#stjohnofthecross — Public Fediverse posts

Quote of the day, 28 June: St. John of the Cross

Let Christ crucified be enough for you, and with him suffer and take your rest, and hence annihilate yourself in all inward and outward things

Endeavor always that things be not for you, nor you for them, but forgetful of all, abide in recollection with your Bridegroom.

Have great love for trials and think of them as but a small way of pleasing your Bridegroom, who did not hesitate to die for you.

Bear fortitude in your heart against all things that move you to that which is not God, and be a friend of the Passion of Christ.

Be interiorly detached from all things and do not seek pleasure in any temporal thing, and your soul will concentrate on goods you do not know

The soul that walks in love neither tires others nor grows tired.

Saint John of the Cross

Sayings of Light and Love, nos. 92–97

John of the Cross, St 1991, The Collected Works of St. John of the Cross, rev. edn, Kavanaugh, K & Rodriguez, O (trans.), ICS Publications, Washington DC.

Featured image: This crucifix hangs on the landing outside St Dominic’s cell in Santa Sabina, the Dominican convent in Rome. Image credit: Father Lawrence Lew, OP / Flickr (Some rights reserved).

When God Feeds His Children — Silvio José Báez, ocd

Today, with gratitude and wonder, we celebrate the gift of the Risen Christ, present in the bread of the Eucharist to satisfy our hunger for life and love. Today’s first reading, from the book of Deuteronomy, recalls Israel’s experience as they journeyed through the desert toward the promised land. In that barren place, where there could be no harvest and no food, the book of Deuteronomy reminds Israel: “The Lord fed you with manna, which neither you nor your ancestors knew” (Dt 8:3). Forty years without fertile land, without certainties, without a clear path forward. And yet, in that desert, God was present, feeding his people.

In the deserts of life, when our human securities collapse and we come face to face with our own insufficiency, God remains beside us like a father who lovingly provides for the needs of his children. Let’s think of the personal desert of loneliness and sadness, of discouragement and fear. Let’s think of the desert of our people, subjected for years to an irrational and aging power that deprives them of freedom and a future. Let’s think of the desert of uprooting and exile, which many of us have experienced. And yet, there’s no desert where God leaves us abandoned to our own strength, without sustaining us and feeding us with the power of his love.

But the manna in the desert held an even deeper lesson: “One does not live by bread alone, but by every word that comes from the mouth of God” (Dt 8:3). The desert taught Israel that material bread isn’t enough. There’s a hunger no abundance can satisfy, a thirst no success can calm, a loneliness no noise can fill. The deepest longings and desires of the heart can be fulfilled only by God, who continually offers us the bread of his presence and love.

Using that same image of bread, Jesus speaks in the synagogue of Capernaum the boldest words ever heard: “I am the living bread that came down from heaven” (Jn 6:51). Jesus is bread. Bread is simple, but it’s effective: it satisfies the one who eats it, nourishes life, and sustains existence. That’s what Jesus was, and that’s what he remains: bread. He is the bread that came down from heaven, the one who offered his life to bring us into communion with the Father and make us his children. He is bread that strengthens and heals us, forgives us, and gives us life.

Jesus is the bread that can fill our life with meaning and constantly renew it with his love: “The bread that I will give is my flesh for the life of the world” (Jn 6:51). The bread that gives us life is his life handed over, his merciful love, his words that enlighten and set us free, his tenderness toward the poor, his faithfulness unto death, his glorious life risen from the dead. All of this is Jesus, the bread that came down from heaven, who wants to be the daily bread of our fragile existence. Let’s not forget his words: “Unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you have no life in you” (Jn 6:53).

In a world full of broken promises and deceitful words that try to manipulate our conscience, Jesus is the bread that feeds us with light and truth. In the face of authoritarian regimes that subjugate people through fear and repression, Jesus is the bread that nourishes us with strength and hope. Before unhinged rulers who distort history, calling repression peace and slavery a blessing, Jesus is the bread that sustains our dreams of freedom and keeps us from being deceived. To feed on Jesus is to believe in him, to trust in his love, to be nourished by his words, by his way of living and loving, and to let ourselves be transformed by him.

This encounter of faith with Jesus, this feeding on him, reaches its fullest and most concrete expression in the Eucharist. In the broken and shared bread of the Lord’s Supper, Jesus truly comes to us: “My flesh is true food and my blood is true drink” (Jn 6:55). In the simplicity of the eucharistic bread, the real presence of Jesus becomes food that strengthens us and renews our hope. When we receive Jesus in the bread of the Eucharist, our life is born anew again and again. We know ourselves to be freely loved, and we’re impelled to love our brothers and sisters with the same intensity. We can’t receive Christ in the Eucharist and remain indifferent to the suffering of the poor, dismiss those who think differently, foster fruitless divisions, or close our eyes to injustice.

The eucharistic bread is like a fountain of living water that refreshes our withered life and waters our parched heart. As the Pope recalled today at the Corpus Christi Eucharist in Madrid, Saint John of the Cross, in a beautiful poem, imagined the Eucharist as bread from which there flows, in the middle of the night, the living fountain who is God:

“This eternal spring is hidden
in this living bread for our life’s sake,
although it is night.

It is here calling out to creatures;
and they satisfy their thirst,
although in darkness, because it is night.

This living spring that I long for,
I see in this bread of life,
although it is night” (Poetry 8, sts. 9–11).

Saint John of the Cross reminds us that Jesus is present in the eucharistic bread as he is present in the night: he can be recognized and welcomed only through the darkness of loving faith. There is Jesus, “in this living bread for our life’s sake, although it is night” (Poetry 8, st. 9). Jesus is truly present in the simplicity of this bread: humble, silent, and discreet. From this bread, he cries out his love, calls us, and waits for us:

“It is here calling out to creatures;
and they satisfy their thirst,
although in darkness, because it is night” (Poetry 8, st. 10).

Commenting on this poem by Saint John of the Cross, Pope Leo invited us today in Madrid to open ourselves to Jesus, who, by the grace of the Eucharist, “transforms us and makes us protagonists of the transformation of history, a sign of hope.” And he added:

“Let us return to him with sincere love. Let us open ourselves to the encounter with him, let us allow him to quench the thirst of our hearts, so that we may then go forth into the paths of life and history, bringing to the people this stream of fresh water, a stream of love, peace, justice and joy” (Leo XIV, Homily of the Holy Father, June 7, 2026).

Let’s draw near to the table of the Lord with the simple, trusting faith of Israel in the desert, knowing that what we need most isn’t something we make for ourselves, but something given to us by God. Let’s receive Jesus with gratitude. Let’s allow his love, “the fount that flows and runs, although it is night,” to nourish us and transform us into bread, broken and shared for the life of the world.

Bishop Silvio José Báez, o.c.d.

Auxiliary Bishop of Managua
Homily, 7 June 2026

John of the Cross, St 1991, The Collected Works of St. John of the Cross, rev. edn, Kavanaugh, K & Rodriguez, O (trans.), ICS Publications, Washington DC.

Leo XIV 2026, ‘Homily of the Holy Father: Holy Mass, Procession and Eucharistic Blessing in the Solemnity of the Body and Blood of Christ, Plaza de Cibeles, Madrid, Sunday, 7 June 2026’, The Holy See, 7 June, viewed 7 June 2026, https://www.vatican.va/content/leo-xiv/en/homilies/2026/documents/20260607-spagna-messa-madrid.html.

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

Featured image: Adriaen van Ostade, Father Feeding his Child, 1610–85, etching. The Metropolitan Museum of Art (Public Domain). Image adapted for 16:9 format with parchment background.

When God Feeds His Children — Silvio José Báez, ocd

Today, with gratitude and wonder, we celebrate the gift of the Risen Christ, present in the bread of the Eucharist to satisfy our hunger for life and love. Today’s first reading, from the book of Deuteronomy, recalls Israel’s experience as they journeyed through the desert toward the promised land. In that barren place, where there could be no harvest and no food, the book of Deuteronomy reminds Israel: “The Lord fed you with manna, which neither you nor your ancestors knew” (Dt 8:3). Forty years without fertile land, without certainties, without a clear path forward. And yet, in that desert, God was present, feeding his people.

In the deserts of life, when our human securities collapse and we come face to face with our own insufficiency, God remains beside us like a father who lovingly provides for the needs of his children. Let’s think of the personal desert of loneliness and sadness, of discouragement and fear. Let’s think of the desert of our people, subjected for years to an irrational and aging power that deprives them of freedom and a future. Let’s think of the desert of uprooting and exile, which many of us have experienced. And yet, there’s no desert where God leaves us abandoned to our own strength, without sustaining us and feeding us with the power of his love.

But the manna in the desert held an even deeper lesson: “One does not live by bread alone, but by every word that comes from the mouth of God” (Dt 8:3). The desert taught Israel that material bread isn’t enough. There’s a hunger no abundance can satisfy, a thirst no success can calm, a loneliness no noise can fill. The deepest longings and desires of the heart can be fulfilled only by God, who continually offers us the bread of his presence and love.

Using that same image of bread, Jesus speaks in the synagogue of Capernaum the boldest words ever heard: “I am the living bread that came down from heaven” (Jn 6:51). Jesus is bread. Bread is simple, but it’s effective: it satisfies the one who eats it, nourishes life, and sustains existence. That’s what Jesus was, and that’s what he remains: bread. He is the bread that came down from heaven, the one who offered his life to bring us into communion with the Father and make us his children. He is bread that strengthens and heals us, forgives us, and gives us life.

Jesus is the bread that can fill our life with meaning and constantly renew it with his love: “The bread that I will give is my flesh for the life of the world” (Jn 6:51). The bread that gives us life is his life handed over, his merciful love, his words that enlighten and set us free, his tenderness toward the poor, his faithfulness unto death, his glorious life risen from the dead. All of this is Jesus, the bread that came down from heaven, who wants to be the daily bread of our fragile existence. Let’s not forget his words: “Unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you have no life in you” (Jn 6:53).

In a world full of broken promises and deceitful words that try to manipulate our conscience, Jesus is the bread that feeds us with light and truth. In the face of authoritarian regimes that subjugate people through fear and repression, Jesus is the bread that nourishes us with strength and hope. Before unhinged rulers who distort history, calling repression peace and slavery a blessing, Jesus is the bread that sustains our dreams of freedom and keeps us from being deceived. To feed on Jesus is to believe in him, to trust in his love, to be nourished by his words, by his way of living and loving, and to let ourselves be transformed by him.

This encounter of faith with Jesus, this feeding on him, reaches its fullest and most concrete expression in the Eucharist. In the broken and shared bread of the Lord’s Supper, Jesus truly comes to us: “My flesh is true food and my blood is true drink” (Jn 6:55). In the simplicity of the eucharistic bread, the real presence of Jesus becomes food that strengthens us and renews our hope. When we receive Jesus in the bread of the Eucharist, our life is born anew again and again. We know ourselves to be freely loved, and we’re impelled to love our brothers and sisters with the same intensity. We can’t receive Christ in the Eucharist and remain indifferent to the suffering of the poor, dismiss those who think differently, foster fruitless divisions, or close our eyes to injustice.

The eucharistic bread is like a fountain of living water that refreshes our withered life and waters our parched heart. As the Pope recalled today at the Corpus Christi Eucharist in Madrid, Saint John of the Cross, in a beautiful poem, imagined the Eucharist as bread from which there flows, in the middle of the night, the living fountain who is God:

“This eternal spring is hidden
in this living bread for our life’s sake,
although it is night.

It is here calling out to creatures;
and they satisfy their thirst,
although in darkness, because it is night.

This living spring that I long for,
I see in this bread of life,
although it is night” (Poetry 8, sts. 9–11).

Saint John of the Cross reminds us that Jesus is present in the eucharistic bread as he is present in the night: he can be recognized and welcomed only through the darkness of loving faith. There is Jesus, “in this living bread for our life’s sake, although it is night” (Poetry 8, st. 9). Jesus is truly present in the simplicity of this bread: humble, silent, and discreet. From this bread, he cries out his love, calls us, and waits for us:

“It is here calling out to creatures;
and they satisfy their thirst,
although in darkness, because it is night” (Poetry 8, st. 10).

Commenting on this poem by Saint John of the Cross, Pope Leo invited us today in Madrid to open ourselves to Jesus, who, by the grace of the Eucharist, “transforms us and makes us protagonists of the transformation of history, a sign of hope.” And he added:

“Let us return to him with sincere love. Let us open ourselves to the encounter with him, let us allow him to quench the thirst of our hearts, so that we may then go forth into the paths of life and history, bringing to the people this stream of fresh water, a stream of love, peace, justice and joy” (Leo XIV, Homily of the Holy Father, June 7, 2026).

Let’s draw near to the table of the Lord with the simple, trusting faith of Israel in the desert, knowing that what we need most isn’t something we make for ourselves, but something given to us by God. Let’s receive Jesus with gratitude. Let’s allow his love, “the fount that flows and runs, although it is night,” to nourish us and transform us into bread, broken and shared for the life of the world.

Bishop Silvio José Báez, o.c.d.

Auxiliary Bishop of Managua
Homily, 7 June 2026

John of the Cross, St 1991, The Collected Works of St. John of the Cross, rev. edn, Kavanaugh, K & Rodriguez, O (trans.), ICS Publications, Washington DC.

Leo XIV 2026, ‘Homily of the Holy Father: Holy Mass, Procession and Eucharistic Blessing in the Solemnity of the Body and Blood of Christ, Plaza de Cibeles, Madrid, Sunday, 7 June 2026’, The Holy See, 7 June, viewed 7 June 2026, https://www.vatican.va/content/leo-xiv/en/homilies/2026/documents/20260607-spagna-messa-madrid.html.

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

Featured image: Adriaen van Ostade, Father Feeding his Child, 1610–85, etching. The Metropolitan Museum of Art (Public Domain). Image adapted for 16:9 format with parchment background.

When God Feeds His Children — Silvio José Báez, ocd

Today, with gratitude and wonder, we celebrate the gift of the Risen Christ, present in the bread of the Eucharist to satisfy our hunger for life and love. Today’s first reading, from the book of Deuteronomy, recalls Israel’s experience as they journeyed through the desert toward the promised land. In that barren place, where there could be no harvest and no food, the book of Deuteronomy reminds Israel: “The Lord fed you with manna, which neither you nor your ancestors knew” (Dt 8:3). Forty years without fertile land, without certainties, without a clear path forward. And yet, in that desert, God was present, feeding his people.

In the deserts of life, when our human securities collapse and we come face to face with our own insufficiency, God remains beside us like a father who lovingly provides for the needs of his children. Let’s think of the personal desert of loneliness and sadness, of discouragement and fear. Let’s think of the desert of our people, subjected for years to an irrational and aging power that deprives them of freedom and a future. Let’s think of the desert of uprooting and exile, which many of us have experienced. And yet, there’s no desert where God leaves us abandoned to our own strength, without sustaining us and feeding us with the power of his love.

But the manna in the desert held an even deeper lesson: “One does not live by bread alone, but by every word that comes from the mouth of God” (Dt 8:3). The desert taught Israel that material bread isn’t enough. There’s a hunger no abundance can satisfy, a thirst no success can calm, a loneliness no noise can fill. The deepest longings and desires of the heart can be fulfilled only by God, who continually offers us the bread of his presence and love.

Using that same image of bread, Jesus speaks in the synagogue of Capernaum the boldest words ever heard: “I am the living bread that came down from heaven” (Jn 6:51). Jesus is bread. Bread is simple, but it’s effective: it satisfies the one who eats it, nourishes life, and sustains existence. That’s what Jesus was, and that’s what he remains: bread. He is the bread that came down from heaven, the one who offered his life to bring us into communion with the Father and make us his children. He is bread that strengthens and heals us, forgives us, and gives us life.

Jesus is the bread that can fill our life with meaning and constantly renew it with his love: “The bread that I will give is my flesh for the life of the world” (Jn 6:51). The bread that gives us life is his life handed over, his merciful love, his words that enlighten and set us free, his tenderness toward the poor, his faithfulness unto death, his glorious life risen from the dead. All of this is Jesus, the bread that came down from heaven, who wants to be the daily bread of our fragile existence. Let’s not forget his words: “Unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you have no life in you” (Jn 6:53).

In a world full of broken promises and deceitful words that try to manipulate our conscience, Jesus is the bread that feeds us with light and truth. In the face of authoritarian regimes that subjugate people through fear and repression, Jesus is the bread that nourishes us with strength and hope. Before unhinged rulers who distort history, calling repression peace and slavery a blessing, Jesus is the bread that sustains our dreams of freedom and keeps us from being deceived. To feed on Jesus is to believe in him, to trust in his love, to be nourished by his words, by his way of living and loving, and to let ourselves be transformed by him.

This encounter of faith with Jesus, this feeding on him, reaches its fullest and most concrete expression in the Eucharist. In the broken and shared bread of the Lord’s Supper, Jesus truly comes to us: “My flesh is true food and my blood is true drink” (Jn 6:55). In the simplicity of the eucharistic bread, the real presence of Jesus becomes food that strengthens us and renews our hope. When we receive Jesus in the bread of the Eucharist, our life is born anew again and again. We know ourselves to be freely loved, and we’re impelled to love our brothers and sisters with the same intensity. We can’t receive Christ in the Eucharist and remain indifferent to the suffering of the poor, dismiss those who think differently, foster fruitless divisions, or close our eyes to injustice.

The eucharistic bread is like a fountain of living water that refreshes our withered life and waters our parched heart. As the Pope recalled today at the Corpus Christi Eucharist in Madrid, Saint John of the Cross, in a beautiful poem, imagined the Eucharist as bread from which there flows, in the middle of the night, the living fountain who is God:

“This eternal spring is hidden
in this living bread for our life’s sake,
although it is night.

It is here calling out to creatures;
and they satisfy their thirst,
although in darkness, because it is night.

This living spring that I long for,
I see in this bread of life,
although it is night” (Poetry 8, sts. 9–11).

Saint John of the Cross reminds us that Jesus is present in the eucharistic bread as he is present in the night: he can be recognized and welcomed only through the darkness of loving faith. There is Jesus, “in this living bread for our life’s sake, although it is night” (Poetry 8, st. 9). Jesus is truly present in the simplicity of this bread: humble, silent, and discreet. From this bread, he cries out his love, calls us, and waits for us:

“It is here calling out to creatures;
and they satisfy their thirst,
although in darkness, because it is night” (Poetry 8, st. 10).

Commenting on this poem by Saint John of the Cross, Pope Leo invited us today in Madrid to open ourselves to Jesus, who, by the grace of the Eucharist, “transforms us and makes us protagonists of the transformation of history, a sign of hope.” And he added:

“Let us return to him with sincere love. Let us open ourselves to the encounter with him, let us allow him to quench the thirst of our hearts, so that we may then go forth into the paths of life and history, bringing to the people this stream of fresh water, a stream of love, peace, justice and joy” (Leo XIV, Homily of the Holy Father, June 7, 2026).

Let’s draw near to the table of the Lord with the simple, trusting faith of Israel in the desert, knowing that what we need most isn’t something we make for ourselves, but something given to us by God. Let’s receive Jesus with gratitude. Let’s allow his love, “the fount that flows and runs, although it is night,” to nourish us and transform us into bread, broken and shared for the life of the world.

Bishop Silvio José Báez, o.c.d.

Auxiliary Bishop of Managua
Homily, 7 June 2026

John of the Cross, St 1991, The Collected Works of St. John of the Cross, rev. edn, Kavanaugh, K & Rodriguez, O (trans.), ICS Publications, Washington DC.

Leo XIV 2026, ‘Homily of the Holy Father: Holy Mass, Procession and Eucharistic Blessing in the Solemnity of the Body and Blood of Christ, Plaza de Cibeles, Madrid, Sunday, 7 June 2026’, The Holy See, 7 June, viewed 7 June 2026, https://www.vatican.va/content/leo-xiv/en/homilies/2026/documents/20260607-spagna-messa-madrid.html.

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

Featured image: Adriaen van Ostade, Father Feeding his Child, 1610–85, etching. The Metropolitan Museum of Art (Public Domain). Image adapted for 16:9 format with parchment background.

When God Feeds His Children — Silvio José Báez, ocd

Today, with gratitude and wonder, we celebrate the gift of the Risen Christ, present in the bread of the Eucharist to satisfy our hunger for life and love. Today’s first reading, from the book of Deuteronomy, recalls Israel’s experience as they journeyed through the desert toward the promised land. In that barren place, where there could be no harvest and no food, the book of Deuteronomy reminds Israel: “The Lord fed you with manna, which neither you nor your ancestors knew” (Dt 8:3). Forty years without fertile land, without certainties, without a clear path forward. And yet, in that desert, God was present, feeding his people.

In the deserts of life, when our human securities collapse and we come face to face with our own insufficiency, God remains beside us like a father who lovingly provides for the needs of his children. Let’s think of the personal desert of loneliness and sadness, of discouragement and fear. Let’s think of the desert of our people, subjected for years to an irrational and aging power that deprives them of freedom and a future. Let’s think of the desert of uprooting and exile, which many of us have experienced. And yet, there’s no desert where God leaves us abandoned to our own strength, without sustaining us and feeding us with the power of his love.

But the manna in the desert held an even deeper lesson: “One does not live by bread alone, but by every word that comes from the mouth of God” (Dt 8:3). The desert taught Israel that material bread isn’t enough. There’s a hunger no abundance can satisfy, a thirst no success can calm, a loneliness no noise can fill. The deepest longings and desires of the heart can be fulfilled only by God, who continually offers us the bread of his presence and love.

Using that same image of bread, Jesus speaks in the synagogue of Capernaum the boldest words ever heard: “I am the living bread that came down from heaven” (Jn 6:51). Jesus is bread. Bread is simple, but it’s effective: it satisfies the one who eats it, nourishes life, and sustains existence. That’s what Jesus was, and that’s what he remains: bread. He is the bread that came down from heaven, the one who offered his life to bring us into communion with the Father and make us his children. He is bread that strengthens and heals us, forgives us, and gives us life.

Jesus is the bread that can fill our life with meaning and constantly renew it with his love: “The bread that I will give is my flesh for the life of the world” (Jn 6:51). The bread that gives us life is his life handed over, his merciful love, his words that enlighten and set us free, his tenderness toward the poor, his faithfulness unto death, his glorious life risen from the dead. All of this is Jesus, the bread that came down from heaven, who wants to be the daily bread of our fragile existence. Let’s not forget his words: “Unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you have no life in you” (Jn 6:53).

In a world full of broken promises and deceitful words that try to manipulate our conscience, Jesus is the bread that feeds us with light and truth. In the face of authoritarian regimes that subjugate people through fear and repression, Jesus is the bread that nourishes us with strength and hope. Before unhinged rulers who distort history, calling repression peace and slavery a blessing, Jesus is the bread that sustains our dreams of freedom and keeps us from being deceived. To feed on Jesus is to believe in him, to trust in his love, to be nourished by his words, by his way of living and loving, and to let ourselves be transformed by him.

