Yesterday and the day before I read the best advice about Confession that I've ever found, and after my first feelings of utter freedom and peace, I knew I had to share it with the whole world.

Thank you to Maura McKeegan, whose 2 part article on Catholic Exchange broke open the jar, and thank you to Caryll Houselander (author of The Reed of God and more) whose intimacy with Christ and compassion for timid souls led to her consoling understanding of this sacrament as an embrace of Our Lord. Enjoy!

Confession for the Anxious: Caryll Houselander’s Advice
by Maura Roan McKeegan

In the mid-20th century, a British woman went to Confession one day in a (not unusual for her) state of exhaustion and depression.

“What will help you,” the priest said to her in the confessional, “will be a book by Caryll Houselander called This War is the Passion. You probably won’t understand all of it, but read such-and-such pages.”

Unbeknownst to him, the woman on the other side of the screen was Caryll Houselander herself.

“What did you do?” asked her friend Frank Sheed, whose wife, Maisie Ward, tells the story in her book Caryll Houselander: Divine Eccentric.

“Read it, of course,” Caryll answered. “I always do what I’m told in confession.”

By that time, Caryll’s fame as a spiritual writer had perpetuated an endless stream of people flocking to her for help and advice. It was her gift for easing anxious minds that spurred the priest to recommend her own book to her that day in the confessional. Her profound insight came the hard way, earned through a lifetime of struggling with what she called “neurosis,” an illness that gave her tremendous empathy and understanding for people who, like her, also suffered from scruples, anxiety, depression, and other related symptoms.

Because she had experienced their struggles firsthand, Caryll was able to counsel the scrupulous and anxious with remarkable results. Even doctors sent their patients to her, and she helped to heal them, though she had no medical training at all.

One subject Caryll often discussed with people who suffered from anxiety was how to approach Confession. The sacrament of Penance, she observed, often induced fear in the hearts of timid and anxious souls. But this type of fear is contrary to the true nature of the sacrament, which is meant to draw us closer to God in love, not drive us away from Him in trepidation or self-flagellation.

“Remember Confession, like Communion, is first of all a contact, a loving embrace with Our Lord,” she writes to a friend in The Letters of Caryll Houselander.

“Penance is a form of Communion, a means of union with Christ—that above all else,” she writes to another friend.

An anxious person will often obsess over the state of his own soul, Caryll notes. In Guilt (the book Maisie Ward aptly called Caryll’s “most important work”), she describes what Confession might be like for a woman suffering from anxiety:

She will doubt the sincerity of her contrition because she does not think that she feels sorry, or sorry enough, or sorry for the right reason. She will doubt the sincerity of her purpose of amendment because she thinks it likely that in spite of her good intentions she may sin again. The examination of conscience, her greatest bugbear of all, will present insurmountable difficulties. She will either think that she has not done anything sinful, or that everything she has done is sinful, or that she has forgotten what she has done that is sinful. If she ever reaches a decision about what she has or has not done, she will proceed to the torment of trying to assess the gravity of the sin, to decide whether it is mortal, venial, deliberate, sin at all, or imperfection. When she has at last made her confession she will fall into fresh anxiety about how she made it, whether she forgot, left out or misrepresented something, even whether the priest understood what she said. Next she will bring to the saying of the act of contrition, and her penance, the same anxiety which she does at home to whether she has switched off the electric light or not. She will worry about whether she really remembers what penance she was told to say.

All these difficulties come from concentrating on self instead of on God, and not really believing in the goodness of God.

The tendency to overthink and overanalyze one’s own sinfulness, Caryll points out, is often not a willful choice on the part of the penitent. It is a psychological symptom that might stem from childhood experiences, genetic predisposition, or any number of influences outside of the person’s control. Whatever the cause, though, reflecting on the true nature of the sacrament of Penance will help to ease the anxious mind.

When we think too much about our sins, we lose sight of the true meaning of the sacrament: the mercy and forgiveness of God. It’s about His love, not our failure. Ruminating over our own sins keeps our eyes fixed on ourselves. The remedy is to turn one’s thoughts to God’s goodness instead.

"I think that Confession must be a very real trial to anyone as sensitive as you are,” Caryll Houselander writes in a letter to a teenage girl struggling with nervous illness after a difficult childhood. “No one likes it; the toughest old Catholics of my acquaintance get a sort of squiggle in their insides even over the most paltry recitation of their sins, and nearly all have been through searching periods of nervous scruples which leave a miserable association of ideas.”

Caryll’s own lifelong battle with nervous illness made her particularly sensitive to the needs of others who suffered the same symptoms, and she understood with tremendous empathy the plight of those plagued by anxiety about the sacrament of Penance. In her writings, Caryll advises the following measures for anxious people to consider when approaching Confession:

1. Keep the examination of conscience short.

Caryll advises beginning with a brief prayer to the Holy Spirit to bring to mind what is most important to confess—“Let me make a good confession”—and then limiting the examination of conscience to two minutes.

“Confess only what comes to mind in those two minutes,” she writes.

Once the penitent has prayed to the Holy Spirit for light, a few minutes is all it takes to recall the sins that are most important to confess.

Not long ago, I came across an article in which a priest advised beginning the examination of conscience the night before Confession. Though well-intentioned, this kind of advice makes the sacrament of Penance a more difficult process than it needs to be, especially for anxious souls. Long hours spent examining one’s conscience will not help the anxious penitent. Overcomplicated preparations only increase stress. The sacrament should be simple and easy, so as not to “break a bruised reed” (Mt. 12:20).

“We are so apt to forget that it is Christ who does the most important things in the sacrament, and what He asks of us, to make Him able to do His part, is a very small minimum,” Caryll writes.

2. Remember that repentance is an act of the will, not a feeling.

To an anxious person worried that he doesn’t feel sorry enough, Caryll would answer that contrition is not a feeling but an act of the will.

“Sorrow for sin is just the will to be sorry, proved by receiving the sacrament of penance,” she writes to a friend. All God asks is that we should want to be sorry, because we want to be closer to Him.

“Going to confession is an act of love for God,” she explains in Guilt. “Like all love it is an act of will. Feeling may or may not enter into it.”

3. Avoid dwelling on venial sins, and don’t magnify imperfections.

Caryll emphasizes the fact that it is not necessary (or even possible) to confess every venial sin.
“Sometimes scrupulous people are well advised to confess only one sin,” she writes. At least, sticking to a small number rather than an exhaustive list is advisable. “All you forget or are unsure of is forgiven anyway; you are not obliged to confess any but mortal sin. So long as you confess something, the rest is forgiven with it.”

To a young woman suffering from crippling anxiety, she writes:
You are not bound to confess venial sins at all, even if you remember them at the time, and you are almost bound—in fact, really bound—not to work up and magnify imperfections “to be on the safe side.” Anyway, that would not make you safe—far from it. It would blind you to God’s loving desire to forgive you and take you closer to His heart. Only one thing ever makes you safe—putting your trust in God.

4. Don’t be afraid of God.

Just as the father of the prodigal son in the Gospel was deeply moved just to see his son returning to him, God the Father is deeply moved just to see His children coming back to Him in confession.
It would be a mistake, Caryll says, to believe that God is waiting to catch us in some failure.
“He is there with open arms to take us to His heart, and He makes it as easy as possible for us to come,” she writes. “He isn’t there rubbing His hands and saying, ‘Ha! X forgot something! I’ll jump on her for that!’”

“The devil loves to distract from God’s love and mercy by worry about sin,” she continues. “The only cure for this worry is to concentrate not on self-perfection but on the love and tenderness of God.”

5. Let Confession be easy and simple.

To make it as “easy as possible for us to come,” the Church, in Her wisdom, has ensured that the sacrament is both simple and accessible in its requirements.

“The whole process of going to Confession, which is a quick and simple process if it is rightly used, is ordered and controlled by the wise and gentle discipline of the Church,” Caryll writes in Guilt.
There are many who complain of the . . . almost extreme measures used by the Church to make it easy for the weakest. For example, that any words expressing sorrow suffice for the act of contrition, that venial sins need not be confessed at all, that forgotten sins are included in the forgiveness anyway, that it practically never happens that a confession made in good will need be, or should be, repeated.

How strange it is, many decide, to surround a sacrament with so many little rules. But it is sufficient to spend one hour with the anxious or over-scrupulous person, to realize that these are the rulings of divine mercy. They are the balm poured into the wounds, the calm and rest insisted upon by the divine Physician.

6. If you aren’t sure if it’s a mortal sin, it’s not a mortal sin.

I once had a conversation with a mother who was in great agony over a sick child. So distraught was she that, in her exhausted mind, she began to worry that she was in a state of mortal sin without knowing it.

