#perejacquesdejesus — Public Fediverse posts

Quote of the day, 8 September: Père Jacques de Jésus

You may well imagine that [the Virgin Mary,] such an exceptional creature, should be full of grace in order to accomplish her sublime role, and rightly so. God always prepares the being to whom he would confide a great mission.

Each one of us has been and will remain chosen by God. He has given us a special mission to be the saviors of the world. Because we have this mission, we are chosen before others for his service of love and have received particular divine preparation. It is essential for us to realize this truth in order not to disappoint God by wasting his gift or by nullifying his special divine preparations.

Let us do as the Virgin Mary did. When the moment arrived, the angel came to reveal God’s plan, saying: “Do you wish to accept the role of mother of the savior of the world?” She replied: “Fiat” [let it be done]. She knew neither how this could take place nor how she would be able to reconcile it with her vow [of virginity]. Still, she surrendered herself to God’s will for her.

And what do we do? What have we done with God’s preparations in us? When something disconcerting happens to us, do we say “fiat” so that the divine plan may not be squandered or lessened in its efficacy?

We should be saints and allow the divine plan to be fulfilled to its utmost extent. Alas! Where do we stand?

Servant of God Père Jacques de Jésus, O.C.D.

Conference 5, “The Divine Preparation in Mary and in Us”
Retreat for the Carmel of Pontoise, 8 September 1943

Jacques, P 2005, Listen to the silence: a retreat with Père Jacques, Murphy, F (trans. & ed.), ICS Publications, Washington DC.

Featured image: This stained glass image depicting the birth of the Virgin Mary is a medieval window from the Burrell Collection in Glasgow. Image credit: Fr Lawrence Lew OP (Some rights reserved)

Quote of the day, 7 September: Père Jacques de Jésus

We cannot see Christ and remain as we are. We cannot exchange a look with Christ and not be overcome with a total conversion.

Christ is all in all. Through him, all is made; through him, all comes to us.

Therefore, we must see Christ. I stress this point: we must truly see Christ.

I sometimes think that we should define the term Christian as “someone who has seen Christ.” There are only a few genuine Christians because only a few souls have seen Christ.

Countless baptized persons, including even ordained priests and professed religious, remain lukewarm in spirit. Such tepid souls do not pulsate with life, nor are they enthusiastic enough to give their life for Christ. They have never seen Christ. Their knowledge of the Lord is verbal, not vital.

However, we must strive to love Christ passionately and prepare to see him face to face when we die. The soul that neither misses Christ now nor longs to see him at life’s end does not honestly love him. To make such a claim would be a lie.

When we love someone, we long to see that person, even at the risk of death. All the more so, given his limitless love, we want to long to see Christ, face to face.

Servant of God Père Jacques de Jésus

Conference 3, To See Christ
Retreat for the Carmel of Pontoise
Tuesday Morning, 7 September 1943

Jacques, P 2005, Listen to the silence: a retreat with Père Jacques, Murphy, F (trans. & ed.), ICS Publications, Washington DC.

Featured image: Photographer Jeffrey Bruno captures the face of a Vatican pilgrim at the election of Pope Francis, 13 March 2013. Image credit: Jeffrey Bruno / Flickr (Some rights reserved)

Quote of the day, 31 August: Père Jacques de Jésus

When our spiritual father Saint John of the Cross speaks of the “dark night of the soul,” he is describing the disappearance of the conscious sense of God’s presence from the soul, which must then rely solely on the dim light of faith. That soul is plunged into spiritual aridity, incapable of loving anything earthly. Such a soul can be satisfied only by the love of God, but that love seems to have vanished. Nothing can be seen. Nothing remains except faith, separation, and abandonment.

This is a terrible trial. However, this trial can bring renewed strength to the soul, as it waits for its Beloved once again to allow Himself to be seen. This singularly meritorious trial enables the soul to leap forward into the embrace of God and thus to live in intimacy with Christ.

How glorious is this intimacy with Christ! This intimacy yields an inexhaustible source of contemplation and a continuous unfolding of the great mystery of Christ’s Incarnation.

We see Christ in all stages of his human development. We see him being formed in the womb of his Mother. We see him as an infant or as a little boy. We see him as an adolescent in the midst of the teachers in the Temple or as an apprentice at work in Nazareth, earning his wages by the sweat of his brow. We see him as a grown man at the outset of his apostolic life or at its end, as he hangs upon the cross.

Therein, we find the roots of contemplation. Therein, we find a person just like us, as he walks and talks, as he eats and sleeps, as he grows tired and sits by the well, as he weeps and suffers. That person is God himself here with us.

Servant of God Père Jacques de Jésus

Conference 3, To See Christ
Retreat for the Carmel of Pontoise
Tuesday Morning, 7 September 1943

Jacques, P 2005, Listen to the silence: a retreat with Père Jacques, Murphy, F (trans. & ed.), ICS Publications, Washington DC.

Featured image: Antonio Baratti, after Giovanni Battista Piazzetta, S. Teresa, 1750–1780, etching and engraving. The British Museum, 1951,0714.260 (© The Trustees of the British Museum, CC BY-NC-SA 4.0).

Quote of the day, 2 June: Père Jacques de Jésus

Don’t forget to pray with the weight of your worries. Suffering is such a powerful prayer! Let your trial detach you from the earth, and, freed, rest in God without trouble or worry. Say over and over to God: “Fiat voluntas tua!”

Servant of God Père Jacques de Jésus

Letter to a friend, 29 September 1936

The Servant of God Jacques de Jésus, O.C.D., who was a professed friar of the Province of Paris-Avon, an ordained priest, and the headmaster of the Discalced Carmelite friars’ boys’ preparatory school at Avon, the Petit Collège Sainte-Thérèse de l’Enfant-Jésus, died on this date, 2 June 1945 in St. Elizabeth Hospital in Linz, Austria following 70 weeks in Nazi prison camps.

Père Jacques was weakened by a year of hard labor and harsh conditions at Mauthausen and Gusen concentration camps in Austria; when the Allied Forces liberated the camps on 5 May 1945, he summoned the strength to help restore order and organize relief efforts. But 15 days later the Allied camp commanders transferred him to St. Elizabeth Hospital so that he could be close to the community of the Discalced Carmelite friars at Linz. It was there that he succumbed to illness and exhaustion at 45 years of age.

The diocesan process of his cause of beatification was opened in 1990. The English-language website for his cause includes the Prayer for Beatification and the address where you can send reports of favors received.

The World Holocaust Remembrance Center Yad Vashem has a featured story dedicated to Père Jacques. It includes a description of his heroic acts to shelter Jewish students at the preparatory school, for which he was arrested. It also quotes the testimony of witnesses to his arrest and imprisonment and provides links to read full accounts of witnesses’ testimonies. On 17 January 1985 Yad Vashem recognized Père Jacques as Righteous Among the Nations. You can find an entire page devoted to Père Jacques (Lucien Bunel), which includes his featured story, testimonies, and photos.

Listen to the Silence – A Retreat with Père Jacques, is available for purchase from the publisher, ICS Publications.

