General
1) Opening prayer
Father,
guide us, as you guide creation
according to your law of love.
May we love one another
and come to perfection
in the eternal life prepared for us.
We ask this through our Lord Jesus Christ, your Son,
who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit,
one God, for ever and ever. Amen.
2) Gospel Reading - Luke 8,19-21
Jesus’ mother and his brothers came looking for him, but they could not get to him because of the crowd.
He was told, ‘Your mother and brothers are standing outside and want to see you.’ But he said in answer, ‘My mother and my brothers are those who hear the word of God and put it into practice.’
3) Reflection
• The Gospel today presents the episode in which the relatives of Jesus and also his Mother want to speak with him, but Jesus does not pay attention to them. Jesus had problems with his family. Sometimes the family helps one to live the Gospel and to participate in the community. Other times, the family prevents this. This is what happened to Jesus and this is what happens to us.
• Luke 8, 19-20: The family looks for Jesus. The relatives reach the house where Jesus was staying. Probably, they had come from Nazareth. From there to Capernaum the distance is about 40 kilometres. His Mother was with them. Probably, they did not enter because there were many people, but they sent somebody to tell him: “Your Mother and your brothers are outside and want to see you”. According to the Gospel of Mark, the relatives do not want to see Jesus, they want to take him back home (Mk 3, 32). They thought that Jesus had lost his head (Mk 3, 21). Probably, they were afraid, because according to what history says, the Romans watched very closely all that he did, in one way or other, with the people (cf. Ac 5, 36-39). In Nazareth, up on the mountains he would have been safer than in Capernaum.
• Luke 8, 21: The response of Jesus. The reaction of Jesus is clear: “My mother and my brothers are those who listen to the Word of God and put it into practice”. In Mark the reaction of Jesus is more concrete. Mark says: Looking around at those who were sitting there he said: “Look, my mother and my brothers! Anyone who does the will of God, he is my brother, sister and mother (Mk 3, 34-35). Jesus extends his family! He does not permit the family to draw him away from the mission: neither the family (Jn 7, 3-6), nor Peter (Mk 8, 33), nor the disciples (Mk 1, 36-38), nor Herod (Lk 13, 32), nor anybody else (Jn 10, 18).
• It is the Word of God which creates a new family around Jesus: “My mother and my brothers are those who listen to the Word of God, and put it into practice.” A good commentary on this episode is what the Gospel of John says in the Prologue: “He was in the world that had come into being through him and the world did not recognize him. He came to his own and his own people did not accept him”. But to those who did accept him he gave them power to become children of God: to those who believed in his name, who were born not from human stock or human desire, or human will, but from God himself. And the Word became flesh, he lived among us; and we saw his glory, the glory that he has from the Father as only Son of the Father, full of grace and truth. (Jn 1, 10-14). The family, the relatives, do not understand Jesus (Jn 7, 3-5; Mk 3, 21), they do not form part of the new family. Only those who receive the Word, that is, who believe in Jesus, form part of the new family. These are born of God and form part of God’s Family.
• The situation of the family at the time of Jesus. In the time of Jesus, the political social and economic moment or the religious ideology, everything conspired in favour of weakening the central values of the clan, of the community. The concern for the problems of the family prevented persons from being united in the community. Rather, in order that the Kingdom of God could manifest itself anew, in the community life of the people, persons had to go beyond, to pass the narrow limits of the small family and open themselves to the large family, toward the Community. Jesus gives the example. When his own family tried to take hold of him, Jesus reacted and extended the family (Mk 3, 33-35). He created the Community.