This encounter of faith with Jesus, this feeding on him, reaches its fullest and most concrete expression in the Eucharist. In the broken and shared bread of the Lord’s Supper, Jesus truly comes to us: “My flesh is true food and my blood is true drink” (Jn 6:55). In the simplicity of the eucharistic bread, the real presence of Jesus becomes food that strengthens us and renews our hope. When we receive Jesus in the bread of the Eucharist, our life is born anew again and again. We know ourselves to be freely loved, and we’re impelled to love our brothers and sisters with the same intensity. We can’t receive Christ in the Eucharist and remain indifferent to the suffering of the poor, dismiss those who think differently, foster fruitless divisions, or close our eyes to injustice.

The eucharistic bread is like a fountain of living water that refreshes our withered life and waters our parched heart. As the Pope recalled today at the Corpus Christi Eucharist in Madrid, Saint John of the Cross, in a beautiful poem, imagined the Eucharist as bread from which there flows, in the middle of the night, the living fountain who is God:

“This eternal spring is hidden
in this living bread for our life’s sake,
although it is night.

It is here calling out to creatures;
and they satisfy their thirst,
although in darkness, because it is night.

This living spring that I long for,
I see in this bread of life,
although it is night” (Poetry 8, sts. 9–11).

Saint John of the Cross reminds us that Jesus is present in the eucharistic bread as he is present in the night: he can be recognized and welcomed only through the darkness of loving faith. There is Jesus, “in this living bread for our life’s sake, although it is night” (Poetry 8, st. 9). Jesus is truly present in the simplicity of this bread: humble, silent, and discreet. From this bread, he cries out his love, calls us, and waits for us:

“It is here calling out to creatures;
and they satisfy their thirst,
although in darkness, because it is night” (Poetry 8, st. 10).

Commenting on this poem by Saint John of the Cross, Pope Leo invited us today in Madrid to open ourselves to Jesus, who, by the grace of the Eucharist, “transforms us and makes us protagonists of the transformation of history, a sign of hope.” And he added:

“Let us return to him with sincere love. Let us open ourselves to the encounter with him, let us allow him to quench the thirst of our hearts, so that we may then go forth into the paths of life and history, bringing to the people this stream of fresh water, a stream of love, peace, justice and joy” (Leo XIV, Homily of the Holy Father, June 7, 2026).

Let’s draw near to the table of the Lord with the simple, trusting faith of Israel in the desert, knowing that what we need most isn’t something we make for ourselves, but something given to us by God. Let’s receive Jesus with gratitude. Let’s allow his love, “the fount that flows and runs, although it is night,” to nourish us and transform us into bread, broken and shared for the life of the world.

Bishop Silvio José Báez, o.c.d.

Auxiliary Bishop of Managua
Homily, 7 June 2026

John of the Cross, St 1991, The Collected Works of St. John of the Cross, rev. edn, Kavanaugh, K & Rodriguez, O (trans.), ICS Publications, Washington DC.

Leo XIV 2026, ‘Homily of the Holy Father: Holy Mass, Procession and Eucharistic Blessing in the Solemnity of the Body and Blood of Christ, Plaza de Cibeles, Madrid, Sunday, 7 June 2026’, The Holy See, 7 June, viewed 7 June 2026, https://www.vatican.va/content/leo-xiv/en/homilies/2026/documents/20260607-spagna-messa-madrid.html.

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

Featured image: Adriaen van Ostade, Father Feeding his Child, 1610–85, etching. The Metropolitan Museum of Art (Public Domain). Image adapted for 16:9 format with parchment background.

Quote of the day, 26 April: St. John of the Cross

1. A lone young shepherd lived in pain
withdrawn from pleasure and contentment,
his thoughts fixed on a shepherd-girl
his heart an open wound with love.

2. He weeps, but not from the wound of love,
there is no pain in such affliction,
even though the heart is pierced;
he weeps in knowing he’s been forgotten.

3. That one thought: his shining one
has forgotten him, is such great pain
that he bows to brutal handling in a foreign land,
his heart an open wound with love.

4. The shepherd says: I pity the one
who draws herself back from my love,
and does not seek the joy of my presence,
though my heart is an open wound with love for her.

5. After a long time, he climbed a tree,
and spread his shining arms,
and hung by them, and died,
his heart an open wound with love.

Saint John of the Cross

Poem 7, Stanzas applied spiritually to Christ and the soul

John of the Cross, St 1991, The Collected Works of St. John of the Cross, rev. edn, Kavanaugh, K & Rodriguez, O (trans.), ICS Publications, Washington DC.

Featured image: The Good Shepherd is an oil on canvas painting by American artist Henry Ossawa Tanner, dated 1902. This image comes from the Zimmerli Art Museum at Rutgers University. Image credit: Zimmerli Art Museum / Google Art Project (Public domain).

Quote of the day, 27 March: José Vicente Rodríguez, ocd

Among the laypeople who followed John of the Cross, one stands out in a particular way: Doña Ana de Mercado y Peñalosa. She left Granada and returned to her native city of Segovia, where she took up residence in small houses purchased and made ready beside the convent of the Discalced Carmelite friars, so as to remain close to her spiritual father, Fray John of the Cross, and to the monastery whose foundation she was helping to support.

This was not the construction of a new house, as some historians have supposed, but the purchase of two small dwellings. Gaspar de Herrera—a priest and administrator of the Mercy Hospital in Segovia—sold, with the permission of the city’s provisor, “to the prior, friars, and convent of the monastery of Our Lady of Mount Carmel of the Discalced, outside the city walls […] two houses and an enclosed plot with poplars and a well fed by a natural spring, which the said Hospital owned in the parish of Saint Mark.” The agreed price was “180 ducats, amounting to 67,500 maravedís,” to be paid in three installments.

The deed of sale was carried out with particular solemnity, since all the members of the Consulta and four chapter members of the Segovia convent took part in it. All the members of the Consulta signed, including John of the Cross himself. The purchase is dated August 11, 1589. A few days later, Doña Ana de Peñalosa paid the agreed sum. Shortly afterward, the two small houses were joined into a single dwelling where she could live for the rest of her life.

She still retained her palace in the city, however, and John of the Cross would often go there as well. One of the household servants, Leonor de Vitoria—who saw Fray John many times and went to confession to him—recalls how, when he came to the house, he would speak with Doña Ana and her niece, Inés de Mercado y Peñalosa. She saw him “in the presence of all the servants, speaking and conversing about holy and spiritual things, about heaven, and about how they might become saints. His words were always of this kind. At times, while speaking of these things, he would read them certain devout texts; at other times, he would leave them books in which such things were written, so that they might attend to them and serve our Lord.”

It is not clear whether Ana de Jesús was already among Doña Ana’s household servants; in her Testament, Doña Ana refers to her as “my servant… now in my service.”

Leonor also notes that Doña Ana would always invite Fray John “to sit down and not remain seated on the floor; but the saint would not agree, always seeking the humblest place in which to sit.” She adds, speaking of his modesty and bearing, that “simply by seeing him and hearing him, one was recollected and seemed moved to desire to serve our Lord. His words were holy and good, never idle. Everything that could be seen in him, whether in his words or his actions, was entirely holy, and he appeared to be very full of God and of virtues.”

Another witness, Lucas de San José, says that Fray John taught Doña Ana and her niece Doña Inés “the way of perfection,” and that “when the saint would go out to speak with them at the confessional, it was a common saying among the friars: ‘Now Saint Jerome, Saint Paula, and Eustochium are together.’”

Luis de Mercado y Peñalosa, Doña Ana’s nephew, also had much contact with John of the Cross. What he says about the saint’s virtues comes both from his own experience and from what he heard—especially about his humility and modesty—from his wife, Doña Inés de Mercado, “who for many years was in close contact with the holy father Fray John of the Cross, together with her aunt, Doña Ana de Mercado y Peñalosa.” He also recounts in detail the transfer of the saint’s remains from Úbeda and the veneration he received in Segovia.

José Vicente Rodríguez, o.c.d.

San Juan de la Cruz, ch. 27

Rodríguez, J.V. 2015, San Juan de la Cruz: la biografía, 2nd edn, San Pablo, Madrid.

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

Featured image: This detail from an image of St. John of the Cross was engraved in 1788 by Gilles Antoine Demarteau. The technique used—of which Demarteau was a master—was crayon-manner in red and black, based on a drawing by Taillasson. The Art Institute of Chicago has a marvelous image of the tools used in crayon-manner engraving, with detailed figures of the process. Image credit: Rijksmuseum, Antwerp (Public domain)

Quote of the day, 27 March: José Vicente Rodríguez, ocd

Among the laypeople who followed John of the Cross, one stands out in a particular way: Doña Ana de Mercado y Peñalosa. She left Granada and returned to her native city of Segovia, where she took up residence in small houses purchased and made ready beside the convent of the Discalced Carmelite friars, so as to remain close to her spiritual father, Fray John of the Cross, and to the monastery whose foundation she was helping to support.

This was not the construction of a new house, as some historians have supposed, but the purchase of two small dwellings. Gaspar de Herrera—a priest and administrator of the Mercy Hospital in Segovia—sold, with the permission of the city’s provisor, “to the prior, friars, and convent of the monastery of Our Lady of Mount Carmel of the Discalced, outside the city walls […] two houses and an enclosed plot with poplars and a well fed by a natural spring, which the said Hospital owned in the parish of Saint Mark.” The agreed price was “180 ducats, amounting to 67,500 maravedís,” to be paid in three installments.

The deed of sale was carried out with particular solemnity, since all the members of the Consulta and four chapter members of the Segovia convent took part in it. All the members of the Consulta signed, including John of the Cross himself. The purchase is dated August 11, 1589. A few days later, Doña Ana de Peñalosa paid the agreed sum. Shortly afterward, the two small houses were joined into a single dwelling where she could live for the rest of her life.

She still retained her palace in the city, however, and John of the Cross would often go there as well. One of the household servants, Leonor de Vitoria—who saw Fray John many times and went to confession to him—recalls how, when he came to the house, he would speak with Doña Ana and her niece, Inés de Mercado y Peñalosa. She saw him “in the presence of all the servants, speaking and conversing about holy and spiritual things, about heaven, and about how they might become saints. His words were always of this kind. At times, while speaking of these things, he would read them certain devout texts; at other times, he would leave them books in which such things were written, so that they might attend to them and serve our Lord.”

It is not clear whether Ana de Jesús was already among Doña Ana’s household servants; in her Testament, Doña Ana refers to her as “my servant… now in my service.”

Leonor also notes that Doña Ana would always invite Fray John “to sit down and not remain seated on the floor; but the saint would not agree, always seeking the humblest place in which to sit.” She adds, speaking of his modesty and bearing, that “simply by seeing him and hearing him, one was recollected and seemed moved to desire to serve our Lord. His words were holy and good, never idle. Everything that could be seen in him, whether in his words or his actions, was entirely holy, and he appeared to be very full of God and of virtues.”

Another witness, Lucas de San José, says that Fray John taught Doña Ana and her niece Doña Inés “the way of perfection,” and that “when the saint would go out to speak with them at the confessional, it was a common saying among the friars: ‘Now Saint Jerome, Saint Paula, and Eustochium are together.’”

Luis de Mercado y Peñalosa, Doña Ana’s nephew, also had much contact with John of the Cross. What he says about the saint’s virtues comes both from his own experience and from what he heard—especially about his humility and modesty—from his wife, Doña Inés de Mercado, “who for many years was in close contact with the holy father Fray John of the Cross, together with her aunt, Doña Ana de Mercado y Peñalosa.” He also recounts in detail the transfer of the saint’s remains from Úbeda and the veneration he received in Segovia.

José Vicente Rodríguez, o.c.d.

San Juan de la Cruz, ch. 27

Rodríguez, J.V. 2015, San Juan de la Cruz: la biografía, 2nd edn, San Pablo, Madrid.

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

Featured image: This detail from an image of St. John of the Cross was engraved in 1788 by Gilles Antoine Demarteau. The technique used—of which Demarteau was a master—was crayon-manner in red and black, based on a drawing by Taillasson. The Art Institute of Chicago has a marvelous image of the tools used in crayon-manner engraving, with detailed figures of the process. Image credit: Rijksmuseum, Antwerp (Public domain)

14 December: SAINT JOHN OF THE CROSS OUR FATHER (Transferred to 15 December 2025)

December 14
SAINT JOHN OF THE CROSS
OUR FATHER
Priest and Doctor of the Church

Solemnity

Pastoral note: The Solemnity is transferred to
Monday, 15 December 2025

John was born at Fontiveros in Spain about 1542. He entered the Carmelites and with the permission of his superiors began to live a stricter life. Afterward, he was persuaded by Saint Teresa to begin, together with some others, the Discalced reform within the Order; this cost him much hard work and many trials. He died in Ubeda in 1591, outstanding in holiness and wisdom, to which his many spiritual writings give eloquent witness.

Evening Prayer I

Hymn

Soldier of the King eternal,
Valiant warrior, hail to thee!
Column raised to heights supernal
In unshaken majesty.
We revere thy glorious merits
And the tide of homage wells
From the fountain of our spirits,
Heav’nward rising as it swells.

Thou hast felt the strong protection
Of the Virgin Mother’s power,
Saving thee with sweet election
In the dread and dangerous hour.
Since thy youth she never swerveth
In her watchful care of thee,
And forever she preserveth
Him who vowed her slave to be.

Chosen offspring of our Mother,
In her labors thou didst share,
Aiding her, as son and brother,
Carmel’s beauty to repair;
Ruined shrine and temple raising
From the dust of slow decay,
Mary’s honor meetly praising,
In the dawn of fairer day.

Lo, the Cross thy weapon glorious,
As on Calvary’s height of yore,
When our Jesus reigned victorious,
Fallen nature to restore;
So thy burning love retrieveth
Glory of an ancient race,
And by suffering achieveth
Marvels of renewing grace.

Praise unto thy God be given
For the grace, O John, conferred,
When with chalice raised to Heaven,
Thine entreating prayer was heard:
In that first rapt celebration
Of the sacrifice divine,
Pledge of thine assured salvation
He hath deigned in love to sign.

87.87.D.
Regis aeterni generose miles

Psalmody

Ant. 1 He opened his mouth in prayer, and the Lord filled him with the spirit of understanding.

Psalm 113

Praise, O servants of the Lord, *
praise the name of the Lord!
May the name of the Lord be blessed *
both now and forevermore.
From the rising of the sun to its setting *
praised be the name of the Lord!

High above all nations is the Lord, *
above the heavens his glory.
Who is like the Lord, our God, *
who has risen on high to his throne
yet stoops from the heights to look down, *
to look down upon heaven and earth?

From the dust he lifts up the lowly, *
from his misery he raises the poor
to set him in the company of princes, *
yes, with the princes of his people.
To the childless wife he gives a home *
and gladdens her heart with children.

Ant. He opened his mouth in prayer, and the Lord filled him with the spirit of understanding.

Ant. 2 The Lord gave him treasures out of the darkness, and riches that had been hidden away.

Psalm 146

My soul, give praise to the Lord; +
I will praise the Lord all my days, *
make music to my God while I live.

Put no trust in princes *
in mortal men in whom there is no help.
Take their breath, they return to clay *
and their plans that day come to nothing.

He is happy who is helped by Jacob’s God, *
whose hope is in the Lord his God,
who alone made heaven and earth, *
the seas and all they contain.

It is he who keeps faith forever, *
who is just to those who are oppressed.
It is he who gives bread to the hungry, *
the Lord, who sets prisoners free,

the Lord who gives sight to the blind, *
who raises up those who are bowed down,
the Lord, who protects the stranger *
and upholds the widow and orphan.

It is the Lord who loves the just *
but thwarts the path of the wicked.
The Lord will reign forever, *
Zion’s God, from age to age.

Ant. The Lord gave him treasures out of the darkness, and riches that had been hidden away.

Ant. 3 No eye has seen, no ear has heard, and no human heart has conceived all that God has prepared for those who love him.

Canticle: Rev 4:11; 5:9, 10, 12

O Lord our God, you are worthy *
to receive glory and honor and power.

For you have created all things; *
by your will they came to be and were made.

Worthy are you, O Lord, *
to receive the scroll and break open its seals.

For you were slain; *
with your blood you purchased for God
men of every race and tongue, *
of every people and nation.

You made of them a kingdom +
and priests to serve our God, *
and they shall reign on the earth.

Worthy is the Lamb that was slain, *
to receive power and riches,
wisdom and strength, *
honor and glory and praise.

Ant. No eye has seen, no ear has heard, and no human heart has conceived all that God has prepared for those who love him.

Reading
Ephesians 3:14-19

I, Paul, kneel before the Father from whom every family in heaven and on earth takes its name; and I pray that he will bestow on you gifts in keeping with the riches of his glory. May he strengthen you inwardly through the working of his Spirit. May Christ dwell in your hearts through faith, and may charity be the root and foundation of your life. Thus you will be able to grasp fully, with all the holy ones, the breadth and length and height and depth of Christ’s love, and experience this love which surpasses all knowledge, so that you may attain to the fullness of God himself.

Responsory

℟ The God who brought light out of darkness * has shone in our hearts. Repeat ℟
℣ To give the light of knowledge of God’s glory that appears in the face of Christ * and has shone in our hearts.
Glory to the Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy Spirit
℟ The God who brought light out of darkness * has shone in our hearts.

Canticle of Mary

Ant. I sought wisdom in my prayer; I found it abundantly within myself, and advanced greatly in it.

Intercessions

Christ our Redeemer inspired our Father Saint John of the Cross to follow him, and raised him to the heights of contemplation. Let us praise our Lord, and say:

℟  Glory to you forever!

Christ our God, you taught your servant John the science of the Cross; — kindle the fire of your love in those to whom you have entrusted the teaching and government of your Church. ℟

Christ, unfailing light, you reveal yourself in the night of faith to the poor in spirit; — let your face shine on all those who seek you in poverty amid the darkness of this world. ℟

Christ, our only teacher, you disclose your highest secrets to those who love and seek you; — grant the consummation of your love to those you have called to serve you in Carmel. ℟

Christ, triumphant in heaven in the midst of all your saints, — grant everlasting rest and peace in your glory to all our departed brothers and sisters. ℟

Our Father…

Prayer

Lord,
you endowed our Father Saint John of the Cross
with a spirit of self-denial and a love of the cross.
By following his example
may we come to the eternal vision of your glory.

We ask this through our Lord Jesus Christ, your Son,
who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit,
God, forever and ever.

Invitatory

Ant. Come, let us worship Christ Jesus, sole Word of the Father.

Invitatory psalm, as in the Ordinary

Office of Readings

Hymn

O John, rejoice this hallowed day
The triumph of the Cross to hail,
Whereon with Christ ‘twas thine to stay,
Transfixed with pang of spear and nail!

Nor insults, scorn, nor cruel scourge,
Bondage, nor hunger can restrain
The love thy panting soul doth urge
To taste the bitter draught of pain.

Thine only joy, thy sole reward,
The boon for which thy spirit sighed,
To mirror here thy suffering Lord,
Like Him in anguish crucified.

While thou dost search the mystic night,
Through darkness gleams a radiant star,
And Carmel’s camp is all alight,
With flame that leads to heights afar.

Let them that dwell in bliss above
Praise Thee, O Christ, with joyful lay,
Let them that run to Thee in love
Pursue, like John, the thorn-strewn way.

L.M.
Diem Ioannes advenit

Psalmody

Ant. 1 God chose us to be conformed to the image of his Son.

Psalm 16

Preserve me, God, I take refuge in you. +
I say to the Lord: “You are my God. *
My happiness lies in you alone.”

He has put into my heart a marvelous love +
for the faithful ones who dwell in his land. *
Those who choose other gods increase their sorrows.
Never will I offer their offerings of blood. *
Never will I take their name upon my lips.

O Lord, it is you who are my portion and cup; *
it is you yourself who are my prize.
The lot marked out for me is my delight: *
welcome indeed the heritage that falls to me!

I will bless the Lord who gives me counsel, *
who even at night directs my heart.
I keep the Lord ever in my sight: *
since he is at my right hand, I shall stand firm.

And so my heart rejoices, my soul is glad; *
even my body shall rest in safety.
For you will not leave my soul among the dead, *
nor let your beloved know decay.

You will show me the path of life, +
the fullness of joy in your presence, *
at your right hand happiness forever.

Ant. God chose us to be conformed to the image of his Son.

Ant. 2 Among you I claimed to know nothing save Jesus Christ, and him crucified.

Psalm 34: I

I will bless the Lord at all times,
his praise always on my lips;
in the Lord my soul shall make its boast. *
The humble shall hear and be glad.

Glorify the Lord with me. *
Together let us praise his name.
I sought the Lord and he answered me; *
from all my terrors he set me free.

Look towards him and be radiant; *
let your faces not be abashed.
This poor man called; the Lord heard him *
and rescued him from all his distress.

The angel of the Lord is encamped *
around those who revere him, to rescue them.
Taste and see that the Lord is good. *
He is happy who seeks refuge in him.

Revere the Lord, you his saints. *
They lack nothing, those who revere him.
Strong lions suffer want and go hungry *
but those who seek the Lord lack no blessing.

Ant. Among you I claimed to know nothing save Jesus Christ, and him crucified.

Ant. 3 For me, to live is Christ, to die is gain.

Psalm 34: II

Come, children, and hear me *
that I may teach you the fear of the Lord.
Who is he who longs for life  *
and many days to enjoy his prosperity?

Then keep your tongue from evil *
and your lips from speaking deceit.
Turn aside from evil and do good, *
seek and strive after peace.

The Lord turns his face against the wicked *
to destroy their remembrance from the earth.
The Lord turns his eyes to the just *
and his ears to their appeal.

They call and the Lord hears *
and rescues them in all their distress.
The Lord is close to the broken-hearted; *
those whose spirit is crushed he will save.

Many are the trials of the just man *
but from them all the Lord will rescue him.
He will keep guard over all his bones, *
not one of his bones shall be broken.

Evil brings death to the wicked, *
those who hate the good are doomed.
The Lord ransoms the souls of his servants. *
Those who hide in him shall not be condemned.

Ant. For me, to live is Christ, to die is gain.

℣ In you, Lord, is the fount of life.
℟ It is your light that enlightens us.

First Reading
Colossians 1:11-29

A reading from the Letter of St Paul to the Colossians

God has transferred us to the Kingdom of his beloved Son

May you be strengthened with all power, according to his glorious might, for all endurance and patience with joy, giving thanks to the Father, who has qualified us to share in the inheritance of the saints in light. He has delivered us from the dominion of darkness and transferred us to the kingdom of his beloved Son, in whom we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins.

He is the image of the invisible God, the first-born of all creation; for in him all things were created, in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or principalities or authorities—all things were created through him and for him. He is before all things, and in him all things hold together. He is the head of the body, the church; he is the beginning, the first-born from the dead, that in everything he might be pre-eminent. For in him all the fulness of God was pleased to dwell, and through him to reconcile to himself all things, whether on earth or in heaven, making peace by the blood of his cross.

And you, who once were estranged and hostile in mind, doing evil deeds, he has now reconciled in his body of flesh by his death, in order to present you holy and blameless and irreproachable before him, provided that you continue in the faith, stable and steadfast, not shifting from the hope of the gospel which you heard, which has been preached to every creature under heaven, and of which I, Paul, became a minister.

Now 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, of which I became a minister according to the divine office which was given to me for you, to make the word of God fully known, the mystery hidden for ages and generations but now made manifest to his saints. To them God chose to make known how great among the Gentiles are the riches of the glory of this mystery, which is Christ in you, the hope of glory. Him we proclaim, warning every man and teaching every man in all wisdom, that we may present every man mature in Christ. For this I toil, striving with all the energy which he mightily inspires within me.