Province de Paris des Carmes Déchaux (2024) ‘Carême 2024 – Semaine 5 : Apprendre l’obéissance’, Retraites spirituelles en ligne du Carmel, 13 March. Available at: https://retraites.carmes-paris.org/careme-2024/careme-2024-semaine-5-apprendre-lobeissance/ (Accessed: 31 May 2026).

Translation from the French text is the blogger’s own work product and may not be reproduced without permission.

Featured image: A student at the Petit Collège in Avon visits Père Jacques de Jésus in the headmaster’s office. Image credit: Discalced Carmelites (by kind permission).

Quote of the day, 19 May: Père Jacques

God is pure act, as the philosophers say; that is, he is the total realization of all possibility. We are not pure act; we have not realized all possibilities of being that are in us. Our being evolves as our heart intensifies its affections and perfects them. Our body grows and then declines. God himself is pure actuality, pure act. Nothing in him is in the state of possibility, passing from nonexistence to existence. All is infinite existence in him.

The human person, on the contrary, far from being this totality of realization, is a creature of infirmity and dependence. Remember what I was saying to you regarding creation? Nothing exists that cannot be annihilated instantly if the creative action ceases to operate. It is this way because we are not self-existent beings, as the words of Our Lord to Saint Catherine of Siena indicated: “You are she who is not.”

This is the foundation of our being. We are not; we have only a borrowed being, unceasingly renewed by God. The Virgin Mary shares this condition of creaturehood with us. By herself, she was not; she was totally dependent, as we are totally dependent.

Père Jacques of Jesus, o.c.d.

Virginity in God and in Mary
Retreat for the Carmel of Pontoise, Conference Six 
Wednesday evening, 8 September 1943

Jacques, P 2005, Listen to the silence: a retreat with Père Jacques, Murphy, F (trans. & ed.), ICS Publications, Washington DC.

Did Christ Have Hope?

During this week of retreat, Carmelite Quotes is sharing several reader favorites from the Substack archives. Today’s featured reflection:

🔗 Did Christ Have Hope?

Regular daily publications resume May 16.

Quote of the day, 5 May: Père Jacques

Let us be aware that God is here, present among us. Let us gaze upon him in and around us.

Let us likewise place ourselves in the presence of the Virgin Mary, our model of contemplation, who listened faithfully to God throughout her life. Let us ask her to teach us how to listen to God, to grasp his words, and to live them out.

Servant of God Jacques de Jésus

Conference 1, Solitude, the Essence of Carmel

Jacques, P 2005, Listen to the silence: a retreat with Père Jacques, Murphy, F (trans. & ed.), ICS Publications, Washington DC.

Featured image: Vittore Carpaccio (Italian, c. 1465–1525), The Virgin Reading, oil on panel transferred to canvas, c. 1505 (detail). It comes from the collections of the National Gallery of Art (public domain).

Quote of the day, 1 May: Père Jacques

Mary spent delightful months of divine friendship while she was carrying Jesus. But we too, my brothers, carry God within us; we too are certain to possess within us the living God, so long as our souls remain in a state of grace.

Oh! my brothers, if this mystery could appear before your eyes. If your gaze were one day to grasp the presence of God in the most intimate depth of your hearts, how your life would be changed—what a transformation in your whole being!

Let us, then, resolve to develop within ourselves the habit of thinking of the presence of God. We are God-bearers; the good God lives in us.

Oh! from time to time, in the course of our days, may our souls recollect themselves for a moment—just a few seconds perhaps. Let us close our eyes. Let us descend within ourselves. And there, encountering God—the good God—let us look upon Him with a gentle smile. Then, in a kind of holy “madness,” let us lose ourselves in Him in an affectionate embrace.

Oh yes, may each hour of our life bring us a greater intimacy with the divine Guest who rests in our souls. This will be our joy, our consolation; Mary will help us in this and will be our example.

Servant of God Père Jacques de Jésus

Sermon, Marian devotions, 1927

 Carmes de Paris. 2014 Carmelite Advent Online Retreat: “Devenir lumière dans la nuit.” Accessed April 29, 2026. https://retraites.carmes-paris.org/meditation-chretienne-en-ligne/avent-2014-avec-le-pere-jacques-de-jesus-devenir-lumiere-dans-la-nuit/

Featured image: Giovanni Battista Salvi da Sassoferrato (Italian, 1609–1685), The Virgin in Prayer (Madonna in preghiera), oil on canvas, c. 1640–1650. This work is held in the collections of the National Gallery, London. Image credit: Wikimedia Commons (public domain).

Quote of the day, 29 April: Père Jacques

God himself is pure actuality, pure act. Nothing in him is in the state of possibility, passing from nonexistence to existence. All is infinite existence in him.

The human person, on the contrary, far from being this totality of realization, is a creature of infirmity and dependence. Remember what I was saying to you regarding creation? Nothing exists that cannot be annihilated instantly, if the creative action ceases to operate.

It is this way, because we are not self-existent beings, as the words of Our Lord to Saint Catherine of Siena indicated: “You are she who is not.”

This is the foundation of our being. We are not; we have only a borrowed being, unceasingly renewed by God.

The Virgin Mary shares this condition of creaturehood with us. By herself, she was not; she was totally dependent, as we are totally dependent.

Servant of God Père Jacques de Jésus

Conference 6, Virginity in God and in Mary
Retreat for the Carmel of Pontoise
Wednesday evening, 8 September 1943 

Jacques, P 2005, Listen to the silence: a retreat with Père Jacques, Murphy, F (trans. & ed.), ICS Publications, Washington DC.

Featured image: This beautiful cope hood depicting the Immaculate Conception was embroidered in the 1850s by the Dominican Sisters of St Catherine of Siena, whose motherhouse is in Stone, Staffordshire. Image credit: Lawrence Lew, OP / Flickr (Some rights reserved).

Quote of the day, 3 April: Père Jacques

At no moment did Christ conceal any element of his Passion from his mother. There has to be an unfathomable mystery in this freely willed suffering for God to treat his mother in that way. Christ treated all the saints, without exception, in the same way. To the measure that he loved a soul, to that degree he saddled it with trials.

What else would you expect? Christ is not someplace other than on the cross, with his head torn open by the crown of thorns and his body pierced by the whips and nails of his executioners.

Yes, Christ is on the cross. Christ without the cross would be too bland; the cross without Christ would be too severe. If you truly wish to do nothing apart from Christ, then you must meet him and embrace him, where he is.

You are familiar, are you not, with the vision of Saint Francis, depicted in a remarkable painting. Saint Francis is portrayed embracing Christ on the cross. But Our Lord draws his own right arm from the cross in order to embrace his friend Francis.

When Christ embraces someone, that person’s head is touched by the Crown of Thorns on the Lord’s head, and the mark of the cross is left on him. When Christ grasps someone’s hand, the mark of blood is left on him, because the Lord’s mangled hand is covered with blood. To espouse Christ is to espouse the cross. To be his companions, we must faithfully follow him, as he carries the cross and as he hangs on the cross.

Servant of God Jacques de Jésus (Lucien Bunel)

Conference 10, “The Cross: To baptize suffering and happiness”
Retreat for the Carmel of Pontoise, Friday evening, 10 September 1943

Jacques, P 2005, Listen to the silence: a retreat with Père Jacques, Murphy, F (trans. & ed.), ICS Publications, Washington DC.

