Saints: June 2008 Archives

Oh, the joy of First Vespers of the Nativity of Saint John the Baptist: a glorious set of antiphons and (in the monastic Office) an inhabitual sequence of psalms — 112, 145, 146, and 147. What do these four Vespers psalms have in common? The first and third begin with Laudate; the second and fourth with Lauda! In the liturgy there are no insignificant details; the details set the tone.

In my Rosary after Vespers, I stayed with the First Chapter of Saint Luke for my five mysteries; 1. The Annunciation to Zachary (Luke 1:5-22); 2. The Annunciation to the Blessed Virgin Mary (Luke 1:26-38); 3. The Visitation (Luke 1:39-55); 4. The Birth and Circumcision of John the Baptist (Luke 1:56-79); 5. John in the Wilderness (Luke 1:80).

John the Baptist and the Immaculate Heart of Mary

John the Baptist, while yet an infant hidden in Saint Elizabeth’s womb, was the first to experience the sweet mediation of the Virgin Mother’s Immaculate Heart. It was the God-bearing Virgin’s Heart, full of solicitude for her cousin Elizabeth, that moved her to “arise and go with haste into the hill country, to a city of Judah” (cf. Lk 1:39). There the Mother of God bearing her Son beneath her Immaculate Heart, “entered the house of Zechariah and greeted Elizabeth” (Lk 1:40).

The Light of the Real Presence Shining in Her Eyes

This was, in a sense, the first mission of the Immaculate Heart of Mary: to carry the hidden Christ to the “little child” (Lk 1:76) destined to be the Friend of the Bridegroom (Jn 3:29), the Prophet of the Most High (Lk 1:76). With the flame of love burning in her Immaculate Heart and the light of the real presence shining in her eyes, Mary “became in some way a “tabernacle” — the first “tabernacle” in history” (John Paul II, Ecclesia de Eucharistia, art. 55). With the arrival of the Virgin–Tabernacle enclosing within her the “Dayspring from on high” (Lk 1:78), John the Baptist was sanctified, washed clean of original sin, and quickened by the Holy Spirit.

Jubilation

The birth of John the Baptist was an occasion of jubilation. Having already been touched by the Heart of Mary, the Cause of our Joy, the Baptist comes into the world as the Herald of Joy. His prophetic ministry, even as he advances toward a cruel death, is illumined by a supernatural joy. “He who has the bride is the bridegroom; the friend of the bridegroom, who stands and hears him, rejoices greatly at the bridegroom’s voice; therefore this joy of mine is now full. He must increase, but I must decrease” (Jn 3:29–30).

The Open Side of Jesus Crucified

Look at this remarkable painting of Jesus Crucified. The focus of the composition is the wound in His Sacred Side. An angel holding a chalice is hovering just beneath it to receive the outpouring of His Blood. There are also angels stationed beneath His wounded hands. A fourth angel stricken with astonishment and grief looks on.

Saint Francis of Assisi

At the foot of the Cross, close to the wounded feet of Jesus, kneels Saint Francis of Assisi, embracing the saving wood. Saint Francis is closest to the feet of Jesus because he was called to walk in lowliness, poverty, and humility, in imitation of the Son of Man who "had no where to lay His head" (Mt 8:20).

Saint Benedict

On the left is Saint Benedict with his hands crossed over his breast. This is the ritual gesture of the monk when, on the day of his profession, he sings the second part of the Suscipe me, Domine: "Let me not be confounded in my expectation" (Ps 118:116). Saint Benedict is gazing at the Face of the Crucified with an extraordinary intensity of compassion and love. One could draw a direct line from the Face of Jesus to the face of Saint Benedict. This is what he means when he says in his Rule that one desiring to become a monk must "truly seek God" (RB 58:7).

Saint Romuald

On the right one sees Saint Romuald, whose feast we celebrate today. He is seated — rather like Mary of Bethany in Luke 10:39 — with his hands hidden in the sleeves of his cowl. These are subtle allusions to the hidden life in which Saint Romuald sought the Heart of Jesus, not by much doing (the hidden hands) but, rather, in much listening (the "Marian" posture). You will notice that Saint Romuald is not looking at the Face of the Crucified; he is focused on the wound in Jesus' Sacred Side. Therein he seeks to hide himself like the dove in the cleft of the rock.

