aeternus

While today is the feast day of St. Bartholomew, I would like to honor that by talking a little bit about a Carmelite Blessed who was named after him - Blessed Anne.

Anne was born in a small town near the old Castille in Spain and received great friendship with the Lord from a very young age. When she was old enough her parents sent her to the fields to tend the flocks and it was there she began her communion with the Lord. Recollected in the greatness of God she would be in constant prayer admiring His great nature and the splendor of His created Earth. She was in such great love with God that at the age of 7, she had declared “because I fear to commit sin, and would rather die.”

Anne’s parents died when she was not yet of age and so she and her older siblings managed their little farm as best they could. Her brothers had grown anxious to marry her off, but she was determined not to settle for anything less than her beloved Jesus. She fell ill and this was probably because she was so worried they would force her into marriage, but also because she had been accosted by a demonic barrage. Masses were offered for her but she found no relief.

It was near the feast of Saint Bartholomew and there was a holy little hermitage dedicated to him near their village. People had great devotion to Bartholomew in this area and she begged to go on a pilgrimage to this place and make a novena. Her family was to accompany her to the hermitage and she barely made it there. In fact, she collapsed in a paralysis just before entering the chapel. It seemed all was lost, but then she was carried into the sanctuary. At that moment, all malady which held her in its grip left her.

Eventually, through more trials and battles with the evil one, Anne was able to join the Carmelites under the reform of their Holy Mother, Teresa of Avila. Teresa quickly recognized the great humility and favored prayer life enjoyed by Anne and the Saint took her to be her constant companion.

The story of Anne of Bartholomew continues on for her life was filled with adventure for the Lord. Taking care of Holy Mother Teresa and holding her during her final breathes on earth and then founding new monasteries herself in France and Belgium. Her story is beautiful. But let me give you some of Anne’s words as she was about to enter the novitiate at the Carmel of St. Joseph, Saint Teresa’s first reformed Carmel. The passage come from her Autobiography which was translated from French…

“Scarcely had I passed a few days in the Monastery of t. Joseph than it pleased our Lord to hid Himself from me and leave me in darkness. My desolation was great. I said to this Adorable Master: “how is this? Why have you abandoned me? If I did not know you, I would think you had deceived me, and if I had known you would go away I would not have come to the monastery.”

This abandonment lasted ruing the entire year of novitiate. At the end of the year I entered one day the hermitage of Christ at the Pillar to pray. Scarcely had I knelt down than I became supernaturally recollected, and our Lord appeared to me fastened to the cross. The first words He addressed to me were in reply to a desire I had to know whether the thirst He experienced on the cross was a natural thirst. he said to me: “my thirst was only a thirst for souls. From henceforth you must apply yourself to the consideration of this truth, and you must walk in a different path from that you have followed until now.” As if He has said to me, “child, no longer seek Me.” He then caused me to see all virtues in their perfection; they were exquisitely beautiful. I was the more impressed when I realized how far I was from their beauty and perfection. After having favored me with this light, the Divine Master disappeared, leaving my heart deeply wounded with His love, as well as by seeing Him on the cross so deeply wounded with the love of souls. This grace remained so indelibly impressed in my souls that it was with me day and night; my heart was with my Adorable Master, and my Adorable Master was in my heart; this was my usual state. Wherever I might be I experienced a zeal beyond expression for the salvation of souls and for the acquisition of those virtues that the Divine Master had shown me in the vision I have just related. He told me that it was by the way of the cross I would acquire them.”

Icon images:

icoon, 1999
zr. Juliette Christiaens, miss. van Afrika

Images below from the Carmel in Antwerp

In this blog some thought as to seeing God in the everyday experience of our lives, and this is such an important witness to Him. It is a prayer to keep Him with us and notice and appreciate His greatness in these daily events. It is “practicing the presence of God”, a notion taught very well to us through the Carmelite, Brother Lawrence of the Resurrection.

At the young age of 18 years, Lawrence was on one winter day looking at a tree with all of its leaves bear. He considered that in only a little while the leaves would sprout afresh. Soon the tree would be splendidly green with buds and flowers and fruit. This meditation drew him so close to admiring the greatness of God that this divine spirit never left his soul. By witnessing the notion of transfiguration in nature, he was able to see how living in the every day and practicing the presence of God, our lives would be transfigured in God.

