is SO AWESOME!!!!!): "These striking words of Saint Therese of the Child Jesus and the Holy Face say it all. They sum up the genius of her spirituality and would suffice to justify the fact that she has been named a Doctor of the Church." Would suffice to justify the fact that she has been named a Doctor of the Church?! Glory be and Alleluia! This means, for those of us bears of very little brain, we only have one thing we need to remember from our dear sister's teachings and Little Way: "It is confidence, and nothing but confidence, that must lead us to Love!" 3. But lest we start panicking because our confidence is at a low ebb on our best days, the Holy Father continues (with more of our sister's thirst quenching words): It is confidence that sustains us daily and will enable us to stand before the Lord on the day when He calls us to Himself: “In the evening of this life, I shall appear before You with empty hands, for I do not ask You, Lord, to count my works. All our justice is stained in Your eyes. I wish, then, to be clothed in Your own Justice and to receive from Your Love the eternal possession of Yourself.” Shooooo! (That's the sound my husband used to make all the time when he was my boyfriend. He got it from his mama, and by the time of our graduation from college, the whole class of our friends said it too. It's a kind of sigh of love that means all sorts of things, but in this case, Thank Heavens!) But more to the point (this third point), we can be full of confidence because, as the Pope explains, we are confident in GOD, our loving Father, not in ourselves! Hooray for omnipotence, omniscience, and INFINITELY MERCIFUL LOVE!!!!! 4. Believe it or not, there are some very good angels involved with the publication (virtual as it is, unless printed out) of Miss Marcel's Musings, and they won't let me post this unless I add that to my eternal and utter confoundation, in the middle of C'est la Confiance, the Holy Father actually quotes the line that is behind, or better yet beneath, as the foundation, my book (and Therese's great gift to us) Something New with St. Therese, Her Eucharistic Miracle. He writes: "This insistence of Therese on God’s initiative leads her, when speaking of the Eucharist, to put first not her desire to receive Jesus in Holy Communion, but rather the desire of Jesus to unite Himself to us and to dwell in our hearts. [33] In her Act of Oblation to Merciful Love, saddened by her inability to receive communion each day, she tells Jesus: “Remain in me as in a tabernacle”. [34] Her gaze remained fixed not on herself and her own needs, but on Christ, who loves, seeks, desires and dwells within." Ah. The kindness and tender solicitude of God in answering our deepest desires with His own deepest desires is beyond anything we can ask or imagine! I'd like to get back to the day, this day, though, so I can go eat something slightly more sustaining (if a little less fun) than a s'more for breakfast . . . (no, I didn't already have a s'more this morning! And no, I'm not going to break out a pop-tart or Ho-Ho from my pantry - those are for late night snacks when absolutely necessary in the assuaging of pain or sorrow, or just celebrating our feasts, but for now I'm thinking two eggs over easy and a half piece of toasted sourdough) . . .and I can't eat anything until I finish the work set out before me - which is simply this, to wish you: Happy Feast of our Holy Father St. John Paul the Second!!!!!!!! His photo at the top of this post shows him in Lisieux, the land of Therese, "during my unforgettable visit to Lisieux on 2 June 1980," (his words, not mine!) - and at first glance, after noticing how adorably young our Holy Father looked, I thought he was in the room of Les Buissonnets where the Virgin of the Smile healed young Therese (where I've been too, in my unforgettable visit to Lisieux with my dear husband in May 2019), but then I realized he's in the infirmary of the Carmel where, surrounded by her sisters, Therese finally got to enter eternal life. If you look closely, you'll see the amazing photo Sister Genevieve of the Holy Face (Therese's sister Celine) took of her in repose when her soul had been sipped up, finally, like a drop of dew. Ah, sweet Sister Death! - when will you come for us and, with the angels, lead us straight into the arms of Love? This picture of Pope St. John Paul before little Therese is also extra special because it's the closest any of us mere mortals will ever get in this life to the infirmary of the Carmel of Lisieux unless we become Carmelite sisters of Therese there too! Sometimes, though, even if a picture is worth a thousand words, a thousand words can be worth a million pictures (I just made that up, but I think it's true) - like when the words are the words of a Papal letter on St. Therese! Because wouldn't you know it, just so we could remember THE GREAT ACHIEVEMENT of our beloved JPII's papacy, the Holy Spirit stuck it smack down in time in the novena leading to his Feastday! First, Pope St. John Paul II's feast day is today (though this year hidden behind the Sunday) on October 22 because that's the day (in 1978) he was elected to the papacy. Yay, October 22nd! Viva il Papa! Second, now that we are saying novenas because JP2 is not only our Holy Father