Since one of the conditions for mortal sin is full knowledge, this poor mother was clearly not in mortal sin; but sadly, her suffering was heightened by this needless fear.

“You will never be, never could be, in any doubt about mortal sin,” Caryll assures a friend in one of her letters. “If there is doubt there is no mortal sin. That is certain.”

7. Do not re-confess sins or redo penances.

Confess once and only once, and then leave it all behind. If the same sin happens again later, it can be brought to the next confession, but there is no need to re-confess what has already been forgiven.
Likewise, say the penance once and only once, no matter how distracted you may feel while doing it.
I would also add from personal experience that it helps to know that penitents can ask for a different penance if the penance given feels too burdensome or vague. For example, if the penance is to “focus extra hard while you say a chaplet” (this type of mental exertion is highly stressful, if not impossible, for someone who struggles with anxiety and attention deficits) or “be extra nice to your family” (how do we know when the penance is completed?), the penitent is free to ask the priest for a different penance.

8. Be gentle with yourself in making resolutions.

Making sweeping resolutions to overcome sins of weakness through sheer will power often leads to discouragement when those resolutions fail and the same sins prevail or even increase. Instead, Caryll recommends a gentler form of retraining.

“Repetition of ‘I will’ or ‘I will not’ is again a concentration on self,” she writes in Guilt. “Such acts of will become a strain, and tiring too; and for nervous people fatigue is an added danger.” She continues:

It is advisable not to focus upon [the sweeping promise never to sin again] but to stick simply to the purpose of amendment, pray that one may not sin again, and concentrate upon some way of avoiding some one sin. It may be a negative way—to give up a place where the temptation always lurks, or the company that provokes it; or it may be a resolution of humility that will help—for example, the irritable could decide to take more sleep, the censorious to make fewer voluntary acts of self-denial.

Likewise, one should not expect a sudden transformation; the change that takes place in a soul might not be visible, and will likely happen slowly.

“Christ grew secretly, imperceptibly, in Mary, and He grows secretly in us,” Caryll writes.

9. Remember that the heart of the sacrament is love.

In the end, the heart of Caryll’s message is the heart of the sacrament itself: the mercy of God, which is infinitely greater than our sins. Caryll encourages anxious penitents to go regularly to Confession, but not to worry about it at all, as it is an occasion for joy, not fear.

The Father who longs more for the return of the lost child than does the child himself, who makes the way back as easy as he can and comes halfway to meet the child . . . asks not for a microscopic, dreary history of his misdeeds, or for a trembling, broken expression of sorrow—but only for an expression of the child’s love and trust in His love.

“To imagine, once you’ve done your best, that God isn’t satisfied, is an insult to God,” she says. “He is overjoyed, and so should you be.”

*   *   *

For many years I have preferred this particular Act of Contrition (and my reasons for preferring it are in perfect accord with #8 above):

O my God, I am heartily sorry for having offended Thee, and I detest all my sins because of thy just punishment, but most of all because they offend Thee, my God, who art all good and deserving of all my love.
I firmly resolve with the help of Thy grace to confess my sins, to do penance, and to amend my life. Amen.

*  *  *

Draw me, we will run!

“My God, I am so convinced that you keep watch over those who hope in you, and that we can want for nothing when we look for all in you, that I am resolved in the future to live free from every care and to turn all my anxieties over to you... I shall never lose my hope. I shall keep it to the last moment of my life; and at that moment all the demons in hell will strive to tear it from me… Others may look for happiness from their wealth or their talents; others may rest on the innocence of their life, or the severity of their penance, or the amount of their alms, or the fervour of their prayers. As for me, Lord, all my confidence is confidence itself. This confidence has never deceived anyone… I am sure, therefore, that I shall be eternally happy, since I firmly hope to be, and because it is from you, O God, that I hope for it."  -  St. Claude de la Colombiere

Somehow or another it slipped by me that Our Holy Father Pope Francis released a 4th encyclical last October. Dilexit Nos ("He loved us") is a remarkable document, and yet I was in danger not only of NOT remarking on it, but of not knowing it existed! Such is this fast flurry of exile we mistakenly call "life!"

Fortunately, I have friends, and some of them are almost as nuts as I am over St. Therese, the Little Flower. One of them, a diocesan missionary priest (he has the heart of a missionary and the incardination of a diocesan priest) and Secular Discalced Carmelite I've been lucky enough to know since what seems like our childhoods, sent me an email on December 3, feast of St. Francis Xavier, buddy of St. Ignatius, brilliant missionary, and even co-patron of missionaries with little St. Therese. (Yes, we usually say she is co-patron with him, but he's chivalrous and likes to give her top billing these days.)

The subject line of the email was: "The Heart of the Pope's New Encyclical" (to which I naturally wondered, "Hmmm.....what new encyclical?"), and the email contained an excerpt from said encyclical, from "the heart of it" - a lovely play on words since the encyclical is about Jesus' Sacred Heart, and the heart of His Heart (or at least the heart of the encyclical on His Heart) is none other than St. Therese! Well, she famously found her vocation in St. Paul's letter to the Corinthians and exclaimed, "I will be love in the heart of the Church!" so I guess we shouldn't be surprised!

The encyclical is wonderful, and the Holy Father does a spectacular job leading us through the testimonies of the saints on the love of Jesus for us. A highlight of development of devotion to Jesus' love as instantiated in the Sacred Heart is His revelations to St. Margaret Mary, and a highlight of that revelation is the support and commentary St. Claude de la Colombiere gave her and us.

Since St. Claude's feast on February 15th just whooshed by, I thought I'd start with his picture above and some of his words quoted by Pope Francis in the encyclical. St. Claude, pray for us to know and experience this Love beyond all love!

If I had my druthers, I'd quote more of St. Claude, but I think I'd rather send you to the whole encyclical so you can read at leisure and repent in haste! Ha, that's a joke, but I recently found Blessed Solanus Casey saying he'd need to keep converting until death (LIFE!) - so feel free to follow his example, as long as you keep his characteristic smile on your face too!

Here's the encyclical, and if you want to order it online, I found a wonderful paperback copy with a picture of the Sacred Heart on the front - it gets to you in 2 days! But for now, instant gratification:

DILEXIT NOS (HE LOVED US)

Meanwhile, another link I'm happy to share is for my favorite website: Catholic Saints Mobi, which gives ALL the saints of the day each day. I am making so many new friends! 

Today, for instance, I found Tommaso, a priest who is terrific, and Pepi (my new best friend - pictured above with his son on his shoulders), a Dominican priest and a Dominican nun who both drew all my admiration (and the priest had teachers and students and colleagues and friends also blesseds, I think), and then my own St. Josefa Naval Girbes, a secular Carmelite who lived in Spain and had a "school" of needlework, catechism, and all around loving guidance for young women of her parish. (As Carmelites, we celebrate her feast November 6, but February 24, today as I write, is the day she exited stage left for Heaven.)

Here is the link to them all - and you can navigate from there to other days to find more saints:

CATHOLIC SAINTS MOBI

AND THEN as if all this is not enough (I did warn you there were too many saints and not enough time), today is the anniversary of Therese's dear Celine making her vows and becoming Jesus' spouse.

I posted about that in 2020 HERE
but I want to add today that if you need help with anything, call on Celine!
Yes, yes, Therese is the proven and known quantity, but Celine might surprise you. She was (and is) such a good friend, and she liked to get things done! So if you need help (a) getting things done or (b) breaking the cycle and letting go of all the things you think you need to get done, well, she's pretty perfect for both ends of the spectrum!

And now I've got to run, but in case you're hoping for a glimpse into the heart of the encyclical on the Sacred Heart, here is what my good Padre sent, but I must add that there is MORE - way more - in the encyclical. No, I don't mean more from others, I mean EVEN MORE from Therese. This deserves another post, and if the Holy Spirit so blows, that may yet happen. If not, you've got plenty to read, and I'd start with the heart of the Heart!

*   *   *

From Pope Francis' Encyclical Letter Dilexit Nos
Our Holy Father learns from and teaches using the Wisdom of St. Therese of Lisieux...

as she explains the longings of Jesus' Sacred Heart . . . 

133. ...Saint Therese of the Child Jesus was influenced by the great renewal
of devotion that swept nineteenth-century France. Father Almire Pinchon, the
Spiritual Director of her family, was seen as a devoted apostle of the Sacred
Heart. One of her sisters took as her name in religion "Sister Marie of the Sacred
Heart" and the monastery that Therese entered was dedicated to the Sacred
Heart. Her devotion nonetheless took on certain distinctive traits with regard to
the customary piety of that age.

