aeternus

I came across a wonderful little podcast in Mp3 format by Teófilo de Jesús on his Vivificat! blog. In the podcast he gives a fundamental explanation of Lectio Divina and leads the listener through a guided tutorial of this practice in the order of St. Benedict.

Teófilo cautions that unlike in eastern prayer where we the person in meditation seeks to empty himself in search of some great NOTHING.  By contrast, we in meditating through lectio divina are ever mindful of the One Almighty Triune and transcendent God so that we may discern what He might reveal to us through His word. And, through our meditation in this way, that word may be more easily perceived.

The spiritual reading for this episode is of the Gospel Reading from the 5th Sunday of Easter, AD 2007 - Year “C.”

Teófilo says:

This podcast is approximately 21 minutes long. I intend to keep future podcasts at about 10 minutes. This one lasted that long because I had to explain the different “steps” of Lectio Divina as I went through it. I apologize for all technical blunders beforehand. I am still exploring my sound suite and I haven’t discovered all the tricks, shortcuts, and techniques. Some transitions are less than perfect, so adjust your volume accordingly.

My accent is also less than perfect, and so is my English pronunciation. Sure, I’ve been speaking our English language for over 20 years. The learning process never ends! If my accent bothers you, think some obscure Spanish-speaking aspiring contemplative, who dragged himself from his cell in order to share a little bit of what goes on in his heart with you.

I thank Teófilo for this podcast and hope he will produce some other podcasts in the future!

CLICK HERE TO LISTEN

I am so very happy to learn that my favorite Podcast, Meditations from Carmel, was just nominated as one of the best 2007 Podcasts in the Religion Inspiration category at the Peoples Choice Podcast awards. This is actually a very big deal because this is the BIG podcast award giver on the Internet. Last year Fr. Rodrick (from the Netherlands who is a technology geek and started the SQPN network) won as the overall peoples choice beating out dozens and dozens of secular podcasts (and many of which are on horrible and vile topics). It was a great affirmation for those who are Podcasting for the Lord!

The SQPN network is filled with some rather Catholic light bantering and I’m not too sure you will find it very prayerful except for the PrayerCast (which only has 4 episodes) and Verbum Domini (daily scripture readings from the Liturgical Calendar). I pray that the network will become more evangelistic in teaching our faith to the world. They are not very “EWTN” at all (if I am to use EWTN as a adjective). There is a nice podcast on their network though called the SaintCast which can be quite interesting.

There is also a very large group of Protestant podcasting going on and they can be found on the Godcast Network. You will find a few Catholic’s amongst the very large group, but you’ll have to scroll around a bit to find them.

Anyway, I am, obviously, quite partial to this Carmelite podcast. It is so wonderful to “hear the voice of Teresa of Avila” and I like Therese’s voice too. But, it is their words about prayer and devotion and love of our Lord through the Garden of Carmel which help to elevate my mind and heart… ahhhhh…..

The contest will run for the next 2 weeks and you can vote daily. I am SURE the Carmelites would value the support. Also, it would be a strong voice to the Catholic community what a great tool the Internet can be in being the voice of good and love in the world. –AMEN!

Here is a news release about the contest:

The Meditations from Carmel Podcast has been voted into the final round of the 2007 Podcast Awards in the “People’s Choice Religion Inspiration” category. In this year’s nomination procedure a count of over 335,000 people submitted, 6 million plus shows! Voting for each Podcast category begins today and you may vote 1 time per day for your favorite podcast. We hope the faithful will support Catholic media by casting their daily ballot!

About the Podcast:

Meditations from Carmel podcast is produced by the Secular Carmelite Community at the Carmel of St. Joseph in St. Louis, Missouri. The meditations come directly from the treasury of writings of the great Carmelite Saints including St. Teresa of Avila, St. John of the Cross, St. Therese of Lisieux, Blessed Elizabeth of the Trinity, St. Teresa of the Andes, Brother Lawrence of the Resurrection, St. Teresa Benedicta and many others. As Carmelites living in the world, we listen to hear the whisper of God in the silence of our hearts. We seek Him, who we know loves us, and contemplate His wonders. We hope these short reflections will inspire you to take up the practice of prayer in your life. As St. Teresa of Avila reminds us is:

“Prayer is nothing else than an
intimate sharing between friends;
it means taking time
frequently
to be alone with Him
who we know loves us.”

Voting:

You can vote each day between July 28 and August 11, 2007 for your favorite shows at www.PodcastAwards.com. Voters may select one or all categories to vote for and a verification email with a clickable link will be emailed to you so that the vote can be verified.