June 17th is the dies natalis of Marie–Adèle Garnier, Mother Mary of St. Peter, Foundress of the Adorers of the Sacred Heart of Jesus of Tyburn, O.S.B. In 1913 Blessed Columba Marmion wrote to one of her spiritual daughters, saying, "The special characteristic of your Mother is heroic confidence in the midst of impossibilities."

Monastic Roots

Marie–Adèle Garnier was born in France on the feast of the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary, August 15, 1838. She was baptized on the feast of the Holy Name of Mary, September 12. Marie–Adèle’s native Burgundy is the land of Cluny, of Cîteaux, and of Paray–le–Monial. Her life was marked, from the very beginning, by an environment shaped by the Rule of Saint Benedict, by the ardour of Saint Bernard, and by the mystery of the Sacred Heart of Jesus.

The Heart of Jesus and the Eucharist

As a young woman, Marie–Adèle grew in awareness of the Eucharistic Heart of Jesus, Priest and Victim: the Sacred Heart truly present in the Sacrament of the Altar where ceaselessly He glorifies the Father and intercedes for all men. Marie–Adèle was impelled by the Holy Spirit to seek a life wholly illuminated by the Sacrifice of the Mass, and marked by perpetual adoration of the Blessed Sacrament.

Happy, So Happy

In 1872, Marie–Adèle, after having read an article on the proposed basilica of Montmartre, heard an inner voice saying to her: “It is there that I need thee.” “At the same moment,” she writes, “I saw an altar raised on high and sparkling with lights, dominated by the Blessed Sacrament exposed in the monstrance. I felt so overcome by this that I had to lean against the door to save myself from falling. And then I felt so happy, so happy, that I could make nothing of it.”

Like many of her contemporaries drawn to the Sacred Heart of Jesus, Marie–Adèle heard the interior summons to a life of reparation and doxology. “I felt Jesus speaking to my heart, illuminated by a light of surpassing brightness; He told me that it was His Will that His Heart present in the Holy Eucharist should be the object of the worship of Montmartre, and that the Blessed Sacrament should be exposed there night and day.”

Salutary Failure

Marie–Adèle first attempted to respond to her vocation by living in solitude on Montmartre, close by the site of what would become the Basilica of the Sacred Heart. God allowed her to experience a salutary failure without, however, withdrawing the attraction to a life of reparation and adoration at Montmartre. Her first sojourn at Montmartre ended on the feast of the Compassion of the Blessed Virgin Mary, September 15, 1876.

Beginnings

In 1898, having returned to Montmartre with a companion, Marie–Adèle began a hidden life of adoration, reparation, and intercession for the Church under the special protection of Saint Peter the Prince of the Apostles, and Saint Michael the Archangel. From the beginning the Rule of Saint Benedict inspired and guided the new monastic family. On June 9, 1899, Marie–Adèle, now known as Mother Mary of St. Peter, and her first daughters, made their profession in the crypt of the Basilica of the Sacred Heart at the altar of Saint Peter. Two days later, June 11, Pope Leo XIII consecrated the whole human race to the Sacred Heart of Jesus.

Tyburn

The anti–clerical laws of 1901 obliged the fledgling community to leave Montmartre for England. Mother Mary of St. Peter and her daughters established themselves at Tyburn in the heart of London on the site of the cruel torments and death of England’s glorious Catholic Martyrs. Her companion, Mother Agnes, wrote, “And we ourselves, little as we were, but supporting our littleness on the Heart of Jesus, we, too, were coming to labour, within the limits of our vocation, in the great work of the conversion of England.”

Blessed Columba Marmion

From 1908 onward, Mother Mary of St. Peter was under the direction of the Benedictine Abbot Blessed Columba Marmion. It was to Abbot Marmion that she wrote on December 23, 1909: “In spite of this humiliating burden of misery and worries, my soul dwells in her God, because He supports her, holds her up, carries her, sustains her in a life of faith, of love, of confidence, not sensibly consoling, but supremely happy!”