134. When Therese was fifteen, she could speak of Jesus as the One "Whose
Heart beats in unison with my own." Two years later, speaking of the Image of
Christ's Heart crowned with thorns, she wrote in a letter: "You know that I myself
do not see the Sacred Heart as everyone else. I think that the Heart of my
Spouse is mine alone, just as mine is His alone, and I speak to Him then in the
solitude of this delightful heart to Heart, while waiting to contemplate Him one
day face-to-Face."

135. In one of her poems, Therese voiced the meaning of her devotion, which
had more to do with friendship and assurance than with trust in her sacrifices:
I need a Heart burning with tenderness / Who will be my support forever / Who
loves everything in me, even my weakness / ... and Who never leaves me day or
night. I must have a God Who takes on my nature / And becomes my Brother /
and is able to suffer! Ah! I know well, all our righteousness / is worthless in Your
sight / So I, for my purgatory / Choose Your burning Love / O Heart of my God!

136. Perhaps the most important text for understanding the devotion of Therese
to the Heart of Christ is a letter she wrote three months before her death to her
friend Maurice Belliere. "When I see Mary Magdalene walking up before the
many guests, washing with her tears the feet of her adored Master, Whom she is
touching for the first time, I feel that her heart has understood the abysses of love
and mercy of the Heart of Jesus, and, sinner though she is, this Heart of Love
was disposed not only to pardon her but to lavish on her the blessings of His
Divine Intimacy, to lift her to the highest summits of contemplation. Ah! dear little
Brother, ever since I have been given the grace to understand also the love of
the Heart of Jesus, I admit that it has expelled all fear from my heart. The
remembrance of my faults humbles me, draws me never to depend on my
strength which is only weakness, but this remembrance speaks to me of mercy
and love even more." [see II COR 12:1-10]

138. To Sister Marie, who praised her generous love of God, prepared even to
embrace martyrdom, Therese responded at length in a letter that is one of the
great milestones in the history of spirituality. This page ought to be read a
thousand times over for its depth, clarity, and beauty. Therese helps her sister,
"Marie of the Sacred Heart", to avoid focusing this devotion on suffering, since
some had presented reparation primarily in terms of accumulating sacrifices and
good works. Therese, for her part, presents confidence as the greatest and best
offering pleasing to the Heart of Christ: "My desires of martyrdom are nothing;
they are not what give me the unlimited confidence that I feel in my heart. They
are, to tell the truth, the spiritual riches that render one unjust, when one rests in
them with complacence and one believes that they are something great... what
pleases Jesus is that He sees my loving my littleness and my poverty, the blind
hope that I have in His Mercy... That is my only treasure... If you want to feel joy,
to have an attraction for suffering, it is your consolation that you are seeking...
Understand that to be His victim of love, the weaker one is, without desires or
virtues, the more suited one is for the workings of this consuming and
transforming Love. Oh! How I would like to be able to make you understand what
I feel! ... It is confidence and nothing but confidence that must lead us to Love."

139. In many of her writings, Therese speaks of her struggle with forms of
spirituality which are overly focused on human effort, on individual merit, on
offering sacrifices and carrying out certain acts in order to "win heaven" [e.n.
Pelagianism & Jansenism] . For her, "merit does not consist in doing or giving
much, but rather in receiving." Let us read once again some of these deeply
meaningful texts where she emphasizes this and presents it as a simple and
rapid means of taking hold of the Lord "by His Heart."

140. To her sister Leonie she writes, "I assure you that God is much better than
you believe. He is content with a glance, a sigh of love... As for me, I find
perfection very easy to practice because I have understood it is a matter of taking
hold of Jesus by His heart... look at a little child who has just annoyed his
mother... If he comes to her, holding his little arms, smiling and saying, "Kiss me,
I will not do it again," will his mother be able not to press him to her hear tenderly
and forget his childish mischief? However, she knows her dear little one will do it
again on the next occasion, but this does not matter; if he takes her again by her
heart, he will not be punished."

141. So too, in a letter to Father Adolphe Roulland she writes, "My way is all
confidence and love. I do not understand souls who fear a Friend so tender. At
times, when I am reading certain spiritual treatises in which perfection is shown
through a thousand obstacles, surrounded by a crowd of illusions, my poor little
mind quickly tires; I close the learned book that is breaking my head and drying
up my heart, and I take up Holy Scripture. Then all seems luminous to me; a
single word uncovers for my soul infinite horizons, perfection seems simple to me.
I see that it is sufficient to recognize one's nothingness and to abandon oneself
like a child into God's Arms.

142. In yet another letter, she relates this to the love shown by a parent: "I do not
believe that the heart of a father could resist the filial confidence of his child,
whose sincerity and love he knows. He realizes, however, that more than once
his son will fall into the same faults, but he is prepared to pardon him always,
if his son always takes him by his heart." . . .

Draw me, O Love of Jesus, we will run!

"I also express my gratitude to Blessed Jacinta for the sacrifices and prayers offered for the Holy Father, whom she saw suffering greatly." - Pope St. John Paul II, beatification homily, May 13, 2000

On this day in 1920, the nine-year-old girl destined to become the youngest non-martyr canonized a Saint flew from her sickbed in Portugal to Heaven to join her ten-year-old brother Francisco (the second youngest non-martyr Saint, who had flown before her to Heaven just ten months before). There at last they could again gaze upon their dear Jesus and His beloved Mother, she who had appeared to them in Fatima six times between May 13 and October 13 in 1917.
 
On May 13, 2017, the centenary of the first apparition of Our Lady of Fatima, Pope Francis canonized these two little shepherds and said:
 
“We can take as our examples Saint Francisco and Saint Jacinta, whom the Virgin Mary introduced into the immense ocean of God’s light and taught to adore Him. That was the source of their strength in overcoming opposition and suffering.”
 
If you have only time to read the bold line above, you will have learned the lessons of Fatima, the Wisdom of the Blessed Trinity, the message of Our Lady.

Let nothing worry or frighten you! Let the Virgin Mary introduce you, too, into the immense ocean of God's light and teach you to adore Him. This immense ocean of light, this divine mercy, this infinite Love of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit is our strength! Adoring Him - before the mystery of the hidden Jesus in the Blessed Sacrament, before the mystery of the hidden Jesus in the person or child in front of you, before the mystery of the hidden Jesus within you . . . Let us learn to adore God precisely BECAUSE HE IS LOVE, and let His perfect love chase out all our fear!

*   *   *

Wonderfully, in this Jubilee year of Hope, it is also the Jubilee of the canonizations and beatifications of the many saints and blesseds Pope St. John Paul II brought to the honors of the altar in the millennial Jubilee of 2000. And among them were these littlest ones, Francisco and Jacinta, to whom he personally owed so much.
 
Present at the beatification on Saturday morning, May 13, 2000, were over 600,000 pilgrims gathered in the square and surroundings of the Basilica of Our Lady of the Rosary in Fatima. Concelebrating were all the bishops of Portugal and other cardinals and bishops from around the world. Shining with a gladness greater than any others present, however, was Sister Maria Lucia of the Immaculate Heart, more commonly known as Lucia of Fatima, the oldest (then aged ten, compared to her cousins, eight and seven), of the three shepherds who saw Our Lady in 1917.
 
Sister Lucia had come on a rare outing from her cloistered Carmelite monastery in Coimbra to witness her cousins’ beatification eighty-three years after Our Lady’s rather understated words to her at the second apparition on St. Anthony’s feast, June 13, 2017:
 
“I shall take Jacinta and Francisco soon, but you will remain a little longer, since Jesus wishes you to make me known and loved on earth. He wishes also for you to establish devotion in the world to my Immaculate Heart . . . My child . . . you must not be sad. I will be with you always, and my Immaculate Heart will be your refuge and the way which will lead you to God.”
 
Note well: “A little longer” in Heaven can feel like a lot longer on earth! Lucia was now, at the beatification ceremony, ninety-two years old, and she would be with us for five more years, taking her long awaited flight to Heaven on February 13, 2005 – just twenty years ago last week – a mere two months before JPII went to the House of the Father that April 5th, Vigil of the fifth Divine Mercy Sunday – the feast he had proclaimed and instituted when canonizing St. Faustina on April 30, 2000, 2nd Sunday of Easter.
 
But returning to Sister Lucia and Pope John Paul II in their prime, here is what she heard the very Holy Father for whom the three seers, especially her littlest cousin Jacinta, had so fervently prayed, say in his beatification homily:
 
"Father . . . to you I offer praise; for what you have hidden from the learned and the clever you have revealed to the merest children" (Mt 11:25).
 