Featured image: Pietà or The Dead Christ Supported by the Virgin Mary and Saint John the Evangelist is a painting in tempera on panel, which dates to c. 1465–1470 by the Italian Renaissance artist Giovanni Bellini, now in the Pinacoteca di Brera in Milan. Image credit: Pinacoteca di Brera (Public domain).

Quote of the day, 28 March: Père Jacques

Let us examine Christ’s response to the problem of authority. Christ encountered the authority of his parents and of the rulers of the land where he lived. The legally appointed Roman rulers were Herod, the elder, who ruled during his childhood and Herod, the younger, who ruled during his maturity. Most importantly, he encountered the dominant authorities of his home country. Those authorities were the High Priests, Caiaphas, and his father-in-law, Annas, along with the Sanhedrin. That body was a type of senate, which governed the country in religious matters. The Sanhedrin actually administered the affairs of the country and shaped opinion, even in regard to private life. The Pharisees were a party that, as an emanation from the Sanhedrin, carried out its thought and directed all aspects of social life. […]

Although the other authorities are brutally harsh and unjust, Christ subjects himself to them. He never rebelled against the legitimate political authority of his country. When that authority persecutes him and tries to eliminate him, he flees into hiding. However, he does not try to destroy that authority, even though he is almighty. He remains subject to that authority. He responds similarly to the Pharisees, whose power is likewise legitimate. However, when they err doctrinally, he remains respectful but also proclaims the truth, which he has come to reestablish. In order to reassert the truth, he supports his words with miracles. He says: “I have been sent to preach. If you do not have faith in my words, put faith in my works. I raise the dead to life… Look at my works: are they the works of a man or of God?” [Cf. Lk 4:43, Mt 11:5, Jn 10:38].

Christ gives the Apostles this advice regarding the Pharisees: “Do what they say, but do not do what they do” [Mt 23:3]. Their decrees are legitimate and worthy of respect. Christ drives the merchants out of the temple because they are degrading that house of prayer. However, he does not drive out either the high priest or his assistants. Christ takes action against the abuse, but he leaves the authority in place. When he is brought before the High Priest, he simply says: “If I have spoken wrongly, testify to the wrong; but if I have spoken rightly, why do you strike me?” [Jn 18:23]. Before Caiaphas [sic], he is content simply to assert his divine mission and then state: “You would have no power over me if it had not been given to you from above” [Jn 19:11].

In matters concerning Roman rule, he declares: “Then repay to Caesar what belongs to Caesar and to God what belongs to God” [Mt 22:21]. Thus, we see that Christ was always subject to authority of every sort.

Servant of God Père Jacques de Jésus

Retreat Conference 9, Authority (excerpts)
Friday, 10 September 1943, Carmel of Pontoise

Jacques, P 2005, Listen to the silence: a retreat with Père Jacques, Murphy, F (trans. & ed.), ICS Publications, Washington DC.

Quote of the day, 3 February: Père Jacques de Jésus

Saints are energetic, valiant, and strong people who push past themselves to reach God but keep going. So understand two things: on the one hand, God wants you to be saints; on the other, you have no excuse for not being saints.

Servant of God Père Jacques de Jésus

Retreat for pre-theology students

Note: We recall that on this date in 1944, the three Jewish boys that Père Jacques sheltered in the Discalced Carmelite boarding school in Avon, France, were deported to Auschwitz. Jacques France Halpern, Maurice Schlosser, and Hans-Helmut Michel all perished there. Père Jacques, who was apprehended on the same date as his Jewish students, was deported to forced labor conditions in the granite quarries at Mauthausen-Gusen concentration camp in Austria. He died of tuberculosis four weeks after the camp was liberated by the Americans in May 1945.

https://twitter.com/yadvashem/status/1621509534639427585

Learn more about the students’ arrest on 15 January 1944

Prayer for the Beatification of Père Jacques de Jésus

#Auschwitz #deportation #Jews #PèreJacquesDeJésus #prayerForTheBeatification #students

Quote of the day, 18 January: Père Jacques de Jésus

Mr. Zamansky, who was a prisoner with Père Jacques at the Royallieu camp, gave the following account of the moment when Père Jacques knew that he was leaving in one of the convoys heading east:

“We saw them off. Père Jacques was among them, his face imbued with the same peace we knew him for, but he was serious in his look and his walk. Surrendering oneself to God can only be done without any ulterior motive, and above all, without any hope of choice. And I think that’s what Père Jacques was saying the last minute I saw him: ‘Fiat voluntas tua.’ ”

In an interview given at the Carmelite convent in Avon, Mr. Michel de Bouard recounts how he was with Père Jacques in the quarantine block at the Mauthausen camp, when he told Père Jacques that he’d made a vow if he got out of that hellhole alive. Père Jacques thought about it for a moment, then said:

“No, you mustn’t tempt God; he’s the one who decides. Say ‘Fiat voluntas tua’ [Thy will be done (cf. Mt 26:42)].”

Fr. Didier-Marie Golay, ocd

Lent 2024 Carmelite Online Retreat, Week 5

Servant of God Père Jacques de Jésus—Discalced Carmelite priest and headmaster of the Carmelite boys school in Avon, France—endeavored to live the truth of his message, living a life of silence, obedience, and charity.

During the Nazi occupation of France, he enrolled three Jewish boys under false names and employed a fourth boy as a worker at the school and monastery of the friars. With the aid of a local villager, he was able to shelter the father of one of the students. Furthermore, he hired a noted Jewish botanist as a faculty member at the boarding school.

On 15 January 1944 between 10:00 and 10:30 in the morning, the German officers came for Père Jacques and the three students he had been sheltering at the boarding school; in a separate Gestapo raid in Fontainebleau, the botanist, his mother, and his sister were arrested at their home.

Although Père Jacques was sent to different concentration camps, the students, their botany teacher, and his family were incarcerated in the Melun detention center in Paris on 15 January. On 18 January they were transferred to the Drancy transit camp in the northeastern suburb of Paris.

On 3 February 1944 the students, their teacher, and his family were deported to Auschwitz in a transport of roughly 1200 persons. Upon their arrival in Auschwitz on 6 February, 985 persons were sent directly to the gas chambers. The Carmelite students from Avon, their botany teacher, his mother, and his sister all perished that day.

Only the fourth boy survived because he was working in the monastery on 15 January when the Gestapo arrived.

Prayer for the Beatification of Père Jacques de Jésus

Translation from the French text is the blogger’s own work product and may not be reproduced without permission.

Featured image: Père Jacques and some of the boys he cared for through the years. Image credit: Discalced Carmelites (by permission).

#Jews #obedience #PèreJacquesDeJésus #ServantOfGod #willOfGod

Quote of the day, 6 September: Père Jacques

Carmel is a community of human beings who reveal God to other human beings. There should be a Carmel in every city, and then there would be no need of works. One would see God through these human beings who live for him and him alone.

A person does not withdraw to Carmel because of weariness, or to know tranquility, or to live a mediocre life, or to flee the cares of keeping a home and family, or to have a more comfortable existence.

One comes here because she is athirst for God, because she desires to find God and to reveal God to the whole world.