Happy With God and With My Children

Abbot Marmion died in 1923, leaving Mother Mary of St. Peter and her daughters to mourn his passing and, at the same, to live in gratitude and joy from his spiritual patrimony. The following year on June 17, after much suffering, Mother Mary of St. Peter died. Her last intelligible words were: “I am so happy with God! And with my children.” Today Mother Mary of St. Peter's Benedictine Congregation of the Adorers of the Sacred Heart has monasteries in England, Scotland, Ireland, Australia, Peru, New Zealand, Ecuador, Colombia, and Rome, Italy.

Where His Treasure Was, There Was His Heart

Among Cistercians and Trappists, June 17th marks the memorial of Blessed Marie-Joseph Cassant, a Cistercian monk of the Abbey of Sainte-Marie-du-Désert beatified by Pope John Paul II on October 3, 2004. Father Marie-Joseph died on June 17, 1903; he was twenty-five years old. Solemnly professed for three years, he had been a priest for only nine months. From childhood he wanted nothing else. “Where your treasure house is, there is your heart also” (Mt 6:21).

The Greatness of the Priesthood

In his last letter to his family, he wrote, “For such a long time we hoped against hope to be able to have the whole family together after my ordination so as to share the joy of being present and receiving Communion together at my first Mass. The good Lord heard our deepest wishes. It now remains to us to thank Him and to enter more and more deeply into the greatness of the priesthood. Let us never dare to equate the Sacrifice of the Mass with earthly things.”

An Intercessor

Since 1903 more than 2200 persons from thirty different countries have attested to favours received through the intercession of Father Marie-Joseph. The catalogue of graces attributed to the young monk is impressive: conversions, reconciliations, cures, and comfort in uncertainties and doubts. My friend Father Jacob and I went in pilgrimage to his tomb in 1982 and prayed that both of us might become priests. I was ordained four years later.

Towards La Trappe

Father Marie-Joseph’s road to the priesthood was not an easy one. His parish priest judged him intellectually inadequate for theological studies. After tutoring him for fifteen months in French and Latin, he saw that the young Joseph was not suited for the diocesan seminary. He directed him instead to the Trappe of Sainte-Marie-du-Desert where the monks were ordained to the priesthood after a simpler course of studies, given that they had no pastoral responsibilities or outside ministry.

The feast of Saint Lutgarde, a Cistercian, and one of the first mystics of the Sacred Heart, occurs on June 16th. Some years ago I was given a piece of her wooden choirstall: one of my most treasured relics!

Wounded by Love

Saint Lutgarde was a contemporary of Saints Francis and Clare. She was born in 1182, just one year after the little Poor Man of Assisi. Both were destined to share in the Passion of Christ; both would bear the impression of Christ’s wounds. Saint Lutgarde is often depicted — as are both Saint Bernard and Saint Francis — held in the embrace of Jesus Crucified, and invited to drink from the wound in His Sacred Side.

Mother of Preachers

The prolific multiplication of Cistercian-Benedictine monasteries of women in the Low Countries obliged the White Nuns to turn to the newly founded friars, disciples of Francis and Dominic, rather than to their brother monks, for spiritual and sacramental assistance. Lutgarde was a friend and mother to the early Dominicans and Franciscans, supporting their preaching by her prayer and fasting, offering them hospitality, ever eager for news of their missions and spiritual conquests. Her first biographer relates that the friars named her mater praedicatorum, the mother of preachers.

When I came to the Magnificat Antiphon at Vespers this evening, I made the delightful discovery of the text (with a splendid First Mode melody) now given for the feast of Saint Anthony in the 2007 Antiphonale Monasticum:

Exi cito in plateas et vicos civitatis,
et pauperes ac debiles, caecos et claudos compelle intrare,
ut impleatur domus mea, alleluia.

Quick, go out into the broadways and lanes of the city:
bring in the poor, the cripples, the blind and the lame,
that so my house may be filled.
(Luke 14: 21, 23)

The old Matins legend for Saint Anthony had this:

Anthony, the Ark of the Covenant

It is said that he knew all the Bible by heart; and the Pope, after hearing him preach, declared that in Anthony all the Scriptures were enshrined, as they were of old in the Ark of the Covenant.