With these words, dear brothers and sisters, Jesus praises the heavenly Father for His designs; He knows that no one can come to Him unless he is drawn by the Father (cf. Jn 6:44); therefore, He praises Him for his plan and embraces it as a son:
 
"Yes, Father, for such was Your gracious will" (Mt 11:26). You were pleased to reveal the kingdom to the merest children.”
 
According to the divine plan, "a woman clothed with the sun" (Rev 12:1) came down from heaven to this earth to visit the privileged children of the Father. She speaks to them with a mother's voice and heart: she asks them to offer themselves as victims of reparation, saying that she was ready to lead them safely to God. And behold, they see a light shining from her maternal hands which penetrates them inwardly, so that they feel immersed in God just as—they explain—a person sees himself in a mirror.
 
Later Francisco, one of the three privileged children, exclaimed: "We were burning in that light which is God and we were not consumed. What is God like? It is impossible to say. In fact we will never be able to tell people." God: a light that burns without consuming. Moses had the same experience when he saw God in the burning bush; he heard God say that He was concerned about the slavery of his people and had decided to deliver them through him: "I will be with you" (cf. Ex 3:2-12). Those who welcome this Presence become the dwelling-place and, consequently, a "burning bush" of the Most High.
 
What most impressed and entirely absorbed Blessed Francisco was God in that immense light which penetrated the inmost depths of the three children. But God told only Francisco "how sad" He was, as he said. One night his father heard him sobbing and asked him why he was crying; his son answered: "I was thinking of Jesus who is so sad because of the sins that are committed against Him." He was motivated by one desire - so expressive of how children think—"to console Jesus and make Him happy."
 
A transformation takes place in his life, one we could call radical: a transformation certainly uncommon for children of his age. He devotes himself to an intense spiritual life, expressed in assiduous and fervent prayer, and attains a true form of mystical union with the Lord. This spurs him to a progressive purification of the spirit through the renunciation of his own pleasures and even of innocent childhood games.
 
Francisco bore without complaining the great sufferings caused by the illness from which he died. It all seemed to him so little to console Jesus: he died with a smile on his lips. Little Francisco had a great desire to atone for the offences of sinners by striving to be good and by offering his sacrifices and prayers. The life of Jacinta, his younger sister by almost two years, was motivated by these same sentiments.
 
"Another portent appeared in heaven; behold, a great red dragon" (Rev 12:3). These words from the first reading of the Mass make us think of the great struggle between good and evil, showing how, when man puts God aside, he cannot achieve happiness, but ends up destroying himself.

How many victims there have been throughout the last century of the second millennium! We remember the horrors of the First and Second World Wars and the other wars in so many parts of the world, the concentration and extermination camps, the gulags, ethnic cleansings and persecutions, terrorism, kidnappings, drugs, the attacks on unborn life and the family.

The message of Fátima is a call to conversion, alerting humanity to have nothing to do with the "dragon" whose "tail swept down a third of the stars of heaven, and cast them to the earth" (Rev 12:4). Man's final goal is heaven, his true home, where the heavenly Father awaits everyone with His merciful love.
 
God does not want anyone to be lost; that is why 2,000 years ago he sent His Son to earth, "to seek and to save the lost" (Lk 19:10). And He saved us by His death on the cross. Let no one empty that Cross of its power! Jesus died and rose from the dead to be "the first-born among many brethren" (Rom 8:29).
 
In her motherly concern, the Blessed Virgin came here to Fátima to ask men and women "to stop offending God, Our Lord, who is already very offended." It is a mother's sorrow that compels her to speak; the destiny of her children is at stake. For this reason she asks the little shepherds: "Pray, pray much and make sacrifices for sinners; many souls go to hell because they have no one to pray and make sacrifices for them.”
 
Little Jacinta felt and personally experienced Our Lady's anguish, offering herself heroically . . . One day, when she and Francisco had already contracted the illness that forced them to bed, the Virgin Mary came to visit them at home, as the little one recounts:
 
"Our Lady came to see us and said that soon she would come and take Francisco to heaven. And she asked me if I still wanted to convert more sinners. I told her yes."
 
And when the time came for Francisco to leave, the little girl tells him: "Give my greetings to Our Lord and to Our Lady and tell them that I am enduring everything they want for the conversion of sinners." Jacinta had been so deeply moved by the vision of hell during the apparition of 13 July that no mortification or penance seemed too great to save sinners.
 
She could well exclaim with St Paul: "I rejoice in my sufferings for your sake, and in my flesh I complete what is lacking in Christ's afflictions for the sake of his body, that is, the Church" (Col 1:24). Last Sunday at the Colosseum in Rome, we commemorated the many witnesses to the faith in the 20th century, recalling the tribulations they suffered through the significant testimonies they left us. An innumerable cloud of courageous witnesses to the faith have left us a precious heritage which must live on in the third millennium. Here in Fátima, where these times of tribulation were foretold and Our Lady asked for prayer and penance to shorten them, I would like today to thank heaven for the powerful witness shown in all those lives. And once again I would like to celebrate the Lord's goodness to me when I was saved from death after being gravely wounded on 13 May 1981. I also express my gratitude to Blessed Jacinta for the sacrifices and prayers offered for the Holy Father, whom she saw suffering greatly.
 
"Father, to you I offer praise, for you have revealed these things to the merest children." Today Jesus' praise takes the solemn form of the beatification of the little shepherds, Francisco and Jacinta. With this rite the Church wishes to put on the candelabrum these two candles which God lit to illumine humanity in its dark and anxious hours. May they shine on the path of this immense multitude of pilgrims and of all who have accompanied us by radio and television. May Francisco and Jacinta be a friendly light that illumines all Portugal and, in special way, this Diocese of Leiria-Fátima.
 
We make spiritual progress when we rely on Mary
 
My last words are for the children: dear boys and girls, I see so many of you dressed like Francisco and Jacinta. You look very nice! But in a little while or tomorrow you will take these clothes off and …  the little shepherds will disappear. They should not disappear, should they?! Our Lady needs you all to console Jesus, who is sad because of the bad things done to Him; He needs your prayers and your sacrifices for sinners.
 
Ask your parents and teachers to enroll you in the "school" of Our Lady, so that she can teach you to be like the little shepherds, who tried to do whatever she asked them. I tell you that "one makes more progress in a short time of submission and dependence on Mary than during entire years of personal initiatives, relying on oneself alone" (St Louis de Montfort, The True Devotion to the Blessed Virgin Mary, n. 155).
 
This was how the little shepherds became saints so quickly. A woman who gave hospitality to Jacinta in Lisbon, on hearing the very beautiful and wise advice that the little girl gave, asked who taught it to her. "It was Our Lady," she replied. Devoting themselves with total generosity to the direction of such a good Teacher, Jacinta and Francisco soon reached the heights of perfection.
 
“Father, to you I offer praise, for what you have hidden from the learned and the clever you have revealed to the merest children.”
 
Father, to you I offer praise for all your children, from the Virgin Mary, your humble Servant, to the little shepherds, Francisco and Jacinta. May the message of their lives live on forever to light humanity's way!
 
+  +  +

Twenty years ago, one week ago today, on February 13, 2005 - two days after the Feast of Our Lady of Lourdes - the last remaining visionary of Fatima, Lucia dos Santos, the one whose job was to make Our Lady's Immaculate Heart known as our refuge, finally entered into the light of God's infinite Love forever.

Today as we celebrate the feast of her cousins, with whom she is reunited but with the title of Venerable and not yet Saint, it is again two days after a feast of Lourdes - namely St. Bernadette's. On February 18, 1858 Our Lady appeared to Bernadette in the grotto for the third time, and finally, for the first time, she spoke to Bernadette directly, who had taken to the grotto her paper and pen and asked the Lady, "What is your name and what is it that you wish from me?"

The lady smiled and said "It is not necessary for you to write what down what I have to say." Then she asked Bernadette for a favor. "Would you please return for the next fifteen days?" Bernadette agreed.  The Lady also told Bernadette "that she could not promise to make me happy in this world, but in the next."

In case you are thinking that this last remark of the Lady is for you: "I cannot promise to make you happy in this world, but in the next," let me reassure you.

First off, not to ruin the surprise, but the Lady speaking to Bernadette turns out to be, in fact, OUR Lady, Our own Blessed Mother, the Mother of Jesus our brother, best friend, Spouse of our souls, the one He gave to us just before giving His life for us - His inheritance and treasure for us, and the Immaculate Heart which gave birth to the Sacred Heart . . .