Responsory

℟ This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased; * listen to him.
℣ In many and varied ways God spoke to our ancestors through the prophets, but in these last days he has spoken to us in his Son. * Listen to him.

The Second Reading (Alternative 1)
(B, st. 37,36)

A reading from the Spiritual Canticle of St John of the Cross

Knowledge of the mystery hidden in Christ Jesus

However numerous are the mysteries and marvels that holy doctors have discovered and saintly souls understood in this earthly life, all the more is yet to be said and understood. There is much to fathom in Christ, for he is like an abundant mine with many recesses of treasures, so that however deep individuals may go they never reach the end or bottom, but rather in every recess find new veins with new riches everywhere. On this account St. Paul said of Christ: ‘In Christ dwell hidden all treasures and wisdom.’ The soul cannot enter these caverns or reach these treasures if, as we said, she does not first pass over to the divine wisdom through the straits of exterior and interior suffering. For one cannot reach in this life what is attainable of these mysteries of Christ without having suffered much and without having received numerous intellectual and sensible favors from God, and without having undergone much spiritual activity; for all these favors are inferior to the wisdom of the mysteries of Christ in that they serve as preparations for coming to this wisdom.

Oh! If we could but now fully understand how a soul cannot reach the thicket and wisdom of the riches of God, which are of many kinds, without entering the thicket of many kinds of suffering, finding in this her delight and consolation; and how a soul with an authentic desire for divine wisdom wants suffering first in order to enter this wisdom by the thicket of the cross! Accordingly, St. Paul admonished the Ephesians not to grow weak in their tribulations and to be strong and rooted in charity in order to comprehend with all the saints what is the breadth and height and depth, and to know also the supereminent charity of the knowledge of Christ, in order to be filled with all the fullness of God.

The gate entering into these riches of his wisdom is the cross, which is narrow, and few desire to enter by it, but many desire the delights obtained from entering there.

Responsory

℟ What no eye has seen, nor ear heard, things beyond our imagining—all that God has prepared for those who love him: * these are the very things that God has revealed to us through the Spirit.
℣ The Spirit reaches the depths of everything, even the depths of God: * these are the very things that God has revealed to us through the Spirit.

The Second Reading (Alternative 2)
(B, st. 5)

A reading from the Spiritual Canticle of St John of the Cross

Traces of the divine beauty in creation

Created things in themselves, as Saint Augustine declares, give testimony to God’s grandeur and excellence. For God created all things with remarkable ease and brevity, and in them he left some trace of who he is, not only in giving all things being from nothing, but even by endowing them with innumerable graces and qualities, making them beautiful in a wonderful order and unfailing dependence on one another. All of this he did through his own wisdom, the Word, his only begotten Son by whom he created them.

Saint Paul says: The Son of God is the splendor of his glory and the image of his substance. It should be known that only with this figure, his Son, did God look at all things, that is he communicated to them their natural being and many natural graces and gifts, and made them complete and perfect, as is said in Genesis: God looked at all things that he made, and they were very good. To look and behold that they were very good was to make them very good in the Word, his Son.

Not only by looking at them did he communicate natural being and graces, as we said, but also with this image of his Son alone, he clothed them in beauty by imparting to them supernatural being. This he did when he became man and elevated human nature in the beauty of God and consequently all creatures, since in human nature he was united with them all.

Accordingly, the Son of God proclaimed: If I be lifted up from the earth, I will elevate all things to me. And in this elevation of all things through the incarnation of his Son and through the glory of his resurrection according to the flesh, the Father did not merely beautify creatures partially, but rather we can say, clothed them wholly in beauty and dignity.

Responsory

℟ You will not deprive me, Lord, of what you have given me in Christ. * for in Christ you have given me everything.
℣ The heavens are mine, the earth is mine; mine are the people, mine the just, mine the sinners, the angels are mine and the Virgin Mother is mine, * for in Christ you have given me everything.

Where the Vigil Office is celebrated:

Canticles

Ant. Come, let us climb the mountain of the Lord, where God is pleased to dwell; there dwell his honor and glory alone.

Canticle I
Tobit 13:8-11,13-15

The future glory of Jerusalem

You have come to Mount Sion and the city of the living God (Heb 12:22)

Let all men speak of his majesty, *
and sing his praises in Jerusalem.

O Jerusalem, holy city, +
he scourged you for the works of your hands, *
but will again pity the children of the righteous.

Praise the Lord for his goodness, +
and bless the King of the ages, *
so that his tent may be rebuilt in you with joy.

May he gladden within you all who were captives; +
all who were ravaged may he cherish within you
for all generations to come.

A bright light will shine to all parts of the earth; *
many nations shall come to you from afar,
And the inhabitants of all the limits of the earth, +
drawn to you by the name of the Lord God, *
Bearing in their hands their gifts for the King of heaven.

Every generation shall give joyful praise in you, +
and shall call you the chosen one, *
through all ages forever.

Go, then, rejoice over the children of the righteous, +
who shall all be gathered together *
and shall bless the Lord of the ages.

Happy are those who love you, *
and happy those who rejoice in your prosperity.

Happy are all who shall grieve over you, *
over all your chastisements,

For they shall rejoice in you *
as they behold all your joy forever.

My spirit blesses the Lord, the great King.

Canticle II
Is 2:2-3

All the peoples will come to the house of the Lord

The kings of the earth will bring glory and honor to the holy city of Jerusalem (Rev 21:24)

It shall come to pass in the latter days *
that the mountain of the house of the Lord
shall be established as the highest of the mountains +
and shall be raised above the hills, *
and all the nations shall flow to it.

And many people shall come, and say: +
‘Come, let us go up to the mountain of the Lord, *
to the house of the God of Jacob,
that he may teach us his ways *
and that we may walk in his paths.’

For out of Sion shall go forth the law, *
and the word of the Lord from Jerusalem.

Canticle III
Jer 7:2b-7

Amend your ways and I will dwell among you

Go and be reconciled with your brother first, and then come and present your offering (Mt 5:24)

Hear the word of the Lord, +
all you men of Judah *
who enter these gates to worship the Lord.

Thus says the Lord of hosts, the God of Israel, +
Amend your ways and your deeds, *
and I will let you dwell in this place.

Do not trust these deceptive words: +
‘This is the temple of the Lord, *
The temple of the Lord, the temple of the Lord,’

For if you truly amend your ways and your deeds, *
If you truly execute justice one with another,
If you do not oppress the alien, the fatherless or the widow. *
Or shed innocent blood in this place,
In the land that I gave of old *
To your fathers for ever.

Ant. Come, let us climb the mountain of the Lord, where God is pleased to dwell; there dwell his honor and glory alone.

Gospel
Jn 12:35-36a, 44b-50

A reading from the holy Gospel according to John

Believe in the light and you will become sons of light

Jesus declared publicly:

“The light will be with you only a little longer now.
Walk while you have the light,
or the dark will overtake you;
he who walks in the dark does not know where he is going.
While you still have the light,
believe in the light
and you will become sons of light.”

“Whoever believes in me
believes not in me
but in the one who sent me,
and whoever sees me,
sees the one who sent me.
and whoever sees me,
sees the one who sent me.
I, the light, have come into the world,
so that whoever believes in me
need not stay in the dark anymore.
If anyone hears my words and does not keep them faithfully,
it is not I who shall condemn him,
since I have come not to condemn the world,
but to save the world:
he who rejects me and refuses my words
has his judge already:
the word itself that I have spoken
will be his judge on the last day.
For what I have spoken does not come from myself;
no, what I was to say, what I had to speak,
was commanded by the Father who sent me,
and I know that his commands mean eternal life.
And therefore what the Father has told me
is what I speak.”

Te Deum

You are God: we praise you; *
You are the Lord: we acclaim you;
You are the eternal Father: *
All creation worships you.

To you all angels, all the powers of heaven, *
Cherubim and Seraphim, sing in endless praise:
Holy, holy, holy, Lord, God of power and might, *
heaven and earth are full of your glory.

The glorious company of apostles praise you. +
The noble fellowship of prophets praise you. *
The white-robed army of martyrs praise you.

Throughout the world the holy Church acclaims you: *
Father, of majesty unbounded,
your true and only Son, worthy of all worship, *
and the Holy Spirit, advocate and guide.

You, Christ, are the King of glory, *
the eternal Son of the Father.

When you became man to set us free *
you did not spurn the Virgin’s womb.

You overcame the sting of death, *
and opened the kingdom of heaven to all believers.

You are seated at God’s right hand in glory. *
We believe that you will come, and be our judge.

Come then, Lord, and help your people, *
bought with the price of your own blood,
and bring us with your saints*
to glory everlasting.

Save your people, Lord, and bless your inheritance.
— Govern and uphold them now and always.

Day by day we bless you.
— We praise your name for ever.

Keep us today, Lord, from all sin.
— Have mercy on us, Lord, have mercy.

Lord, show us your love and mercy,
— for we have put our trust in you.

In you, Lord, is our hope:
— And we shall never hope in vain.

Prayer

Lord,
you endowed our Father Saint John of the Cross
with a spirit of self-denial and a love of the cross.
By following his example
may we come to the eternal vision of your glory.

We ask this through our Lord Jesus Christ, your Son,
who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit,
God, forever and ever.

Morning Prayer

Hymn

Bearing His Cross, the gentle Lord drew nigh,
Offering the crown by merit richly won.
O Love! to quaff Thy cup and with Thee die,
Low answers John.

To live despised, in suffering and alone,
The one insatiate yearning of his breast;
To die devoid of honor, and unknown,
His heart’s request.

Death yielded triumph of the Cross at last,
While dazzling globes of fire from Heav’n descend,
And o’er his deeds the light of glory cast
To cheer his end.

His dying couch, with light irradiate,
Dims with celestial beam earth’s fitful flame,
Perfumes exhale, breathing of heavenly state
And saintly fame.

Honor supreme be to the Father given,
To Word and Paraclete in praise unite,
Upon whose Triune flame the hosts of Heaven
Feed with delight.

10.10.10.4.
Dum crucem gestat Dominus, Ioanni

OR:

Let us together
Up the high mountain
Go where the weather
Keeps a June glow.
You in your beauty,
I in your beauty,
Earth in your beauty,
All give delight.

Up past the steepest
Cliffs of our striving,
Up from the deepest
Thickets of pain
Where darkness bound you,
Ravaged and slew you,
Till daybreak found you,
Risen again.

Haste then our going
Up the high mountain,
Pure water flowing
Down from the height,
Wind in the spruces,
Light on the aspens,
Fruit of sweet juices
All give delight.

Deep caverns holding
Secrets of heaven,
Summits unfolding
Myst’ries divine,
Nightingale singing,
Grove lit with beauty
Each new day bringing
Taste of new wine.

Sweet the ascending
Up the high mountain,
Sweeter the ending
Love spread abroad.
Everyone sharing
Grace of your image.
Everyone bearing
The beauty of God.

54.54.D
Sr. Miriam of the Holy Spirit, O.C.D.

Psalmody

Ant. 1 Truly you are a hidden God, O God of Israel, our Savior.

Psalms and canticle from Sunday, Week I

Ant. 2 All things are yours, for you are Christ’s, and Christ is God’s.

Ant. 3 Give thanks to the Lord in your hearts, sing him spiritual canticles.

Reading

2 Corinthians 3:17-18

The Lord is the Spirit, and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom. All of us, gazing on the Lord’s glory with unveiled faces, are being transformed from glory to glory into his very image by the Lord who is the Spirit.

Responsory

℟ Your light will shine in the darkness * and the darkness will be as noon. Repeat ℟
℣ The Lord will fill your soul with his splendor, * and the darkness will be as noon.
Glory to the Father and to the Son and to the Holy Spirit
℟ Your light will shine in the darkness * and the darkness will be as noon.

Canticle of Zechariah

Ant. While you have the light, believe in the light, and you will be children of the light.

Or: The Lord has come to give light to those who dwell in darkness and the shadow of death, and to guide our feet in the way of peace.

Intercessions

Jesus Christ, the head and bridegroom of his Church makes us joyful today on this feast of John of the Cross, his servant. Let us say to him:

℟  You, Christ, are the King of Glory.

Only Word of the Father, uttered eternally in the eternal silence, and in the fullness of time received in the Virgin’s womb; — may we hear your words today in the depths of our hearts, and put them into practice.

Wisdom of the Father, you showed your great love for us by emptying yourself in the Incarnation and on the Cross; — may we, who have been redeemed by your blood, always live in close communion with you. ℟

Perfect Image of the Godhead, in whom all the mysteries of eternal love are revealed and poured out, — may we go forward in the strength of your Spirit, toward your inaccessible light. ℟

Supreme Delight of the Father, in whom God looks mercifully on all men; — may we become perfect in compassion as our heavenly Father is perfect. ℟

First-born of all creation, through you the Father in his goodness created and re-created all things, — may our thoughts be turned today from the visible world to your invisible beauty. ℟

Our Father…

Prayer

Lord,
you endowed our Father Saint John of the Cross
with a spirit of self-denial and a love of the cross.
By following his example
may we come to the eternal vision of your glory.

We ask this through our Lord Jesus Christ, your Son,
who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit,
God, forever and ever.

Daytime Prayer

Complementary psalmody

Midmorning

Ant. Those who wish to come after me must deny themselves, take up their cross, and follow me.

Reading

Ephesians 4:22-24

Acquire a fresh, spiritual way of thinking. You must put on that new man created in God’s image, whose justice and holiness are born of truth.

℣ A pure heart create for me, O God.
℟ Put a steadfast spirit within me.

Midday

Ant. Whoever would draw near to God must believe; the righteous live by faith.

Reading

Romans 5:1-2

Now that we have been justified by faith, we are at peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ. Through him we have gained access by faith to the grace in which we now stand, and we boast of our hope for the glory of God.

℣ I live by faith in the Son of God.
℟ Who loved me and gave himself for me.

Midafternoon

Ant. Your strength will lie in silence and hope.

Reading

Romans 8:24-25

In hope we were saved. But hope is not hope if its object is seen; how is it possible for one to hope for what he sees? And hoping for what we cannot see means awaiting it with patient endurance.

℣ The Lord is good to those who trust in him.
℟ To the soul who seeks him.

Prayer

Lord,
you endowed our Father Saint John of the Cross
with a spirit of self-denial and a love of the cross.
By following his example
may we come to the eternal vision of your glory.

We ask this through our Lord Jesus Christ, your Son,
who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit,
God, forever and ever.

Evening Prayer II

Hymn

Saint of the eagle eye,
Gazing enrapt on high
Mid dread abysses of Divinity;
Martyr by heart’s intent,
Virgin yet penitent,
Prophet and guide in realms of mystery.

Oft in thy life, ’tis told
Sweet converse thou didst hold
With the pure Virgin and her Son divine;
Thence came the wondrous light
Flooding with glory bright
Thy mystic page, for wisdom there did shine.

Clearly thou dost reveal
Secrets the clouds conceal
For thou hast seeped thy soul in rays above,
Pondering the mountain height,
Darkness of faith’s long night
And the reviving flame of mystic love.

When by God’s holy will
Thou dost His word instill,
Wondrous the marvels by the soul divined,
Like Him evoking light
From chaos deep as night,
Cheering with healthful beams the darkened mind.

O John, thy praise intone
Prostrate before the throne!
Thee hath the Father signed with light most true,
Gifts of the Spirit shine
And the meek Lamb divine
Openeth the book of life to thy pure view.

6.6.10.D.
O satis felix! Speculator alti

Ant. 1 God loved us so much that he brought us to life with Christ.

Psalm 15

Lord, who shall be admitted to your tent *
and dwell on your holy mountain?

He who walks without fault; *
he who acts with justice
and speaks the truth from his heart; *
he who does not slander with his tongue;

he who does no wrong to his brother, *
who casts no slur on his neighbor,
who holds the godless in disdain, *
but honors those who fear the Lord;

he who keeps his pledge, come what may; *
who takes no interest on a loan
and accepts no bribes against the innocent. *
Such a man will stand firm forever.

Ant. God loved us so much that he brought us to life with Christ.

Ant. 2 We know and believe in the love God has for us.

Psalm 112

Happy the man who fears the Lord, *
who takes delight in all his commands.
His sons will be powerful on earth; *
the children of the upright are blessed.

Riches and wealth are in his house; *
his justice stands firm forever.
He is a light in the darkness for the upright: *
he is generous, merciful and just.

The good man takes pity and lends, *
he conducts his affairs with honor.
The just man will never waver: *
he will be remembered forever.

He has no fear of evil news; *
with a firm heart he trusts in the Lord.
With a steadfast heart he will not fear, *
he will see the downfall of his foes.

Open-handed, he gives to the poor; +
his justice stands firm forever. *
His head will be raised in glory.

The wicked man sees and is angry, +
grinds his teeth and fades away; *
the desire of the wicked leads to doom.

Ant. We know and believe in the love God has for us.

Ant. 3 The love of God has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given us.

Canticle: Ephesians 1:3-10

Praised be the God and Father *
of our Lord Jesus Christ,
Who has bestowed on us in Christ *
every spiritual blessing in the heavens.

God chose us in him *
before the world began,
to be holy *
and blameless in his sight.

He predestined us +
to be his adopted sons through Jesus Christ, *
such was his will and pleasure,
that all might praise the glorious favor *
he has bestowed on us in his beloved.

In him and through his blood we have been redeemed, *
and our sins forgiven,
so immeasurably generous *
is God’s favor to us.

God has given us the wisdom *
to understand fully the mystery,
the plan he was pleased *
to decree in Christ.

A plan to be carried out *
in Christ, in the fullness of time,
to bring all things into one in him, *
in the heavens and on the earth.

Ant. The love of God has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given us.

Reading
1 Corinthians 13:8-10, 12-13, 14:1a

Love is eternal. There are inspired messages, but they are temporary; there are gifts of speaking in strange tongues, but they will cease; there is knowledge, but it will pass. For our gifts of knowledge and of inspired messages are only partial; but when what is perfect comes, then what is partial will disappear. What we see now is like a dim image in a mirror; then we shall see face-to-face. What I know now is only partial; then it will be complete—as complete as God’s knowledge of me. Meanwhile these three remain: faith, hope, and love; and the greatest of these is love. It is love, then, that you should strive for.

Responsory

℟ Love is as strong as death: * it flashes forth like flames of fire. Repeat ℟
℣ Who can separate us from the love of Christ? * It flashes forth like flames of fire.
Glory to the Father and to the Son and to the Holy Spirit
℟ Love is as strong as death: * it flashes forth like flames of fire.

Canticle of Mary

Ant. Father, I want those you have given me to be with me where I am, so that the love with which you loved me may be in them, and that I may be in them.

Intercessions

God the Father has given us his Spirit through Jesus Christ his beloved Son, so that we may be partakers in the divine nature and witnesses to his love in the Church. Let us praise him and say:

℟  Through the intercession of Saint John, hear us, O Lord.

Give your Church the living faith that will lead all men and women to seek you; — and bring them to the closest union with you. ℟

Give the hope of heaven to all who are faithful in seeking you; — may they obtain all that they hope for. ℟

Pour out your love upon us; — that where there is no love we may put love and so draw love out. ℟

May all Carmelites be imitators of the Virgin Mary, Mother of our Order; — may we follow every inspiration of the Holy Spirit. ℟

Grant final purification to our departed brothers and sisters, — so that they may come without delay to sing canticles of love with all your saints. ℟

Our Father…

Prayer

Lord,
you endowed our Father Saint John of the Cross
with a spirit of self-denial and a love of the cross.
By following his example
may we come to the eternal vision of your glory.

We ask this through our Lord Jesus Christ, your Son,
who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit,
God, forever and ever.

Catholic Church 1993, Proper of the Liturgy of the Hours of the Order of the Brothers of the Blessed Virgin Mary of Mount Carmel and the Order of Discalced Carmelites (Rev. and augm.), Institutum Carmelitanum, Rome.

Featured image: Saint John of the Cross (detail), Abel de Jesús (21st c. Spanish), digital illustration with Photoshop. Image credit: © Abel de Jesús (All rights reserved, used by permission)

#DiscalcedCarmelite #DoctorOfTheChurch #LiturgyOfTheHours #priest #Solemnity #StJohnOfTheCross

Quote of the day, 19 October: St. John of the Cross

Regarding other ceremonies in vocal prayers and other devotions, one should not become attached to any ceremonies or modes of prayer other than those Christ taught us.

When his disciples asked him to teach them to pray, Christ obviously, as one who knew so well his Father’s will, would have told them all that was necessary in order to obtain an answer from the Eternal Father. And, in fact, he taught them only those seven petitions of the Pater Noster, which include all our spiritual and temporal needs, and he did not teach numerous other kinds of prayers and ceremonies [Lk. 11:1-4].

Instead, at another time he told them that in praying they should not desire much speaking because our heavenly Father clearly knows our needs [Mt. 6:7-8]. He only charged us with great insistence to persevere in prayer—that is, in the Pater Noster—teaching in another place that one should pray and never cease [Lk. 18:1].

He did not teach us a quantity of petitions but that these seven be repeated often, and with fervor and care. In these, as I say, are embodied everything that is God’s will and all that is fitting for us.

Accordingly, when His Majesty had recourse three times to the Eternal Father, all three times he prayed with the same petition of the Pater Noster, as the Evangelists recount: Father, if it cannot be but that I drink this chalice, may your will be done [Mt. 26:39; Mk. 14:36; Lk. 22:42].

And the ceremonies he taught us for use in our prayers are either of two. Our prayer should be made either in the concealment of our inner room (where without noise and without telling anyone we can pray with a more perfect and pure heart, as he said: When you pray enter your inner room, and having closed the door, pray [Mt. 6:6]); or, if not in one’s room, it should be made in the solitary wilderness, and at the best and most quiet time of night, as he did [Lk. 6:12].

No reason exists, hence, for designating fixed times or set days, or for choosing some days more than others for our devotions; neither is there reason for using other kinds of prayer, or phrases having a play on words, but only those prayers that the Church uses, and as she uses them, for all are reducible to the Pater Noster.

Saint John of the Cross

The Ascent of Mount Carmel: Book Three, Chapter 44, no. 4

John of the Cross, St. 1991, The Collected Works of St. John of the Cross, Revised Edition, translated from the Spanish by Kavanaugh, K and Rodriguez, O with revisions and introductions by Kavanaugh, K, ICS Publications, Washington DC.

Featured image: Outer cloister walkway at the Carmel du Pater Noster, Jerusalem. The walls of the monastery church are covered with panels carrying the Lord’s Prayer in different languages. The Swedish and Georgian versions are seen in the foreground. The Carmel is built on the spot where Jerusalem tradition says Jesus taught the Lord’s Prayer to his disciples. Image credit: Alex-David Baldi / Flickr (Some rights reserved).

#OurFather #perseverance #prayer #simplicity #StJohnOfTheCross

Quote of the day, 29 September: St. Edith Stein

 Since September 29 we’ve had a new Mother who would like me to write something again.

Saint Edith Stein
Echt, 5 November 1940

Just now I am gathering material for a new work since our Reverend Mother wishes me to do some scholarly work again, as far as this will be possible in our living situation and under the present circumstances. I am very grateful to be allowed once more to do something before my brain rusts completely.

