#selfgiving — Public Fediverse posts

Quote of the day, 28 April: Blessed Chiquitunga

I offer you everything… we offer to you, Jesus! Help me to give due thanks to my heavenly Father, and so increase, Jesus, my fervor, my union with you in the Holy Sacrifice; and let it truly increase in me day by day through prayer and sacrifice, until I die, but die of love!

Blessed Maria Felicia of Jesus in the Blessed Sacrament, “Chiquitunga”

Our Chiqui, beatified only a few years ago in Paraguay in a beautiful celebration in the stadium of Asunción before thousands of people, is a very timely example of that “holiness next door” of which Pope Francis speaks in Gaudete et exsultate (Rejoice and Be Glad), the apostolic exhortation on the universal call to holiness. Her life reminds us that the holiness of a consecrated woman can speak to the heart of all, even the laity.

Chiquitunga was a laywoman who immersed herself in the streets of her native Villarrica and Asunción, to the point of being called callejera (a woman constantly out among the people): a Catholic activist, a teacher, and a worker of charity, passionately in love first with her fiancé and then, later, with her cloistered consecration, lived as the fulfillment of all that had gone before.

How she succeeded in this adventure is her mystery, her wisdom—the originality of her message, which is found in her Carmelite religious name: of Jesus in the Blessed Sacrament. That is, the total offering of self in the Eucharist—another path to holiness that Pope Francis has indicated for the modern world in his motu proprio Maiorem hac dilectionem (Greater Love Than This), a path she embraced to the full.

We need the freshness of Chiquitunga to walk the path of faith with boldness and without fear, with a passionate and vigilant heart that allows itself to be won over, integrating the human and the divine in a covenant of creative and healing friendship.

I ask Chiquitunga to infect us with her passion, totally in love with Jesus—the true key to setting the world ablaze as the first disciples did, transmitting through life and word this incarnate and Eucharistic Love, and welcoming all into this communion.

Let Chiquitunga herself grant you the gift of awakening to this passion.

Father Miguel Márquez Calle, o.c.d.

Tutto ti offro, Signore, Preface

Barco, JF 2025, Tutto ti offro, Signore: vita di María Felicia di Gesù Sacramentato (Chiquitunga), Edizioni OCD, Rome.

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

Featured image: Blessed Maria Felicia of the Blessed Sacrament—Chiquitunga—on the day of her clothing in the Carmelite habit, 14 August 1955. Image credit: Discalced Carmelites (Used by permission).

Novena to Our Lady of Mount Carmel 2025: Day 4

Day 4
A Meek and Humble Heart

Scripture Reading
Luke 8:19–21

Then his mother and his brothers came to him, but they could not reach him because of the crowd. And he was told, “Your mother and your brothers are standing outside, wanting to see you.” But he said to them, “My mother and my brothers are those who hear the word of God and do it.”

Pray with St. Edith Stein
ESGA 20, “Sub tutela Matris”

O Mary…
Give me a meek and humble heart
that loves without expecting anything in return;
that joyfully makes space in another’s heart
for your Son.

What About My Own Life?

God’s folly is wiser than human wisdom (1 Cor 1:25): to gain your life, you must dare to lose it… Today, I can choose to freely give of myself—my time, my love, my effort—for those who have been given to me as brothers and sisters…

NOVENA PRAYER

O Most beautiful Flower of Mount Carmel,
Fruitful Vine, Splendor of heaven,
Blessed Mother of the Son of God,
Immaculate Virgin, assist me in this my necessity.
O Star of the Sea, help me
and show me herein that you are my Mother.

O Holy Mary, Mother of God, Queen of heaven and earth,
I humbly beseech you from the bottom of my heart
to succor me in this necessity.
There are none that can withstand your power!
O help me and show me herein that you are my Mother.

Our Lady, Queen and Beauty of Carmel,
pray for me and obtain my requests!
Sweet Mother, I place this cause in your hands!