Servant of God Père Jacques de Jésus

Conference 1, Solitude, the Essence of Carmel
Monday morning, 6 September 1943

Jacques, P 2005, Listen to the silence: A retreat with Père Jacques, translated from the French and edited by Murphy F, ICS Publications, Washington DC.

Featured image: Mother María Capilla de Jesús, OCD, is seen walking down a hallway on the main floor of the Carmel of Valladolid. Image credit: Angel Cantero, Iglesia en Valladolid / Flickr (Some rights reserved)

#CarmeliteLife #GodAlone #mission #PèreJacquesDeJésus #vocations

Quote of the day, 6 August: Père Jacques de Jésus

A rarely cited phrase from Saint John’s Gospel sheds light on the heart of Christ. That phrase, “He would not trust himself to them…” [cf. Jn 2:24–25], explains the serene seriousness of his face. Saint John tells us that Christ does not place his trust in his followers, because he knows the secrets in their hearts.

Each time he tries to confide in them, the response is a silly lack of understanding. Do you recall the reaction of his closest companions at the time of the Agony in the Garden? They fell asleep!

Are we any different? Do you think that Christ can place his trust in us? Would he say something different if he lived in our midst? Or would it still be: “Non credebat eis” (“he would not trust himself to them”).

The serene silence of Jesus thus flows from the secret deep within him. Moreover, he likewise enjoys times of deep joy, but they are constantly accompanied by the dreadful image of Calvary and the disappointment derived from human sinfulness.

These feelings are always present together. Even at the peak of his Passion, the beatific vision perdures in the depths of his soul. Christ experiences ecstatic moments on Mount Tabor, but even during those moments in the company of Moses and Elijah, he conversed about his Passion for the redemption of sinners.

That serene silence is the hallmark of Christ.

Servant of God Père Jacques de Jésus

Conference 8: Silence
Thursday 9 September 1943
Retreat for the Discalced Carmelite nuns of Pontoise

Jacques, P 2005, Listen to the silence: A retreat with Père Jacques, translated from the French and edited by Murphy F, ICS Publications, Washington DC.

Featured image: Detail from Icon: The Transfiguration, tempera on panel, first quarter 16th century, Novgorod. From the Feasts Tier collection. Image credit: State Hermitage Museum, St. Petersburg (Public domain).

#PèreJacquesDeJésus #secretKnowledge #silence #spirituality #Transfiguration

Quote of the day, 3 June: Père Jacques de Jésus

I want to leave with you this profound prayer, to be recited time and again:

“O God, I wish to be just what I am for as long as you so will; I am aware of an evil strain deep within me. That strain spawns egotism, infidelity, and hostility, leading to moodiness, laziness, and self-indulgence. I wish to be fully what I am. For, I know that you are all-powerful and could change me in an instant. Yet, at the same time, you are infinitely loving and offer me whatever is for my best. I have total trust in you. You are all-powerful and you love me!”

Servant of God Père Jacques de Jésus (Lucien Bunel)

Retreat, Carmel of Pontoise, Conference 11  
Saturday morning, 11 September 1943 

Note: Weakened by forced labor and severe malnutrition, Père Jacques was transferred to St. Elizabeth Hospital in Linz just fifteen days after the liberation of Mauthausen-Gusen by Allied forces. The move allowed him to be near the local community of Discalced Carmelite friars. He died there, exhausted and gravely ill, on 2 June 1945 at the age of 45.

Jacques, P 2005, Listen to the silence: A retreat with Père Jacques, translated from the French and edited by Murphy F, ICS Publications, Washington DC.

Featured image: A student at the Petit Collège in Avon visits Père Jacques de Jésus in the headmaster’s office. Image credit: Discalced Carmelites, used by kind permission.

⬦ Reflection Question ⬦
Am I willing to accept myself as I am, while trusting God to transform what needs healing?
⬦ Join the conversation in the comments.

#abandonment #hope #LucienBunel #PèreJacquesDeJésus #sin #trust

Marie du jour, 20 May: Père Jacques

The Incarnation is likewise a work of love. The Holy Spirit knew the Virgin Mary in advance, for he taught her the rich lessons of prayer.

Consider Mary’s long hours immersed in prayer concerning her community and the drama of divine love for all humanity; concerning the fall of the human race and the mighty power of God. In those silent hours of prayer, the Holy Spirit inflamed Mary’s heart and swept her up into the bosom of the triune God. There, Mary was immersed in the ocean of God’s being.

Mary’s hours of prayer! Therein, God’s presence attains a new and unprecedented level.

God is going to ask Mary to allow her body to bring about his Incarnation. He is going to embody himself in a mysterious way in the offspring to be born of her pure blood, divinely preserved from every stain of sin. The Holy Spirit is the author of this wondrous work of love.

“The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you. Therefore, the child to be born will be called holy, the Son of God” [Luke 1:35].

Servant of God Père Jacques de Jésus

Retreat for the Carmel of Pontoise
Conference 12: The Holy Spirit, the Master of Prayer
Saturday evening, 11 September 1943

Jacques, P 2005, Listen to the silence: A retreat with Père Jacques, translated from the French and edited by Murphy F, ICS Publications, Washington DC.

Featured image: This detailed image of Mary at the Loom by William Henry Margetson (British, 1861–1940) comes from his oil on canvas painting that was executed in 1895. It is part of the collections at the Victoria Art Gallery in Bath, England. Image credit: Victoria Art Gallery / ArtUK (Public domain)

⬦ Reflection Question ⬦
What would it take for me to let prayer form me, instead of trying to shape everything myself?
⬦ Join the conversation in the comments.

#contemplation #HolySpirit #incarnation #inspiration #PèreJacquesDeJésus #prayer #VirginMary

Marie du jour, 19 May: Père Jacques

God himself is pure actuality, pure act. Nothing in him is in the state of possibility, passing from nonexistence to existence. All is infinite existence in him.

The human person, on the contrary, far from being this totality of realization, is a creature of infirmity and dependence. Remember what I was saying to you regarding creation? Nothing exists that cannot be annihilated instantly, if the creative action ceases to operate.

It is this way, because we are not self-existent beings, as the words of Our Lord to Saint Catherine of Siena indicated: “You are she who is not.”

This is the foundation of our being. We are not; we have only a borrowed being, unceasingly renewed by God.

The Virgin Mary shares this condition of creaturehood with us. By herself, she was not; she was totally dependent, as we are totally dependent.

Servant of God Père Jacques de Jésus

Conference 6, Virginity in God and in Mary
Retreat for the Carmel of Pontoise
Wednesday evening, 8 September 1943 

Jacques, P 2005, Listen to the silence: A retreat with Père Jacques, translated from the French and edited by Murphy F, ICS Publications, Washington DC.

⬦ Reflection Question ⬦
How can I imitate Mary’s dependence on God rather than seeking to rely on myself?
⬦ Join the conversation in the comments.

#creation #creature #dependence #existence #PèreJacquesDeJésus #VirginMary

Marie du jour, 9 May: Père Jacques

Consider those closest to Christ. Saint John the Apostle grasped what was indispensable for a clear understanding of his master.

John never tired of probing and querying Christ. We can see how John thus gained richer insights and fuller explanations, precisely because he went to the bother of approaching and asking Christ to clarify each day’s lesson.