but a Saint in Heaven with Therese and Marcel and our (and his) dear Blessed Mother and good St. Joseph, not to mention the most Holy and Blessed Trinity, this novena happens to cruise right past October 19. Have I told you about October 19 before? Without including any more links (because if I look it up, I'm sure I'll find I must have rejoiced with you in previous years on this glorious day of October 19), let me just fill you in now: October 19 is, first and foremost, the Feast of the North American Martyrs. Click on them or HERE for a wondrous sermon by Fr. Thomas Aquinas McGovern, S.J., about their wondrous lives on this earth and into eternity. Talk about being surrounded by a cloud of witnesses! But it gets better, because on October 19, 1997, Therese's centenary year of entering into her Heaven of doing good on earth, Pope St. John Paul II, God bless his dear papal heart, proclaimed Therese a Doctor of the Universal Church! Tears come to my eyes as I write, thinking of the good friends with whom we partied that joyful night! May God bless them too, dear Fr. Jack and C and T and 75 students of Christendom College! Yes, I am here to tell you that the sympathy of friends can assuage the pain and sorrow of this silly exile wherein we find ourselves - and there's nothing like a pizza party in honor of the Little Flower to seal the deal! And then, just when one thinks there can be no more surprises, no more heights of bliss, no more bursts of laughter at the antics of a new friend more delightful than every sweet thing, more stunning than a sunset, more bracing than the smell of salt and the feel of the ocean breeze on a long awaited trip to the seaside - then, on October 19, 2016, in my case, along comes Marcel . . . I had been minding my own business, trying not to trip while little Therese, her firm, guiding right hand on the small of my back, pushed me through the writing of Something New with St. Therese, Her Eucharistic Miracle (and lest you think it's always all about her, let me insist that this one is all about us and Little Hidden Jesus), when what to my wondering eyes did appear in my mailbox but a sweet and long-awaited rose named Marcel, and his Conversations (with Jesus, Mary, and St. Therese). That was 7 years (and three days) ago, and I haven't been the same since. Talk about Divine Reassurance for fun and for free! Thank You, Jesus, Mary, and St. Therese, for giving us our little brother Marcel Van! Thank you, Jack Keogan and Fr. Antonio Boucher, CSsR, for loving him and translating him so that we can read his remarkable and hilarious conversations! And thank you, Pope St. John Paul II, for in naming our sister St. Therese a Doctor of the Universal Church, you allayed any absurd and residual fears we could ever have had about whether to believe her audacious and comforting words to us. Just for an example, as quoted in "C'est la confiance," her words explicating the verse of the Song of Songs that we use as our concluding prayer in each post here: “Draw me, we shall run after You in the odour of Your ointments. O Jesus! It is not even necessary to say: When drawing me, draw the souls whom I love! This simple statement, ‘Draw me’ suffices. I understand, Lord, that when a soul allows herself to be captivated by the odour of Your ointments, she cannot run alone; all the souls whom she loves follow in her train; this is done without constraint, without effort, it is a natural consequence of her attraction for You. Just as a torrent, throwing itself with impetuosity into the ocean, drags after it everything it encounters in its passage, in the same way, O Jesus, the soul who plunges into the shoreless ocean of Your Love, draws with her all the treasures she possesses. Lord, you know it, I have no other treasures than the souls it has pleased You to unite to mine.” I have been quietly musing in the back of my mind and heart, all during the writing of this post, whether to conclude with the entire text of Pope St. John Paul II's apostolic letter on Therese as Doctor, Divini Amoris Scientia. But even after ten hours of restorative sleep, I'm getting tired before the day's even begun, so at the behest of Therese and Marcel and especially sleepy St. Juan Diego, I'm just putting in a link to that letter (see the shimmeriness of "Divini Amoris Scientia"? that means one click will take you there) . . . There's always tomorrow, when most of us will find ourselves waking after way less than the enormous amount of sleep needed to assuage the ennui following whatever festivities we can drum up today, so let's meet again here (and if not tomorrow, then the next day or the next) to use JPII's octave as an occasion to post his full and authoritative document on Therese's doctorate. Meanwhile, encouraged by them both and by Jesus, our Divine Magnet, we've got one last prayer to say before closing: Draw me, we will run! |
Miss MarcelI've written books and articles and even a novel. Now it's time to try a blog! For more about me personally, go to the home page and you'll get the whole scoop! If you want to send me an email, feel free to click "Contact Me" below. To receive new posts, enter your email and click "Subscribe" below. More MarcelArchives
February 2024
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