About the 2007 Podcast Awards
The People’s Choice:

We have taken great care in the design and launching of this site to give all podcasters an equal chance in the opportunity to win a People’s Choice Podcasting Award in their specific category.

This is the third annual event that will recognize the best podcasters in the world by allowing the people (Listeners and Podcasters) to nominate, and then vote for their favorite podcast. This will culminate with awards and prizes being given during the 2007 Awards ceremony that take place during Podcast Expo in Ontario California on September 28, 2007. The website will see over 250,000 hits per day based upon 2006 levels.

Other Catholic Podcast Nominations:

People’s Choice
- Catholic Insider

Best Mobile Phone Formated Podcast
- Praystation Portable

Cultural/Arts
- Secrets of Harry Potter

Health/Fitness
- Healthy Catholic

PodSafe Music
- Catholic Rockers

Religion Inspiration
- Catholic Insider
- Daily Breakfast
- iPadre
- Meditations from Carmel
- The Hands and Feet Show

I wonder how long it will be before anyone guesses why I love this podcast so much?…..

I have the Carmelite Podcast, Meditations from Carmel, liked on my Blogroll, but want to say how WONDERFUL their latest podcast is! It is from Pere Jacques Bunel who is most famous from the movie “Au revoir, les enfants” about his role in World War II.

As history records, when the Nazis occupied France in 1940, Père Jacques joined the French Resistance. As part of the resistance, he hid three Jewish boys in the Petit-College, protecting them by giving them Christian names. Eventually the boys identities were discovered and the three boys were immediately deported to Auschwitz and executed. Following detainment at Fontainebleau, Compiègne, and Neue Bremm, Père Jacques was finally sent to the concentration camp at Mauthausen/Gusen in Austria. He remained there for a year until the American forces liberated the camp. A month after obtaining his freedom, however, he died in St. Elizabeth’s Hospital in Linz, emaciated and exhausted from sixteen months of cruel suffering at the hands of the Nazis.

This particular Podcast on the Meditations from Carmel website is from a conference he gave to the Carmelite nuns at Pontoise in September 1943, four months before the Nazis arrested him. He councils the nuns to search for the “quiet uninterrupted conversation with God”. He says:

“We can neither find nor embrace God, just as we cannot sit at his feet in order to gaze lovingly upon him, if we are immersed in noise and activity. We cannot hear the voice of God, who speaks without words, except in silence. ”

I really love this episode of the podcast. The voice of Pere Jacques is so soothing and I really feel as though the saint was speaking just to me… maybe I am to nutty, but I do think this! Give it a listen yourself and tell me what you think!

The conference in the Podcast comes from the book, Listen to the Silence A Retreat with Pere Jacques Translated and Edited by Francis J. Murphy.  It is published by ICS Publications Institute of Carmelite Studies Washington, D.C. 2005.  I have read this book and would really reccomend it as a wonderful little book full of the conferences Pere Jacques gave to the Carmelite Nuns.  They are short enough for quick reading and meditation afterwards.

Today is Ascension Thursday and it makes me a little sad. I feel like we are loosing a bit of our Catholic tradition and heritage by transferring the celebration of this remembrance to Sunday. I understand some of the reasoning, but by doing that, we miss the opportunity to celebrate the greatest and most ancient of Novena’s we have in our church. If we celebrate Ascension on Sunday there are only 7 days to squeeze in a 9 day prayer before Pentecost. I don’t see how that is possible. I guess though we should remember that God is infinite and so our earthly time-line doesn’t really matter to Him!

So, to prepare for our Novena, I thought it might be nice to pray along with some of the beautiful prose of the great Carmelite Saint, Teresa Bendicta…

A little about Saint Teresa Benedicta:

Near the end of her life, Saint Edith Stein (why do we find it necessary to always denote both her given name and her religious name?), wrote several meditative works, which have only recently been translated into English and published. The young German philosopher entered a Carmelite monastery, where she continued to write. She was killed at Auschwitz in August 1942, and was canonized October 11, 1998.

Among her final works is an incomplete “novena” for Pentecost, consisting of seven stanzas in poetic form, collected in The Hidden Life, hagiographic essays, meditations, spiritual texts, Volume IV of the collected works of Edith Stein, translated into English by her great-niece, Waltraut Stein, and published in 1992 by the Institute for Carmelite Studies, Washington DC. The work is copyrighted by ICS Publications and is available on its web site.