Echt, 17 November 1940

I am going about my new task like a little child making its first attempts at walking.

Echt, 16 May 1941

Please, will Your Reverence also pray a little to the Holy Spirit and to our Holy Father John for what I am now planning to write. It is to be something for our Holy Father’s 400th birthday (24 June 1942)…

Echt, 8 October 1941

Because of the work I am doing I live almost constantly immersed in thoughts about our Holy Father John. That is a great grace. May I ask Your Reverence once more for prayers that I can produce something appropriate for his Jubilee?

Echt, 18 November 1941

Dear Mother,

… I am satisfied with everything. A scientia crucis [science of the cross] can be gained only when one comes to feel the Cross radically. I have been convinced of that from the first moment and have said, from my heart: Ave, Crux, spes unica!

Echt, December 1941

Dear Sister Maria,

… while working on this task it often happened when I was greatly exhausted that I had the feeling I could not penetrate to what I wished to say and to grasp. I already thought that it would always remain so. But now I feel I have renewed vigor for creative effort. Holy Father John gave me renewed impetus for some remarks concerning symbols. When I finish this manuscript I would like to send a German copy to Father Heribert [Discalced Carmelite provincial in Germany] to have it duplicated for the monasteries.

The only reason I write so little is that I need all the time for Father John.

Echt, 9 April 1942

My dear ones,

A [Red Cross] nurse from [Amsterdam] intends to speak today with the Consul. Here, every petition [on behalf] of fully Jewish Catholics has been forbidden since yesterday. Outside [the camp] an attempt can still be made, but with extremely little prospect. According to plans, a transport will leave on Friday. Could you possibly write to Mère Claire in Venlo, Kaldenkerkeweg 185 [the Ursuline Convent] to ask for [my] manuscript if they have not already sent it. We count on your prayers. There are so many persons here who need some consolation and they expect it from the Sisters.

In Corde Jesu, your grateful

B.

Westerbork transit camp, 5 August 1942

Mother Antonia Ambrosia Engelmann, O.C.D. was elected prioress of the Carmel of Echt on 29 September 1940.  It is to her that we owe a debt of gratitude for Saint Edith Stein’s ultimate volume, The Science of the Cross. Gelber and Leuven (1993) note that although it was her final work, the manuscript was published as Vol. I in Edith Steins Werke. When Edith and Rosa were arrested in August of 1942, the completed portions of her manuscript had already been sent to a typist. Unaware of the fate that awaited her, Edith asks to retrieve that manuscript as if to continue working on it while in prison.

Stein, E. 1993, Self-Portrait in Letters, 1916-1942, Sister Teresa Benedicta of the Cross, Discalced Carmelite, translated from the German by Koeppel, J, ICS Publications, Washington DC.

Featured image: Vintage Remington Portable typewriter with German text. Original Flickr source no longer available.

#monasticLife #obedience #StEdithStein #StJohnOfTheCross #TheScienceOfTheCross

Quote of the day, 20 June: St. John of the Cross

Jesus be in your soul, my daughter in Christ.

The reason for my not having written during all this time is due more to my having been in such an out-of-the-way place, as is Segovia, than because of a lack of desire. My will to write remains ever the same, and I hope in God this will continue to be so. I have been sorry about your troubles.

I would desire that you not be so solicitous for the temporal things of the house because God will gradually forget you and you will come to a state of great spiritual and temporal need; for it is our anxiety that creates our needs.

Cast your care on the Lord, daughter, and he will sustain you [Ps. 55:22], for he who gives, and wants to give, the highest cannot fail to give the least. Be careful that you do not lack the desire to be poor and in want; for if you do, at that very hour devotion will fail you and you will gradually weaken in the practice of virtue.

If previously you desired poverty, now that you are superior, you ought to desire and love it much more. You ought to govern and provide the house with virtues and ardent desires for heaven rather than with worries and plans about temporal and earthly things. The Lord tells us not to be thinking about food or clothing or tomorrow [Mt. 6:31-34].

Saint John of the Cross

Letter 21 to Madre María de Jesús (excerpts)
Discalced Carmelite prioress of Córdoba
Madrid, 20 June 1590

John of the Cross, St. 1991, The Collected Works of St. John of the Cross, Revised Edition, translated from the Spanish by Kavanaugh, K and Rodriguez, O with revisions and introductions by Kavanaugh, K, ICS Publications, Washington DC.

Featured image: Study of a Woman’s Head was painted in oil on wood, ca. 1780 by Jean-Baptiste Greuze (French, 1725–1805). Image credit: Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York (Public domain).

⬦ Reflection Question ⬦
How has God shown you His care and sustained you through His Divine Providence?
⬦ Join the conversation in the comments.

#DivineProvidence #monasticLife #poverty #spiritualDirection #StJohnOfTheCross #trust

Quote of the day, 20 June: St. John of the Cross

Jesus be in your soul, my daughter in Christ.

The reason for my not having written during all this time is due more to my having been in such an out-of-the-way place, as is Segovia, than because of a lack of desire. My will to write remains ever the same, and I hope in God this will continue to be so. I have been sorry about your troubles.

I would desire that you not be so solicitous for the temporal things of the house because God will gradually forget you and you will come to a state of great spiritual and temporal need; for it is our anxiety that creates our needs.

Cast your care on the Lord, daughter, and he will sustain you [Ps. 55:22], for he who gives, and wants to give, the highest cannot fail to give the least. Be careful that you do not lack the desire to be poor and in want; for if you do, at that very hour devotion will fail you and you will gradually weaken in the practice of virtue.

If previously you desired poverty, now that you are superior, you ought to desire and love it much more. You ought to govern and provide the house with virtues and ardent desires for heaven rather than with worries and plans about temporal and earthly things. The Lord tells us not to be thinking about food or clothing or tomorrow [Mt. 6:31-34].

Saint John of the Cross

Letter 21 to Madre María de Jesús (excerpts)
Discalced Carmelite prioress of Córdoba
Madrid, 20 June 1590

John of the Cross, St. 1991, The Collected Works of St. John of the Cross, Revised Edition, translated from the Spanish by Kavanaugh, K and Rodriguez, O with revisions and introductions by Kavanaugh, K, ICS Publications, Washington DC.

Featured image: Study of a Woman’s Head was painted in oil on wood, ca. 1780 by Jean-Baptiste Greuze (French, 1725–1805). Image credit: Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York (Public domain).

⬦ Reflection Question ⬦
How has God shown you His care and sustained you through His Divine Providence?
⬦ Join the conversation in the comments.

#DivineProvidence #monasticLife #poverty #spiritualDirection #StJohnOfTheCross #trust

Quote of the day, 22 April: Blessed Marie-Eugène

Mary, Mother of the Risen One

Yesterday, we contemplated the Risen Jesus, and in a sense, we were carried away by His light and by the joy of the apostles, who recovered all their hope as they beheld their risen Master.

Today, it is good for us to pause with Mary, the Mother of the Risen One. She is our mother, and we want to understand what was happening in her soul.

We are drawn to seek her in her solitude—to contemplate her there. She does not step into the foreground; she remains hidden, always in the background. We have to make an effort to find her, to draw close to her, but we feel this need.

Let us linger with Mary for a few moments on the day of the Resurrection.

It seems certain that the Lord revealed Himself to her. Her risen Son surely wanted her to share in His joy and in His triumph.

We last saw her on the evening of Good Friday and throughout Holy Saturday, immersed in a sorrow we can hardly imagine. Yes, she remained noble and serene, magnified by suffering, above all by the living word her Son had spoken. On Calvary, He had consecrated her motherhood: a divine motherhood that had become a motherhood of grace for the Mystical Body of Christ and for all humanity made new.

She was great, yet profoundly sorrowful. We have tried to grasp this. In her suffering—in that sea of grief that threatened to bury her in its bitter waves—there burned a flame: the small flame of hope. But it was strong and immense—a hope that sustained the Virgin and, through her, sustained the Mystical Body of Christ.

Beside the cross, beside the body of her dead and buried Son, Mary remained the one true hope—a living hope, rooted in the fruitfulness of a Mother who never ceased to give life.

And now, Jesus is risen. He reveals Himself to her. What joy must have flooded her soul!

At the Visitation, she sang: “My soul magnifies the Lord, and my spirit rejoices in God my Savior.” [Lk 1:46–47]. How much greater her exultation must have been on this morning! Her soul rejoiced. Her hope took hold of its object. Her whole being exulted.

Yes, the angel’s words at the Annunciation were true. The Son she bore was truly the Son of God, truly the Messiah. He had been put to death—for it was necessary that He pass through suffering and death—and now He was alive again, risen.

He was the promised King, the God-Man of incomparable human stature, radiant now in the full glory of His divine majesty.

Mary rejoiced—not only in her soul, but in her body. Her whole being responded with joy at the sight, the touch, the embrace—if we may put it that way—of the risen body of her Son.

This was her joy, her exultation—a movement of the Holy Spirit through her entire being. And all of it unfolded in an outward serenity, a purity, a beauty that already belonged to heaven.

St. John of the Cross speaks of the awakenings of the Word in the soul (cf. The Living Flame Of Love, stanza 4). Here was one of those awakenings—the Word, seemingly at rest, stirring again in the soul under the flame and breath of the Holy Spirit. He sings within it, exults within it, and causes not only the soul and grace to rejoice, but even the body itself.

So it is when the source of joy is spiritual: it reaches the furthest edges of one’s being and person.

Here, it was more than just a radiance in Mary’s body or flesh—her very flesh exulted at the sight and the embrace of the risen body of the God-Man, her Son.

Blessed Marie-Eugène of the Child Jesus

Homily for Easter Monday, 15 April 1963

Marie-Eugène de l’Enfant-Jésus 1986, Jésus, Contemplation du Mystère Pascal, Editions du Carmel, Toulouse.

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

Featured image: In Ushered in a Tearful Joy (c. 1890), Russian painter Vasily Polenov (1844–1927) captures the moment when Resurrection light breaks into the house of mourning. A woman—possibly Mary Magdalene—stands in the doorway, clothed in blue, announcing news that will change everything. Seated in the shadows, one veiled figure turns to listen; another sits with head in hands, still bowed in grief. The painting evokes the Easter Monday Gospel (Mt 28:8–10), in which the women, “fearful yet overjoyed,” run from the tomb to tell the disciples, and meet the Risen Lord along the way. Image credit: WikiArt (Public domain)

⬦ Reflection Question ⬦
How might I linger with Mary today, allowing her hidden joy to deepen my faith in the risen Christ?
⬦ Join the conversation in the comments.

#BlessedMarieEugeneOfTheChildJesus #BlessedVirginMary #embrace #hope #MotherOfChrist #MotherOfTheLiving #resurrectionOfChrist #solitude #sorrow #StJohnOfTheCross

Quote of the day, 10 February: St. Elizabeth of the Trinity

Dijon Carmel, 10 February

J. M. + J. T.

Very dear Madame,

I don’t know how to thank you, you have spoiled me so much; if you knew how much pleasure you have given me! I so desired this beautiful Canticle of Saint John of the Cross, and, given by you with this pretty thought on its first page, it is doubly precious to me. It is right here beside me on my little board in our dear little cell; but will I tell you that I need to look at it in order to think of you, dear Madame?

Oh no, of course not, for my thoughts and my heart, or rather my soul, find you in the One near whom there is neither separation nor distance and in whom it is so good to meet. Would you like Him to be our “Rendez-vous,” our Meeting Place, dear Madame? Our souls have certainly made an impact on each other: we know each other very little and we love each other so much. Oh! it is Jesus who has done that; may He thus bind us together and may He consume us in the flames of His love.

A Dieu, dear Madame, know that behind the grilles of Carmel you have a little heart that keeps a very faithful memory of you, a soul wholly united to yours and deeply fond of you. Thank you again. I don’t know how to say it, it is He who will bring it to you on behalf of His little fiancée.

Elizabeth of the Trinity
A kiss to dear little Simone.

Saint Elizabeth of the Trinity

L 106 To Madame de Bobet
February 10, 1902

Note: The book Vie et œuvres de saint Jean de la Croix, vol. 4, Le Cantique spirituel et La vive Flamme d’amour [Life and Works of Saint John of the Cross, vol. 4, The Spiritual Canticle and The Living Flame of Love], 1892 (3rd ed.), was autographed by Mme. de Bobet on February 3, 1902. It has, as Elizabeth put it, “this pretty thought on its first page”: Jesus gave us the Cross so the Cross might give us Love. Simone was Mme. de Bobet’s daughter.

Elizabeth of the Trinity, S 1984, Je te cherche dès l’aurore : évocation d’un visage et d’un coeur, produced by C. de Meester and the Carmel of Dijon, Carmel de Dijon, Flavignerot.

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.

Featured image: Editor Conrad de Meester, OCD tells us this is the last photo of Elizabeth alive: “This photo was taken on the terrace near the infirmary, which is to her left (on the viewer’s right); to her right (on the viewer’s left), we see the pointed arch of a window in the Choir. Elizabeth is wearing the lightweight habit she received on October 4, so this must be very shortly after that date—about a month before her death. Beside her stands the statue of Our Lady of Lourdes, whom she now called Janua Coeli (Gate of Heaven). In her right hand, she holds the rosary given to her by her friend Antoinette de Bobet (see L261), and on her lap rests a volume containing The Spiritual Canticle and The Living Flame of Love by St. John of the Cross. Though greatly weakened, Elizabeth still tries to sit up straight. The image, though lacking sharpness, reveals how thin and emaciated her face has become compared to the photo from April. The dark circles under her eyes are visible. Her hand is already gaunt, her fingers skeletal. A month later, on her deathbed, her face would be frighteningly thin. She was 26 years and nearly three months old.”

#CarmelOfDijon #friendship #gifts #photos #StElizabethOfTheTrinity #StJohnOfTheCross #thankYou

14 December: SAINT JOHN OF THE CROSS OUR FATHER

December 14
SAINT JOHN OF THE CROSS
OUR FATHER
Priest and Doctor of the Church

Solemnity

John was born at Fontiveros in Spain about 1542. He entered the Carmelites and with the permission of his superiors began to live a stricter life. Afterward, he was persuaded by Saint Teresa to begin, together with some others, the Discalced reform within the Order; this cost him much hard work and many trials. He died in Ubeda in 1591, outstanding in holiness and wisdom, to which his many spiritual writings give eloquent witness.

Evening Prayer I

Hymn

Soldier of the King eternal,
Valiant warrior, hail to thee!
Column raised to heights supernal
In unshaken majesty.
We revere thy glorious merits
And the tide of homage wells
From the fountain of our spirits,
Heav’nward rising as it swells.

Thou hast felt the strong protection
Of the Virgin Mother’s power,
Saving thee with sweet election
In the dread and dangerous hour.
Since thy youth she never swerveth
In her watchful care of thee,
And forever she preserveth
Him who vowed her slave to be.

Chosen offspring of our Mother,
In her labors thou didst share,
Aiding her, as son and brother,
Carmel’s beauty to repair;
Ruined shrine and temple raising
From the dust of slow decay,
Mary’s honor meetly praising,
In the dawn of fairer day.

Lo, the Cross thy weapon glorious,
As on Calvary’s height of yore,
When our Jesus reigned victorious,
Fallen nature to restore;
So thy burning love retrieveth
Glory of an ancient race,
And by suffering achieveth
Marvels of renewing grace.

Praise unto thy God be given
For the grace, O John, conferred,
When with chalice raised to Heaven,
Thine entreating prayer was heard:
In that first rapt celebration
Of the sacrifice divine,
Pledge of thine assured salvation
He hath deigned in love to sign.

87.87.D.
Regis aeterni generose miles

Psalmody

Ant. 1 He opened his mouth in prayer, and the Lord filled him with the spirit of understanding.

Psalm 113

Praise, O servants of the Lord, *
praise the name of the Lord!
May the name of the Lord be blessed *
both now and forevermore.
From the rising of the sun to its setting *
praised be the name of the Lord!

High above all nations is the Lord, *
above the heavens his glory.
Who is like the Lord, our God, *
who has risen on high to his throne
yet stoops from the heights to look down, *
to look down upon heaven and earth?

From the dust he lifts up the lowly, *
from his misery he raises the poor
to set him in the company of princes, *
yes, with the princes of his people.
To the childless wife he gives a home *
and gladdens her heart with children.

Ant. He opened his mouth in prayer, and the Lord filled him with the spirit of understanding.

Ant. 2 The Lord gave him treasures out of the darkness, and riches that had been hidden away.

Psalm 146

My soul, give praise to the Lord; +
I will praise the Lord all my days, *
make music to my God while I live.

Put no trust in princes *
in mortal men in whom there is no help.
Take their breath, they return to clay *
and their plans that day come to nothing.

He is happy who is helped by Jacob’s God, *
whose hope is in the Lord his God,
who alone made heaven and earth, *
the seas and all they contain.

It is he who keeps faith forever, *
who is just to those who are oppressed.
It is he who gives bread to the hungry, *
the Lord, who sets prisoners free,

the Lord who gives sight to the blind, *
who raises up those who are bowed down,
the Lord, who protects the stranger *
and upholds the widow and orphan.

It is the Lord who loves the just *
but thwarts the path of the wicked.
The Lord will reign forever, *
Zion’s God, from age to age.

Ant. The Lord gave him treasures out of the darkness, and riches that had been hidden away.

Ant. 3 No eye has seen, no ear has heard, and no human heart has conceived all that God has prepared for those who love him.

Canticle: Rev 4:11; 5:9, 10, 12

O Lord our God, you are worthy *
to receive glory and honor and power.

For you have created all things; *
by your will they came to be and were made.

Worthy are you, O Lord, *
to receive the scroll and break open its seals.

For you were slain; *
with your blood you purchased for God
men of every race and tongue, *
of every people and nation.

You made of them a kingdom +
and priests to serve our God, *
and they shall reign on the earth.

Worthy is the Lamb that was slain, *
to receive power and riches,
wisdom and strength, *
honor and glory and praise.

Ant. No eye has seen, no ear has heard, and no human heart has conceived all that God has prepared for those who love him.

Reading
Ephesians 3:14-19

I, Paul, kneel before the Father from whom every family in heaven and on earth takes its name; and I pray that he will bestow on you gifts in keeping with the riches of his glory. May he strengthen you inwardly through the working of his Spirit. May Christ dwell in your hearts through faith, and may charity be the root and foundation of your life. Thus you will be able to grasp fully, with all the holy ones, the breadth and length and height and depth of Christ’s love, and experience this love which surpasses all knowledge, so that you may attain to the fullness of God himself.

Responsory

R/. The God who brought light out of darkness * has shone in our hearts. Repeat R/.
V/. To give the light of knowledge of God’s glory that appears in the face of Christ * and has shone in our hearts.
Glory to the Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy Spirit
R/. The God who brought light out of darkness * has shone in our hearts.

Canticle of Mary

Ant. I sought wisdom in my prayer; I found it abundantly within myself, and advanced greatly in it.

Intercessions

Christ our Redeemer inspired our Father Saint John of the Cross to follow him, and raised him to the heights of contemplation. Let us praise our Lord, and say:

R/.  Glory to you forever!

Christ our God, you taught your servant John the science of the Cross; — kindle the fire of your love in those to whom you have entrusted the teaching and government of your Church. R./

Christ, unfailing light, you reveal yourself in the night of faith to the poor in spirit; — let your face shine on all those who seek you in poverty amid the darkness of this world. R./

Christ, our only teacher, you disclose your highest secrets to those who love and seek you; — grant the consummation of your love to those you have called to serve you in Carmel. R./

Christ, triumphant in heaven in the midst of all your saints, — grant everlasting rest and peace in your glory to all our departed brothers and sisters. R./

Our Father…

Prayer

Lord,
you endowed our Father Saint John of the Cross
with a spirit of self-denial and a love of the cross.
By following his example
may we come to the eternal vision of your glory.

We ask this through our Lord Jesus Christ, your Son,
who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit,
God, forever and ever.

Invitatory

Ant. Come, let us worship Christ Jesus, sole Word of the Father.

Invitatory psalm, as in the Ordinary

Office of Readings

Hymn

O John, rejoice this hallowed day
The triumph of the Cross to hail,
Whereon with Christ ‘twas thine to stay,
Transfixed with pang of spear and nail!

Nor insults, scorn, nor cruel scourge,
Bondage, nor hunger can restrain
The love thy panting soul doth urge
To taste the bitter draught of pain.

Thine only joy, thy sole reward,
The boon for which thy spirit sighed,
To mirror here thy suffering Lord,
Like Him in anguish crucified.

While thou dost search the mystic night,
Through darkness gleams a radiant star,
And Carmel’s camp is all alight,
With flame that leads to heights afar.

Let them that dwell in bliss above
Praise Thee, O Christ, with joyful lay,
Let them that run to Thee in love
Pursue, like John, the thorn-strewn way.

L.M.
Diem Ioannes advenit

Psalmody

Ant. 1 God chose us to be conformed to the image of his Son.

Psalm 16

Preserve me, God, I take refuge in you. +
I say to the Lord: “You are my God. *
My happiness lies in you alone.”

He has put into my heart a marvelous love +
for the faithful ones who dwell in his land. *
Those who choose other gods increase their sorrows.
Never will I offer their offerings of blood. *
Never will I take their name upon my lips.

O Lord, it is you who are my portion and cup; *
it is you yourself who are my prize.
The lot marked out for me is my delight: *
welcome indeed the heritage that falls to me!

I will bless the Lord who gives me counsel, *
who even at night directs my heart.
I keep the Lord ever in my sight: *
since he is at my right hand, I shall stand firm.

And so my heart rejoices, my soul is glad; *
even my body shall rest in safety.
For you will not leave my soul among the dead, *
nor let your beloved know decay.

You will show me the path of life, +
the fullness of joy in your presence, *
at your right hand happiness forever.

Ant. God chose us to be conformed to the image of his Son.

Ant. 2 Among you I claimed to know nothing save Jesus Christ, and him crucified.

Psalm 34: I

I will bless the Lord at all times,
his praise always on my lips;
in the Lord my soul shall make its boast. *
The humble shall hear and be glad.

Glorify the Lord with me. *
Together let us praise his name.
I sought the Lord and he answered me; *
from all my terrors he set me free.

Look towards him and be radiant; *
let your faces not be abashed.
This poor man called; the Lord heard him *
and rescued him from all his distress.

The angel of the Lord is encamped *
around those who revere him, to rescue them.
Taste and see that the Lord is good. *
He is happy who seeks refuge in him.

Revere the Lord, you his saints. *
They lack nothing, those who revere him.
Strong lions suffer want and go hungry *
but those who seek the Lord lack no blessing.

Ant. Among you I claimed to know nothing save Jesus Christ, and him crucified.

Ant. 3 For me, to live is Christ, to die is gain.

Psalm 34: II

Come, children, and hear me *
that I may teach you the fear of the Lord.
Who is he who longs for life  *
and many days to enjoy his prosperity?

Then keep your tongue from evil *
and your lips from speaking deceit.
Turn aside from evil and do good, *
seek and strive after peace.

The Lord turns his face against the wicked *
to destroy their remembrance from the earth.
The Lord turns his eyes to the just *
and his ears to their appeal.