Marketplace Preaching

So truly did he love holiness and truth that he was a relentless preacher against both vice and heresy, wherefrom he was nicknamed Everlasting-Hammer-of-the-Hereticks. All work ceased when he came to a town; and because the churches could not hold the crowds which flocked to him, he preached in the marketplaces; whereafter hereticks as well as Catholics thronged to him to be shriven.

Death in a Treehouse

When he was sick unto death, he is said to have asked that a floor be put up in a tree, whereon he could lie, in the open air, and wait for death amidst the singing of the birds.

My Treehouse

I especially like the bit about the treehouse. When I was a lad, my father built me a treehouse in a Catalpa tree in the backyard. It was very special to me: my quiet place. I loved climbing into the treehouse, closing the door, and sitting there, among the branches, with my open Bible. I also have a very distinct memory of praying to Our Mother of Perpetual Help in the treehouse!

Ablaze With the Love of Christ

Today's Saint Alice of Schaerbeek, a Cistercian-Benedictine nun, was one of a constellation of holy women who in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries set the Low Countries all ablaze with love for Christ and, in particular, for the mystery of the Eucharist. Dame Alice died on June 11th, 1250; the Cistercian Order began celebrating her feast in 1702.

Deus Crucifixus

Thomas Merton wrote that the life of Saint Alice should be placed in the hands of every monk; he presented her as the perfect illustration of Chapter Seven of the Rule of Saint Benedict, On the Degrees of Humility. Father Chrysogonus Waddell ranked her with Thérèse of the Child Jesus and Elizabeth of Trinity; he saw her as the icon of that particular stream of Cistercian spirituality that Dom James Fox, abbot of Gethsemane in the 1950s, expressed in his abbatial motto: Deus crucifixus, God crucified.

A Heart Crushed and Bruised

Living according to Rule of Saint Benedict, Saint Alice was configured to Jesus Crucified by her fidelity to the will of the Father in illness. She was a woman touched by suffering in every fiber of her being: all kinds of suffering. The saint’s most obvious suffering was the leprosy with which she was stricken after entering the Abbey of La Cambre, so called in honour of “the Chamber of the Virgin Mary.” Leprosy was, and to a certain extent remains, a disease that causes people to shudder. For Alice, leprosy was but the beginning. It brought in its wake other sufferings, sufferings of the heart, of the mind, and of the soul. It brought, more than anything else, a great loneliness. Her biographer says that the first night of her reclusion “her heart was so severely crushed and bruised, that her spirit fainted away, and her mind remained forcibly in shock.”

A Great Loneliness

Alice had entered her monastery to live with others, to share life, to love and to be loved in the communion of a Eucharistic body. Cistercian-Benedictine life meant, more than anything else, life together. Because of her illness, Alice was obliged to forsake life together, the very thing she thought would be her lifelong path to God. I often think of the loneliness of Alice, of her feelings of rejection, of isolation, of fear. Unlike Blessed Damien of Molokai who lived within a community of lepers, Alice had to live a great loneliness.

"How beautiful God is, how beautiful!
But He is sad because of the sins of men.
I want to console Him, I want to suffer for love of Him."

Blessed Francisco Marto

The Boy Who Saw the Mother of God

Blessed Francisco Marto, the boy who saw the Mother of God, was born in Aljustrel, in the parish of Fatima, Portugal on June 11, 1908. Together with his sister, Blessed Jacinta, he first learned of the things of God in his own family. Visited three times by the Angel of Portugal and then by the Blessed Virgin Mary herself over a period of six months beginning on May 13, 1917, Francisco began to pray and offer sacrifices for the conversion of sinners, for the consolation of Jesus, and in reparation to the Immaculate Heart of Mary.

The Consoler of the Hidden Jesus

The Angel's words, "Console your God," seem to have burned themselves into Francisco's heart. Of the three children of Fatima, his grace is, I think, the most explicitly Eucharistic. Francisco sought, more than anything else, to be the consoler of "the Hidden Jesus" by adoring Him in the tabernacle of the parish church, and by praying the Rosary. It is this call to console "the Hidden Jesus" that, more and more, has endeared Francisco to me.