I picture John walking close behind Christ as he made his way about the Holy Land.

Thus, John came to gain a wealth of intimate knowledge, which the other apostles did not acquire. Herein lies the explanation for the special character of the fourth Gospel.

While the other apostles traveled across the then-known world on their missionary journeys, John’s unique apostolate was to remain close to the Virgin Mary, whom Christ had entrusted to him. Thus were these two great souls conjoined in love and prayer.

Servant of God Père Jacques de Jésus

Conference 2, Christ, the Object of our Prayer
Monday 6 September 1943

Jacques, P 2005, Listen to the silence: A retreat with Père Jacques, translated from the French and edited by Murphy F, ICS Publications, Washington DC.

⬦ Reflection Question ⬦
How might I deepen my intimacy with Christ by remaining close to the Virgin Mary?
⬦ Join the conversation in the comments.

#BlessedVirginMary #Christ #discipleship #love #PèreJacquesDeJésus #prayer #ServantOfGod #StJohnTheApostle

Marie du jour, 5 May: Père Jacques

Let us likewise place ourselves in the presence of the Virgin Mary, our model of contemplation, who listened faithfully to God throughout her life. Let us ask her to teach us how to listen to God, to grasp his words, and to live them out.

Servant of God Père Jacques de Jésus

Retreat for the Carmel of Pontoise, Conference One 
Monday morning, 6 September 1943

Jacques, P 2005, Listen to the silence: A retreat with Père Jacques, translated from the French and edited by Murphy F, ICS Publications, Washington DC.

⬦ Reflection Question ⬦
How can I listen more faithfully to God in the quiet moments of my day?
⬦ Join the conversation in the comments.

#contemplation #faithfulness #God #listening #PèreJacquesDeJésus #prayer #presence #ServantOfGod #VirginMary

Marie du jour, 1 May: Père Jacques

God is eternal silence; God dwells in silence.

He is eternal silence because he is the One who has totally realized his own being because he says all and possesses all. He is infinite happiness and infinite life.

All God’s works are marked by this characteristic. Contemplate the Incarnation; it was accomplished in the silence of the Virgin Mary’s chamber at a time when she was in prolonged silence, her door closed.

Our Lord’s birth came during the night, while all things were enveloped in silence. That is how the Word of God appeared on earth, and only Mary and Joseph were silently with him. They did not overwhelm him with their questions, for they were accustomed to guarding their innermost thoughts.

Servant of God Père Jacques of Jesus

Retreat for the Carmel of Pontoise, Conference Eight 
Thursday evening, 9 September 1943

Jacques, P 2005, Listen to the silence: A retreat with Père Jacques, translated from the French and edited by Murphy F, ICS Publications, Washington DC.

 Featured image: Adoration of the Shepherds, unknown French active in Rome, ca. 1660. Pinacoteca Stuard, Parma. Image credit: mazanto / Flickr (Some rights reserved)

⬦ Reflection Question ⬦
What habits of interior silence might help me become more receptive to God’s presence?
⬦ Join the conversation in the comments.

#IncarnationOfChrist #MarieDuJour #nativity #PèreJacquesDeJésus #prayer #ServantOfGod #silence #StJoseph

Quote of the day, 20 April: Père Jacques

Père Jacques de Jésus experienced and witnessed the power of the Resurrection in the concentration camps. One of his companions, Roger Heim, writes in his testimony:

“The last vision of Gusen, of this court of appeal where so many men had perished, is for me inseparable from the memory of the man, the priest who, once again, dominated all the disasters in this multitude and who, in the end, gave us victory, that of Man over the system born of matter and base instincts. The great victor was the one who had passed through these trials as the salamander is said to pass through fire. On 28 April 1945, Père Jacques was resplendent in his victory.”

In March 1945, Père Jacques, in a small note, distilled the message of faith and hope he wanted to leave his companions:

Per Crucem ad lucem !… Through the Cross toward the Light!…

Sine sanguinis non fit redemptio!… Without the blood, there is no redemption!…

Qui facit veritatem venit ad lucem. He who does the truth comes to the light.

In this way, he left his friends a sign of friendship and hope in a place where death lurked around the corner. These words spring from his priestly heart, filled with the Word of God. They represent the maturing of a whole life. “Per Crucem ad lucem! Through the cross toward the light.”

The first sentence evokes the Paschal Mystery, the Mystery of Death and Resurrection, with Life getting the last word. With these four words, he proclaims the faith of the Church. The Cross is not a goal but the path that leads to the light of the Resurrection.

Death and Resurrection are the two inseparable faces of a single reality: that of the Paschal Mystery of Christ Jesus. For a Christian, the Cross is always illuminated by the light of Easter, but this light is only fully discovered by passing through the Cross, the only path to Life.

These are just four words but what power of hope they delivered in this place of unspeakable horror and programmed death. What a proclamation of faith in the victory of Christ!

Father Didier-Marie Golay, o.c.d.

2024 Carmelite Online Lenten Retreat: Easter

Note: On 28 April 1945, just days before the liberation of Mauthausen, Père Jacques de Jésus, OCD (Lucien Bunel), was seen by fellow deportees in what one eyewitness later described as “resplendent in victory.” Gravely ill with pneumonia and extreme malnutrition, he remained behind in the Sanitätslager, the section of the camp where the sick and dying were left in horrific conditions. Whether by choice or because he was too ill to be moved, Père Jacques stayed—a quiet and luminous presence of faith, hope, and love amid despair. Survivors recognized in him the triumph of the Paschal Mystery: the victory of Christ’s light through the Cross, shining in the life of a priest who had given himself entirely to others.

Jacques, P 2005, Listen to the silence: A retreat with Père Jacques, translated from the French and edited by Murphy F, ICS Publications, Washington DC.

Choumoff, P S, Un travail de très longue haleine, Monument-Mauthausen, https://monument-mauthausen.org/Un-travail-de-tres-longue-haleine.html, accessed 17 April 2025.

Translation from the French text is the blogger’s own work product and may not be reproduced without permission.

Featured image: A radiant cross shrouded in red light glows with a sunburst halo, evoking the glory of the Resurrection. Image credit: Oksana / Adobe Stock. Asset ID# 1124491169. Licensed under Adobe Stock standard terms. Generated with AI.

⬦ Reflection Question ⬦
What does it mean for me to walk per Crucem ad lucem—through the Cross toward the Light—in the places where hope seems most absent?
⬦ Join the conversation in the comments.

#BloodOfChrist #CrossOfChrist #Easter #light #Mauthausen #PèreJacquesDeJésus #redemption #resurrection #truth

Quote of the day, 12 April: Père Jacques

Jesus therefore no longer walked about openly among the Jews, but went from there to a town called Ephraim in the region near the wilderness; and he remained there with the disciples.

John 11:54

I would like to join with you in observing Christ at prayer. On occasion, his apostles observed Christ at prayer, perhaps at sunset or after the last of the sick and the curious headed home.