• The brothers and the sisters of Jesus. The expression “brothers and sisters of Jesus” causes much polemics among Catholics and Protestants. Basing themselves on this and on other texts, the Protestants say that Jesus had more brothers and sisters and that Mary had more sons! The Catholics say that Mary did not have other sons. What should we think about this? In the first place, both positions: that of the Catholics as well as that of the Protestants, start from the arguments drawn from the Bible and from the Traditions of their respective Churches. Because of this, it is not convenient to discuss on this question with only intellectual arguments. Because here it is a question of the convictions that they have and which have to do with faith and sentiments. The intellectual argument alone does not succeed in changing a conviction of the heart! Rather, it irritates and draws away! And even if I do not agree with the opinion of the other person, I must respect it. In the second place, instead of discussing about texts, both we Catholics and the Protestants, we should unite together to fight in defence of life, created by God, a life totally disfigured by poverty, injustice, by the lack of faith. We should recall some phrase of Jesus: “I have come so that they may have life and life in abundance” (Jn 10, 10). “So that all may be one so that the world will believe that it was you who sent me” (Jn 17, 21). “Do not prevent them! Anyone who is not against us is for us” (Mk 9, 39.40).
4) Personal questions
• Does your family help or make it difficult for you to participate in the Christian community?
• How do you assume your commitment in the Christian community without prejudice for the family or for the community?
5) Concluding Prayer
Teach me, Yahweh, the way of your will,
and I will observe it.
Give me understanding and I will observe your Law,
and keep it wholeheartedly. (Ps 119,33-34)
Key: S=Solemnity, F=Feast, M=Memorial, m=Optional Memorial, C=Commemoration, x=Not observed
Date | Feast | O.Carm | O.C.D | ||
January | |||||
03 January | m | m | |||
08 January | F | m | |||
09 January | F | m | |||
20 January | M | m | |||
27 January | m | m | |||
29 January | m | x | |||
February | |||||
01 February | m | m | |||
19 March | F | F | |||
March | |||||
20 March | m | m | |||
01 April | M | m | |||
17 April | M | m | |||
18 April | x | x | |||
23 April | x | m | |||
05 May | m | m | |||
08 May | m | m | |||
09 May | M | x | |||
16 May | M | m | |||
22 May | m | m | |||
25 May | F | M | |||
29 May | x | x | |||
07 June | m | M | |||
12 June | m | x | |||
12 June | x | m | |||
14 June | M | x | |||
14 June | x | m | |||
04 July | m | x | |||
09 July | m | x | |||
13 July | m | m | |||
13 July | x | x | |||
16 July | S | S | |||
17 July | m | m | |||
20 July | S | F | |||
23 July | x | M | |||
24 July | M | x | |||
24 July | x | x | |||
24 July | x | m | |||
26 July | M | M | |||
27 July | M | m | |||
28 July | x | m | |||
07 August | F | M | |||
09 August | m | M | |||
12 August | m | m | |||
16 August | x | m | |||
17 August | m | x | |||
18 August | x | m | |||
25 August | m | m | |||
26 August | m | m | |||
01 September | m | M | |||
12 September | m | M | |||
17 September | F | F | |||
01 October | F | F | |||
15 October | F | S | |||
30 October | x | x | |||
05 November | m | x | |||
06 November | x | m | |||
06 November | x | m | |||
08 November | m | M | |||
13 November | x | x | |||
14 November | F | F | |||
15 November | C | C | |||
19 November | m | M | |||
29 November | m | M | |||
05 December | m | x | |||
11 December | x | m | |||
14 December | F | S | |||
16 December | x | x |
1) Opening prayer
Father,
guide us, as you guide creation
according to your law of love.
May we love one another
and come to perfection
in the eternal life prepared for us.
We ask this through our Lord Jesus Christ, your Son,
who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit,
one God, for ever and ever. Amen.
2) Gospel Reading - Luke 8,19-21
Jesus’ mother and his brothers came looking for him, but they could not get to him because of the crowd.
He was told, ‘Your mother and brothers are standing outside and want to see you.’ But he said in answer, ‘My mother and my brothers are those who hear the word of God and put it into practice.’