The Chalice and the Precious Blood

In the autumn of 1916, the Angel of Portugal appeared for the third time to the three children. He was holding a chalice with a Host suspended above it; from the Host drops of Blood fell into the chalice. The Angel, leaving the chalice and Host suspended in the air, fell prostrate in adoration. He then gave Holy Communion to the three children. To Lucia he gave the Host. To Francisco and Jacinta he presented the chalice saying, "Take and drink the Body and Blood of Jesus Christ, horribly outraged by ungrateful men. Repair their crimes and console your God."

God Was Within Me

A few days later, while discussing this mysterious Communion of Reparation from the Chalice of the Precious Blood, Francisco said to Lucia, "I felt that God was within me, but I didn't know how!"

Son of Consolation

Francisco's personal call to console the "Hidden Jesus" strikes me as being mysteriously linked to his birthday on the feast of the Apostle Saint Barnabas whose name, in fact, means "son of consolation."

Many Rosaries

Our Lady's words, that Francisco would have to say "many rosaries" before going to heaven, have given rise to all sorts of interpretations, some of which cast a shadow over the little nine-year-old boy. Fatima specialist and author Leo Madigan gives the clearest and most sensible explanation. He writes that, "Francisco would go to heaven, but there was time for many Rosaries before that happened." Our Lady words contained no veiled threat, no ominous warning. She spoke to Francisco as a mother. While waiting to go to heaven, he had time to pray many Rosaries. For Francisco, that knowledge was a gift and a joy. Francisco died, after praying his "many Rosaries," on April 4, 1919.

My Recommendation

I can recommend no better English biography of the children of Fatima than the one written by Leo Madigan: The Children of Fatima, Blessed Francisco and Blessed Jacinta Marto, Our Sunday Visitor, 2003.

Pope John Paul II beatified Francisco and Jacinta Marto on May 13, 2000.

June 9, 1895 was the Feast of the Most Holy Trinity. In the Carmel of Lisieux in Normandy, France, twenty-two year old Sister Thérèse de l'Enfant Jésus et de la Sainte Face received a very special grace during Mass: she felt compelled to offer herself as a victim to Merciful Love.

After Mass, Thérèse went to her prioress (her own sister Pauline), Mother Agnès de Jésus, accompanied by Sister Geneviève de la Sainte Face (her own sister Céline). Visibly under the sway of the grace she had experienced, she asked Mother Agnès if both she and Céline might offer themselves as victims to Merciful Love. Mother Agnès was disconcerted. She didn't quite understand what exactly Thérèse wanted to do. She trusted the discernment of Thérèse nonethless and allowed her to follow the inspiration she had received.

Saint Thérèse composed the following "Oblation to Merciful Love" and, until the end of her life, carried it next to her heart. The comments in italics are my own.

The Act of Oblation to Merciful Love

J.M.J.T.

Offering of myself as a victim of holocaust to the Merciful Love of God

Thérèse recognizes that God, mysteriously, "needs" souls upon whom He can freely pour Himself out as Merciful Love. She gives herself over as a holocaust, that is, as a living fuel to be entirely consumed in the fire of Merciful Love. Thérèse, being a Carmelite, was a daughter of the Holy Prophet Elijah at whose prayer the holocaust on Mount Carmel was utterly consumed. "I will call on the name of the Lord I serve; and the God who sends fire in answer shall be acknowledged as God" (III Kings 18:24).

O My God! Most Blessed Trinity, I desire to Love You and make you Loved, to work for the glory of Holy Church by saving souls on earth and liberating those suffering in purgatory. I desire to accomplish Your will perfectly and to reach the degree of glory You have prepared for me in Your Kingdom. I desire, in a word, to be saint, but I feel my helplessness and I beg You, O my God! to be Yourself my Sanctity!

Thérèse writes with theological density and mystical intensity. Hers is the language of desire and of love. She doesn't shrink from her "work" as a Carmelite. There is nothing small or subjective here. This is about "the glory of the Holy Church." It is about saving souls on earth and liberating them from purgatory. Thérèse seems to gaze, like Saint Stephen the Protomartyr (Acts 7:55), into the open heavens. There she sees the will of God and the degree of glory prepared for her. Her desire corresponds perfectly to the desire of God: her sanctity. Her helplessness is no obstacle to this; it constitutes, on the contrary, a claim on the divine munificence of Merciful Love.