And secondly - don't let me throw you off, and you probably figured this out already - this Our Lady (of Lourdes) is actually the same Lady as the one of Fatima - who is also one and the same as Our Lady of Guadalupe . . . As Jesus explained to little Servant of God Marcel Van, He needs many apostles of HIs love so that He can reach every heart, every different temperament and personality, every disposition, every one of His sheep. You might say that while St. Paul teaches us to be all things to all men, our Blessed Mother has perfected (in her humility) being all ladies to all men (not to mention to all women and children)!

And so, as we love to do, let's re-visit those words of Our Lady's we find most consoling, most encouraging, most likely to immerse us in the immense ocean of God's love. She first said them (as far as I know) to her little son St. Juanito Diegito, and she says them every instant, every heartbeat, every single day to us too:

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, we will run!!!

"The decisive factor in obtaining God's Mercy is trust. Trust is the expectation of someone's help. It does not constitute a separate virtue, but is an essential condition of the virtue of hope, and an integral part of the virtues of fortitude and generosity. Because trust springs from faith, it strengthens hope and love. . . "   - Bl. Michal Sopocko, St. Faustina's spiritual director

Or in other words:

Trust gets God's attention and convinces Him to pour out His Mercy on us.
So what is trust? What is this magic key unlocking the floodgates of His Love?
Trust is expecting God to help, freely, just like a child expects everything for free from his parents. Just like a newborn baby expects everything from the Mama she doesn't even know yet from the outside.

Nine months growing inside her mother "teaches" the infant trust.
Birth presents a new experience of her mom, one that allows for skin to skin contact, a loving gaze, warm milk, and sweet smells. But this experience only builds on what baby has experienced already: Someone who is a refuge and provider.

God is our Refuge and Provider par excellence. He knit us together in our mothers' wombs, He  brought us safely into the light of day, He has given us air to breathe, water to drink, clothes to wear every day since.

Do we trust Him, then? Not all that much, usually, and in fact, even in the case of the greatest and most trusting saints, only a fraction as much as He can be trusted.

We here at Miss Marcel's Musings are huge fans of the saints who trusted God the most, or rather the saints Holy Mother Church presents to us as models of trust. There are perhaps as many saints in Heaven as stars in the sky, and it may well be that the most trusting ones are those yet unnamed by most men on earth. . . How wonderful!

And yet there are two stars given to us that shine brightly and unceasingly and, thanks be to God and those who worked for their causes, these two stars are named for us: Therese and Faustina.

Little Saint Therese was from France, and dear Faustina from Poland, and both lived in modern times when there were cameras (so we get to see photos of them) and elevators (Therese used this new invention as an image of the way God will take us up to Heaven in the elevator of His arms) and - for Faustina - radio and world war and the 20th century.

Therese is a Doctor of the Church because of her teaching on the Little Way of Spiritual Childhood, sometimes called the Little Way of Trust and Love.

Faustina, a fan of Therese like us, is famous because of revealing Jesus' Divine Mercy image, chaplet, Feast, and motto ("Jesus, I trust in You!") after Jesus revealed them to her.

What is the common feature of their messages?
TRUST. 
"Jesus, I trust in You!" St. Faustina taught us to say (after Jesus taught her).
"It is confidence, and nothing but confidence, that must lead us to Love," said St. Therese, and our Holy Father recently wrote that if that was all she had said, it would have been enough to gain her the Doctorate!

So why are we interrupting our ongoing novena and octave of Our Lady of Lourdes to talk about trust? Yesterday, St. Valentine's Day and St. Cyril and Methodius, was the anniversary of the 2nd apparition of Our Lady of Lourdes to St. Bernadette. And today? What more fitting sequel to Valentine's Day and the rest than . . .trumpet fanfare, please, and a nice, long drumroll . . . .

Today is the Feast of St. Faustina's spiritual director, Blessed Michal Sopocko!
And the Feast of St. Margaret Mary's spiritual director, St. Claude de la Colombiere!
Praise God for the men of the cloth who encouraged and supported Faustina and Margaret Mary in remaining faithful to Jesus, and who brought Jesus' message to these quiet religious sisters to THE WHOLE WORLD!!! Including to us!

"Jesus, I trust in You!"
"Behold this Heart . . . "

I don't know that much about Father Michal, and I don't know nearly enough about St. Claude. I do know that they have changed the world by helping two of the littlest souls in history, and this was most likely not their plan when they became priests. Heavenly Father, send us more priests after Your own Heart, and pour down Your merciful Love and Wisdom, the Holy Spirit, into the hearts of all priests.

Faustina was frustrated (as we so often are) that no one understood her, least of all the priests to whom she confessed.

I love every priest to whom I've confessed, because I take Therese's childlike approach and remember that (as her older sisters taught her) the priest is Jesus in the confessional. Therese asked if she could hug the priest or give him a kiss after her first confession, and her sisters said, "Well, probably better not to . . ." and we know that's because the priest is also a regular man, when he isn't Jesus conferring the sacraments.

And so I add to my love for these priests-in-the-confessional a healthy dose of skepticism. Mostly they don't know who I am and have only a moment to figure out what it is I'm saying - and I'm sure I don't make it easy! My husband is clear - probably in the confessional, and certainly everywhere else. I don't have that gift. . . And so when the priest kindly shares some advice that doesn't set me free with that momentous and liberating whoosh of the Holy Spirit, I don't mind at all. I just make sure I know my penance and get my absolution . . .

Faustina had a problem like this. The saints are THAT normal. They had problems like ours, from indigestion to headaches, from needing to cut their fingernails to bad hair days. (I have to laugh that despite chemo and losing most of my hair, I've still got some wispy strands no one gets to see, and I now imagine that even Ben Franklin had bad hair days most days. Thank goodness I get to wear cuter hats and scarves than he did!)

In Faustina's case though (I'm thinking about problems in the confessional, not under the veil), because Jesus had such an important public mission for her, He said to her one day after she complained to Him, "Don't worry. I'm going to provide a priest who totally understands your heart."

Soon after, she went on retreat and there was a new priest - new to her - and voila! He understood everything. He had been specially prepared by God to understand her, and I think we can use words from St. Therese to explain the beauty of Faustina's encounter with Fr. Michal: 

"I had hardly entered the confessional when I felt my soul expand. After speaking only a few words, I was understood in a marvelous way and my soul was like a book in which this priest read better than I did myself. He launched me full sail upon the waves of confidence and love which so strongly attracted me, but upon which I dared not advance. He told me that my faults caused God no pain, and that holding as he did God's place, he was telling me in His name that God was very much pleased with me." (Story of a Soul)

Wow!

I don't know about you, but that doesn't usually happen to me when I go to confession. But it didn't usually happen to Therese and Faustina either! And if it never happens to us, don't despair - that means that Jesus - whose pierced and merciful hands guide everything - doesn't need that to happen to get us to fulfill our missions.

What missions?
The one, starting now, of trusting Him much more. 
How?
Why not start by counting some blessings. Things God has provided for you that you are grateful for. Or that were life changing and brought you here, to a place where you can read about His love for you. 

You can start small. You were created and grew in your mother's womb. You were born! You exist! You can read! You can smell! You can see, touch, taste, and hear! 

These are gifts He has given you because He is delighted to have you know Him and love Him, and above all BE LOVED BY HIM. He loves you so much, and (the parts I like best) He is all good and all powerful! Put those three together - infinite love, goodness, and power - and you've got Someone you can trust A LOT!

Blessed Michal and St. Claude, please intercede for all priests, seminarians, and those with vocations: obtain for them deep insight, good counsel, and the ability to experience and convey to others TRUST. And if you want to do something really fun, please help the priests who hear our confessions to sometimes really understand us, and launch us on the waves of confidence and love.

St. Faustina, you experienced Therese's love in a dream, and Therese, you experienced Blessed Anne's love for you in a dream. We don't need dreams, but we need to know you love us too. Please share with us your beautiful trust and bold confidence in Jesus. You don't need these now that you are with Him face to Face, but we need them badly! Shower us with the heavenly roses of confidence to the point of joy, peace, and surrender. Help us to say often, and believe it: JESUS, I trust in YOU!

O Mary conceived without sin, pray for us who have recourse to thee!

​Draw me, we will run!!!

As for St. Claude, tune in next time when we will thank and praise God, and try to provide a quote or two to strengthen our trust in the Sacred Heart and His infinitely merciful love for us.

O Mary conceived without sin, pray for us who have recourse to thee!
O Mary, who appeared to Bernadette at Lourdes, pray for us who have recourse to thee!
O Mary, to whom Zelie went for a cure, pray for us who have recourse to thee!
O Mary, who at Lourdes converted Felix LeSeur, pray for us!