They call and the Lord hears *
and rescues them in all their distress.
The Lord is close to the broken-hearted; *
those whose spirit is crushed he will save.

Many are the trials of the just man *
but from them all the Lord will rescue him.
He will keep guard over all his bones, *
not one of his bones shall be broken.

Evil brings death to the wicked, *
those who hate the good are doomed.
The Lord ransoms the souls of his servants. *
Those who hide in him shall not be condemned.

Ant. For me, to live is Christ, to die is gain.

V/. In you, Lord, is the fount of life.
R/. It is your light that enlightens us.

First Reading
Colossians 1:11-29

A reading from the Letter of St Paul to the Colossians

God has transferred us to the Kingdom of his beloved Son

May you be strengthened with all power, according to his glorious might, for all endurance and patience with joy, giving thanks to the Father, who has qualified us to share in the inheritance of the saints in light. He has delivered us from the dominion of darkness and transferred us to the kingdom of his beloved Son, in whom we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins.

He is the image of the invisible God, the first-born of all creation; for in him all things were created, in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or principalities or authorities—all things were created through him and for him. He is before all things, and in him all things hold together. He is the head of the body, the church; he is the beginning, the first-born from the dead, that in everything he might be pre-eminent. For in him all the fulness of God was pleased to dwell, and through him to reconcile to himself all things, whether on earth or in heaven, making peace by the blood of his cross.

And you, who once were estranged and hostile in mind, doing evil deeds, he has now reconciled in his body of flesh by his death, in order to present you holy and blameless and irreproachable before him, provided that you continue in the faith, stable and steadfast, not shifting from the hope of the gospel which you heard, which has been preached to every creature under heaven, and of which I, Paul, became a minister.

Now 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, of which I became a minister according to the divine office which was given to me for you, to make the word of God fully known, the mystery hidden for ages and generations but now made manifest to his saints. To them God chose to make known how great among the Gentiles are the riches of the glory of this mystery, which is Christ in you, the hope of glory. Him we proclaim, warning every man and teaching every man in all wisdom, that we may present every man mature in Christ. For this I toil, striving with all the energy which he mightily inspires within me.

Responsory

R/. This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased; * listen to him.
V/. In many and varied ways God spoke to our ancestors through the prophets, but in these last days he has spoken to us in his Son. * Listen to him.

The Second Reading (Alternative 1)
(B, st. 37,36)

A reading from the Spiritual Canticle of St John of the Cross

Knowledge of the mystery hidden in Christ Jesus

However numerous are the mysteries and marvels that holy doctors have discovered and saintly souls understood in this earthly life, all the more is yet to be said and understood. There is much to fathom in Christ, for he is like an abundant mine with many recesses of treasures, so that however deep individuals may go they never reach the end or bottom, but rather in every recess find new veins with new riches everywhere. On this account St. Paul said of Christ: ‘In Christ dwell hidden all treasures and wisdom.’ The soul cannot enter these caverns or reach these treasures if, as we said, she does not first pass over to the divine wisdom through the straits of exterior and interior suffering. For one cannot reach in this life what is attainable of these mysteries of Christ without having suffered much and without having received numerous intellectual and sensible favors from God, and without having undergone much spiritual activity; for all these favors are inferior to the wisdom of the mysteries of Christ in that they serve as preparations for coming to this wisdom.

Oh! If we could but now fully understand how a soul cannot reach the thicket and wisdom of the riches of God, which are of many kinds, without entering the thicket of many kinds of suffering, finding in this her delight and consolation; and how a soul with an authentic desire for divine wisdom wants suffering first in order to enter this wisdom by the thicket of the cross! Accordingly, St. Paul admonished the Ephesians not to grow weak in their tribulations and to be strong and rooted in charity in order to comprehend with all the saints what is the breadth and height and depth, and to know also the supereminent charity of the knowledge of Christ, in order to be filled with all the fullness of God.

The gate entering into these riches of his wisdom is the cross, which is narrow, and few desire to enter by it, but many desire the delights obtained from entering there.

Responsory

R/. What no eye has seen, nor ear heard, things beyond our imagining—all that God has prepared for those who love him: * these are the very things that God has revealed to us through the Spirit.
V/. The Spirit reaches the depths of everything, even the depths of God: * these are the very things that God has revealed to us through the Spirit.

The Second Reading (Alternative 2)
(B, st. 5)

A reading from the Spiritual Canticle of St John of the Cross

Traces of the divine beauty in creation

Created things in themselves, as Saint Augustine declares, give testimony to God’s grandeur and excellence. For God created all things with remarkable ease and brevity, and in them he left some trace of who he is, not only in giving all things being from nothing, but even by endowing them with innumerable graces and qualities, making them beautiful in a wonderful order and unfailing dependence on one another. All of this he did through his own wisdom, the Word, his only begotten Son by whom he created them.

Saint Paul says: The Son of God is the splendor of his glory and the image of his substance. It should be known that only with this figure, his Son, did God look at all things, that is he communicated to them their natural being and many natural graces and gifts, and made them complete and perfect, as is said in Genesis: God looked at all things that he made, and they were very good. To look and behold that they were very good was to make them very good in the Word, his Son.

Not only by looking at them did he communicate natural being and graces, as we said, but also with this image of his Son alone, he clothed them in beauty by imparting to them supernatural being. This he did when he became man and elevated human nature in the beauty of God and consequently all creatures, since in human nature he was united with them all.

Accordingly, the Son of God proclaimed: If I be lifted up from the earth, I will elevate all things to me. And in this elevation of all things through the incarnation of his Son and through the glory of his resurrection according to the flesh, the Father did not merely beautify creatures partially, but rather we can say, clothed them wholly in beauty and dignity.

Responsory

R/. You will not deprive me, Lord, of what you have given me in Christ. * for in Christ you have given me everything.
V/. The heavens are mine, the earth is mine; mine are the people, mine the just, mine the sinners, the angels are mine and the Virgin Mother is mine, * for in Christ you have given me everything.

Where the Vigil Office is celebrated:

Canticles

Ant. Come, let us climb the mountain of the Lord, where God is pleased to dwell; there dwell his honor and glory alone.

Canticle I
Tobit 13:8-11,13-15

The future glory of Jerusalem

You have come to Mount Sion and the city of the living God (Heb 12:22)

Let all men speak of his majesty, *
and sing his praises in Jerusalem.

O Jerusalem, holy city, +
he scourged you for the works of your hands, *
but will again pity the children of the righteous.

Praise the Lord for his goodness, +
and bless the King of the ages, *
so that his tent may be rebuilt in you with joy.

May he gladden within you all who were captives; +
all who were ravaged may he cherish within you
for all generations to come.

A bright light will shine to all parts of the earth; *
many nations shall come to you from afar,
And the inhabitants of all the limits of the earth, +
drawn to you by the name of the Lord God, *
Bearing in their hands their gifts for the King of heaven.

Every generation shall give joyful praise in you, +
and shall call you the chosen one, *
through all ages forever.

Go, then, rejoice over the children of the righteous, +
who shall all be gathered together *
and shall bless the Lord of the ages.

Happy are those who love you, *
and happy those who rejoice in your prosperity.

Happy are all who shall grieve over you, *
over all your chastisements,

For they shall rejoice in you *
as they behold all your joy forever.

My spirit blesses the Lord, the great King.

Canticle II
Is 2:2-3

All the peoples will come to the house of the Lord

The kings of the earth will bring glory and honor to the holy city of Jerusalem (Rev 21:24)

It shall come to pass in the latter days *
that the mountain of the house of the Lord
shall be established as the highest of the mountains +
and shall be raised above the hills, *
and all the nations shall flow to it.

And many people shall come, and say: +
‘Come, let us go up to the mountain of the Lord, *
to the house of the God of Jacob,
that he may teach us his ways *
and that we may walk in his paths.’

For out of Sion shall go forth the law, *
and the word of the Lord from Jerusalem.

Canticle III
Jer 7:2b-7

Amend your ways and I will dwell among you

Go and be reconciled with your brother first, and then come and present your offering (Mt 5:24)

Hear the word of the Lord, +
all you men of Judah *
who enter these gates to worship the Lord.

Thus says the Lord of hosts, the God of Israel, +
Amend your ways and your deeds, *
and I will let you dwell in this place.

Do not trust these deceptive words: +
‘This is the temple of the Lord, *
The temple of the Lord, the temple of the Lord,’

For if you truly amend your ways and your deeds, *
If you truly execute justice one with another,
If you do not oppress the alien, the fatherless or the widow. *
Or shed innocent blood in this place,
In the land that I gave of old *
To your fathers for ever.

Ant. Come, let us climb the mountain of the Lord, where God is pleased to dwell; there dwell his honor and glory alone.

Gospel
Jn 12:35-36a, 44b-50

A reading from the holy Gospel according to John

Believe in the light and you will become sons of light

Jesus declared publicly:

“The light will be with you only a little longer now.
Walk while you have the light,
or the dark will overtake you;
he who walks in the dark does not know where he is going.
While you still have the light,
believe in the light
and you will become sons of light.”

“Whoever believes in me
believes not in me
but in the one who sent me,
and whoever sees me,
sees the one who sent me.
and whoever sees me,
sees the one who sent me.
I, the light, have come into the world,
so that whoever believes in me
need not stay in the dark anymore.
If anyone hears my words and does not keep them faithfully,
it is not I who shall condemn him,
since I have come not to condemn the world,
but to save the world:
he who rejects me and refuses my words
has his judge already:
the word itself that I have spoken
will be his judge on the last day.
For what I have spoken does not come from myself;
no, what I was to say, what I had to speak,
was commanded by the Father who sent me,
and I know that his commands mean eternal life.
And therefore what the Father has told me
is what I speak.”

Te Deum

You are God: we praise you; *
You are the Lord: we acclaim you;
You are the eternal Father: *
All creation worships you.

To you all angels, all the powers of heaven, *
Cherubim and Seraphim, sing in endless praise:
Holy, holy, holy, Lord, God of power and might, *
heaven and earth are full of your glory.

The glorious company of apostles praise you. +
The noble fellowship of prophets praise you. *
The white-robed army of martyrs praise you.

Throughout the world the holy Church acclaims you: *
Father, of majesty unbounded,
your true and only Son, worthy of all worship, *
and the Holy Spirit, advocate and guide.

You, Christ, are the King of glory, *
the eternal Son of the Father.

When you became man to set us free *
you did not spurn the Virgin’s womb.

You overcame the sting of death, *
and opened the kingdom of heaven to all believers.

You are seated at God’s right hand in glory. *
We believe that you will come, and be our judge.

Come then, Lord, and help your people, *
bought with the price of your own blood,
and bring us with your saints*
to glory everlasting.

Save your people, Lord, and bless your inheritance.
— Govern and uphold them now and always.

Day by day we bless you.
— We praise your name for ever.

Keep us today, Lord, from all sin.
— Have mercy on us, Lord, have mercy.

Lord, show us your love and mercy,
— for we have put our trust in you.

In you, Lord, is our hope:
— And we shall never hope in vain.

Prayer

Lord,
you endowed our Father Saint John of the Cross
with a spirit of self-denial and a love of the cross.
By following his example
may we come to the eternal vision of your glory.

We ask this through our Lord Jesus Christ, your Son,
who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit,
God, forever and ever.

Morning Prayer

Hymn

Bearing His Cross, the gentle Lord drew nigh,
Offering the crown by merit richly won.
O Love! to quaff Thy cup and with Thee die,
Low answers John.

To live despised, in suffering and alone,
The one insatiate yearning of his breast;
To die devoid of honor, and unknown,
His heart’s request.

Death yielded triumph of the Cross at last,
While dazzling globes of fire from Heav’n descend,
And o’er his deeds the light of glory cast
To cheer his end.

His dying couch, with light irradiate,
Dims with celestial beam earth’s fitful flame,
Perfumes exhale, breathing of heavenly state
And saintly fame.

Honor supreme be to the Father given,
To Word and Paraclete in praise unite,
Upon whose Triune flame the hosts of Heaven
Feed with delight.

10.10.10.4.
Dum crucem gestat Dominus, Ioanni

OR:

Let us together
Up the high mountain
Go where the weather
Keeps a June glow.
You in your beauty,
I in your beauty,
Earth in your beauty,
All give delight.

Up past the steepest
Cliffs of our striving,
Up from the deepest
Thickets of pain
Where darkness bound you,
Ravaged and slew you,
Till daybreak found you,
Risen again.

Haste then our going
Up the high mountain,
Pure water flowing
Down from the height,
Wind in the spruces,
Light on the aspens,
Fruit of sweet juices
All give delight.

Deep caverns holding
Secrets of heaven,
Summits unfolding
Myst’ries divine,
Nightingale singing,
Grove lit with beauty
Each new day bringing
Taste of new wine.

Sweet the ascending
Up the high mountain,
Sweeter the ending
Love spread abroad.
Everyone sharing
Grace of your image.
Everyone bearing
The beauty of God.

54.54.D
Sr. Miriam of the Holy Spirit, O.C.D.

Psalmody

Ant. 1 Truly you are a hidden God, O God of Israel, our Savior.

Psalms and canticle from Sunday, Week I

Ant. 2 All things are yours, for you are Christ’s, and Christ is God’s.

Ant. 3 Give thanks to the Lord in your hearts, sing him spiritual canticles.

Reading

2 Corinthians 3:17-18

The Lord is the Spirit, and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom. All of us, gazing on the Lord’s glory with unveiled faces, are being transformed from glory to glory into his very image by the Lord who is the Spirit.

Responsory

R/. Your light will shine in the darkness * and the darkness will be as noon. Repeat R/.
V/. The Lord will fill your soul with his splendor, * and the darkness will be as noon.
Glory to the Father and to the Son and to the Holy Spirit
R/. Your light will shine in the darkness * and the darkness will be as noon.

Canticle of Zechariah

Ant. While you have the light, believe in the light, and you will be children of the light.

Or: The Lord has come to give light to those who dwell in darkness and the shadow of death, and to guide our feet in the way of peace.

Intercessions

Jesus Christ, the head and bridegroom of his Church makes us joyful today on this feast of John of the Cross, his servant. Let us say to him:

R/.  You, Christ, are the King of Glory.

Only Word of the Father, uttered eternally in the eternal silence, and in the fullness of time received in the Virgin’s womb; — may we hear your words today in the depths of our hearts, and put them into practice.

Wisdom of the Father, you showed your great love for us by emptying yourself in the Incarnation and on the Cross; — may we, who have been redeemed by your blood, always live in close communion with you.

Perfect Image of the Godhead, in whom all the mysteries of eternal love are revealed and poured out, — may we go forward in the strength of your Spirit, toward your inaccessible light.

Supreme Delight of the Father, in whom God looks mercifully on all men; — may we become perfect in compassion as our heavenly Father is perfect.

First-born of all creation, through you the Father in his goodness created and re-created all things, — may our thoughts be turned today from the visible world to your invisible beauty.

Our Father…

Prayer

Lord,
you endowed our Father Saint John of the Cross
with a spirit of self-denial and a love of the cross.
By following his example
may we come to the eternal vision of your glory.

We ask this through our Lord Jesus Christ, your Son,
who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit,
God, forever and ever.

Daytime Prayer

Complementary psalmody

Midmorning

Ant. Those who wish to come after me must deny themselves, take up their cross, and follow me.

Reading

Ephesians 4:22-24

Acquire a fresh, spiritual way of thinking. You must put on that new man created in God’s image, whose justice and holiness are born of truth.

V/. A pure heart create for me, O God.
R/. Put a steadfast spirit within me.

Midday

Ant. Whoever would draw near to God must believe; the righteous live by faith.

Reading

Romans 5:1-2

Now that we have been justified by faith, we are at peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ. Through him we have gained access by faith to the grace in which we now stand, and we boast of our hope for the glory of God.

V/. I live by faith in the Son of God.
R/. Who loved me and gave himself for me.

Midafternoon

Ant. Your strength will lie in silence and hope.

Reading

Romans 8:24-25

In hope we were saved. But hope is not hope if its object is seen; how is it possible for one to hope for what he sees? And hoping for what we cannot see means awaiting it with patient endurance.

V./ The Lord is good to those who trust in him.
R/. To the soul who seeks him.

Prayer

Lord,
you endowed our Father Saint John of the Cross
with a spirit of self-denial and a love of the cross.
By following his example
may we come to the eternal vision of your glory.

We ask this through our Lord Jesus Christ, your Son,
who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit,
God, forever and ever.

Evening Prayer II

Hymn

Saint of the eagle eye,
Gazing enrapt on high
Mid dread abysses of Divinity;
Martyr by heart’s intent,
Virgin yet penitent,
Prophet and guide in realms of mystery.

Oft in thy life, ’tis told
Sweet converse thou didst hold
With the pure Virgin and her Son divine;
Thence came the wondrous light
Flooding with glory bright
Thy mystic page, for wisdom there did shine.

Clearly thou dost reveal
Secrets the clouds conceal
For thou hast seeped thy soul in rays above,
Pondering the mountain height,
Darkness of faith’s long night
And the reviving flame of mystic love.

When by God’s holy will
Thou dost His word instill,
Wondrous the marvels by the soul divined,
Like Him evoking light
From chaos deep as night,
Cheering with healthful beams the darkened mind.

O John, thy praise intone
Prostrate before the throne!
Thee hath the Father signed with light most true,
Gifts of the Spirit shine
And the meek Lamb divine
Openeth the book of life to thy pure view.

6.6.10.D.
O satis felix! Speculator alti

Ant. 1 God loved us so much that he brought us to life with Christ.

Psalm 15

Lord, who shall be admitted to your tent *
and dwell on your holy mountain?

He who walks without fault; *
he who acts with justice
and speaks the truth from his heart; *
he who does not slander with his tongue;

he who does no wrong to his brother, *
who casts no slur on his neighbor,
who holds the godless in disdain, *
but honors those who fear the Lord;

he who keeps his pledge, come what may; *
who takes no interest on a loan
and accepts no bribes against the innocent. *
Such a man will stand firm forever.

Ant. God loved us so much that he brought us to life with Christ.

Ant. 2 We know and believe in the love God has for us.

Psalm 112

Happy the man who fears the Lord, *
who takes delight in all his commands.
His sons will be powerful on earth; *
the children of the upright are blessed.

Riches and wealth are in his house; *
his justice stands firm forever.
He is a light in the darkness for the upright: *
he is generous, merciful and just.

The good man takes pity and lends, *
he conducts his affairs with honor.
The just man will never waver: *
he will be remembered forever.

He has no fear of evil news; *
with a firm heart he trusts in the Lord.
With a steadfast heart he will not fear, *
he will see the downfall of his foes.

Open-handed, he gives to the poor; +
his justice stands firm forever. *
His head will be raised in glory.

The wicked man sees and is angry, +
grinds his teeth and fades away; *
the desire of the wicked leads to doom.

Ant. We know and believe in the love God has for us.

Ant. 3 The love of God has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given us.

Canticle: Ephesians 1:3-10

Praised be the God and Father *
of our Lord Jesus Christ,
Who has bestowed on us in Christ *
every spiritual blessing in the heavens.

God chose us in him *
before the world began,
to be holy *
and blameless in his sight.

He predestined us +
to be his adopted sons through Jesus Christ, *
such was his will and pleasure,
that all might praise the glorious favor *
he has bestowed on us in his beloved.

In him and through his blood we have been redeemed, *
and our sins forgiven,
so immeasurably generous *
is God’s favor to us.

God has given us the wisdom *
to understand fully the mystery,
the plan he was pleased *
to decree in Christ.

A plan to be carried out *
in Christ, in the fullness of time,
to bring all things into one in him, *
in the heavens and on the earth.

Ant. The love of God has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given us.

Reading
1 Corinthians 13:8-10, 12-13, 14:1a

Love is eternal. There are inspired messages, but they are temporary; there are gifts of speaking in strange tongues, but they will cease; there is knowledge, but it will pass. For our gifts of knowledge and of inspired messages are only partial; but when what is perfect comes, then what is partial will disappear. What we see now is like a dim image in a mirror; then we shall see face-to-face. What I know now is only partial; then it will be complete—as complete as God’s knowledge of me. Meanwhile these three remain: faith, hope, and love; and the greatest of these is love. It is love, then, that you should strive for.

Responsory

R/. Love is as strong as death: * it flashes forth like flames of fire. Repeat R/.
V/. Who can separate us from the love of Christ? * It flashes forth like flames of fire.
Glory to the Father and to the Son and to the Holy Spirit
R/. Love is as strong as death: * it flashes forth like flames of fire.

Canticle of Mary

Ant. Father, I want those you have given me to be with me where I am, so that the love with which you loved me may be in them, and that I may be in them.

Intercessions

God the Father has given us his Spirit through Jesus Christ his beloved Son, so that we may be partakers in the divine nature and witnesses to his love in the Church. Let us praise him and say:

R/.  Through the intercession of Saint John, hear us, O Lord.

Give your Church the living faith that will lead all men and women to seek you; — and bring them to the closest union with you.

Give the hope of heaven to all who are faithful in seeking you; — may they obtain all that they hope for.

Pour out your love upon us; — that where there is no love we may put love and so draw love out.

May all Carmelites be imitators of the Virgin Mary, Mother of our Order; — may we follow every inspiration of the Holy Spirit.

Grant final purification to our departed brothers and sisters, — so that they may come without delay to sing canticles of love with all your saints.

Our Father…

Prayer

Lord,
you endowed our Father Saint John of the Cross
with a spirit of self-denial and a love of the cross.
By following his example
may we come to the eternal vision of your glory.

We ask this through our Lord Jesus Christ, your Son,
who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit,
God, forever and ever.

Catholic Church 1993, Proper of the Liturgy of the Hours of the Order of the Brothers of the Blessed Virgin Mary of Mount Carmel and the Order of Discalced Carmelites (Rev. and augm.), Institutum Carmelitanum, Rome.

Featured image: Saint John of the Cross (detail), Abel de Jesús (21st c. Spanish), digital illustration with Photoshop. Image credit: © Abel de Jesús (All rights reserved, used by permission)

#DiscalcedCarmelite #DoctorOfTheChurch #LiturgyOfTheHours #priest #Solemnity #StJohnOfTheCross

Quote of the day, 2 December: St. Teresa of Avila

To the King Don Philip II

The grace of the Holy Spirit be with your majesty, amen. I strongly believe that our Lady has chosen you to protect and help her order. So, I cannot fail to have recourse to you regarding her affairs. For the love of our Lord, I beg you to pardon me for so much boldness.

I am sure your majesty has received news of how the nuns at the Incarnation tried to have me go there, thinking they would have some means to free themselves from the friars, who are certainly a great hindrance to the recollection and religious observance of the nuns. And the friars are entirely at fault for the lack of observance previously present in that house. The nuns are very much mistaken in their desire that I go there, for as long as they are subject to the friars as confessors and visitators, I would be of no help—at least not of any lasting help. I always said this to the Dominican visitator, and he understood it well.

Since God allowed that situation to exist, I tried to provide a remedy and placed a discalced friar in a house next to them, along with a companion friar. He is so great a servant of our Lord that the nuns are truly edified, and this city is amazed by the remarkable amount of good he has done there, and so they consider him a saint, and in my opinion, he is one and has been one all his life.