Since You loved me so much as to give me Your only Son as my Savior and my Spouse, the infinite treasures of His merits are mine.

This is the simple logic of the saints. Thérèse echoes John 3:16 in a personal way: "God so loved me that He gave up His only-begotten Son" to be my Savior and my Spouse. All that is His is mine. I seem to hear Saint John of the Cross: "Mine are the heavens and mine is the earth. Mine are the nations, the just are mine, and mine the sinners. The angels are mine, and the Mother of God, and all things are mine; and God himself is mine and for me, because Christ is mine and all for me."

I offer them to You with gladness, begging You to look upon me only in the Face of Jesus and in His Heart burning with Love.

The Face of Jesus and His Heart burning with Love! For Thérèse the Holy Face of Jesus reveals the secrets of His Heart. Thérèse takes her contemplation of the Holy Face even further; she asks the Father to look upon her in the Face of Jesus and in His Heart. The psalmist says, "Thy Face is a sanctuary, to hide away from the world's malice" (Psalm 30:21) and, in another place, "Look upon the Face of Thy Christ" (Psalm 83:10).

I offer You, too, all the merits of the saints (in heaven and on earth), their acts of Love, and those of the holy angels. Finally, I offer You, O Blessed Trinity! the Love and merits of the Blessed Virgin, my Dear Mother. It is to her I abandon my offering, begging her to present it to You. Her Divine Son, my Beloved Spouse, told us in the days of His mortal life: "Whatsoever you ask the Father in my name he will give it to you!" I am certain, then, that You will grant my desires; I know, O my God! that the more You want to give, the more You make us desire. I feel in my heart immense desires and it is with confidence I ask You to come and take possession of my soul.

One sees how much Thérèse has been formed by the eschatology of the Mass and Divine Office; she offers the merits of the saints in heaven and on earth, and of the angels. Then, at the very heart of her Oblation, she speaks of the Blessed Virgin, her "dear Mother." She abandons her offering into the hands of Mary, discretely evoking the Virgin Mother's mystical priesthood at the altar of the Cross.

Thérèse has a very personal way of expressing her relationship with Mary. Whereas most souls readily speak of going "to Jesus through Mary," Thérèse sees herself as bound to Mary through Jesus. The Son of Mary is the Spouse of Thérèse. Thérèse is certain of being loved by the Blessed Virgin because she is the spouse of her Son.

Thérèse anchors her confidence in the inexhaustible largesse of God in the promise of Jesus, "You have only to make any request of the Father in my name and He will grant it to you" (John 16:23). The Doctor of Merciful Love articulates here one of the key principles of her spirituality: "I know, O my God, that the more You want to give, the more You make us desire." God Himself is the Cause of the soul's deepest, highest, and truest desires. In spiritual direction — it seems to me, at least — this is the fundamental question: What do you really desire? Every desire that comes from God leads to God. As a rule, the desires that come from God are immense; they cause a certain dilation of the soul, a stretching Godward. Paradoxically, there is nothing more spacious than the "Little Way" of Thérèse. "Thou hast set my feet in a spacious place" (Psalm 30:9).

Ah! I cannot receive Holy Communion as often as I desire, but, Lord, are You not all-powerful? Remain in me as in a tabernacle and never separate Yourself from Your little victim.

Frequent Holy Communion had not yet found its place in Carmel. Thérèse was not daunted by this. Merciful Love is Omnipotent Love. Thérèse is confident that her "communions of desire" are met with desire on the part of Our Lord. Did He not say, "With desire have I desired to share this pasch with you before my passion" (Luke 22:15)? Thérèse offers herself as a tabernacle to Indwelling Love. She desires to hold the Eucharist within herself, to be a living Tent of Meeting wherein every human misery might encounter Merciful Love. She wants to remain a victim in the hands of Christ the Priest. More than anything, Thérèse desires sacramental Holy Communion; deprived of it, she is content to trust in the designs of the Eucharistic Heart of Jesus, for she knows they cannot be thwarted.