Then, when the weary apostles searched for lodgings and longed for rest at the end of the day, Christ sought solitude, usually on the top of a hill, looking out toward the distant horizon. There he remained for some time, absorbed in prayer. What was his prayer like? […]

How boundless and constant is Christ’s prayer! Throughout his life, Christ beholds God, as we will do in heaven. Yet, that vision does not prevent Christ from acting in accordance with his human nature. He develops his faculties and learns to say “Daddy” and “Mama” at the same pace as other children. He works with his hands and earns his livelihood by the sweat of his brow.

Later on, he watches out for his family and his apostles, making sure that they have food to eat. He fulfills all his daily duties. However, these practical tasks never impinge upon his profound prayer. Whether he is planing planks at work or going to school or doing errands for his mother, he is uninterruptedly engaged in deep prayer.

Those who maintain that basic duties, social service, physical labor, or intellectual activity can interrupt prayer are mistaken. Recall the episode in the life of Saint Thérèse of the Child Jesus, when she was in her room sewing. One of the novices came along unexpectedly and was struck by the radiant beauty of her face.

The novice asked: “What are you pondering, Sister?”

Saint Thérèse replied unassumingly: “I was just meditating on the Pater Noster and reflecting on how beautiful it is to say ‘Our Father’ when speaking to God.”

Her hands were at work, but her heart was at prayer. Bear in mind, her state of prayer was the same, even in the laundry.

No work can interrupt prayer.

The Servant of God Père Jacques de Jésus, O.C.D.

Retreat conference 4: Christ at Prayer
Tuesday evening, 7 September 1943
Carmel of Pontoise, France

Jacques, P 2005, Listen to the silence: A retreat with Père Jacques, translated from the French and edited by Murphy F, ICS Publications, Washington DC.

⬦ Reflection Question ⬦
How might you carry prayer into the ordinary tasks of your day today—uninterrupted?
⬦ Join the conversation in the comments.

#incarnation #inspiration #JesusChrist #PèreJacquesDeJésus #prayer #sacredHumanity #StThérèseOfLisieux

Quote of the day, 4 April: Père Jacques de Jésus

There are two ways of dealing with suffering. The first way is to eliminate its causes by taking every precaution against it. When it does come, we try to whisk it away or suppress it by all the means at our disposal. However, there is a second way to deal with suffering: we can “baptize” it.

There is not a single human being who does not experience suffering in one form or another. Sooner or later, even those who now seem to go through life singing, with the assurance of health and strength, are going to have their share of bitterness, grief, and sadness.

To be sure, most people want to destroy misery. They want to eliminate it by avoiding it, strangling it, brushing it aside, or dismissing it. They do not want to tolerate it…. Christ knew that this way of dealing with suffering is simply a kind of stopgap measure, and does not strike the root of the evil. It can work for only a few hours or days or months.  

Christ has taught us to overtake suffering at its source. There, where it springs up, we can seize and transform it; there, we can change its nature and make it a source of happiness. Since Christ chose suffering for himself, suffering is not a curse or a plague to be avoided at any price. Christ welcomed the cross and even said, He who wishes to come after me must take up his cross every day and follow in my footsteps (Mt 16:24).

Servant of God Père Jacques de Jésus, O.C.D.

Conference 10, “The Cross: To baptize suffering and happiness”
Friday evening, 10 September 1943

Note: Father Didier-Marie Golay, o.c.d. comments on this passage from Père Jacques: “Let’s be clear: in the face of suffering, silence is essential. Only those who suffer can try to make sense of what they are going through, no matter how poor or modest that attempt may be. But we must dare to speak up, to give meaning to what seems senseless. Let’s take the time to welcome these words full of fire, to read and reread them so that they may open within us a path of life and true happiness in union with Christ Jesus, crucified and risen” (2024 Carmelite Online Lenten Retreat).

Jacques, P 2005, Listen to the silence: A retreat with Père Jacques, translated from the French and edited by Murphy F, ICS Publications, Washington DC.

Featured image: Photograph by Jaclyn Moy. A man in a gray washed denim jacket sits, visibly anxious, in a Los Angeles coffee shop. Image credit: Jaclyn Moy / Unsplash (Some rights reserved)

💠 Appreciate these quotes from the Carmelites?
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💠 Reflection question:
What would it mean to ‘baptize’ your suffering in union with Christ?
Share your thoughts in the comments.

#JesusChrist #LucienBunel #misery #PèreJacquesDeJésus #spirituality #suffering #theology #transformation

Quote of the day, 17 January: Père Jacques

And the Incarnate Word humbles himself by bending beneath God’s eternal desires. He becomes obedient.

Oh, world, stop and look! You are but ashes and dust, you are only a being of one day, and you dare to cry out in your excessive pride, ‘Neither God nor Master!’

See this man, Jesus of Nazareth, he is a visible man, but he is the invisible God, his human nature subsists, borne by a divine personality, he is the Son of God, he is the one who created you, and nothing that was made was made without him—and behold this all-powerful being, this God-man annihilates himself before his Father, lets himself be insulted, lets himself be mocked, lets himself be crucified, and all out of obedience. Christus factus est obediens usque ad mortem, mortem autem crucis (Christ became obedient unto death, and death on the cross, Phil 2:8)….

Ah, world, will you still say that obedience degrades and diminishes you, when Christ has sanctified this admirable virtue to such an extent? Will you be afraid to follow such a Master?

Servant of God Père Jacques de Jésus

Homily, Triduum of Perpetual Adoration
16 November 1928

Note: On 17 January 1985, the Israeli Holocaust museum Yad Vashem recognized Père Jacques de Jésus, under his baptismal name Lucien Bunel, as Righteous Among the Nations. You can learn more about the Servant of God from the official website dedicated to his cause; you can also pray for his beatification.

As the years pass and more Holocaust survivors die, it is important to remember that the mass extermination of Jews by the Germans is not fiction. It is not a myth. Carmelites such as Titus Brandsma, Edith Stein, Georg Häfner, and Père Jacques were all victims of Hitler’s “final solution.” Learn more of the facts about the Holocaust.

Translation from the French text is the blogger’s own work product and may not be reproduced without permission.

Featured image: From 1934 until his arrest in January 1944, Père Jacques de Jésus, OCD was the headmaster of the Petit Collège Sainte Thérèse de l’Enfant-Jésus, the Carmelite boarding school in Avon, France. Père Jacques is seen here at his desk, speaking with one of the students. Image credit: Discalced Carmelites

#IncarnateWord #JesusChrist #LucienBunel #obedience #PèreJacquesDeJésus #RighteousAmongTheNations #ServantOfGod #spirituality #YadVashem

Quote of the day, 15 January: Père Jacques

In contemplating the life of Christ Jesus, Père Jacques sees him fulfilling the Father’s will. Often, he would quote the Gethsemane story: “Fiat voluntas tuas” (“Thy will be done,” Lk 22:42).

On 29 September 1936, he wrote to a friend:

“Don’t forget to pray with the weight of your worries. Suffering is such a powerful prayer! Let your trial detach you from the earth, and, freed, rest in God without trouble or worry. Say over and over to God: Fiat voluntas tua!”

He knew the cost of saying Fiat. In 1929, when he wished to enter Carmel, his bishop wrote to Rome and he was prevented from doing so. He confided in the prioress of the Carmel of Le Havre:

“For two days I struggled against a thousand feelings of sadness, despondency, discouragement and, above all, revolt. No matter how much my will repeated a sincere Fiat to the Good Lord, all sensitivity and pride shook and put wicked thoughts into my mind.”