When the previous nuncio through a long report sent him by the inhabitants of the city was informed of the things that were happening and of the harm that the friars of the cloth were doing, he gave orders under pain of ex-communication that the confessors be restored to their house (for the calced friars had driven them from the city heaping abuse on them and giving much scandal to everyone). And he also ordered that no friar of the cloth under pain of ex-communication go to the Incarnation for business purposes, to say Mass, or hear confessions, but only the discalced friars and secular clergy. As a result, the house was in a good state until the nuncio died. Then the calced friars returned—and so too the disturbance—without demonstrating the grounds on which they could do so.

And now a friar who came to absolve the nuns caused such a disturbance without any concern for what is reasonable and just that the nuns are deeply afflicted and still bound by the same penalties as before, according to what I have been told. And worst of all he has taken from them their confessors. They say that he has been made vicar provincial, and this must be true because he is more capable than the others of making martyrs. And he is holding these confessors captive in his monastery after having forced his way into their cells and confiscating their papers.

The whole city is truly scandalized. He is not a prelate nor did he show any evidence of the authority on which these things were done, for these confessors are subject to the apostolic commissary. Those friars dared so much, even though this city is so close to where your majesty resides, that it doesn’t seem they fear either justice or God. I feel very sad to see these confessors in the hands of those friars who for some days have been desiring to seize hold of them. I would consider the confessors better off if they were held by the Moors, who perhaps would show more compassion. And this one friar who is so great a servant of God is so weak from all that he has suffered that I fear for his life.

I beg your majesty for the love of our Lord to issue orders for them to set him free at once and that these poor discalced friars not be subjected to so much suffering by the friars of the cloth. The former do no more than suffer and keep silent and gain a great deal. But the people are scandalized by what is being done to them. This past summer in Toledo, without any reason, the same superior took as prisoner Fray Antonio de Jesús—a holy and blessed man, who was the first discalced friar. They go about saying that with orders from Tostado they will destroy them all. May God be blessed! Those who were to be the means of removing offenses against God have become the cause of so many sins. And each day matters will get worse if your majesty does not provide us with some help. Otherwise, I don’t know where things will end up, because we have no other help on earth.

May it please our Lord that for our sakes you live many years. I hope in him that he will grant us this favor. He is so alone, for there are few who look after his honor. All these servants of your majesty’s, and I ask this of him continually.

Dated in St. Joseph’s in Avila, 4 December 1577.

Your majesty’s unworthy servant and subject,

Teresa of Jesus, Carmelite

Saint Teresa of Avila

Letter 218 to King Philip II

We recall two important events on this date:

In early December 1577—some scholars say the exact date was 2 December—St. John of the Cross and fellow chaplain-confessor Fray Germán de San Matías were abducted from their chaplain’s residence at the Monastery of the Incarnation in Avila. In the general introduction to The Collected Works of Saint John of the Cross, Father Kieran Kavanaugh, O.C.D. describes the scene:

On the night of December 2, 1577, a group of Carmelites, lay people, and men-at-arms broke into the chaplain’s quarters, seized Fray John, and took him away. By a secret journey, with orders from Tostado, they carted him off, handcuffed and often blindfolded, to the monastery in Toledo, the order’s finest in Castile, where nearly 85 friars lived.

In her introduction to Science of the Cross, St. Edith Stein continues the story of John’s abduction:

He was interrogated, and because he refused to abandon the Reform he was treated as a rebel. His prison was a narrow room, about 10 feet long and 6 feet wide. Teresa later wrote: “small though he was in stature, he could hardly stand erect in it.” This cell had neither window nor air vent other than a slit high up on the wall. The prisoner had to “stand on the poor-sinner-stool and wait until the sun’s rays were reflected on the wall in order to be able to pray the breviary” [a very plain stool typically found in a monastic cell]. The door was secured by a bolt.

We also recall that on 2 December 1894, Blessed Marie-Eugène of the Child Jesus (Henri Grialou) was born in Aubin (Aveyron) France. After his priestly ordination on February 4, 1922, he was captivated by the doctrine of St. Therese of the Child Jesus and St. John of the Cross and decided to join the Discalced Carmelites.

John of the Cross, St. 1991, The Collected Works of St. John of the Cross, Revised Edition, translated from the Spanish by Kavanaugh, K and Rodriguez, O with revisions and introductions by Kavanaugh, K, ICS Publications, Washington DC.

Stein, E 2002, The Science of the Cross, The Collected Works of Edith Stein, Book 6, translated from the German by Koeppel, J, ICS Publications, Washington D.C.

Teresa of Avila, St. 1985, The Collected Works of St. Teresa of Avila, translated from the Spanish by Kavanaugh, K; Rodriguez, O, ICS Publications, Washington DC.

Featured image: The walls of Avila are featured in this nighttime winter scene. (Stock photo)

#abduction #BlessedMarieEugeneOfTheChildJesus #CarmeliteFriars #history #imprisonment #KingPhilipII #MonasteryOfTheIncarnation #Spain #StEdithStein #StJohnOfTheCross #StTeresaOfAvila

Quote of the day, 29 November: St. John of the Cross

A soul has intense desires to be a martyr. God answers, “You shall be a martyr” and bestows deep interior consolation and confidence in the truth of this promise.

Regardless of the promise, this person in the end does not die a martyr; yet the promise will have been true.

Why, then, was there no fulfillment of the promise? Because it will be fulfilled in its chief, essential meaning: the bestowal of the essential love and reward of a martyr. God truly grants the soul what it formally desired and what he promised it because the formal desire of the soul was not a manner of death but the service of God through martyrdom and the exercise of a martyr’s love for him.

Death through martyrdom in itself is of no value without this love, and God bestows martyrdom’s love and reward perfectly by other means. Even though the soul does not die a martyr, it is profoundly satisfied since God has fulfilled its desire

Saint John of the Cross

The Ascent of Mount Carmel, II, ch. 19, no. 13

Blessed Denis of the Nativity (Pierre Berthelot) and Blessed Redemptus of the Cross (Thomas Rodriguez da Cunha) were Discalced Carmelite friars who joined the Discalced Carmelite East Indian missions in Goa, India in the early 17th century.

Father Denis (left) had been a French cartographer and naval commander in the service of France and Portugal; he left everything to join the Teresian Carmel at Goa in 1635 and was ordained a priest 24 August 1638. Brother Redemptus from Portugal (right) made his profession with the Discalced Carmelites in Goa in 1615, when he was 17 years old.

In September 1638 Denis and Redemptus accompanied Francesco de Souza de Castro, the Portuguese ambassador on a voyage to the Sultan of Achen (Aceh), Indonesia. The new ambassador desired to have Father Denis with him as a spiritual director, maritime advisor, and translator. Denis of the Nativity chose the wise and experienced lay brother, Redemptus of the Cross as his own Carmelite companion.

The courteous welcome at the delegation’s arrival was feigned; Denis and Redemptus were quickly imprisoned after disembarking from the ship.

Blessed Denis and Blessed Redemptus were tortured more than the other prisoners in an attempt to convert them to Islam. Denis’ heroic charity was notable during his imprisonment as he deprived himself of necessities to aid the other prisoners; he sought to encourage them in every way. When they were condemned to death, he desired to be executed last so as to strengthen all of the others.

Blessed Denis is depicted in martyrology with a sword above his head to indicate the sword blow that split his head in two. Denis and Redemptus were beatified by Pope Leo XIII on 10 June 1900.

[Source: Discalced Carmelites]

Teresa of Avila, St. 1985, The Collected Works of St. Teresa of Avila, translated from the Spanish by Kavanaugh, K; Rodriguez, O, ICS Publications, Washington DC.

Translation from the Italian text is the blogger’s own work product.

Featured image: This is only a detail of the massive painting (30 x 60 in. / 787 x 1447 mm.) Portuguese Carracks Off a Rocky Coast, from the Circle of Joachim Patinir, executed by an anonymous Flemish or Flemish-trained artist around 1540. The Portuguese ambassador’s delegation possibly traveled in a carrack similar to what is seen here. This particular artwork is the oldest painting of the sea by a Flemish or Flemish-trained artist in the collection of the National Maritime Museum in Greenwich, England. Image credit: © National Maritime Museum, Greenwich, London.

#Aceh #DenisOfTheNativity #history #imprisonment #love #martyrdom #Muslims #RedemptusOfTheCross #spirituality #StJohnOfTheCross

The reason some spiritual persons never entirely enter into the true joys of the spirit is that they never manage to renounce their desire for joy in these exterior and visible things. These persons should keep in mind that although the place dedicated and suited to prayer is the visible oratory or church and the motivating good is the image, these means should not be so used that the satisfaction and delight of the soul stems entirely from them, thereby causing one to forget to pray in the living temple, which is interior recollection of soul.

To remind us of this, the Apostle said: Behold, your bodies are living temples of the Holy Spirit, who dwells within you [1 Cor. 3:16]. This thought brings to mind the affirmation of Christ that we quoted: The true adorers should adore in spirit and truth [Jn. 4:24]. God pays little attention to your oratories and places arranged for prayer if through your desire and the delight you take in them you become attached and, in consequence, have less interior nakedness, that is, spiritual poverty, in the renunciation of things that can be possessed.

To purge the will of its desire and vain joy in these objects and direct it to God, you should strive in your prayer for a pure conscience, a will that is wholly with God, and a mind truly set on him.

And, as I mentioned, [Ascent, III, 39:2] you ought to choose the most withdrawn and solitary place possible, convert all your joy of will into glorifying and invoking God. And you should pay no attention to these other little exterior satisfactions; you should rather seek to deny them. Should a soul become bound to the delight of sensory devotion, it will never succeed in passing on to the strength of spiritual delight, which is discovered through interior recollection in spiritual nakedness.

Saint John of the Cross

The Ascent of Mount Carmel, Book III, Chapter 40

John of the Cross, St. 1991, The Collected Works of St. John of the Cross, Revised Edition, translated from the Spanish by Kavanaugh, K and Rodriguez, O with revisions and introductions by Kavanaugh, K, ICS Publications, Washington DC.

Featured image: This detailed image from Evening Prayer by Antoine-Émile Plassan (French, 1817-1903) was executed in oil on panel c. 1863–1864. This artwork comes from the collection of the Walters Art Museum in Baltimore, Maryland. (Public domain)

https://carmelitequotes.blog/2024/11/08/juan-ascentiii40/

#church #inspiration #prayer #recollection #solitude #spiritualDirection #spirituality #StJohnOfTheCross #theology

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

… I tell you that ever-present to me is what they did with Fray John of the Cross, for I don’t know how God bears with things like that; even you don’t know everything about it.

For all these nine months he was held in a little prison cell where small as he is, he could hardly fit. In all that time he was given no change of tunic, even though he had come close to the point of death. Only three days before his escape the subprior gave him one of his shirts. He underwent harsh scourges, and no one was allowed to see him.

I experience the greatest envy. Surely our Lord found in him the resources for such a martyrdom. And it is good that this be known so that everyone will be all the more on guard against these people. May God forgive them, amen.

An investigation should be conducted to show the nuncio what those friars did to this saint, Fray John, without any fault on his part, for it is a pitiful thing. Tell this to Fray Germán; he will do it because he’s quite mad about this …

Saint Teresa of Avila

Letter 260 to Father Jerónimo Gracián, Madrid
Avila, 21–22 August 1578

Saint John of the Cross escaped from his prison cell in Toledo during the night of 17-18 August 1578. #StJohnOfTheCross

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Discalced Carmelite scholar, translator, and editor of the collected works of Saints John and Teresa, Father Kieran Kavanaugh offers his analysis of Saint Teresa’s letter to Father Gracián:

“These are two fragments from one letter. They reflect Teresa’s first impressions on learning of St. John of the Cross’s escape from his prison cell in Toledo and of what he suffered there.”

The nuncio at the time was the Italian Archbishop Filippo (Felipe) Sega. Father Kavanaugh’s editorial note is too tantalizing to excerpt, so we present it in its entirety.

Born in Bologna, he became Bishop of Ripa and nuncio to Flanders before being appointed nuncio to Spain in 1577 as successor to Ormaneto. He entered Spain with a bias against Teresa and her reform, the source of which was Cardinal Buoncompagni, a relative of his and nephew of the pope.

But the entire conflict that had developed in Spain among the Carmelites was so complex that he had little inkling of what he was getting into. He supported Tostado who was seeking to put into effect the decisions of the chapter of Piacenza. It was he [Sega] who called Teresa “a restless, gadabout woman.”

Sega considered the discalced friars who took part in the chapter of Almodóvar in 1578 delinquents and rebels, never listened to their defense, and imprisoned their leaders in different monasteries of the observant Carmelites.

Through the intervention of the king, an investigating committee was set up, and the friars as a result were placed under the care of Angel de Salazar, a former provincial of the observant Carmelites in Castile. Salazar dealt with the matter gently and promoted greater peace between the two groups of friars.

Sega then mellowed somewhat and acquiesced when the discalced formed a separate province. After leaving Spain, he served in Portugal, Germany, and France. He was made a cardinal in 1591 and died in Rome.

Finally, we share Father Kavanaugh’s note concerning Fray Germán:

“Fray Germán de San Matías was a confessor for the nuns at the Incarnation along with John of the Cross. He was taken prisoner at the same time as John, but very soon afterward broke free from his captors.”

Teresa of Avila, St. 1985, The Collected Works of St. Teresa of Avila, translated from the Spanish by Kavanaugh, K; Rodriguez, O, ICS Publications, Washington DC.

Featured image: View of Toledo is an oil on canvas painting executed ca. 1599–1600 by Domenikos Theotokopoulos, better known as El Greco (Greek, 1541–1614). This artwork is found in Gallery 619 of the Metropolitan Museum of Art on Fifth Avenue in New York. The Met’s gallery label provides the following details:

Writing to the sculptor Auguste Rodin after having been astonished by this painting in Paris in 1908, the poet Rainer Maria Rilke described how “splintered light tills the ground, turning it over, tearing into it and bringing up here and there pale green meadows behind the trees standing like insomniacs.” Regarded as El Greco’s greatest landscape, it portrays Toledo, the city where he lived and worked for most of his life. But it is an emotive rather than a documentary vision that not only imaginatively revises the skyline—most notably, the cathedral has been moved—but also distorts architecture and landscape such that they are fully in service of the kind of drama Rilke and other modernists appreciated in his work.

Image credit: Metropolitan Museum of Art (Public domain)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ir-J6a635UM

https://carmelitequotes.blog/2024/08/16/stj-ltr260-2/

#Carmelites #escape #FilippoSega #FrKieranKavanaughOCD #FrayJerónimoGracián #friars #nuncio #prison #StJohnOfTheCross #StTeresaOfAvila #StJohnOfTheCross #Toledo

… I tell you that ever-present to me is what they did with Fray John of the Cross, for I don’t know how God bears with things like that; even you don’t know everything about it.

For all these nine months he was held in a little prison cell where small as he is, he could hardly fit. In all that time he was given no change of tunic, even though he had come close to the point of death. Only three days before his escape the subprior gave him one of his shirts. He underwent harsh scourges, and no one was allowed to see him.

I experience the greatest envy. Surely our Lord found in him the resources for such a martyrdom. And it is good that this be known so that everyone will be all the more on guard against these people. May God forgive them, amen.

An investigation should be conducted to show the nuncio what those friars did to this saint, Fray John, without any fault on his part, for it is a pitiful thing. Tell this to Fray Germán; he will do it because he’s quite mad about this …

Saint Teresa of Avila

Letter 260 to Father Jerónimo Gracián, Madrid
Avila, 21–22 August 1578

Saint John of the Cross escaped from his prison cell in Toledo during the night of 17-18 August 1578. #StJohnOfTheCross

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Discalced Carmelite scholar, translator, and editor of the collected works of Saints John and Teresa, Father Kieran Kavanaugh offers his analysis of Saint Teresa’s letter to Father Gracián:

“These are two fragments from one letter. They reflect Teresa’s first impressions on learning of St. John of the Cross’s escape from his prison cell in Toledo and of what he suffered there.”

The nuncio at the time was the Italian Archbishop Filippo (Felipe) Sega. Father Kavanaugh’s editorial note is too tantalizing to excerpt, so we present it in its entirety.

Born in Bologna, he became Bishop of Ripa and nuncio to Flanders before being appointed nuncio to Spain in 1577 as successor to Ormaneto. He entered Spain with a bias against Teresa and her reform, the source of which was Cardinal Buoncompagni, a relative of his and nephew of the pope.

But the entire conflict that had developed in Spain among the Carmelites was so complex that he had little inkling of what he was getting into. He supported Tostado who was seeking to put into effect the decisions of the chapter of Piacenza. It was he [Sega] who called Teresa “a restless, gadabout woman.”

Sega considered the discalced friars who took part in the chapter of Almodóvar in 1578 delinquents and rebels, never listened to their defense, and imprisoned their leaders in different monasteries of the observant Carmelites.

Through the intervention of the king, an investigating committee was set up, and the friars as a result were placed under the care of Angel de Salazar, a former provincial of the observant Carmelites in Castile. Salazar dealt with the matter gently and promoted greater peace between the two groups of friars.

Sega then mellowed somewhat and acquiesced when the discalced formed a separate province. After leaving Spain, he served in Portugal, Germany, and France. He was made a cardinal in 1591 and died in Rome.

Finally, we share Father Kavanaugh’s note concerning Fray Germán:

“Fray Germán de San Matías was a confessor for the nuns at the Incarnation along with John of the Cross. He was taken prisoner at the same time as John, but very soon afterward broke free from his captors.”

Teresa of Avila, St. 1985, The Collected Works of St. Teresa of Avila, translated from the Spanish by Kavanaugh, K; Rodriguez, O, ICS Publications, Washington DC.

Featured image: View of Toledo is an oil on canvas painting executed ca. 1599–1600 by Domenikos Theotokopoulos, better known as El Greco (Greek, 1541–1614). This artwork is found in Gallery 619 of the Metropolitan Museum of Art on Fifth Avenue in New York. The Met’s gallery label provides the following details:

Writing to the sculptor Auguste Rodin after having been astonished by this painting in Paris in 1908, the poet Rainer Maria Rilke described how “splintered light tills the ground, turning it over, tearing into it and bringing up here and there pale green meadows behind the trees standing like insomniacs.” Regarded as El Greco’s greatest landscape, it portrays Toledo, the city where he lived and worked for most of his life. But it is an emotive rather than a documentary vision that not only imaginatively revises the skyline—most notably, the cathedral has been moved—but also distorts architecture and landscape such that they are fully in service of the kind of drama Rilke and other modernists appreciated in his work.

Image credit: Metropolitan Museum of Art (Public domain)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ir-J6a635UM

https://carmelitequotes.blog/2024/08/16/stj-ltr260-2/

#Carmelites #escape #FilippoSega #FrKieranKavanaughOCD #FrayJerónimoGracián #friars #nuncio #prison #StJohnOfTheCross #StTeresaOfAvila #StJohnOfTheCross #Toledo

Shepherds, you who go
up through the sheepfolds to the hill,
if by chance you see
him I love most,
tell him I am sick, I suffer, and I die.

The Spiritual Canticle, Stanza 2

If by chance you see

This means: If by my good luck you so reach his presence that he sees and hears you.

It is noteworthy that even though God has knowledge and understanding of all, and even sees the very thoughts of the soul, as Moses asserts (Dt. 31:21), it is said when he provides a remedy for us in our needs that he sees them, and when he answers our prayers that he hears them.

Not all needs and petitions reach the point at which God, in hearing, grants them. They must wait until in his eyes they arrive at the suitable time, season, and number, and then it is said that he sees and hears them.

This is evident in Exodus. After the 400 years in which the children of Israel had been afflicted by their slavery in Egypt, God declared to Moses: I have seen the affliction of my people and have come down to free them [Ex. 3:7-8], even though he had always seen it.

And St. Gabriel, too, told Zechariah not to fear, because God had heard his prayer and given him the son for whom he had prayed those many years, even though God had always heard that prayer [Lk. 1:13].

Every soul should know that even though God does not answer its prayer immediately, he will not on that account fail to answer it at the opportune time if it does not become discouraged and give up its prayer. He is, as David remarks, a helper in opportune times and tribulations [Ps. 9:9].

Saint John of the Cross

The Spiritual Canticle, Stanza 2, no. 4

John of the Cross, St. 1991, The Collected Works of St. John of the Cross, Revised Edition, translated from the Spanish by Kavanaugh, K and Rodriguez, O with revisions and introductions by Kavanaugh, K, ICS Publications, Washington DC.

Featured image: Photographer and blogger Road Trip With Raj captured this photo of model Linus Wang in Beijing in 2018. Image credit: @roadtripwithraj / Unsplash

https://carmelitequotes.blog/2024/08/12/juan-ifbychance/

#apparition #archangelGabriel #Exodus #God #listening #Moses #patience #perseverance #prayer #StJohnOfTheCross #Zechariah

Shepherds, you who go
up through the sheepfolds to the hill,
if by chance you see
him I love most,
tell him I am sick, I suffer, and I die.

The Spiritual Canticle, Stanza 2

If by chance you see

This means: If by my good luck you so reach his presence that he sees and hears you.

It is noteworthy that even though God has knowledge and understanding of all, and even sees the very thoughts of the soul, as Moses asserts (Dt. 31:21), it is said when he provides a remedy for us in our needs that he sees them, and when he answers our prayers that he hears them.

Not all needs and petitions reach the point at which God, in hearing, grants them. They must wait until in his eyes they arrive at the suitable time, season, and number, and then it is said that he sees and hears them.

This is evident in Exodus. After the 400 years in which the children of Israel had been afflicted by their slavery in Egypt, God declared to Moses: I have seen the affliction of my people and have come down to free them [Ex. 3:7-8], even though he had always seen it.

And St. Gabriel, too, told Zechariah not to fear, because God had heard his prayer and given him the son for whom he had prayed those many years, even though God had always heard that prayer [Lk. 1:13].

Every soul should know that even though God does not answer its prayer immediately, he will not on that account fail to answer it at the opportune time if it does not become discouraged and give up its prayer. He is, as David remarks, a helper in opportune times and tribulations [Ps. 9:9].

Saint John of the Cross

The Spiritual Canticle, Stanza 2, no. 4

John of the Cross, St. 1991, The Collected Works of St. John of the Cross, Revised Edition, translated from the Spanish by Kavanaugh, K and Rodriguez, O with revisions and introductions by Kavanaugh, K, ICS Publications, Washington DC.

Featured image: Photographer and blogger Road Trip With Raj captured this photo of model Linus Wang in Beijing in 2018. Image credit: @roadtripwithraj / Unsplash

https://carmelitequotes.blog/2024/08/12/juan-ifbychance/

#apparition #archangelGabriel #Exodus #God #listening #Moses #patience #perseverance #prayer #StJohnOfTheCross #Zechariah

The foundation for the friars in Córdoba was completed with greater applause and solemnity throughout the entire city than was ever given there to any other religious order. All the clergy and confraternities of Córdoba gathered, and the Most Blessed Sacrament was brought with great solemnity from the Cathedral. All the streets were beautifully decorated, and the people acted as though it were the feast of Corpus Christi. This took place on the Sunday after Ascension Thursday. The Bishop came and preached, praising us highly. The house is situated in the best district of the city, in the neighborhood of the Cathedral.