I think reading (or listening ) to this novena would be a great way to prepare for the Pentecost Novena which starts tomorrow. You can Listen to Verses for a Pentecost Novena at the Meditations from Carmel Podcast

By Saint Edith Stein
Here is Saint Teresa Benedicta’s verse:

Who are you, sweet light, that fills me
And illumines the darkness of my heart?
You lead me like a mother’s hand,
And should you let go of me,
I would not know how to take another step.
You are the space
That embraces my being and buries it in yourself.
Away from you it sinks into the abyss
Of nothingness, from which you raised it to the light.
You, nearer to me than I to myself
And more interior than my most interior
And still impalpable and intangible
And beyond any name:
Holy Spirit eternal love!

Are you not the sweet manna
That from the Son’s heart
Overflows into my heart,
The food of angels and the blessed?
He who raised himself from death to life,
He has also awakened me to new life
From the sleep of death.
And he gives me new life from day to day,
And at some time his fullness is to stream through me,
Life of your life indeed, you yourself:
Holy Spirit eternal life!

Are you the ray
That flashes down from the eternal Judge’s throne
And breaks into the night of the soul
That had never known itself?
Mercifully relentlessly
It penetrates hidden folds.
Alarmed at seeing itself,
The self makes space for holy fear,
The beginning of that wisdom
That comes from on high
And anchors us firmly in the heights,
Your action,
That creates us anew:
Holy Spirit ray that penetrates everything!

Are you the spirit’s fullness and the power
By which the Lamb releases the seal
Of God’s eternal decree?
Driven by you
The messengers of judgement ride through the world
And separate with a sharp sword
The kingdom of light from the kingdom of night.
Then heaven becomes new and new the earth,
And all finds its proper place
Through your breath:
Holy Spirit victorious power!

Are you the master who builds the eternal
cathedral,
Which towers from the earth through the heavens?
Animated by you, the columns are raised high
And stand immovably firm.
Marked with the eternal name of God,
They stretch up to the light,
Bearing the dome,
Which crowns the holy cathedral,
Your work that encircles the world:
Holy Spirit God’s molding hand!

Are you the one who created
the unclouded mirror
Next to the Almighty’s throne,
Like a crystal sea,
In which Divinity lovingly looks at itself?
You bend over the fairest work of your creation,
And radiantly your own gaze
Is illumined in return.
And of all creatures the pure beauty
Is joined in one in the dear form
Of the Virgin, your immaculate bride:
Holy Spirit Creator of all!

Are you the sweet song of love
And of holy awe
That eternally resounds around the triune throne,
That weds in itself the clear chimes
of each and every being?
The harmony,
That joins together the members to the Head,
In which each one
Finds the mysterious meaning of his being blessed
And joyously surges forth,
Freely dissolved in your surging:
Holy Spirit eternal jubilation!
For more information on St. Teresa Benedicta, you can read Sister Joan Gormley’s considerate article for Women of Faith and family on Edith Stein and the Contemplative Vocation.

Also, remember that Saint Teresa Benedicta is Co-Patroness of Europe as proclaimed by Pope John Paul II in October 1999. Here is his speach from that day. Here is an interesting painting of these Co-Patronesses that I found:

One of my MOST favorite and cherished saints is Teresa of the Andes. She was born as Juanita Fernandez Solar in Santiago de Chile, on 13 July 1900. When she had completed her schooling, she entered the Carmelite monastery of Los Andes in order to make a hidden offering of her life for mankind.

About her schooling:

Juanita was schooled by the Society of the Sacred Heart

a religious community founded by the French nun, Saint Madeline Sofie Barat in 1800. The Society was made famous in the United States (and especially in St. Louis) by it continued foundations by Saint Rose Phillipine Duchesne. The society’s missions was to be rooted in prayer and devoted to the ministry of education. My connection to this in Saint Louis is that we are privileged to have the Acadamy of the Sacred Heart (which is actually adjoining St. Louis in St. Charles and where St. Phillipine is laid to rest) and Oak Hill/Villa Duschesne School. Yet another Sacred Heart school will open its doors next fall under the name of Barat Academy. But I am digressing a bit…back to Teresa…

(Villa Duchesne in St. Louis)
Teresa of the Andes was also educated by religious of the Sacred Heart as she attended the all girls school. She had a great love for many of the nuns who help educate her and had already at the tender age of 14 decided and in fact personally consecrated herself to God to become a Carmelite. She sometimes had doubts whether she should be a member of the Congregation of the Scared Heart or a Carmelite during these years at school though because she was so close to the sisters. She wrote, “I am very much attracted to this life of immolation; but Carmel presents to me every attraction with which to fill my soul. Moreover, Our Lord has revealed to me many times that I should be a Carmelite.”
In May of 1919 Juanita went up to the high mountain garden of Carmel at the monastery of the Holy Spirit in the township of Los Andes, some 90 kilometers from Santiago. She was clothed with the Carmelite habit 14 October the same year and began her novitiate with the name of Teresa of Jesus (a name she knew to be overwhelmingly large for a poor soul such as hers) .