Our gratitude to the Discalced Carmelite Friars of the Paris Province and the Discalced Carmelite Nuns of Le Havre for their gracious permission to translate and publish their 2025 Novena to Our Lady of Mount Carmel.

All scripture references in this novena are from the New Revised Standard Version Bible: Catholic Edition, copyright © 1989, 1993 the Division of Christian Education of the National Council of the Churches of Christ in the United States of America as accessed from the Bible Gateway website.

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

Don’t become discouraged and give up prayer, says St. John of the Cross. We offer varying novenas to Our Lady of Mount Carmel, as well as novenas to St. Joseph, St. Teresa of Avila, St. John of the Cross, St. Thérèse of Lisieux, Sts. Louis and Zélie Martin, St. Elizabeth of the Trinity, and St. Edith Stein.

Let us unite in prayer

#heart #novena #OurLadyOfMountCarmel #prayer #selfGiving #StEdithStein #StTeresaBenedicta

Novena to Our Lady of Mount Carmel 2025: Day 2

Day 2
A Noble Heart

Scripture Reading
Matthew 2:13–14

Now after they had left, an angel of the Lord appeared to Joseph in a dream and said, “Get up, take the child and his mother, and flee to Egypt…” Then Joseph got up, took the child and his mother by night, and went to Egypt.

Pray with St. Edith Stein
ESGA 20, “Sub tutela Matris”

O Mary…
Give me a noble heart
that does not brood over troubles
or keep obsessing over them;
a heart that nothing can chill
and that gives itself joyfully.

What About My Own Life?

God’s plans aren’t always ours, and his ways are far above our ways (cf. Is 55:9)… Each day, inevitably, life contradicts my plans in one way or another: I can try not to get irritated, not to be stubborn, but to open my heart to discover the specific ways God’s presence appears in my life today…

NOVENA PRAYER

O Most beautiful Flower of Mount Carmel,
Fruitful Vine, Splendor of heaven,
Blessed Mother of the Son of God,
Immaculate Virgin, assist me in this my necessity.
O Star of the Sea, help me
and show me herein that you are my Mother.

O Holy Mary, Mother of God, Queen of heaven and earth,
I humbly beseech you from the bottom of my heart
to succor me in this necessity.
There are none that can withstand your power!
O help me and show me herein that you are my Mother.

Our Lady, Queen and Beauty of Carmel,
pray for me and obtain my requests!
Sweet Mother, I place this cause in your hands!

Our gratitude to the Discalced Carmelite Friars of the Paris Province and the Discalced Carmelite Nuns of Le Havre for their gracious permission to translate and publish their 2025 Novena to Our Lady of Mount Carmel.

All scripture references in this novena are from the New Revised Standard Version Bible: Catholic Edition, copyright © 1989, 1993 the Division of Christian Education of the National Council of the Churches of Christ in the United States of America as accessed from the Bible Gateway website.

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

Don’t become discouraged and give up prayer, says St. John of the Cross. We offer varying novenas to Our Lady of Mount Carmel, as well as novenas to St. Joseph, St. Teresa of Avila, St. John of the Cross, St. Thérèse of Lisieux, Sts. Louis and Zélie Martin, St. Elizabeth of the Trinity, and St. Edith Stein.

Let us unite in prayer

#heart #novena #OurLadyOfMountCarmel #prayer #selfGiving #StEdithStein #StTeresaBenedicta

Quote of the day, 7 March: Jessica Powers

Worse than the poorest mendicant alive,
the pencil man, the blind man with his breath
of music shaming all who do not give,
are You to me, Jesus of Nazareth.

Must You take up Your post on every block
of every street? Do I have no release?
Is there no room of earth that I can lock
to Your sad face, Your pitiful whisper “Please”?

I seek the counters of time’s gleaming store
but make no purchases, for You are there.
How can I waste one coin while you implore
with tear-soiled cheeks and dark blood-matted hair?