I am now in Sevilla for the transference of our nuns, who have bought some very fine houses. Although the houses cost around 14,000 ducats, they are worth more than 20,000. The nuns are now settled in them, and on the feast of St. Barnabas, the Cardinal will reserve the Most Blessed Sacrament with great solemnity.

Saint John of the Cross

Letter 5 to Madre Ana de San Alberto (excerpt)
June 1586

John of the Cross, St. 1991, The Collected Works of St. John of the Cross, Revised Edition, translated from the Spanish by Kavanaugh, K and Rodriguez, O with revisions and introductions by Kavanaugh, K, ICS Publications, Washington DC.

Featured image: The Corpus Christi Procession in Seville was executed by Seville artist Manuel Cabral y Aguado Bejarano in 1857. This oil on canvas painting comes from the collection of the Museo del Prado in Madrid. (Public domain)

https://carmelitequotes.blog/2024/06/10/juan-ltr5-2/

#bishop #BlessedSacrament #Cathedral #Córdoba #DiscalcedCarmelite #foundations #friars #nuns #procession #Sevilla #Solemnity #StJohnOfTheCross

I received the beautiful wooden candlestick with the large Easter candle, although I surmise this large light was intended for the Novice Mistress [Sr. Teresia Renata]. It will burn for me now during my retreat, when I make my meditation in the solitude of my cell, away from the community.

Our holy Father John of the Cross will be my guide: the Ascent of Mount Carmel. Probably I will be allowed to begin early on Friday. I would like most of all to remain in solitude until the morning of the Clothing [15 April 1934], but there is a possibility that I will be called out the day before at the request of guests from out of town.

Edith wanted to begin her retreat on Freitag 6 April (Friday in Easter Week) but she was afraid that she would have to go to the parlor to meet guests on Sonnabend 14 April (Saturday).

I look forward with so much joy to the silence. As much as I love the Divine Office and as loath as I am to be away from the choir even for the shortest of the Hours—the basis of our life, after all, is the two hours of meditation provided by our schedule. Only since I’ve been enjoying this privilege do I know how much I missed by not having it outside.

Our Reverend Mother will surely be glad to send along [with this letter] the ritual for the Clothing ceremony. It will be so much better if you can read it before it takes place—even though you cannot be present yourself.

In her biography St. Edith Stein’s novice mistress mentions that Edith’s sister Rosa “sent some heavy white silk material” for the nuns to sew Edith’s bridal gown; and later, a white “Mass vestment” (Posselt 2005).

Particular thanks for the Easter Prefaces: they are helping me celebrate the beautiful octave. And above all, thank you again for your love that I have in no way earned.

Saint Edith Stein

Letter 168 to Mother Petra Brüning (excerpts)
Easter week 1934

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. 2014, The Hidden Life: hagiographic essays, meditations, spiritual texts, translated from the German by Stein, W, ICS Publications, Washington DC.

Featured image: Discalced Carmelite nuns from the Carmel of Consuegra, Spain prepare to welcome a new novice with the blessing of her new habit at Mass (detailed image). Image credit: José María Moreno García / Flickr (Some rights reserved).

https://carmelitequotes.blog/2024/04/12/edith-1934retreat/

#Clothing #Latin #novitiate #parlor #retreat #silence #solitude #StEdithStein #StJohnOfTheCross #TeresiaRenataPosselt

"To love greatly is more than to love simply: it is, as it were, to love doubly."
#StJohnOfTheCross
#Catholic #Carmelite #quotes #love

Carmelite Quotes #blog offers a #novena for each of the major #Carmelite #saints throughout the year.

For our #StJohnOfTheCross novena in 2022, Father Quang D. Tran, S.J. leads our #meditations this year on the #night that #guides our footsteps better than #light and is brighter than the #dawn: the night that gives #sight.

🎇 Join us in prayer!
https://carmelitequotes.blog

#christian #prayer #intercession #catholic #mystical #DoctorOfTheChurch

In our #QuoteOfTheDay #StEdithStein tells us about the #kidnapping of #StJohnOfTheCross and Fray Germán from the chaplain's quarters at the #monastery of the #Incarnation in #Avila on the night of 2–3 December 1577.

Get the details from #EdithStein
🌙 https://carmelitequotes.blog

#Carmelite #Catholic #saints #quote

In our #QuoteOfTheDay #StEdithStein tells us about the #kidnapping of #StJohnOfTheCross and Fray Germán from the chaplain's quarters at the #monastery of the #Incarnation in #Avila on the night of 2–3 December 1577.

Get the details from #EdithStein
🌙 https://carmelitequotes.blog

#Carmelite #Catholic #saints #quote

In our #QuoteOfTheDay #StEdithStein tells us about the #kidnapping of #StJohnOfTheCross and Fray Germán from the chaplain's quarters at the #monastery of the #Incarnation in #Avila on the night of 2–3 December 1577.

Get the details from #EdithStein
🌙 https://carmelitequotes.blog

#Carmelite #Catholic #saints #quote

St. John of the Cross Novena, Day 9: Silent Love

Reading 

What we need most in order to make progress is to be silent before this great God with our appetite and with our tongue, for the language he best hears is silent love.

Sayings of Light and Love, 132

Scripture

O God, you are my God, I seek you,
    my soul thirsts for you;
my flesh faints for you,
    as in a dry and weary land where there is no water.
So I have looked upon you in the sanctuary,
    beholding your power and glory.
Because your steadfast love is better than life,
  my lips will praise you.
So I will bless you as long as I live;
    I will lift up my hands and call on your name.

My soul is satisfied as with a rich feast,
    and my mouth praises you with joyful lips
when I think of you on my bed,
    and meditate on you in the watches of the night;
for you have been my help,
    and in the shadow of your wings I sing for joy.
My soul clings to you;
    your right hand upholds me.

Psalm 63:1-8

Meditation 

“Are you seeking to find God? Then listen to the silence; immerse yourself in silence.”

This simple, yet profound advice comes from Father Jacques de Jésus, O.C.D., the headmaster of the Discalced Carmelite boarding school in Avon, France who was arrested by the Nazis and sent to the harshest forced labor camps at Gusen and Mauthausen during World War II. Like St. Raphael Kalinowski in Poland, who we met on the third day of our novena, and whose experience in a forced labor camp in Siberia prepared him for life in Carmel, so for Père Jacques, life in Carmel prepared him for life as a political prisoner.

And as prisoners, both of them resembled St. John of the Cross: suffering, abandoned, physically tested, yet through it all they were seeking, reaching, listening, grasping for the presence of God. We can imagine them passing through vast interior deserts in silence, en route to their loving encounter with God.

On the eighth day of our novena, we shared an excerpt from John 17, which is often referred to as Jesus’ high priestly prayer. St. Edith Stein offers this brief comment concerning the prayer in her 1936 essay, The Prayer of the Church:

The Savior’s high priestly prayer unveils the mystery of the inner life: the circumincession of the Divine Persons and the indwelling of God in the soul. In these mysterious depths, the work of salvation was prepared and accomplished itself in concealment and silence. And so it will continue until the union of all is actually accomplished at the end of time. The decision for the Redemption was conceived in the eternal silence of the inner divine life.

Small wonder, then, that St. Thérèse understood that hiding in the Face of Christ meant that she would be able to tune out the trivial noise of the world, as we also discovered in the eighth novena meditation.

Father Jacques makes that abundantly clear: “God is eternal silence; God dwells in silence.” We’ll let him continue:

Christ is characteristically serene and silent. (…) That serene silence is the hallmark of Christ. (…)

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. (…)

Whoever embraces silence, welcomes God and whoever relishes silence, hears God speak. Silence is the echo of God’s eternity and the foundation of the rich teaching of Saint John of the Cross. That teaching in all its richness derives from his prison cell at Toledo. During the months of his solitary confinement there, he accepted his isolation and embraced silence. He became imbued with silence. In turn, that silence revealed to him the true value of suffering, which is at the heart of his teaching concerning the ascent to God. Without this treasured silence, John of the Cross would never have become the great mystical Doctor of the Church that he is. (…)

Silence should penetrate deep within us and occupy every area of our inner home. Thus is our soul transformed into a sanctuary of prayer and recollection. (…) Such silence allows us to listen to the secret voice of God, like the saints, especially St. John of the Cross. (Listen to the Silence, Conference 8)

Have you ever had the opportunity to make a silent retreat? Or to enjoy 30 minutes in a quiet home when the rest of the family is out of the house? Perhaps there is a favorite spot, a “happy place” or some other getaway location, real or imagined, where you virtually or literally can get away from the rush and the noise of your daily commitments. In that space, do you find yourself feeling calmer, more peaceful, better able to think, to relax, to focus, even to pray?

If God dwells in silence, it is in silence that we must seek him. And if God dwells in silence, he is no more attracted to the noise than we are in moments of silence. As we accustom ourselves to silence, we welcome and even crave silence.

It’s in the midst of our welcome, our craving the silence of God that we understand the silence that God desires of us:  “the language he best hears is silent love.”

As we have walked together through these novena days with Saint John of the Cross and the commentary offered by the saints of Carmel, we have gained many insights along the way. As we conclude, let’s read St. John’s own prologue to the Sayings of Light and Love; his proposals at the beginning of the collection of sayings form a wonderful summary of what we have learned as we come to the end. Thanks for joining us.

O my God and my delight, for your love I have also desired to give my soul to composing these sayings of light and love concerning you. Since, although I can express them in words, I do not have the works and virtues they imply (which is what pleases you, O my Lord, more than the words and wisdom they contain), may others, perhaps stirred by them, go forward in your service and love – in which I am wanting. I will thereby find consolation, that these sayings be an occasion for your finding in others the things that I lack.

Lord, you love discretion, you love light, you love love; these three you love above the other operations of the soul. Hence these will be sayings of discretion for the wayfarer, of light for the way, and of love in the wayfaring. May there be nothing of worldly rhetoric in them or the long-winded and dry eloquence of weak and artificial human wisdom, which never pleases you. Let us speak to the heart words bathed in sweetness and love that do indeed please you, removing obstacles and stumbling blocks from the paths of many souls who unknowingly trip and unconsciously walk in the path of error – poor souls who think they are right in what concerns the following of your beloved Son, our Lord Jesus Christ, in becoming like him, imitating his life, actions, and virtues, and the form of his nakedness and purity of spirit. Father of mercies, come to our aid, for without you, Lord, we can do nothing.

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 you.

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 — Self-trust
Day 2 — Self-giving
Day 3 — Cleansing
Day 4 — Walking in love
Day 5 — Trust
Day 6 — Prayer
Day 7 — Humility
Day 8 — Eternal Silence
Day 9 — Silent love

 The novena prayer was composed from approved sources by Professor Michael Ogunu, a member of the Discalced Carmelite Secular Order in Nigeria.

John of the Cross, St 1991, The Collected Works of St. John of the Cross, rev. edn, Kavanaugh, K & Rodriguez, O (trans.), ICS Publications, Washington DC.

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

Stein, E 2014, The Hidden Life: hagiographic essays, meditations, spiritual texts, Stein, W (trans.), ICS Publications, Washington DC.

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

#circumincession #edithStein #icsPublications #jacquesOfJesus #johnOfTheCross #listenToTheSilence #love #loveOfGod #lucienBunel #novena #pereJacques #pereJacquesOfJesus #perichoresis #prayerOfTheChurch #sanJuanDeLaCruz #sayingsOfLightAndLove #silence #silentLove #stEdithStein #stJohnOfTheCross #theHiddenLife

St. John of the Cross Novena, Day 6: Prayer

Reading

Whoever flees prayer flees all that is good.

Sayings of Light and Love, 169

Scripture

When evil men advance against me
to devour my flesh,
they, my opponents, my enemies,
are the ones who stumble and fall.

When evil men advance against me
to devour my flesh,
they, my opponents, my enemies,
are the ones who stumble and fall.

Though an army pitched camp against me,
my heart would not fear;
though war were waged against me,
my trust would still be firm.

One thing I ask of Yahweh,
one thing I seek:
to live in the house of Yahweh
all the days of my life,
to enjoy the sweetness of Yahweh
and to consult him in his Temple.

For he shelters me under his awning
in times of trouble;
he hides me deep in his tent,
sets me high on a rock.

And now my head is held high
over the enemies who surround me,
in his tent I will offer
exultant sacrifice.

I will sing, I will play for Yahweh!

Yahweh, hear my voice as I cry!
Pity me! Answer me!
My heart has said of you,
“Seek his face.”
Yahweh, I do seek your face;
do not hide your face from me.

Do not repulse your servant in anger;
you are my help.
Never leave me, never desert me,
God, my savior!
If my father and mother desert me,
Yahweh will care for me still.

Yahweh, teach me your way,
lead me in the path of integrity
because of my enemies;
do not abandon me to the will of my foes—
false witnesses have risen against me,
and breathe out violence.

This I believe: I shall see the goodness of Yahweh,
in the land of the living.
Put your hope in Yahweh, be strong, let your heart be bold,
put your hope in Yahweh.

Psalm 27

Meditation

Let’s have a virtual show of hands: who among us has had an experience where God seemed to be hiding or even absent when we pray? Who among us has ever prayed, “God, where are you?” Has anyone ever said, “prayer isn’t working for me, God doesn’t care about me, I give up”? Has anyone ever experienced dryness in prayer, where you can’t feel anything anymore? Or, has someone ever discovered one day that they drifted away from the fervor of the practice of prayer they once had?

If you answered, “yes” to any one or more of these questions, you are in good company. All of us experience difficulties in prayer. In yesterday’s fifth novena meditation, we read one of St. Teresa’s accounts where she experienced difficulties in prayer; she was going through a moment of tribulation and the practice of prayer that usually brought her encouragement and comfort simply didn’t work.

Growing in friendship with God is a lifelong journey along the way of perfection. There will be many moments when we will stumble and fall. Ask any old friend of God and they will testify to this age-old fact of the spiritual life. The most important lesson that those who travel the way of perfection (or the Little Way of St. Thérèse) must learn is that it’s not a matter of how frequently or infrequently we fall, it’s how quickly we get up again and keep moving along the way. Saint Teresa herself says in the Interior Castle’s Second Mansion (IC II), “if you should at times fall don’t become discouraged and stop striving to advance. For even from this fall God will draw out good.” (IC II:9)

“Don’t become discouraged” is advice we read and hear often in Carmelite spirituality. Here’s what St. Elizabeth of the Trinity said to her younger sister a few months before Elizabeth died:

Darling little sister, you must cross out the word “discouragement” from your dictionary of love; the more you feel your weakness, your difficulty in recollecting yourself, and the more hidden the Master seems, the more you must rejoice, for then you are giving to Him, and, when one loves, isn’t it better to give than to receive? God said to Saint Paul: “My grace is sufficient for you, for power is made perfect in weakness” (2 Cor 12:9), and the great saint understood this so well that he cried out: “For the sake of Christ, then, I am content with weaknesses, For when I am weak, then I am strong” (2 Cor 12:10). What does it matter what we feel; He, He is the Unchanging One, He who never changes: He loves you today as He loved you yesterday and will love you tomorrow. (Letter 298)

St. Teresa was more blunt when writing about those facing discouragement in prayer, especially beginners in prayer:

Ah, my Lord! Your help is necessary here; without it one can do nothing (cf. Jn 15:5). In Your mercy do not consent to allow this soul to suffer deception and give up what was begun. (IC II:6)

It will seem to you that you are truly determined to undergo exterior trials, provided that God favors you interiorly. His Majesty knows best what is suitable for us. There’s no need for us to be advising Him about what He should give us, for He can rightly tell us that we don’t know what we’re asking for (cf. Mt 20:22). The whole aim of any person who is beginning prayer—and don’t forget this, because it’s very, very important—should be that he work and prepare himself with determination and every possible effort to bring his will into conformity with God’s will. (IC II:8)

We can have all the determination in the world to be devout, faithful, and persistent in our prayer, but our own devotion, fidelity, and persistence alone are not sufficient. We need the Lord’s guidance. Here, St. Teresa refers to acquiring spiritual directors, but her point is more valid than ever: 

Provided that we don’t give up, the Lord will guide everything for our benefit, even though we may not find someone to teach us. There is no other remedy for this evil of giving up prayer than to begin again; otherwise the soul will gradually lose more each day—and please God that it will understand this fact. (IC II:10)

“Provided that we don’t give up,” Teresa writes. “Whoever flees prayer,” St. John of the Cross echoes, “flees all that is good.”

What is this “all that is good” to which John refers?

This time, we will let him answer the question, by sharing an excerpt from his 8 July 1589 letter to Madre Leonor de San Gabriel in Córdoba. A companion of St. Teresa in founding the monasteries of Beas and Sevilla, Mother Leonor was feeling alone in Córdoba without the companionship of Teresa and the sisters she knew and loved the best. St. John of the Cross wrote a letter to encourage her in her new mission as prioress:

Jesus be in your soul, my daughter in Christ.

Thank you for your letter. And I thank God for having desired to use you in this foundation, since His Majesty has done this in order to bring you greater profit. The more he wants to give, the more he makes us desire—even to the point of leaving us empty in order to fill us with goods. You will be repaid for the goods (the love of your sisters) that you leave behind in Sevilla. Since the immense blessings of God can only enter and fit into an empty and solitary heart, the Lord wants you to be alone. For he truly loves you with the desire of being himself all your company. And Your Reverence will have to strive carefully to be content only with his companionship, so you might discover in it every happiness. Even though the soul may be in heaven, it will not be happy if it does not conform its will to this. And we will be unhappy with God, even though he is always present with us, if our heart is not alone, but attached to something else. (Letter 15)

“He loves you today as He loved you yesterday and will love you tomorrow,” St. Elizabeth wrote, echoing the sentiments of St. John of the Cross. But if God is “always present with us”, how can we become present to God, so that our hearts are alone and not “attached to something else”? 

Brother Lawrence of the Resurrection tells us what he did:

Thus, after offering myself entirely to God in atonement for my sins, I renounced for the sake of his love everything other than God, and I began to live as if only he and I existed in the world. Sometimes I considered myself before him as a miserable criminal at his judge’s feet, and at other times I regarded him in my heart as my Father, as my God. I adored him there as often as I could, keeping my mind in his holy presence and recalling him as many times as I was distracted. I had some trouble doing this exercise, but continued in spite of all the difficulties I encountered, without getting disturbed or anxious when I was involuntarily distracted. I was as faithful to this practice during my activities as I was during my periods of mental prayer, for at every moment, all the time, in the most intense periods of my work I banished and rid from my mind everything that was capable of taking the thought of God away from me (Letter 12).

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 you.

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 — Self-trust
Day 2 — Self-giving
Day 3 — Cleansing
Day 4 — Walking in love
Day 5 — Trust
Day 6 — Prayer
Day 7 — Humility
Day 8 — Eternal Silence
Day 9 — Silent love

The novena prayer was composed from approved sources by Professor Michael Ogunu, a member of the Discalced Carmelite Secular Order in Nigeria.

John of the Cross, St 1991, The Collected Works of St. John of the Cross, rev. edn, Kavanaugh, K & Rodriguez, O (trans.), ICS Publications, Washington DC.

Teresa of Avila, St 1985, The Collected Works of St. Teresa of Avila, Kavanaugh, K & Rodriguez, O (trans.), ICS Publications, Washington DC.

Elizabeth of the Trinity, S 2003, The Complete Works of Elizabeth of the Trinity volume 2: Letters from Carmel, Nash, A (trans.), ICS Publications, Washington DC.

Lawrence of the Resurrection, B; De Meester, C 1994, Writings and Conversations on the Practice of the Presence of God,  translated from the French by Salvatore Sciurba, OCD, ICS Publications, Washington DC.

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

#beginners #brotherLawrence #brotherLawrenceOfTheResurrection #determination #difficulty #discouragement #doctorOfTheChurch #dryness #elizabethCatez #fall #givingUp #godsWill #icsPublications #interiorCastle #johnOfTheCross #journey #letter #letters #loneliness #mentalPrayer #novena #practiceOfThePresenceOfGod #psalms #sabeth #sanJuanDeLaCruz #stElizabethOfTheTrinity #stJohnOfTheCross #stTeresa #stTeresaOfAvila #stTeresaOfJesus #stumble #teresa #way #willOfGod

St. John of the Cross Novena, Day 5: Trust

Reading

In tribulation, immediately draw near to God with trust, and you will receive strength, enlightenment, and instruction.

Sayings of Light and Love, 66

Scripture 

Have mercy on me, God, men crush me;
they fight me all day long and oppress me.
My foes crush me all day long,
for many fight proudly against me.

When I fear, I will trust in you,
in God whose word I praise.
In God I trust, I shall not fear:
what can mortal man do to me?

All day long they distort my words,
all their thought is to harm me.
They band together in ambush,
track me down and seek my life.

You have kept an account of my wanderings;
you have kept a record of my tears;
are they not written in your book?
Then my foes will be put to flight
on the day that I call to you.

This I know, that God is on my side.
In God, whose word I praise,
in the Lord, whose word I praise,
in God I trust; I shall not fear:
what can mortal man do to me?

I am bound by the vows I have made you.
O God, I will offer you praise
for you rescued my soul from death,
you kept my feet from stumbling
that I may walk in the presence of God
and enjoy the light of the living.

Psalm 56

Meditation 

Oh, blessed tribulation, that sure sign that God is madly in love with you.

Tribulation is a word that is no longer part of our daily vocabulary. It appears in word puzzles and still makes its way into Hollywood film scripts, although it sounds more appropriate coming from the lips of the revered British actor Charles Laughton, whose King Herod once posed the legendary rhetorical question: “Why does the prophet visit me with worse than the tribulations of Job?”

Saint Teresa of Jesus understood what Saint John of the Cross meant when he was writing about tribulation because she had seen her fair share of it in her lifetime. Here’s just one example from Testimony 53 written in Seville, 8 November 1575:

On the octave day of All Saints I spent two or three very troublesome days over the remembrance of my great sins and because of some fears of my being persecuted that had no foundation, except that false testimony was going to be raised [She had been falsely accused before the Inquisition of Seville]. And all the courage I usually have for suffering left me. Although I wanted to encourage myself, and I made acts and reflected that this suffering would be very beneficial to my soul, all these actions helped me little. For the fear didn’t go away, and what I felt was a vexing war. I chanced upon a letter in which my good Father [Jerome Gracián, Discalced Carmelite and Apostolic Visitor] refers to what St. Paul says, that God does not permit us to be tempted beyond what we can suffer (1 Cor 10:13). That comforted me a lot, but it wasn’t enough. Rather, the next day I became sorely afflicted in seeing I was without him, since I had no one to whom I could have recourse in this tribulation. It seemed to me I was living in great loneliness, and this loneliness increased when I saw that there was no one now but him who might give me comfort and that he had to be absent most of the time, which was a great torment to me.

On the next night, while reading in a book a saying of St. Paul which began to console me, I was thinking of how present our Lord had previously been to me, for He had so truly seemed to be the living God. While I was thinking about this, He appeared in an intellectual vision, very deep within me, as though on the side where the heart is, and said: “Here I am, but I want you to see what little you can do without Me.”

I felt reassured right away, and all my fears were gone. While I was at Matins that same night, the Lord, through an intellectual vision so intense it almost seemed to be an imaginative one, placed Himself in my arms as in the painting of the fifth agony. This vision caused me great fear. For it was so clear, and He was so close to me that I wondered if it was an illusion. He told me: “Don’t be surprised by this, for My Father is with your soul in an incomparably greater union.”