​Yesterday was the Feast of Our Lady of Lourdes, but I've decided with the approval of St. Bernadette (who hasn't objected, so I'm taking that as consent) to extend Our Lady's feast for at least an octave this year . . . After all, she appeared to Bernadette 18 times, not just once . . . and you, like me, might still have some dear sick ones who haven't gotten their miracle yet . . . so let's keep going! Let's keep turning to Our Lady who, although she may be busy bringing God's healing and peace to someone else's sick dear ones just now, will surely - like any good mom - eventually bend down if we just keep tugging on her sleeve and calling her name. 

I found the most wonderful little plug for Our Lady of Lourdes yesterday. You may know the story of Elisabeth Leseur. She was a lovely young French Catholic woman who married a not so lovely and not so very Catholic French man, Felix, who kept his atheism somewhat hidden from her until they were wed. Then he worked with every power of his soul to destroy the faith of his dearly beloved and believing wife. To be fair, Felix thought he was doing her a favor, poor dope.

Happily, she ended up becoming more Catholic, and enlisted God to convert him. Good plan, Elisabeth! But what I found yesterday - which contains the sequel to Elisabeth's fervent prayers and self offering - is a pithy account by none other than Venerable Fulton Sheen who heard it from none other than Felix himself, of how Our Lady of Lourdes got involved. Here it is:

Our Lady of Lourdes and the Conversion of Dr. Felix Leseur
​by Bishop Fulton J. Sheen

Just at the turn of the (20th) century, there was a woman married in Paris, just a good, ordinary Catholic girl, to an atheist doctor, Dr. Felix Leseur. He attempted to break down the faith of his wife and she reacted and began studying her faith.

In l905, she was taken ill and tossed on a bed of constant pain until August 1914. When she was dying, she said to her husband,

“Felix, when I am dead, you will become a Catholic and a Dominican priest.”

“Elizabeth, you know my sentiments. I’ve sworn hatred of God, I shall live in that hatred and I shall die in it.”

She repeated her words and passed away. She died in her husband’s arms at the early age of 47.

Rummaging through her papers, Felix found her will. She wrote: “In l905, I asked almighty God to send me sufficient sufferings to purchase your soul. On the day that I die, the price will have been paid. Greater love than this no woman has than she who lays down her life for her husband.”

Dr. Leseur, the atheist, dismissed her will as the fancies of a pious woman.
He decided to write a book against Lourdes.

He went down to Lourdes to write against Our Lady. However, as he looked up into the face of the statue of Mary, he received the great gift of faith. So total, so complete was it, that he never had to go through the process of juxtaposition and say, “How will I answer this or that difficulty?” He saw it all. At once.

The then reigning pontiff was Benedict XV.

Then came World War I. Hearing of the conversion of Dr. Leseur, Pope Benedict XV sent for him. Dr. Leseur went in the company of Fr. Jon Vinnea, orator of Notre Dame. Dr. Leseur recounted his conversion and said that he wanted to become a Dominican priest. Holy Father said, “I forbid you. You must remain in the world and repair the harm which you have done.”

The Holy Father then talked to Fr. Vinnea and then again to Dr. Leseur and said: “I revoke my decision. Whatever Fr. Vinnea tells you to do, you may do.”

In the year 1924, during Lent, I, Fulton J. Sheen, made my retreat in the Dominican monastery in Belgium. Four times each day, and 45 minutes in length, I made my retreat under the spiritual guidance of Father Felix Leseur of the Order of Preachers, Catholic Dominican priest, who told me this story.

*   *   *

How's that for an answer to prayer?
O Mary conceived without sin, pray for us who have recourse to thee!
Dear Blessed Mother, we have so much we need! We have loved ones away from the Faith and sacraments. We have dear ones who are sick with various illnesses, physical, mental, emotional, spiritual. And we ourselves are badly in need of your sweet maternal love, wounded as we are. Do take our darling Jesus and offer Him to the Father for all our needs. Bless with your presence, your kindness, your affection and your own prayers - which mean miracles because you are the dearest daughter, spouse, and mother of God - bless the Church, the world, and our homes and hearts. We ask this in Jesus' adorable name!

Draw me, dear Mother, and we will run!!!

"O Mary conceived without sin, pray for us who have recourse to thee!"

Today begins our novena to Our Lady of Lourdes here at Miss Marcel's Musings. If you start today, you'll finish with us on the feast, February 11th. Thank you, guardian angel, for reminding me!

What do we have to gain?
Health and happiness.
Yes, I know, Our Lady said to St. Bernadette, "I do not promise you happiness in this life, but in the next."
Happily, we are not St. Bernadette, and unless Our Mom in Heaven has said the same to you (and if so, please eat a nourishing meal and take a good long nap, just in case it was your imagination), I vote for counting on happiness in THIS "life" and in the next!

For a long time I thought it was a foregone conclusion that this exile we call life would be pretty painful, even though I had every beautiful gift at my fingertips - the Faith, family, friends, and enough to read and eat.

Then I discovered - in books, since that is the way He likes to enlighten me - that living with guilt, fear, and sorrow was not His plan, even if it is unavoidably a valley of tears we walk through . . . 

The Scriptures, our Heavenly Father's love letters to us, are full of His kind and compassionate promises. He wants happiness for us, the more the better, the sooner the better. St. Therese's favorite Psalm 23 illustrates that wonderfully, and recently I enjoyed a typed up translation a friend had sent (after her son had typed) that said, "He maketh me lie down in green pastures."

I got a huge kick out of that because I was at my holy hour - a green pasture indeed, but at the drop of a hat I will let a friend cover for me, and when I finally found myself before my Best Friend again, I had to admit, yes, He does have to MAKE me lie down or I'll fritter away my life in errands!

Anyhow, the whole Little Way is about these promises and the trust and abandonment with which we can relax in the Father's arms while He carries us everywhere. How literal is this? Much more than we think, but even in its figurative sense, I have one son who has seen the truth born out over and over again - when he allows God and Mother Mary to take over, it gets done (whatever "it" is), whereas trying to force the doing of it in pain is a recipe for an inedible and non-nourishing stew.

My other son was recently plucked up from his amazon delivery driver job (fortunately he wasn't on the job at the moment of the plucking, so no Left Behind car accidents ensued) and dropped by the loving hand of God into Castel Gandolfo, Italy, vacation home of the saints (JPII and Benedict XVI most recently) . . .due to no efforts of his own, and thanks to St. Joseph and Padre Pio hearing my prayers.

So, where does this lead us?
Straight to the grotto of Lourdes with St. Bernadette.
On this day - well the day that ends the novena, the day of the first apparition of Our Lady of little Bernadette - in 1983 I visited Thomas Aquinas College and that visit changed my life. That Lady changed my life. 

On this day (February 11, the day we're heading toward) in 1993, my husband and I arrived for his interview at Christendom College and that visit changed our lives too. 

On this day of February 11, 1950, John C.H. Wu finished his memoir Beyond East and West, and on or around this same February 11 in 2001, I found his book on the shelf of the library at Christendom . . . which led me to Fr. Nicholas Maestrini, P.I.M.E., Italian missionary extraordinaire, and lover of little St. Therese. Wow, these were lifechanging events too!

I could go on, but let me simply say:
Let's make this a life changing feast in our Jubilee Year of Hope!
Our Lady of Lourdes, pray for us, and pluck us out of the ordinary round and drop us deeper into the Heart of Jesus!
St. Bernadette, pray for us!

I'm praying "O Mary conceived without sin, pray for us who have recourse to thee" for my novena prayer. Jump in anytime, and even if you forget, you're covered!

​Draw me, we will run!

But let's get to those inspired words of St. Francis for us. He's helped me tremendously with his encouragement NOT to worry and his singular understanding that even our efforts to follow Jesus more closely are often fraught with anxiety that is not only upsetting to us, but upsetting to Jesus! Or perhaps a better way to say it (besides the many ways St. Francis himself does, which we'll get to pronto) is simply that we don't need to worry about becoming saints. This is Jesus' work in us, and our job is to let Him take care of everything. We can see this Francis is not only one of St. Therese's patron saints, but one of her favorites. Their messages have a lot in common. They both repeated frequently that surrendering ourselves into the arms of God is the easiest and most effective way to be close to Him, which is all that being a saint really is.

Here are the words Francis de Sales used to convey that good news:

"Anxiety is the greatest evil that can befall a soul, except sin. God commands you to pray, but He forbids you to worry."

"Do not look forward to what may happen tomorrow; the same everlasting Father who cares for you today will take care of you tomorrow and every day. Either He will shield you from suffering, or He will give you unfailing strength to bear it. Be at peace, then, put aside all anxious thoughts and imaginations, and say continually: 'The Lord is my strength and my shield; my heart has trusted in Him, and I am helped. He is not only with me but in me and I in Him.'"