With the breath of the Holy Spirit, Père Jacques would have the fortitude to repeat this Fiat in the deportation camps and to help his fellow prisoners say it. Several testimonies bear witness to this.

Mr. Zamansky, who was a prisoner with Père Jacques at the Royallieu camp, gave the following account of the moment when Père Jacques knew that he was leaving in one of the convoys heading east:

“We saw them off. Père Jacques was among them, his face imbued with the same peace we knew him for, but he was serious in his look and his walk. Surrendering oneself to God can only be done without any ulterior motive, and above all, without any hope of choice. And I think that’s what Père Jacques was saying the last minute I saw him: ‘Fiat voluntas tua.’ ”

In an interview given at the Carmelite convent in Avon, Mr. Michel de Bouard recounts how he was with Père Jacques in the quarantine block at the Mauthausen camp, when he told Père Jacques that he’d made a vow if he got out of that hellhole alive. Père Jacques thought about it for a moment, then said:

“No, you mustn’t tempt God; he’s the one who decides. Say ‘Fiat voluntas tua’ [Thy will be done (cf. Mt 26:42)].”

Mr. de Bouard continued:

“I’ve been thinking about it, and I’ve realized that the true thought of faith, the deepest, the highest thought, is to say ‘Thy will be done’. Saying Fiat voluntas tua as we often did in the morning, on the roll-call square, in the smoke of the crematorium, was hard to say without reluctance. By giving me this instruction, Père Jacques, once again, showed me where the ridgeline was, where I had to try to place myself.”

Père Jacques didn’t just preach this abandonment to Divine Providence, he lived it to the end in his own flesh.

During the retreat that he preached at the Carmel of Pontoise, in a conference entitled: “Hope and abandonment,” he quoted from the Book of Job and concluded as follows:

“’Though he kill me, yet I will hope in him!’ [Job 13:15]. Here is a soul who knows what it is to hope—who knows what it is to trust in God—to say to God: ‘Our Father, Thy will be done!’”

Didier-Marie Golay, o.c.d.

Through the Cross Toward the Light
2024 Advent Online Retreat, Week 5

Prayer for the Beatification
of Père Jacques de Jésus

Learn more about Père Jacques

Translation from the French text is the blogger’s own work product and may not be reproduced without permission.

Featured image: Père Jacques with students from the Discalced Carmelite boarding school in Avon, France, Le Petit Collège Sainte Thérèse de l’Enfant Jésus. Père Jacques served as headmaster from 1934 until his arrest. Image credit: Discalced Carmelites

#concentrationCamp #faith #fiat #Mauthausen #PèreJacquesDeJésus #politicalPrisoner #prayer #ServantOfGod #suffering #trust #willOfGod

Quote of the day, 21 December: Père Jacques

The Virgin Mary, especially in the mystery of her visitation to her cousin Elizabeth, is the model for baptized Christians who carry the presence of Christ within them. Mary opens for us the paths of interiority and mission, as [the Servant of God] Père Jacques expressed in this sermon from May 1927, delivered to the faithful during the month of Mary:

“Mary spent delightful months of divine friendship as she carried Jesus. But we too, my friends, carry God within us. We can be certain that we possess the Good God living within us, as long as our souls remain in grace. (…) Oh, my friends, if this mystery could be revealed to your eyes! If your gaze could one day perceive the presence of the Good God in the very depths of your hearts, how your life would change, what a transformation in your entire being! Let us therefore resolve to cultivate the habit of thinking about the presence of God within us. We are bearers of God; the Good God lives in us. Oh, let our souls, from time to time during our days, gather in recollection for a moment—perhaps only a few seconds—to close our eyes, to descend within ourselves, and there, encountering God, the Good God, let us look upon Him with a kind smile and lose ourselves in Him in an affectionate embrace. Oh yes, may each hour of our lives bring us into greater intimacy with the divine guest who dwells within our souls. This will be our joy, our consolation. Mary will help us and will be our example.”

This awareness, so deeply rooted in Père Jacques’ heart, that every faithful baptized person carries Christ within, was present even during his seminary years, before he delved deeply into the teachings of the saints of Carmel. He wrote:

“One always and everywhere carries the Good God within, the Holy Trinity, who dwells in us through grace… Ah, yes, to live thus, within oneself, with the Good God everywhere, always—at the hotel, on the train, on the road, in the countryside, on the street!” (Letter, 14 January 1924).

Jean-Alexandre de Garidel, o.c.d.

Meditation for the Fourth Sunday of Advent (excerpt)
Carmelite Online Advent Retreat, 21 December 2014

Translation from the French text is the blogger’s own work product and may not be reproduced without permission.

Featured image: The Visitation was designed by Raphael (Italian, 1483–1520), who charged 300 scudi. He delegated the execution (c. 1517) of the painting to his assistant Giulio Romano; the landscape was entrusted to Giovanni Francesco Penni. The painting was commissioned by Giovanni Branconio, apostolic protonotary, on behalf of his father, Marino Branconio, for the family chapel in the church of San Silvestro in Aquila. In Marino’s choice of subject, the name of his wife Isabella, and that of his son Giovanni, must have been decisive. It was acquired in 1655 by Philip IV (1605-1665), who deposited it in the Monastery of El Escorial. It entered the Prado Museum in 1837. Image credit: Copyright ©Museo Nacional del Prado (Used by permission)

#grace #HolyTrinity #indwelling #intimacy #PèreJacquesDeJésus #prayer #presenceOfGod #VirginMary #Visitation

Quote of the day, 5 December: Père Jacques

We have also seen God’s remarkable preparation of the Virgin Mary for her role as Mother of the Word made flesh. God exempted her from original sin and its consequences.

She is pure creature; God is pure deity, totally independent. For the Virgin Mary, her virginity lies in being a pure creature of God, namely, a creature living in that total dependence on the will of God.

Indeed, when we examine the Virgin Mary’s life, when we gather the conclusions of the Fathers of the Church who dwelt on this Marian mystery, and when we study the works of theologians, we find that she was absolutely obedient to the will of God, even to the least indications of that will.

Servant of God Jacques de Jésus

Conference 6, Virginity in God and in Mary
Wednesday Evening, 8 September 1943

Jacques, P 2005, Listen to the silence: A retreat with Père Jacques, translated from the French and edited by Murphy F, ICS Publications, Washington DC.

Featured Image: This detail from The Annunciation by the Italian artist Orazio Lomi Gentileschi (1563–1639) is an oil on canvas painting executed in 1623 for Charles Emmanuel I, the Duke of Savoy. It is one of the masterpieces found in the collections of the Musei Reali di Torino. Image credit: Adobe Stock (stock photo)

#ImmaculateConception #MotherOfChrist #obedience #PèreJacquesDeJésus #ServantOfGod #VirginMary #virginity #willOfGod

Christ possessed the beatific vision precisely because no human “I” separated him from God. Thus Christ directly beheld God’s very being, as seen in heaven. Christ lived and moved about, bearing heaven within himself.