And when I offer You in charity
pennies minted by love, still, still You stand
fixing Your sorrowful wide eyes on me.
Must all my purse be emptied in Your hand?

Jesus, my beggar, what would You have of me?
Father and mother? the lover I longed to know?
The child I would have cherished tenderly?
Even the blood that through my heart’s valves flow?

I too would be a beggar. Long tormented,
I dream to grant You all and stand apart
with You on some bleak corner, tear-frequented,
and trouble mankind for its human heart.

Sister Miriam of the Holy Spirit, O.C.D. (Jessica Powers)

The Master Beggar (1937)

Powers, J 1999, The Selected Poetry of Jessica Powers, Siegfried, R & Morneau, RF (eds.), ICS Publications, Washington DC.

Featured image: A small child sleeps on the streets of a small rural town in India. She’s forced by her parents to beg to help support them. Image credit: restless_mind / Flickr (Some rights reserved)

#charity #generosity #JessicaPowers #Jesus #mercy #poetry #poverty #selfGiving

I had been home for several weeks when I received a telephone call; a lady from the Red Cross wished to speak to me. She told me there was still no opening for nurses in Germany, but there was a great demand for them in Austria. Were I willing to go there, I should be ready to report to Mährisch-Weisskirchen at the beginning of April. My mind was made up immediately. … I left on the seventh of April, 1915, at six o’clock in the morning.

Saint Edith Stein
Life in a Jewish Family, Chapter VIII

Edith Stein had only one love: Knowledge. She had only one passion: Books to deepen her knowledge.

Her library had expanded so much in the course of years that, even after everything unsuitable to the Carmel had been eliminated, she entered the convent with six huge boxes of books as her “dowry.” But for now, any such thought of monastic life was still a long way off for her.

The world war broke out [World War I, July 28, 1914]. The lecture halls grew empty. Professors and students hurried to enlist.

While Erna, who had begun her medical residency in Breslau early in 1914, merely transferred to another clinic, Edith felt compelled by sheer patriotism to discontinue her studies and volunteer for the Red Cross.

After the required training she was sent to the contagious diseases ward of the military hospital in Mährisch-Weisskirchen. There, as everywhere, she threw herself into her work with her whole soul and her unique selflessness and was popular with the sick and wounded as she had been with her fellow students and teachers.

Sister Teresia Renata Posselt, O.C.D.

Chapter 5, Assistant to Husserl

Posselt, T 2005, Edith Stein: The Life of a Philosopher and Carmelite, translated from the German by Batzdorff S, Koeppel J, and Sullivan J, ICS Publications, Washington DC.

Stein, E, Gelber, L, Leuven R, & Koeppel J 1986, Life in a Jewish Family: her unfinished autobiographical account, ICS Publications, Washington DC.

Featured image: Antique pharmacy containers written in French are captured in this photo of an old pharmacy. Image credit: elfrock / Adobe Stock (Stock photo)

https://carmelitequotes.blog/2024/11/10/edith-7apr15/

#Austria #nurse #sacrifice #selfGiving #selflessness #sick #StEdithStein #WorldWarI #wounded

Dijon Carmel, May 20

J. M. + J. T.

My dear Little Germaine,

After Mama told me that you were to have dinner next week at Marguerite’s, I asked our Reverend Mother for permission to write and tell you that I truly think of you as my little sister.

It seems to me that our two souls are one, that you are a Carmelite with me, for all that I do is with you; and when God looks at me among His beloved ones in Carmel, He also sees His little Germaine of the Trinity. On Sundays, I spend my day with you in honor of the Holy Trinity; oh, my little Germaine, how good God is to have given us an attraction to this mystery.

May our life flow into His, as we were saying the other day, may this truly be our dwelling on earth. There let us become silent so we may listen to Him who has so much to tell us, and since you too have this passion to listen to Him, we will meet close to Him so we may hear everything that is being sung in His soul! . . .