"We shall steer safely through every storm, so long as our heart is right, our intention fervent, our courage steadfast, and our trust fixed on God. If at times we are somewhat stunned by the tempest, never fear. Let us take a breath and go on afresh."

"Make friends with the angels, who though invisible are always with you. Often invoke them, constantly praise them, and make good use of their help and assistance in all your temporal and spiritual affairs."

"Half an hour's meditation each day is essential, except when you are busy. Then a full hour is needed."

And finally, his good friend and spiritual daughter St. Jane Frances de Chantal tells us that St. Francis once said to her:

"I have been feeling most strongly how great a blessing it is to be a child, though an unworthy one, of this glorious Mother. Let us undertake great things under Mary's patronage, for she will never leave us destitute of what we are struggling to attain.” 

*  *  *

St. Francis de Sales, pray for us!
St. Jane de Chantal, help us, too, to become spiritual children of your spiritual father!
St. Therese, pray for us and obtain for us many roses of heavenly graces through the teachings and love of your patron and big brother St. Francis!

Draw me, we will run!

P.S. That wonderful painting of the Good Shepherd is by Sybil Parker who painted it in 1895, the same year St. Therese made her Act of Oblation to Merciful Love, which you can find on this page (below some other prayers and pictures we love).

Maria autem conservabat omnia verba haec conferens in corde suo.
"But Mary kept all these words, pondering them in her heart." - Luke 2:19

. . . et mater eius conservabat omnia verba haec in corde suo.
". . . and His mother kept all these words in her heart." - Luke 2:51

*    *     *

I am finding my consolation in our Mother Mary today. I have been waking with sadness because I can't remember so much, but today I realized the truth I have been groping for this past week:

Our Lady, Cause of our Joy, is also Our Lady of Joyful Surprises, and just when I am ready to throw in the towel, she rouses me for another round, supplying me with sustaining truth - or better yet Sustaining Truth. 

I had been thinking yesterday what I had often thought to console myself: that all this beauty I forget will be returned to me in Heaven - I will remember in exact detail the gifts from His hand, the people I love and all they said and did. But in the wake of The Most Glorious and Happy Day of our lives, i.e. The Wedding of the Century, this was a small consolation. How could I keep it all in my heart and mind NOW?

I don't think I can, but Our Lady, our beautiful Blessed Mother can and does. She is the Seat of Wisdom, and Wisdom requires Memory. But more to the point, she is the seat of Wisdom because Wisdom, that is God, sits in her lap, and He certainly doesn't forget anything (unless it be our sins when we cast them into His mercy).

Lately when I haven't been preparing for The Wedding, rejoicing in The Wedding, enjoying the aftermath of the Wedding, or mourning my inability to possess The Wedding completely in my heart and mind, memory and imagination, I have been delighting in the picture above of The Virgin and Child Embracing, and I have a new image of it because it appears on the cover of a new to me Christmas-tide book by the beloved Colettine Poor Clare, Mother Mary Francis. 

The book is Cause of Our Joy, and the painting is by Giovanni Battista Salvi di Sassoferrato (known as Sassoferrato, the town of his beginnings). Come to find out that Sassoferrato is also the artist who gave me (through the triple charity of my happy twin and her older sister and brother-in-law) a favorite image of Mary I have treasured for 41 years now: The Virgin in Prayer (pictured at the tippy top of this post).

I couldn't resist adding two more images by Sassy, just to complete the sequence. We began with The Virgin in Prayer: Our Lady as she was just prior to the appearance of Gabriel and his world-shattering announcement and invitation (and her resounding YES!) . . . then see the fruit of God's mercy and its Incarnation in her arms . . . then rejoice in the Virgin and Child Embracing . . . and at last we find Our Lady as St. Luke describes her: the Madonna with the Christ Child, which I prefer to call "Madonna reflecting on the Word made flesh."

Since I am myself reflecting (or musing, as we call it here, not able to take ourselves too seriously since like Marcel we're not usually too serious, and when we are, it's time to lighten up) on my forgetfulness, I'd like to add that I was reminded by these images - or rather by the information I found with these images when searching for them online so I could share them with you - that to my utter Joyful Surprise about twelve and a half months ago (December 2023), I SAW the originals IN PERSON in the National Gallery in London!!! Oops, I forgot!

I even bought there a nifty 3-D image of the Virgin and Child Embracing, and it sat on my kitchen counter most of the year. I think I recently gave it away, because what fun is a treasured possession until we part with it and make room for The Real Treasure? But no matter, it was given back to me last week when my Armenian brother let me take (little thief that I am, in imitation of our sister St. Therese) the book that boasted Sassy's wonderful painting on its cover.

All of which is merely to say Thank You Blessed Mother! You were so good at everything I try and fail at, but you don't keep anything for yourself, you give it all to us! Thank you for remembering everything. Please keep The Wedding in your heart and I will know it is safe there. I will get it from you in Heaven if not before, and when I glimpse it in part here below, please fill me with the gratitude that is so much more precious than my silly regret at my Marcellian forgetfulness.

Best Joy from this awesome Lady of Joyful Surprises? I expected it, and yet it is hard to grasp, hard to believe, but truly it happened:

One week ago today, as I write, my dear FDIL became a plain old pickle (DIL) and I have now transformed from FMIL to your basic run of the mill MIL. The happy couple are hitched for life, and to my world's rejoicing (and mine), I have a daughter at long last! God and our Blessed Mother have once again done their work, happily ever after is unfolding, and we ask that the pages be many . . .

Thank you to all who prayed, all who could participate in person, all who helped with the seemingly endless details which so sweetly ended in a pre-wedding welcome, a Nuptial Mass, and a wedding reception that surpassed our wildest and most extravagantly joyful dreams. Joy, joy, joy, as befits a couple so devoted to Our Lady of Joyful Surprises. May our Mother Mary continue to surprise them with joy for as long as they both shall live in this land of exile sweetened by their union with each other and the Blessed Trinity, and may their Heaven (both in Heaven and on earth) be spent snuggled near their sweet Mother embracing her Child.

Draw me; we will run!

Two years ago our little sister had a milestone birthday  - 150 years! That means this year she is 152! My goodness she is well preserved! Except in the case of the saints, it is more than preservation, more than surviving - she is thriving and still having a party each and every day, deputed as she is to be the Head of the Ministry of Roses. Lest that sound like a grand and grown up title, picture her as a little girl strewing rose petals before the Blessed Sacrament in the Corpus Christi procession. She is wearing her First Holy Communion dress, and she looks like . . . a flower girl, like the ones we will be so grateful for this Saturday when we hope you will join us in praying for the Happily Ever After of our eldest son and his darling Catholic bride. . .

But I digress . . . and if I am going to digress, I'd better give you a health update. Therese and I have both gotten older than 50, and isn't that when we cheerfully start talking about our health to any and all who inquire?

My own health is terrific, praise God. My local community has plied me with nutritious meals, while the Mystical Body here and abroad has fed my heart and soul with the graces raining down in answer to their prayers.

More specifically, I am taking a two week break from chemo infusions (had two that went beautifully, have two more to go) in order to host the wedding of - well, if not the century, at least the wedding of the centenary (of Therese's canonization, which we celebrate in May of this year) and The Wedding of the Jubilee Year! Hooray!

All this chemo is simply so that (a) any lingering bit of cancer will be decimated (sorry cancer, but you are not meant to be my gate to heaven this time) and (b) primarily to prevent recurrence, reducing my chances of said recurrence from 16% to 8%. I am in awe of the science, but even more in awe of the God who made us all, and made some of us such smart healers and researchers and medical professionals. May He bless all working in these fields, as well as all benefiting and trying to benefit from medical expertise.

In other words, all is well with me, and on this day that we celebrate little Therese and prepare for our dear J and M's wedding this Saturday, January 4 (St. Elizabeth Ann Seton, pray for us!), I am thinking about two other weddings that occurred on this day (St. Therese, Little Flower, pray for us!) some decades ago. My, the graces were flowing then - and they still are! Such happy marriages, such amazing paths along which the hand of our dear Jesus has guided these two spousal sets.

Thank You, Jesus, for the sacraments! Please fill us with Your sacramental graces, and for those who have somehow slipped out of Your loving embrace, pour down on them actual graces to bring them back into the heart of the Church where You water and refresh us so thoroughly.

Happy Anniversary JH and L! Happy anniversary COB and KBB!
Your lives have been an inspiration to me and to many - may His love draw you ever closer and may Our Lady wrap you in her starry mantle close to the infant King of the Universe!