I want to console You for the ingratitude of the wicked, and I beg of you to take away my freedom to displease You. If through weakness I sometimes fall, may Your Divine Glance cleanse my soul immediately, consuming all my imperfections like the fire that transforms everything into itself.

Where there is love there will be the desire to console the Heart of God, the need to make reparation. Thérèse would be the slave of God rendered by grace incapable of displeasing Him for the sake of those who rebel against Him and spurn His Loving Mercy. Then, in the next breath, she speaks of weakness and of falls! (You have to love her!) Her profound devotion to the Holy Face makes her add, "May Your Divine Glance cleanse my soul immediately, consuming all my imperfections like the fire that transforms everything into itself." Do I hear an echo of Psalm 89:8? "Thou hast set our iniquities before thy eyes: our life in the light of thy countenance."

I thank You, O my God! for all the graces You have granted me, especially the grace of making me pass through the crucible of suffering. It is with joy I shall contemplate You on the Last Day carrying the sceptre of Your Cross. Since You deigned to give me a share in this very precious Cross, I hope in heaven to resemble You and to see shining in my glorified body the sacred stigmata of Your Passion.

After reparation, Thérèse turns to thanksgiving. She is grateful, above all else, for suffering because suffering has made her most like her Spouse; "despised, and the most abject of men, a man of sorrows, and acquainted with infirmity: and his look was as it were hidden and despised, whereupon we esteemed him not" (Isaiah 53:3). She identifies her own sufferings as a share in the precious Cross of Jesus. Astonishingly, she wants to resemble Him in heaven by bearing in her own flesh His holy and glorious wounds. Whereas, more often than not the wounds of those marked by the grace of the stigmata disappear at death, Thérèse claims them for herself in heaven!

After earth's Exile, I hope to go and enjoy You in the Fatherland, but I do not want to lay up merits for heaven. I want to work for Your Love alone with the one purpose of pleasing You, consoling Your Sacred Heart, and saving souls who will love You eternally.

The heaven of Thérèse is not one of eternal rest in the sense of inactivity. Heaven is the full expansion of her life work. She remains the strong-willed girl from Normandy: "I want to work for Your Love alone." She has but one purpose in this: to please Jesus, to console His Sacred Heart, and to save souls who, in turn, will love Him eternally. Thérèse is the tireless missionary, labouring in the harvest until the end of time.

In the evening of this life, I shall appear before You with empty hands, for I do not ask You, Lord, to count my works. All our justice is stained in Your eyes. I wish, then, to be clothed in Your own Justice and to receive from Your Love the eternal possession of Yourself. I want no other Throne, no other Crown but You, my Beloved!

"With empty hands": this expresses in Theresian language the first beatitude: "Blessed are the poor in spirit; the kingdom of heaven is theirs" (Matthew 5:3). For Thérèse, at the end of this life, there will be no meticulous bookkeeping of works and of merits. She will present to God the one thing His Loving Mercy cannot resist: the sight of empty hands, outstretched, and ready to receive from Love the eternal possession of Himself. Thérèse dares to critique — with a subtle smile, I am sure — the received imagery of the celestial throne and crown. Heaven is not in these "things" — Thérèse has played her all for no-thing. She wants only her Beloved.

Time is nothing in Your eyes, and a single day is like a thousand years. You can, then, in one instant prepare me to appear before You.

Here Thérèse quotes Psalm 89:4. "For a thousand years in thy sight are as yesterday, which is past, and as a watch in the night." The purifying Love of God can prepare a soul to appear before Him in a single instant. Was she thinking of the Good Thief? "Then he said to Jesus, Lord, remember me when thou comest into thy kingdom. And Jesus said to him, I promise thee, this day thou shalt be with me in paradise" (Luke 23:42-43). Thérèse dares to imagine a "purgatory" of one instant. She measures purgatory not in terms of time, but rather in terms of the infinite intensity of the fire of Merciful Love that burns to make souls entirely pure.

In order to live in one single act of perfect Love, I OFFER MYSELF AS A VICTIM OF HOLOCAUST TO YOUR MERCIFUL LOVE, Asking You to consume me incessantly, allowing the waves of infinite tenderness shut up within You to overflow into my soul, and that thus I may become a martyr of Your Love, O my God!