This vision has so remained up till now. What I said of our Lord lasted more than a month. Now it is gone.

Now, we may not be falsely accused before the Inquisition, but in our daily lives, we see plenty of tribulation. And Saint Teresa makes it clear that if we are seeking to make love our ambition, to grow in that untiring love of which St. John of the Cross speaks, then we will be blessed with tribulation.

Blessed with tribulation?

“It is clear that since God wants to lead those whom He greatly loves by the path of tribulation—and the more He loves them the greater the tribulation—there is no reason to think that He despises contemplatives, for with His own mouth He praises them and considers them His friends.”  (Way 18:1)

But what if I don’t want to be a contemplative? 

For the faithful, this truly is not an option if we desire to be united with Christ in heaven, where we will be contemplatives for all eternity! St. Paul writes, “and we all, who with unveiled faces contemplate the Lord’s glory, are being transformed into his image with ever-increasing glory, which comes from the Lord, who is the Spirit” (2 Cor 3:18).

The Catechism reminds us: 

Because of his transcendence, God cannot be seen as he is, unless he himself opens up his mystery to man’s immediate contemplation and gives him the capacity for it. The Church calls this contemplation of God in his heavenly glory “the beatific vision.”

Citing St. Cyprian, the Catechism continues:

How great will your glory and happiness be, to be allowed to see God, to be honored with sharing the joy of salvation and eternal light with Christ your Lord and God, . . . to delight in the joy of immortality in the Kingdom of heaven with the righteous and God’s friends. (CCC 1028)

To be able to contemplate Christ for all eternity, the tribulation is worth it.

We notice that a great Saint and Doctor of the Church like Our Holy Mother Teresa was not immune from tribulation and anxiety. She was suffering terribly: there were “very troublesome days” and fears of being persecuted. She had lost her courage, and every remedy, every action that normally helped in past situations didn’t help at all. She was stuck in her fears and left with what she calls a guerra desabrida… a rather unsavory war—fruitless, vexing, and pointless. Even reading a letter from the priest who meant more to her than any other friar in the world couldn’t console her; his advice was to read St. Paul, but she admitted that it  “comforted me a lot, but it wasn’t enough.”

Poor St. Teresa, she was really in emotional distress and in a spiritual bind. The next day she became even more upset because Father Gracián wasn’t there to encourage and console her in her anxiety. “I had no one to whom I could have recourse in this tribulation” and for her, the loneliness seemed to be the worst part.

St. John of the Cross says that it’s in times like these that we must “immediately draw near to God with trust” and that is exactly what St. Teresa did. She didn’t give up praying, seeking, and hoping, and she didn’t abandon God. Quite the opposite: she continued to draw near to God, even though He seemed distant or hiding. It seems that she may have had difficulty praying with peace, so she turned to spiritual reading instead.

Now, the Lord made himself known to St. Teresa at that moment through a mystical experience. However, that may not necessarily be the path the Lord chooses for each one of us. What St. John of the Cross explains is that if we draw near to God with trust, then we will receive “strength, enlightenment, and instruction.”

St. Elizabeth of the Trinity gives the following advice to ordinary folks like you and I for how best to draw near to God when troubled or anxious  in those moments that St. John and St. Teresa called “tribulation”:

You must build a little cell within your soul as I do. Remember that God is there and enter it from time to time; when you feel nervous or you’re unhappy, quickly seek refuge there and tell the Master all about it.

Ah, if you got to know Him a little, prayer wouldn’t bore you anymore; to me it seems to be rest, relaxation. We come quite simply to the One we love, stay close to Him like a little child in the arms of its mother, and we let our heart go  (Letter 123).

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 you.

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 — Self-trust
Day 2 — Self-giving
Day 3 — Cleansing
Day 4 — Walking in love
Day 5 — Trust
Day 6 — Prayer
Day 7 — Humility
Day 8 — Eternal Silence
Day 9 — Silent love

The novena prayer was composed from approved sources by Professor Michael Ogunu, a member of the Discalced Carmelite Secular Order in Nigeria.

John of the Cross, St 1991, The Collected Works of St. John of the Cross, rev. edn, Kavanaugh, K & Rodriguez, O (trans.), ICS Publications, Washington DC.

Teresa of Avila, St 1985, The Collected Works of St. Teresa of Avila, Kavanaugh, K & Rodriguez, O (trans.), ICS Publications, Washington DC.

Elizabeth of the Trinity, S 2003, The Complete Works of Elizabeth of the Trinity volume 2: Letters from Carmel, Nash, A (trans.), ICS Publications, Washington DC.

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

#anxiety #doctorOfTheChurch #elizabethCatez #enlightenment #icsPublications #inquisition #instruction #johnOfTheCross #letter #letters #loneliness #novena #persecution #psalms #sabeth #sanJuanDeLaCruz #stElizabethOfTheTrinity #stJohnOfTheCross #stTeresa #stTeresaOfAvila #stTeresaOfJesus #strength #teresa #tribulation #troubles #trust #wayOfPerfection #worries

St. John of the Cross Novena, Day 1: Self-trust

Reading

Those who trust in themselves are worse than the devil.

Sayings of Light and Love, 166

Scripture

He also told this parable to some who trusted in themselves that they were righteous and despised others: “Two men went up into the temple to pray, one a Pharisee and the other a tax collector. The Pharisee stood and prayed thus with himself, ‘God, I thank thee that I am not like other men, extortioners, unjust, adulterers, or even like this tax collector. I fast twice a week, I give tithes of all that I get.’ But the tax collector, standing far off, would not even lift up his eyes to heaven, but beat his breast, saying, ‘God, be merciful to me a sinner!’ I tell you, this man went down to his house justified rather than the other; for every one who exalts himself will be humbled, but he who humbles himself will be exalted.”

Luke 18:9-14

Meditation

“Jesus told this parable to some who trusted in themselves that they were righteous,” the Gospel tells us. And let’s notice that the conclusion of the parable is a mirror image of the song that Jesus’ own Mother sang in the home of her cousin Elizabeth: Deposuit potentes de sede, et exaltavit humiles (“He has brought down the mighty from their thrones and exalted those of humble estate,” Lk 1:52).

Another interesting item to note in the parable is the conscience of the tax collector, who was painfully aware of his sinfulness. The Catechism of the Catholic Church (CCC) states that a “well-formed conscience is upright and truthful”, thus the “education of conscience is indispensable for human beings who are subjected to negative influences and tempted by sin to prefer their own judgment and to reject authoritative teachings.” (CCC 1783) This education is “a lifelong task.” (CCC 1784)

So how is the conscience formed?

In the formation of conscience the Word of God is the light for our path, we must assimilate it in faith and prayer and put it into practice. We must also examine our conscience before the Lord’s Cross. We are assisted by the gifts of the Holy Spirit, aided by the witness or advice of others and guided by the authoritative teaching of the Church. (CCC 1785)

If self-trust is worse than the devil, i.e. “Satan, the Evil One, the angel who opposes God…. the one who ‘throws himself across’ God’s plan and his work of salvation accomplished in Christ” (CCC 2851) then the virtue to conquer that vice would be to trust in God.

When we say ‘God’ we confess a constant, unchangeable being, always the same, faithful and just, without any evil. It follows that we must necessarily accept his words and have complete faith in him and acknowledge his authority. He is almighty, merciful, and infinitely beneficent. Who could not place all hope in him? Who could not love him when contemplating the treasures of goodness and love he has poured out on us? (CCC 2086)

St. Thérèse of Lisieux, one of St. John of the Cross’ foremost disciples responds to these rhetorical questions in these, her last written words:

It is not in the first place, but in the last place that I start out; instead of getting ahead with the Pharisee, I repeat, full of trust, the humble prayer of the tax collector; but especially I imitate Magdalene’s attitude, her amazing or rather her daring love that charms the Heart of Jesus, captivates my very own heart. Yes, I feel it, even if I had on my conscience all the sins that can be committed, I would go, heartbroken with repentance, and throw myself into Jesus’ arms, because I know just how much He cherishes the prodigal child who has returned to Him. It is not because God, in His gracious, prevenient mercy, has preserved my soul from mortal sin that I stand up and go to Him in trust and love… (Ms C 36v-37r).

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 you.

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 — Self-trust

Day 2 — Self-giving

Day 3 — Cleansing

Day 4 — Walking in love

Day 5 — Trust

Day 6 — Prayer

Day 7 — Humility

Day 8 — Eternal Silence

Day 9 — Silent love

The novena prayer was composed from approved sources by Professor Michael Ogunu, a member of the Discalced Carmelite Secular Order in Nigeria.

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

#conscience #devil #examinationOfConscience #humble #johnOfTheCross #littleTherese #manuscript #novena #pharisee #prevenientMercy #pride #sanJuanDeLaCruz #satan #selfRighteous #stJohnOfTheCross #stTherese #stThereseOfLisieux #stThereseOfTheChildJesus #taxCollector #trust

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

Novena to St. John of the Cross, Day 8: Inspired with love

Scripture

O True God, You are my God, the One whom I trust.
I seek You with every fiber of my being.
In this dry and weary land with no water in sight,
my soul is dry and longs for You.
My body aches for You, for Your presence.
I have seen You in Your sanctuary
and have been awed by Your power and glory.
Your steadfast love is better than life itself,
so my lips will give You all my praise.
I will bless You with every breath of my life;
I will lift up my hands in praise to Your name.

My soul overflows with satisfaction, as when I feast on foods rich in marrow and fat;
with excitement in my heart and joy on my lips, I offer You praise.
Often at night I lie in bed and remember You,
meditating on Your greatness till morning smiles through my window.
You have been my constant helper;
therefore, I sing for joy under the protection of Your wings.
My soul clings to You;
Your right hand reaches down and holds me up.
(Ps. 63:1-8)

Reading

The soul here addresses its Bridegroom with deep love, esteeming him and thanking him for two admirable effects sometimes produced by him through this union… The first effect is an awakening of God in the soul, brought about in gentleness and love. The second is the breathing of God within it… And what overflows in it is its being tenderly and delicately inspired with love.

The Living Flame Of Love: Stanza 4

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

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

#amorViva #awakening #breathing #bride #bridegroom #carmel #carmelitas #carmelitasDescalzas #carmelitasDescalzos #carmelite #carmelo #delicate #discalcedCarmelite #effects #livingFlameOfLove #love #novena #sanjuanist #secularCarmelites #soul #stJohnOfTheCross #tender #thankGod #thankful #thanksgiving #viveFlamme

Novena to St. John of the Cross, Day 7: Surrender

Scripture

I ask God from the wealth of his glory to give you power through his Spirit to be strong in your inner selves, and I pray that Christ will make his home in your hearts through faith. I pray that you may have your roots and foundation in love, so that you, together with all God’s people, may have the power to understand how broad and long, how high and deep, is Christ’s love. Yes, may you come to know his love—although it can never be fully known—and so be completely filled with the very nature of God.
(Ephesians 3:16-19)

Reading

This spiritual marriage is incomparably greater than the spiritual betrothal, for it is a total transformation in the Beloved, in which each surrenders the entire possession of self to the other with a certain consummation of the union of love. The soul thereby becomes divine, God through participation, insofar as is possible in this life. And thus I think that this state never occurs without the soul’s being confirmed in grace, for the faith of both is confirmed when God’s faith in the soul is here confirmed. It is accordingly the highest state attainable in this life.

The Spiritual Canticle: Stanza 22

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

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

#beloved #carmel #carmelitas #carmelitasDescalzas #carmelite #discalcedCarmelite #divineLove #divinization #faith #grace #lover #secularCarmelites #soul #spiritualMarriage #stJohnOfTheCross #surrender #theosis #transformation #union #unionOfLove

Novena to St. John of the Cross, Day 7: Surrender

Scripture

I ask God from the wealth of his glory to give you power through his Spirit to be strong in your inner selves, and I pray that Christ will make his home in your hearts through faith. I pray that you may have your roots and foundation in love, so that you, together with all God’s people, may have the power to understand how broad and long, how high and deep, is Christ’s love. Yes, may you come to know his love—although it can never be fully known—and so be completely filled with the very nature of God.
(Ephesians 3:16-19)

Reading

This spiritual marriage is incomparably greater than the spiritual betrothal, for it is a total transformation in the Beloved, in which each surrenders the entire possession of self to the other with a certain consummation of the union of love. The soul thereby becomes divine, God through participation, insofar as is possible in this life. And thus I think that this state never occurs without the soul’s being confirmed in grace, for the faith of both is confirmed when God’s faith in the soul is here confirmed. It is accordingly the highest state attainable in this life.

The Spiritual Canticle: Stanza 22

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

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

#beloved #carmel #carmelitas #carmelitasDescalzas #carmelite #discalcedCarmelite #divineLove #divinization #faith #grace #lover #secularCarmelites #soul #spiritualMarriage #stJohnOfTheCross #surrender #theosis #transformation #union #unionOfLove

Novena to St. John of the Cross, Day 7: Surrender

Scripture

I ask God from the wealth of his glory to give you power through his Spirit to be strong in your inner selves, and I pray that Christ will make his home in your hearts through faith. I pray that you may have your roots and foundation in love, so that you, together with all God’s people, may have the power to understand how broad and long, how high and deep, is Christ’s love. Yes, may you come to know his love—although it can never be fully known—and so be completely filled with the very nature of God.
(Ephesians 3:16-19)

Reading

This spiritual marriage is incomparably greater than the spiritual betrothal, for it is a total transformation in the Beloved, in which each surrenders the entire possession of self to the other with a certain consummation of the union of love. The soul thereby becomes divine, God through participation, insofar as is possible in this life. And thus I think that this state never occurs without the soul’s being confirmed in grace, for the faith of both is confirmed when God’s faith in the soul is here confirmed. It is accordingly the highest state attainable in this life.

The Spiritual Canticle: Stanza 22

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

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

#beloved #carmel #carmelitas #carmelitasDescalzas #carmelite #discalcedCarmelite #divineLove #divinization #faith #grace #lover #secularCarmelites #soul #spiritualMarriage #stJohnOfTheCross #surrender #theosis #transformation #union #unionOfLove

Novena to St. John of the Cross, Day 6: Guided through the dark night

Scripture

To you, O Lord, I lift up my soul.
I trust you, let me not be disappointed;
do not let my enemies triumph.
Those who hope in you shall not be disappointed,
but only those who wantonly break faith.

Lord, make me know your ways.
Lord, teach me your paths.
Make me walk in your truth, and teach me:
for you are God my savior.

In you I hope all day long
because of your goodness, O Lord.
Remember your mercy, Lord,
and the love you have shown from of old.
Do not remember the sins of my youth.
In your love remember me.
(Psalm 25:1-7)

Reading

A soul ordinarily needs instruction pertinent to its experience in order to be guided through the dark night to spiritual denudation and poverty. Without this instruction a person, even without wanting such things, would unknowingly become hardened in the way of the spirit and habituated to that of the senses, in which these communications are partly experienced. The spiritual father should instead proceed with much kindness and calm.

The Ascent of Mount Carmel: Book Two, Chapter 22

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

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

#ascentOfMountCarmel #carmel #carmelitas #carmelitasDescalzas #carmelite #darkNight #denudation #discalcedCarmelite #instruction #novena #poverty #secularCarmelites #spirit #spiritual #spiritualDirection #spiritualLife #spiritualPoverty #spirituality #stJohnOfTheCross #teresianCarmel

Novena to St. John of the Cross, Day 6: Guided through the dark night

Scripture

To you, O Lord, I lift up my soul.
I trust you, let me not be disappointed;
do not let my enemies triumph.
Those who hope in you shall not be disappointed,
but only those who wantonly break faith.

Lord, make me know your ways.
Lord, teach me your paths.
Make me walk in your truth, and teach me:
for you are God my savior.

In you I hope all day long
because of your goodness, O Lord.
Remember your mercy, Lord,
and the love you have shown from of old.
Do not remember the sins of my youth.
In your love remember me.
(Psalm 25:1-7)

Reading

A soul ordinarily needs instruction pertinent to its experience in order to be guided through the dark night to spiritual denudation and poverty. Without this instruction a person, even without wanting such things, would unknowingly become hardened in the way of the spirit and habituated to that of the senses, in which these communications are partly experienced. The spiritual father should instead proceed with much kindness and calm.

The Ascent of Mount Carmel: Book Two, Chapter 22

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

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

#ascentOfMountCarmel #carmel #carmelitas #carmelitasDescalzas #carmelite #darkNight #denudation #discalcedCarmelite #instruction #novena #poverty #secularCarmelites #spirit #spiritual #spiritualDirection #spiritualLife #spiritualPoverty #spirituality #stJohnOfTheCross #teresianCarmel

Novena to St. John of the Cross, Day 6: Guided through the dark night

Scripture

To you, O Lord, I lift up my soul.
I trust you, let me not be disappointed;
do not let my enemies triumph.
Those who hope in you shall not be disappointed,
but only those who wantonly break faith.

Lord, make me know your ways.
Lord, teach me your paths.
Make me walk in your truth, and teach me:
for you are God my savior.

In you I hope all day long
because of your goodness, O Lord.
Remember your mercy, Lord,
and the love you have shown from of old.
Do not remember the sins of my youth.
In your love remember me.
(Psalm 25:1-7)

Reading

A soul ordinarily needs instruction pertinent to its experience in order to be guided through the dark night to spiritual denudation and poverty. Without this instruction a person, even without wanting such things, would unknowingly become hardened in the way of the spirit and habituated to that of the senses, in which these communications are partly experienced. The spiritual father should instead proceed with much kindness and calm.

The Ascent of Mount Carmel: Book Two, Chapter 22

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

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

#ascentOfMountCarmel #carmel #carmelitas #carmelitasDescalzas #carmelite #darkNight #denudation #discalcedCarmelite #instruction #novena #poverty #secularCarmelites #spirit #spiritual #spiritualDirection #spiritualLife #spiritualPoverty #spirituality #stJohnOfTheCross #teresianCarmel

Novena to St. John of the Cross, Day 5: Supreme goodness

Scripture

And a ruler asked him, “Good Teacher, what must I do to inherit eternal life?” And Jesus said to him, “Why do you call me good? No one is good except God alone. You know the commandments: ‘Do not commit adultery, Do not murder, Do not steal, Do not bear false witness, Honour your father and mother.’” And he said, “All these I have kept from my youth.” When Jesus heard this, he said to him, “One thing you still lack. Sell all that you have and distribute to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven; and come, follow me.” But when he heard these things, he became very sad, for he was extremely rich. Jesus, seeing that he had become sad, said, “How difficult it is for those who have wealth to enter the kingdom of God! For it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich person to enter the kingdom of God.” Those who heard it said, “Then who can be saved?” But he said, “What is impossible with men is possible with God.” And Peter said, “See, we have left our homes and followed you.” And he said to them, “Truly, I say to you, there is no one who has left house or wife or brothers or parents or children, for the sake of the kingdom of God, who will not receive many times more in this time, and in the age to come eternal life.”
(Luke 18:18-30)

Reading

Compared to the infinite goodness of God, all the goodness of the creatures of the world can be called wickedness. Nothing is good save God only [Lk. 18:19]. Those who set their hearts on the good things of the world become extremely wicked in the sight of God. Since wickedness does not comprehend goodness, such persons will be incapable of union with God, who is supreme goodness.

The Ascent of Mount Carmel: Book One, Chapter 4

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

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

#carmelitequotes #ascentOfMountCarmel #carmel #carmelitas #carmelitasDescalzas #carmelite #creator #creatures #discalcedCarmelite #goodness #goodnessOfGod #infinite #mountCarmel #novena #secularCarmelites #stJohnOfTheCross #teresianCarmel #union #unionWithGod #wickedness

Novena to St. John of the Cross, Day 5: Supreme goodness

Scripture

And a ruler asked him, “Good Teacher, what must I do to inherit eternal life?” And Jesus said to him, “Why do you call me good? No one is good except God alone. You know the commandments: ‘Do not commit adultery, Do not murder, Do not steal, Do not bear false witness, Honour your father and mother.’” And he said, “All these I have kept from my youth.” When Jesus heard this, he said to him, “One thing you still lack. Sell all that you have and distribute to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven; and come, follow me.” But when he heard these things, he became very sad, for he was extremely rich. Jesus, seeing that he had become sad, said, “How difficult it is for those who have wealth to enter the kingdom of God! For it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich person to enter the kingdom of God.” Those who heard it said, “Then who can be saved?” But he said, “What is impossible with men is possible with God.” And Peter said, “See, we have left our homes and followed you.” And he said to them, “Truly, I say to you, there is no one who has left house or wife or brothers or parents or children, for the sake of the kingdom of God, who will not receive many times more in this time, and in the age to come eternal life.”
(Luke 18:18-30)

Reading

Compared to the infinite goodness of God, all the goodness of the creatures of the world can be called wickedness. Nothing is good save God only [Lk. 18:19]. Those who set their hearts on the good things of the world become extremely wicked in the sight of God. Since wickedness does not comprehend goodness, such persons will be incapable of union with God, who is supreme goodness.

The Ascent of Mount Carmel: Book One, Chapter 4

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

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

#carmelitequotes #ascentOfMountCarmel #carmel #carmelitas #carmelitasDescalzas #carmelite #creator #creatures #discalcedCarmelite #goodness #goodnessOfGod #infinite #mountCarmel #novena #secularCarmelites #stJohnOfTheCross #teresianCarmel #union #unionWithGod #wickedness

Novena to St. John of the Cross, Day 5: Supreme goodness

Scripture

And a ruler asked him, “Good Teacher, what must I do to inherit eternal life?” And Jesus said to him, “Why do you call me good? No one is good except God alone. You know the commandments: ‘Do not commit adultery, Do not murder, Do not steal, Do not bear false witness, Honour your father and mother.’” And he said, “All these I have kept from my youth.” When Jesus heard this, he said to him, “One thing you still lack. Sell all that you have and distribute to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven; and come, follow me.” But when he heard these things, he became very sad, for he was extremely rich. Jesus, seeing that he had become sad, said, “How difficult it is for those who have wealth to enter the kingdom of God! For it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich person to enter the kingdom of God.” Those who heard it said, “Then who can be saved?” But he said, “What is impossible with men is possible with God.” And Peter said, “See, we have left our homes and followed you.” And he said to them, “Truly, I say to you, there is no one who has left house or wife or brothers or parents or children, for the sake of the kingdom of God, who will not receive many times more in this time, and in the age to come eternal life.”
(Luke 18:18-30)

Reading

Compared to the infinite goodness of God, all the goodness of the creatures of the world can be called wickedness. Nothing is good save God only [Lk. 18:19]. Those who set their hearts on the good things of the world become extremely wicked in the sight of God. Since wickedness does not comprehend goodness, such persons will be incapable of union with God, who is supreme goodness.

The Ascent of Mount Carmel: Book One, Chapter 4

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

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

#carmelitequotes #ascentOfMountCarmel #carmel #carmelitas #carmelitasDescalzas #carmelite #creator #creatures #discalcedCarmelite #goodness #goodnessOfGod #infinite #mountCarmel #novena #secularCarmelites #stJohnOfTheCross #teresianCarmel #union #unionWithGod #wickedness