Finally, happy birthday little Therese!
Do your thing, shower us with roses, and throw in a cupcake or a glass of wine for good measure. Oh, and since you love nothing more than a good nuptial union (whether it be of the spiritual kind with the Spouse of our souls, or the more natural kind yet doused in heavenly Charity), do help us with all these joyful last minute wedding preparations. May all the travelers be surrounded and guided here by the angels, and may the bride and groom feel the peace of Christ beyond all understanding, now and always.

Help us to live your Little Way, dear little sister. Help us to understand your words and the path you have traveled before us so successfully . . . You insisted:

"To remain little before God is to recognize one’s nothingness, to expect all things from the good God just as a little child expects all things from its father; it is not to be troubled by anything. . ..Even among poor people, a child is given all it needs, as long as it is very little, but as soon as it has grown up, the father does not want to support it any longer and says: ‘Work, now you are able to take care of yourself.’ Because I never want to hear these words I do not want to grow up, feeling that I can never earn my living, that is, eternal life in heaven. So I have stayed little, and have no other occupation than that of gathering the flowers of love and sacrifice and of offering them to the good God to please Him. Again, to stay little means not attributing the virtues we practice to ourselves, under the impression that we are capable of such things, but to recognize that the good God places this treasure of virtue in the hand of His little child for him to use as he needs it; and that it remains God’s treasure. . . It is not to become discouraged over one’s faults, for children fall often, but they are too little to hurt themselves very much.”

Yes, Therese, with out angels and yours, do help us to follow your Little Way in the arms of Jesus forever!

Draw me, we will RUN!!!!!

​Seven years ago today, I wrote here:

Do you know what day it is as I write and officially begin this blog? It's the feast of St. John the Evangelist, the beloved disciple, the Apostle of Love "to whom secrets were revealed and who spread the words of life through all the world" (as the opening antiphon to his Mass puts it).

I am in awe of God's marvelous timing.
Marcel Van was (and is from heaven now), like St. John, an Apostle of Love, and he too had secrets revealed to him and spread the words of life through all the world.

I too would like to be an Apostle of Love. Marcel has shared his secrets with me, and especially the secret of Jesus' limitless love, and I too want to spread Marcel's words of littleness and Jesus' words of life through all the world. 

Like Marcel, I don't even need to understand exactly what it is I'm writing: I'm likely too little to understand the secrets confided to my heart and pen, even as I can say, with St. John and St. Peter, "Surely we cannot help speaking of what we have heard and seen."

But Jesus always puts it best, and I hear Him tell me as He told Marcel on Christmas night 72 years ago in 1945 [now it is 79 years ago]:

"Your duty simply consists in writing."

I rejoice in my mission of writing, and I ask my guardian angel to protect me from ever worrying for a single moment about how many people my words will reach - that is, as Jesus would tell the Apostles of Love before me, none of my business. My business is simply to write, and if I reach one single soul, it will have been worth it.

You are reading this post now, so it has already been worth it. 
 
*   *   *

It was not seven years ago but twenty-three years ago on the feast of St. John the Beloved that my little family went to the (then) P.I.M.E. house on Singer Island in south Florida to attend early morning Mass with a great Italian missionary and lover of St. Therese, Fr. Nicholas Maestrini (P.I.M.E.). When I once asked him what was his favorite book of the Bible, he looked at me like I was silly to ask, the answer was so obvious.

"The Gospel of John, the Apostle of Love."

Why?
Because of the Last Supper Discourse beginning in Chapter 14 with:

"Let not your hearts be troubled."

How adorable is Jesus, telling us just before His Passion, "Don't worry about anything." How He loves us! How He asks the impossible!

One of the many reasons I loved and still love Marcel and his Conversations with Jesus, Mary, and Therese of the Child Jesus is that Jesus (and Mary and St. Therese) are forever - or at least for the entire length of this dear, long book - telling Marcel (and us through him), "Don't worry about anything." On one occasion, Jesus even says something like, "Don't worry about anything any more, ever." How's that for a commentary on His own words in Scripture?

Seven years ago when I wrote my first real post here I asked, "Why Miss Marcel?" which really amounted to "Why Marcel?" and I can answer these many moons later in the words of Bearded Jesus,, Fr. Antonio Boucher, CSsR, Marcel Van's spiritual director and novice master in the Redemptorists:

"First of all, I have been profoundly moved by the unbelievable familiarity and tenderness of which Brother Marcel has been the object on the part of his heavenly interlocutors. On the other hand, his exemplary life, his limpidity of soul, his perfect obedience to his director and his generosity in face of sacrifice favourably impressed me regarding his truthfulness and the authenticity of his communications; this, obviously, with all the reserve necessary, not wishing in anything to anticipate the final judgment which belongs by right to the authority of the Church."  (from the Introduction to Conversations)

My favorite book of the Bible is the Song of Songs of Solomon which begins, "Let Him kiss me with the kisses of His mouth." This desire for kisses from Jesus also explains my great love for Conversations because Jesus is forever telling Marcel about the kisses He has in store or is giving as they speak. And wonderfully, these kisses explain so much! On November 6, 1945, Jesus tells Marcel:

"My little apostle, remain in peace. If you are still tired today it is because of the kisses I am giving you . . . It is very painful, my child; I must do everything to repress my love before daring to give you some kisses, and in spite of these precautions, my kisses still tire you. My little friend, what will happen when you receive the real kiss? The effect of this kiss will be to draw your soul completely to unite itself directly to me, nothing less. If, because of all the kisses that I have just given you with so much care, you already have a red face, my little friend, it is because you are very weak; so I must try to spoil you in a thousand ways. My dear child, accept the sadness just as you accept the caresses that I pour on you at this time."

Like Marcel, I'm a bit tired today, and that threatens to make me sad because I want to be bright-eyed and bushy tailed for every beautiful thing happening in these days of Christmas.

I was tempted to think this tiredness the natural result of staying up too late and waking up too early, but once again I've learned what I needed to know from our sweet little brother Marcel and the Spouse of his soul and ours. . . . First off, always blame Jesus! He wanted to wish me a Happy Anniversary of being Miss Marcel musing here, so He gave me a kiss to wake me, like with Sleeping Beauty (only I'd been sleeping far less long than that princess). But really, at the bottom of this tiredness-threatening-sadness is simply . . . . too many more of those kisses! What Love the Father has bestowed on us, and how very unready we are to receive His Love! And yet I wouldn't change a thing! Let Him kiss us with the kisses of His mouth! His Love is better than wine (even better than Christmas cookies and Brandy Alexanders!) - or really I should say, "Your love is better than wine, Your anointing oils are fragrant, Your name is oil poured out, that is why the maidens love you . . ."

How blessed we are, again like Marcel, to have met the fair French maiden Therese. She will teach us to follow in her footsteps, her Little Way, and even better, she teaches us to let Jesus scoop us up in His arms to take us to the Father, Who will then embrace us and allow us to live in His Love eternally. 

For whatever sadness that we feel - with Jesus and Marcel we call them bitter sweets in the box of chocolates He's given us - there is plenty more happiness to (over)compensate. These are the truly sweet chocolates, the Scotchmallows of the box, and here is how Marcel explains it, the reason he gives for his joy.

"My Jesus, why am I so happy today? I am so happy that it is impossible for me to continue to write the story of my vocation [his autobiography]. From the moment when I gave to my sister Saint Therese of the Child Jesus the name of 'sister,' I have been overcome with such joy that it has been impossible to hold my pen firmly enough to write. This joy lasted all day, except after the siesta when I felt a slight headache that disappeared immediately." (November 1, All Saints Day, 1945)

Yes, that familiar blend of joy, siesta, and a slight headache! 

Marcel, thank you for being our dearest little brother! Thank you for being the second St. Therese and the second Apostle of Love! Give St. John, the first Apostle of Love, a kiss for us! Give another - a big, smacking kiss like she requested in letters to be given to others - to our sister St. Therese.

And what shall we ask you to give Jesus and Mary and good St. Joseph? Please pass along three choice kisses to them along with a tender caress for Mary, a smile and thank you to our father St. Joseph, and a sweet little slap for baby Jesus. Nothing painful, just a soft little slap on top of the swaddling clothes covering His truly human infant bottom. Then kiss each of His darling hands for us, each of His adorable fingertips, and reassure Him that we have learned our lesson from Therese and just for today we are trying to remember it: we know it is His darling hands that guide everything. 

But we didn't finish our quotation from the Song of Songs . . . and our favorite prayer from our sister Therese comes here, for she stole it - the little thief! - from the Bride:

Draw me; we will run!!!

Merry Christmas! And happy feast of Jesus' beloved disciple, St. John. May he share with us the secrets he learned leaning on Our Savior's Sacred Heart, and may all of Heaven remind us: 
​No more need to worry about anything, any more, ever!