The mystical notion of transfiguration is sometimes left only to dreamers and poets and religious. I guess that is why then that contemporary media fills itself with thought only of the transfiguration of the physical? It seems the world is obsessed with it. Can we get through the day without seeing how we can transform into cyborg-robots, vampires, steroid athletes and even into the opposite sex! We can have a face-lift, a tummy tuck and transform our wrinkly thighs with liposuction. There is a fascination with magical powers and witchcraft and wizardry. But there is no thought given to the transfigurement of our souls.

This is so very sad.

If we can witness the powers of science to transform, surely we can testify to the mysterious transformation of the unseen Holy Spirit which permeates our souls and all of creation. It is this Holy Spirit which united Jesus with the Father on Mt. Tabor in a most perfect and divine union of physical and spiritual — the temporal meeting the eternal. And while I have to admit enjoying a bit of Harry Potter fiction with the children (gasp!) — my mind could certainly live only so long on fantasy! The real food of the mind comes from the nourishment it receives from the soul. It is then we can be witnesses of Gods Kingdom on this earth He has given us. It is then we can practice the presence of God and do our best to see the eternal within our physical world.

This morning’s second reading from the office is from St. Boniface whose feast day we celebrate today. The opening paragraph is just wonderful and is as pertinent today as it was back in the 7th Century. Boniface writes:

In her voyage across the ocean of this world, the Church is like a great ship being pounded by the waves of life’s different stresses. Our duty is not to abandon ship but to keep her on her course.

Boy, what words of wisdom. Boniface surely could help us out today in Germany. Yesterday I read an article by Dr. Jeff Mirus who talks about how we are under constant and most ridiculous battle not just from outside our church, but most fiercely from within. In his article entitled, “When Fear and Anger Give way to Laughter” Mirus uses a current silly situation where 130 theologians from Germany and Austria have signed a petition for reform of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith. He jokes in the article:

“Tell the German theologians to pin their 95 Theses to the door and we’ll get back to them.”
On the other hand, there is a priest in Minnesota who is being censured because he is trying to protect the innocent young minds of our school children. In his attempts to expose the insanity behind Virtus a program which is mandated for all Catholic schools and religious education programs. Virtus is being implemented in the archdiocese’s 220 parishes to comply with a 2003 mandate by the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops in the wake of the clergy-sex-abuse scandal.
MANY believe that the program violates Vatican teachings (the magisterium) and that only parents should talk to children about sex.

I can hardly believe that the Bishops feel forced into implementing such a program as this! It is astounding. In the name of protecting children (through a some delusional secular culture mentality) should we expose 5 and 6 year old children to point to pictures of naked bodies to say what part is what and who should and should not touch them!? Or, should we love children and protect their little souls by centering our efforts of education to the adult population who has gone sex mad and gender nutty? Would not it be wise to turn our attention to battling the pornography industry and clean up television, movie and news media hype?! Can we PLEASE put a ban on having advertisements for “enlargement” medicines on every channel at every commercial break?!! We should be fighting the adult battle and not showing our 5 year old children how to protect themselves. If we can not battle, why, no - HOW could we possibly think they could!!! It is insane!!!

O.K… I had better stop this rant and get back to our saint of the day…
As we can see we have both sides of the Christ’s church being bombarded with waves today! The good forces and the bad are often mistaken for one another! We surely should pray to our dear Saint Boniface today for we need his and everyone’s help!

It was said Boniface showed a great zeal for meditation as a youngster. I found a short, but so wonderfully written biography on him from the Medieval Sourcebook at Fordham. I will include this paragraph about his contemplative aspects and how he shows us a great example in attaining a life of saintly union with our Lord:

… the saint’s daily contemplation and to his perseverance in fasting and abstinence. In this way, making gradual progress, we shall relate with conciseness and brevity his wonderful deeds, follow his life to its close, and examine it in greater detail. By balancing one aspect of his life against another we shall show that the venerable and holy Boniface was an example for us of eternal life in his evenly balanced moderation and that he laid before us the precepts of apostolic learning. Following the example of the saints, he climbed the steep path that leads to knowledge of heavenly things and went before his people as a leader who opens the gates of paradise through which only the upright shall enter.

from the Medieval Sourcebook: Willibald: The Life of St. Boniface

“What a piercing beam of light does to a diamond in the dark, so does the indwelling Lord do to a soul entirely purified from all selfishness. Just as one jewel differers from another, so also do those at the contemplative summit vary in the splendors they receive from God…

We never reach a point on earth at which we can say “enough”. Just as fire in wood can grow hotter, with fiery flames shooting out from it, so also can our love deepen and flare out.