That is the life of the Carmelite: she is above all a contemplative, another Mary Magdalene whom nothing must distract from the One thing necessary [cf Lk 10:42]. She loves the Master so much that she wants to become one who is immolated like Him, and her life becomes a continual gift of herself, an exchange of love with Him who possesses her to the point of wanting to transform her into another Himself. There, in HIM, I feel quite close to you. Our motto must be these words of Saint Paul: “Our life is hidden with Christ in God” [Col 3:3].

A Dieu, my little sister, tell your good, dear mama that I pray every day for her, that I love her with all my heart as well as Yvonne, who is also the little sister of my heart. We are going into retreat from Ascension to Pentecost, and I will make it with you in the soul of the Master. Pray for your big sister, too.

Saint Elizabeth of the Trinity

Letter 164 to Germaine de Gemeaux
Wednesday, 20 May 1903

Elizabeth of the Trinity, S 2003, The Complete Works of Elizabeth of the Trinity volume 2: Letters from Carmel, translated from the French by Nash, A, ICS Publications, Washington DC.

https://carmelitequotes.blog/2024/05/19/liz-ltr164/

#contemplativeLife #DiscalcedCarmelite #distractions #listening #MaryMagdalene #Pentecost #selfGiving #silence #StElizabethOfTheTrinity #transformation #vocation

We have surveyed the activity of woman in private and public life and have found it to be rich and fruitful. But in no way does this activity exhaust her potential.

Today as in all times since Christ’s Church first existed, the Lord calls from families and professional life whomever He has chosen for His holy service. Can the religious vocation claim to be a feminine vocation?

Certainly, the call is issued to men and women. And it is a supernatural vocation, for it comes from above, from the other world, summoning the human being to raise himself above the natural earthly level. And so it would seem that the natural differences between the sexes are irrelevant here.

Yet, on the other hand, the axiom still holds true: “Grace perfects nature—it does not destroy it.” Thus it may be expected that the masculine as well as the feminine nature is not abrogated in religious life but fitted into it in a particular way and thereby made fruitful.

Beyond this lies the possibility that the religious vocation, similar to worldly professions, has unique requirements and fits both the masculine and feminine nature each in its particular way.

The religious vocation is the total surrender of the whole person and his or her entire life to the service of God. The one called is obligated to use the means suitable for fulfilling his vocation: renunciation of every possession, of every vital human tie and relationship, and even of his own will.

This can be done in various ways; that is to say, the service which the Lord asks from His creatures can be of different kinds: quiet immersion in divine truth, solemn praises of God, propagation of the faith, works of mercy, intercession, and vicarious reparation.

“The deepest longing of woman’s heart is to give herself lovingly, to belong to another, and to possess this other being completely.” #StEdithStein

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Let us now examine how the essential elements of religious Orders relate to the feminine nature.

The motive, principle, and end of the religious life is to make an absolute gift of self to God in a self-forgetting love, to end one’s own life in order to make room for God’s life. The more perfectly this is realized, the more richly will God’s life fill the soul.

Then, God’s love is an overflowing love which wants nothing for itself but bestows itself freely; mercifully, it bends down to everyone who is in need, healing the sick and awakening the dead to life, protecting, cherishing, nourishing, teaching, and forming; it is a love which sorrows with the sorrowful and rejoices with the joyful; it serves each human being to attain the end destined for it by the Father.

In one word, it is the love of the divine Heart. The deepest longing of woman’s heart is to give herself lovingly, to belong to another, and to possess this other being completely. This longing is revealed in her outlook, personal and all-embracing, which appears to us as specifically feminine.

But this surrender becomes a perverted self-abandon and a form of slavery when it is given to another person and not to God; at the same time, it is an unjustified demand which no human being can fulfill.

Only God can welcome a person’s total surrender in such a way that one does not lose one’s soul in the process but wins it. And only God can bestow Himself upon a person so that He fulfills this being completely and loses nothing of Himself in so doing.