Conversely, the Blessed Virgin Mary did have a human “I.” As a totally human creature, she was a human person. As such, she would say, “I wish, I love or I do,” on the basis of her human personhood, which informed all her human actions.

However, the Virgin Mary was so closely conformed to God’s will, that her human “I” dissolved and became bathed in the divine will. Thus, both Christ and Mary attained the pinnacle of prayer.

Such prayer is the goal of the entire teaching of Saint John of the Cross. It is the “Living Flame of Love,” which blazes at the summit of the road and crowns the conclusion of the canticle. It is Mount Carmel itself. That flame burns with infinite intensity in Christ and with brilliant brightness in the Virgin Mary.

Like all others who have come to Carmel, we have come with that same goal in mind. “A[d] quid venisti?” (“Why have you come here?”). In response to the question: what is our life’s work, we have said: to be persons of prayer.

If we are not persons of prayer, our lives are meaningless. Even God can do nothing with us, if we are not persons of prayer. In the words of the Gospel: “You are the salt of the earth. But, if salt loses its taste, with what can it be seasoned? It is no longer good for anything, but to be thrown out and trampled underfoot” [Mt 5:13].

In both the Church on earth and the Kingdom of Heaven, we are useless, unless we are persons of prayer. We live our life only once, not twice. Therefore, each day, which slips slowly through our fingers, hour by hour, is irretrievable. A life misspent is lost forever. Our life is a failure, if it is not a life of contemplation, love, and prayer.

Servant of God Père Jacques de Jésus

Conference 7, “Our Three Vows: Total Death”
Retreat for the Carmel of Pontoise
Thursday morning, 9 September 1943

Jacques, P 2005, Listen to the silence: A retreat with Père Jacques, translated from the French and edited by Murphy F, ICS Publications, Washington DC.

Featured image: A moment of contemplation on the beach at La Rochelle (Charentes-Maritime) France. Photo credit: nicolas_oddo / Flickr (Some rights reserved)

https://carmelitequotes.blog/2024/09/08/jdj-conf7/

#BlessedVirginMary #contemplation #JesusChrist #livingFlameOfLove #love #MountCarmel #PèreJacquesDeJésus #prayer #ServantOfGod #StJohnOfTheCross

Have you ever wondered what Christ’s prayer was like? Upon explanation, we realize that his prayer consisted essentially in the penetration of his very being by God.

Consider the experience of Saint John of the Cross. His life was brief because his great love prepared him for an early death. Near the end of his life, he tells us how at Beas, he could not hear the name of God uttered without entering into ecstasy. His body lost its weight and rose toward heaven. It was as if he were caught up and carried off by the movement of his soul in its eagerness to head off to God. The Lord truly dwelled within him.

I vividly remember a priest in Le Havre. Whenever I would go very early in the morning to offer Mass at his church, he was already there, deep in prayer. I was struck by the fact that, when I approached him, he seemed to take a break from his conversation with God. It was as if he were saying: “please, excuse me, Lord. I have to help someone. I’ll be back as soon as possible.” That priest gave the impression of being fully absorbed in the presence of God. Our prayer should reach that level of intensity and development.

Prayer should be our steady supernatural method of breathing, day and night, in the silence of our souls. Our prayer should grow more intense at certain times and those times should increase in both frequency and duration. Eventually, even daily duties… will be subsumed into prayer and nothing will be able to disrupt its focus.

Servant of God Père Jacques de Jésus

Retreat to the Carmel of Pontoise
Conference 4, Christ at Prayer (excerpt)
7 September 1943

Jacques, P 2005, Listen to the silence: A retreat with Père Jacques, translated from the French and edited by Murphy F, ICS Publications, Washington DC.

Featured image: Christ is seen praying alone on the mountaintop at night in this image generated by Adobe Firefly 3 in Adobe Express. Image credit: Carmelite Quotes (AI artwork)

https://carmelitequotes.blog/2024/09/06/jacques-7sep43prayer/

#inspiration #LucienBunel #PèreJacquesDeJésus #prayer #silence #spiritualDirection #spirituality #StJohnOfTheCross

Silence was a hallmark of Père Jacques’ life, so deeply devoted to Our Lady. One of his fellow prisoners in the concentration camp testified to his contemplative spirit:

I can still see Père Jacques kneeling on the floor of that poor barrack, without a kneeler, without any support—his whole soul concentrated and united with God. This vision of Père Jacques alone was a great comfort to me. I see his eyes fixed on the altar, his eyes where a gentle flame shone, like the flame in a shrine.

Now, let’s hear Père Jacques’ inspiring words.

God is eternal silence; God dwells in silence. He is eternal silence because he is the One who has totally realized his own being because he says all and possesses all. He is infinite happiness and infinite life. All God’s works are marked by this characteristic. Contemplate the Incarnation; it was accomplished in the silence of the Virgin Mary’s chamber at a time when she was in prolonged silence, her door closed. Our Lord’s birth came during the night, while all things were enveloped in silence. That is how the Word of God appeared on earth, and only Mary and Joseph were silently with him. They did not overwhelm him with their questions, for they were accustomed to guarding their innermost thoughts.

Don’t forget to subscribe to the Carmelite Quotes podcast for more inspiring quotes and reflections. We’re available on Spotify and will be appearing soon on other platforms.

Jacques, P 2005, Listen to the silence: A retreat with Père Jacques, translated from the French and edited by Murphy F, ICS Publications, Washington DC.

Featured image: Mary at the Loom is an oil on canvas painting executed in 1895 by British artist William Henry Margetson (1861–1940). It comes from the collections of Victoria Art Gallery in Bath, England. Image credit: Victoria Art Gallery / ArtUK (Public domain)

https://carmelitequotes.blog/2024/05/01/mdj2024-ep001/

#God #incarnation #JesusChrist #nativity #night #PèreJacquesDeJésus #ServantOfGod #silence #StJoseph #VirginMary

On February 3, 1944, the young Jewish students who were sheltered by Père Jacques de Jésus in the Carmelite boarding school in Avon, France were deported to Auschwitz.

Said Père Jacques: "If, perchance, I should be killed, would I not thereby bequeath to my students an example worth far more than all the teaching I could give?"

#neveragain #neverforget #catholic #carmelite #quotes #PereJacquesDeJesus

Père Jacques de Jésus lived what he preached. On 15 January 1944, he was arrested with 3 Jewish students who he sheltered in France. On 18 January, those he sheltered were sent to Drancy Transit Camp on their way to Auschwitz.

Learn more:
http://carmelitequotes.blog/2023/01/17/jacques-18jan44/

#pèrejacquesdejésus #charity #agape #love #jews #deportation #drancy #onthisdate #catholic #carmelite #quotes

Père Jacques de Jésus reflections on the #Annunciation “When the angel Gabriel came to ask Mary's consent to the unique honor & extravagant joy of being the Mother of God, the Lord did not issue an order.”

Read his reflection👇🏾
💜 https://carmelitequotes.blog

📸 Metropolitan Museum of Art, NY
#Catholic #Carmelite #quotes #VirginMary #angel #Gabriel #honor #joy #MotherOfGod #PereJacquesDeJesus #AuRevoirLesEnfants #ServantOfGod #inspiration #spirituality #theology