The essence of monastic holiness, which reflects and images the singleheartedness of Jesus, Beloved Son and Eternal Priest, for the sake of the whole Church, is the unification of one's whole life in a single act of perfect love. Thérèse understands that this can be realized not by straining and striving, but only by offering oneself as a victim to the Merciful Love of God. She casts herself, willingly, into the flames of the Furnace of Burning Charity that is the Heart of Jesus. There her desire for union will be realized. The waves of infinite tenderness will find in her a vessel made ready to receive them and to pour them out over other "little souls." This is the Theresian martyrdom. It evokes the death of her model and heroine Joan of Arc, but here the wood of the pyre is that of the Cross, and the consuming flames are those of Merciful Love.

May this martyrdom, after having prepared me to appear before You, finally cause me to die and may my soul take its flight without any delay into the eternal embrace of Your Merciful Love.

Thérèse wants to die, like Saint Joan of Arc, a martyr amidst the devouring flames of Merciful Love. Death will be the passage from Love into Love. I feel here something of the ardour of Saint Ignatius of Antioch. "Consign not to the world one who yearns to be God's; nor tempt me with the things of this life. Suffer me to receive pure light. When I come thither then shall I be a man indeed. Suffer me to be an imitator of the passion of my God" (Letter to the Romans).

I want, O my Beloved, at each beat of my heart to renew this offering to You an infinite number of times, until the shadows having disappeared I may be able to tell You of my Love in an Eternal Face–to–Face!

The leit-motif of the Holy Face returns. For Thérèse, life beyond the shadows of death will be the exchange of Love in an Eternal Face–to–Face. On August 6, 1897, less than one month before her death, Thérèse asked that the image of the Holy Face of Jesus be attached to her bed curtain in the infirmary. " We see now through a glass in a dark manner; but then face to face. Now I know I part; but then I shall know even as I am known. And now there remain faith, hope, and charity, these three: but the greatest of these is charity" (1 Corinthians 13:12-13).

Marie, Françoise, Thérèse of the Child Jesus and the Holy Face,
unworthy Carmelite religious.

This 9th Day of June,
Feast of the Most Holy Trinity,
In the Year of Grace, 1895

O God, Who by the glorious confession of the holy martyrs
Marcellinus and Peter,
dost surround and protect us,
grant that we may go forward under their protection
and be sustained by their prayer.
Through our Lord Jesus Christ, your Son,
who liveth and reigneth with Thee in the unity of the Holy Spirit,
God, forever and ever.

Saints of the Roman Canon

The names of today’s martyrs are familiar to us. Saints Marcellinus and Peter are commemorated in the Roman Canon. Just think! For over 1500 years not a single Mass was offered without the names of these two saints being whispered by the priest at the altar. Saint Marcellinus was a Roman priest; Saint Peter was an exorcist . . . yes, an exorcist. Both were put to death for the faith under Diocletian in the year 303. So dear were these two saints to the Church of Rome that Constantine built a basilica in their honour.

Special to Me

Last year on this day, which also happens to be my birthday, I was privileged to offer Holy Mass in the Basilica of Saints Marcellinus and Peter on the Via Merulana, not far from Santa Croce in Gerusalemme. D. Ryan-Maria, from my own community of Santa Croce, and Sister Barbara, A.S.C.J. shared the graces of the day with me.

Invoke the Saints

The repeated invocation of the saints — simply naming them day after day — forges a wonderful friendship with them. The psalmist is right to say: “There are saints who dwell in His land; wondrous delight He gives me in their companionship” (Ps 15:3). Mother Church teaches us to speak the names of the saints: each name evokes a face, a heart, the mystery of a life and death transfigured by the Holy Spirit and taken up into the death and glory of Christ.

Blessed Companionship

The companionship of the saints is one of the boons of our Catholic faith. (I so pity the Protestants with their empty calendars looking rather like a ghost town.) It is comforting to know that no matter what temptations, trials, and struggle we are experiencing, there is in the kingdom of heaven someone who has already been through them all, someone disposed to comfort and help us. Frequent the saints, cultivate their friendship. Take a lesson from the Church who never tires of naming them in her liturgy.