Teresa of Jesus knew a long time before that she would die young as the Lord revealed this to her, and a month before she was to depart this life, she related this knowledge to her confessor.

She accepted all this with happiness, serenity and confidence. She was certain that her mission to make God known and loved would continue in eternity.

After many interior trials and indescribable physical suffering caused by a violent attack of typhus that cut short her life, she passed from this world to her heavenly Father on the evening of 12 April 1920.

In the short time Teresa was at the monastery she was able to have such a great affect on the sisters around her. Her fellow sisters, when sensing her death near, graciously allowed her to make her religious profession and so she died as a Discalced Carmelite novice.

At her Beatification ceremony in Rome in 1993 Pope John Paul II said, “Juanita possessed an enormous capacity to love and to be loved joined with an extraordinary intelligence. God allowed her to experience his presence. With this knowledge he purified her and made her his own through what it entails to take up the cross. Knowing him, she loved him; and loving him, she bound herself totally to him.

With God’s abundant grace and the generosity of a young girl in love, she gave herself over to prayer, to the acquiring of virtue and the practice of a life in accord with the Gospel. Such were her efforts that in a few short years she reached a high degree of union with God.

Christ was the one and only ideal she had. She was in love with him and ready each moment to crucify herself for him.”

There is so much more to say about Teresa of the Andes and she is the first Chilean to be declared a Saint. She is the first Discalced Carmelite Nun to become a Saint outside the boundaries of Europe and the fourth Saint Teresa in Carmel together with Saints Teresa of Avila, of Florence and of Lisieux. However, we can know her best not by talking about her, but experiencing her spirituality through her writings. Fr. Michael Griffin a Carmelite at Holy Hill Monastery in Wisconsin has collected and translated these works into English and they can be found at the Holy Hill store website.

Also though, we can hear from Teresa through the Podcast put together by the Secular Carmelites in St. Louis. I may be biased (just a bit) but I think these podcast are W O N D E R F U L!!! Here is one that they have published in their weekly Podcast. It just happens to be Teresa de Los Andes. Have a listen!

PODCAST - MEDITATIONS FROM CARMEL

St. Teresa of the Andes - letter 65

to a friend

March 1918

 

“There are great sufferings like dryness of spirit, that consist of seeing oneself completely abandoned by God, not feeling any fervor in prayer. And since we’re so miserable, we’re attached to feelings of fervor, to feeling God’s love at the senses level. Sometimes we tend to go to prayer in search of God’s consolations, not God Himself. This is an imperfection and Our Lord sometimes purifies souls He loves by giving them aridity, and when they no longer care about feeling sensible fervor or not, only then does He favor and console them. This is the greatest of suffering, since it’s suffering of the soul. The soul sees herself deprived of His strength, separated from the God she loves so much, hemmed in by temptations, and filled with weakness. What must this suffering be like that Our Lord, who never complained throughout His Passion, seeing Himself abandoned by God, cried out to Him with great anguish: “My God, why have You abandoned me?” When He was in the garden and felt weak, seeing what he was about to suffer, and experienced the pains of the Passion in His soul, He said: “If it be possible, my Father, let this chalice pass from me; but let not My will but Thine be done.” How much greater is must be, then, for the soul to see herself alone, without the One for whom she has given up everything! But only apparently does God leave her alone, for God is invisibly at her side with His grace, and she can learn from that trial greater humility, recognizing how little she’s able to do by herself, and learn greater love, recognizing that, despite being miserable, God has called and loved her more than other creatures.

 

…This is what we must do here: love Him above everyone else. One who loves is always thinking of the beloved. Let’s think of Him continually, but, since that’s impossible, at least let’s think of Him very often. Let’s contemplate Him there, in the depth of our soul, united to us. Let’s contemplate Him praying to his eternal Father for souls and for sinners, and let’s unite ourselves with that divine prayer.”

Listen to the MP3 recording.

 

time 5:00

 

Copyright 1994. Letters of St. Teresa of the Andes translated by Michael D. Griffin, O.C.D. Teresian Charism Press Holy Hill 1525 Carmel Road Hubertus, WI 53033 USA

If you liked that recording, have a look at the Podcast archives for more meditations…

Meditations from Carmel Podcast ARCHIVE