That is why total surrender which is the principle of the religious life is simultaneously the only adequate fulfillment possible for woman’s yearning.

Saint Edith Stein

The Ethos of Women’s Professions (excerpts)
Association of Catholic Academics, 1 September 1930

Note: On 15 April 1934, St. Edith Stein was clothed in the Carmelite habit and gave herself lovingly to God in the Carmel of Cologne-Lindenthal. Her novice mistress, Sr. Teresa Renata Posselt, OCD, described that day: “it was a feast such as the Cologne Carmel has never seen.”

Stein, E 2017, Essays On Woman, The Collected Works of Edith Stein, Book 2, translated from the German by Oben, F, ICS Publications, Washington D.C.

Featured image: Edith Stein on her clothing day, 15 April 1934. Image credit: Discalced Carmelites

https://carmelitequotes.blog/2024/04/14/edith-essays1sep30/

#DivineHeart #feminine #God #heart #longing #religiousLife #selfGiving #service #StEdithStein #surrender #vocations #women

Novena to St. John of the Cross, Day 9: All things are forgotten

Scripture

Lord, I have given up my pride
and turned away from my arrogance.
I am not concerned with great matters
or with subjects too difficult for me.
Instead, I am content and at peace.
As a child lies quietly in its mother’s arms,
so my heart is quiet within me.
Israel, trust in the Lord
now and forever!
(Psalm 131)

Reading

The soul is incapable of truly acquiring control of the passions and restriction of the inordinate appetites without forgetting and withdrawing from the sources of these emotions. Disturbances never arise in a soul unless through the apprehensions of the memory. When all things are forgotten, nothing disturbs the peace or stirs the appetites. As the saying goes: What the eye doesn’t see, the heart doesn’t want.

The Ascent of Mount Carmel: Book Three, Chapter 5

Prayer

O St. John of the Cross
You were endowed by our Lord with the spirit of self-denial
and a love of the cross.
Obtain for us the grace to follow your example
that we may come to the eternal vision of the glory of God.

O Saint of Christ’s redeeming cross
the road of life is dark and long.
Teach us always to be resigned to God’s holy will
in all the circumstances of our lives
and grant us the special favor
which we now ask of thee.

Mention your request

Above all, obtain for us the grace of final perseverance,
a holy and happy death and everlasting life with you
and all the saints in heaven.
Amen.

Let’s continue in prayer…

• Day 1 — What profit is there?
• Day 2 — An open wound
• Day 3 — Your heart in peace
• Day 4 — An imitation of his life
• Day 5 — Supreme goodness
• Day 6 — Guided through the dark night
• Day 7 — Surrender
• Day 8 — Inspired with love
• Day 9 — All things are forgotten

We are grateful to Professor Michael Ogunu, O.C.D.S., of the Secular Order of Discalced Carmelites in Nigeria for sharing this novena.

All scripture references in this novena are from the New Revised Standard Version Bible: Catholic Edition, copyright © 1989, 1993 the Division of Christian Education of the National Council of the Churches of Christ in the United States of America as accessed from the Bible Gateway website.

Don’t become discouraged and give up prayer, says St. John of the Cross. We offer varying novenas to Our Lady of Mount Carmel, as well as novenas to St. Teresa of Avila, St. John of the Cross, St. Thérèse of Lisieux, Sts. Louis and Zélie Martin, St. Elizabeth of the Trinity, and St. Joseph.

Let us unite in prayer

#appetites #ascentOfMountCarmel #ascesis #carmel #carmelitas #carmelitasDescalzas #carmelitasDescalzos #carmelite #carmeliteHabit #carmelitePropers #carmelo #discalcedCarmelite #emotions #forgetfulness #memory #mountCarmel #novena #passions #peace #purification #sanJuanDeLaCruz #secularCarmelites #selfControl #selfDenial #selfEmptying #selfForgetful #selfGiving #soul #stJohnOfTheCross #withdrawing