Although the fire has penetrated the wood, transformed it, and united it with itself, yet as this fire grows hotter and continues to burn, so the wood becomes much more incandescent and inflamed, even to the point of flaring up and shooting out flames from itself.”

Quotes from: Fire Within and The Living Flame of Love

I was thinking today about my silent retreat a few weeks ago where we were lucky enough to recieve conferences on the “Indwelling Presence of God” and “Purity of Heart” from a Discalced Carmelite Friar. Father was just wonderful in leading us from the virtues of purity through the life of a soul who is in practice of a contemplitive life of prayer which is dwelling within us.

If we are striving for perfection then we are already mindful of the practice of virtue. And, if we are mindful of these practices then we also realize that the practice of humilty (which if we can bend our wills enough) will eventually lead to purity in all of our actions. Living in this purity of heart we will find the virtues only a labor of love for we can see the Father and love the Father through all our actions and all our silent and prayerful witness as His sons and daughters. As Jesus says, “He that hath my commandments and keepeth them; he it is that loveth me. And he that loveth me shall be loved of my Father: and I will love him and will manifest myself to him.” [John 14:21] So if we act with love we will live with love. Also, St. John of the Cross continually exhorts to us that only the pure can commune deeply with the all-pure One. As we purge ourselves free of impurity we draw closer to the flame of love in God. St. John of the Cross in Book II of the Ascent of Mt. Carmel says:

“He that is not born again in the Holy Spirit will not be able to see this kingdom of God, which is the state of perfection; and to be born again in the Holy Spirit in this life is to have a soul most like to God in purity, having in itself no admixture of imperfection” [Bk II Ch 5 #5]

To speak further on this purity, let us consider an excerpt from the Institution of the First Monks [1280]. The whole emphasis of spirituality for these desert monks is focused on withdrawal and on the contemplative life. The Institution of the First Monks lays the foundations of Carmelite spirituality which has developed through many writers over the centuries. We read of these monastics living in the most dry and desolate conditions and finding great consolation in the living waters of God who constantly showered them with His love:

“As in a dry and weary land where no water is; so I have looked upon thee in the sanctuary” By thus choosing to remain in a dry and weary land were no water is, and so come before God “in the sanctuary” that is , with a heart free from sin, he indicates the firs end of the solitary life chosen by him, which is to offer a holy heart, free from all acutal sin.” (which is a pure heart!) “And this purity of heart is attained with the help of divine grace through our efforts and virtuous works. And through purity of heart and perfection of love, the second is attained, namely, an experiential knowledge of the divine presence and the glory of heaven… the second end of this life, which is to experience somewhat even in this life, or to see mystically in the heart, the intensity of the divine presence and to tast the sweetness of the glory of heaven” (WOW!)

This writing from the desert is also very similar to another mystical writing, The Cloud of the Unknowing”. In the chaper I am about to present, the author teaches about God as Holy Spirit. You will have to bear with the “older language” it is so beautiful though — think Chaucer or Shakespeare as you read! Anyway, the author shows us how we too are spirit and how we may prayerfully unite our spirit deeply within the Father. The author invites us to,”bring thee out of the boisterousness of bodily feeling into the purity and deepness of ghostly (spiritual) feeling; and so furthermore at the last to help thee to knit the ghostly (spiritual) knot of burning love betwixt thee and thy God, in ghostly (spiritual) onehead and according of will.

Thou wottest well this, that God is a Spirit; and whoso should be oned unto Him, it behoveth to be in soothfastness and deepness of spirit, full far from any feigned bodily thing. Sooth it is that all thing is known of God, and nothing may be hid from His witting, neither bodily thing nor ghostly. But more openly is that thing known and shewed unto Him, the which is hid in deepness of spirit, sith it so is that He is a Spirit, than is anything that is mingled with any manner of bodilyness. For all bodily thing is farther from God by the course of nature than any ghostly thing. By this reason it seemeth, that the whiles our desire is mingled with any matter of bodilyness, as it is when we stress and strain us in spirit and in body together, so long it is farther from God than it should be, an it were done more devoutly and more listily in soberness and in purity and in deepness of spirit.”
The Cloud of Unknowing - Chapter 46

I think that is a fine meditation on the day, but I think I will post some pictures from my retreat to “pretty up this post” a bit. Oh, and get yourselves down to the Mt. Carmel Retreat Center in Dallas for some great conferences!