3) Reflection
• The Gospel today presents the episode in which the relatives of Jesus and also his Mother want to speak with him, but Jesus does not pay attention to them. Jesus had problems with his family. Sometimes the family helps one to live the Gospel and to participate in the community. Other times, the family prevents this. This is what happened to Jesus and this is what happens to us.
• Luke 8, 19-20: The family looks for Jesus. The relatives reach the house where Jesus was staying. Probably, they had come from Nazareth. From there to Capernaum the distance is about 40 kilometres. His Mother was with them. Probably, they did not enter because there were many people, but they sent somebody to tell him: “Your Mother and your brothers are outside and want to see you”. According to the Gospel of Mark, the relatives do not want to see Jesus, they want to take him back home (Mk 3, 32). They thought that Jesus had lost his head (Mk 3, 21). Probably, they were afraid, because according to what history says, the Romans watched very closely all that he did, in one way or other, with the people (cf. Ac 5, 36-39). In Nazareth, up on the mountains he would have been safer than in Capernaum.
• Luke 8, 21: The response of Jesus. The reaction of Jesus is clear: “My mother and my brothers are those who listen to the Word of God and put it into practice”. In Mark the reaction of Jesus is more concrete. Mark says: Looking around at those who were sitting there he said: “Look, my mother and my brothers! Anyone who does the will of God, he is my brother, sister and mother (Mk 3, 34-35). Jesus extends his family! He does not permit the family to draw him away from the mission: neither the family (Jn 7, 3-6), nor Peter (Mk 8, 33), nor the disciples (Mk 1, 36-38), nor Herod (Lk 13, 32), nor anybody else (Jn 10, 18).
• It is the Word of God which creates a new family around Jesus: “My mother and my brothers are those who listen to the Word of God, and put it into practice.” A good commentary on this episode is what the Gospel of John says in the Prologue: “He was in the world that had come into being through him and the world did not recognize him. He came to his own and his own people did not accept him”. But to those who did accept him he gave them power to become children of God: to those who believed in his name, who were born not from human stock or human desire, or human will, but from God himself. And the Word became flesh, he lived among us; and we saw his glory, the glory that he has from the Father as only Son of the Father, full of grace and truth. (Jn 1, 10-14). The family, the relatives, do not understand Jesus (Jn 7, 3-5; Mk 3, 21), they do not form part of the new family. Only those who receive the Word, that is, who believe in Jesus, form part of the new family. These are born of God and form part of God’s Family.
• The situation of the family at the time of Jesus. In the time of Jesus, the political social and economic moment or the religious ideology, everything conspired in favour of weakening the central values of the clan, of the community. The concern for the problems of the family prevented persons from being united in the community. Rather, in order that the Kingdom of God could manifest itself anew, in the community life of the people, persons had to go beyond, to pass the narrow limits of the small family and open themselves to the large family, toward the Community. Jesus gives the example. When his own family tried to take hold of him, Jesus reacted and extended the family (Mk 3, 33-35). He created the Community.
• The brothers and the sisters of Jesus. The expression “brothers and sisters of Jesus” causes much polemics among Catholics and Protestants. Basing themselves on this and on other texts, the Protestants say that Jesus had more brothers and sisters and that Mary had more sons! The Catholics say that Mary did not have other sons. What should we think about this? In the first place, both positions: that of the Catholics as well as that of the Protestants, start from the arguments drawn from the Bible and from the Traditions of their respective Churches. Because of this, it is not convenient to discuss on this question with only intellectual arguments. Because here it is a question of the convictions that they have and which have to do with faith and sentiments. The intellectual argument alone does not succeed in changing a conviction of the heart! Rather, it irritates and draws away! And even if I do not agree with the opinion of the other person, I must respect it. In the second place, instead of discussing about texts, both we Catholics and the Protestants, we should unite together to fight in defence of life, created by God, a life totally disfigured by poverty, injustice, by the lack of faith. We should recall some phrase of Jesus: “I have come so that they may have life and life in abundance” (Jn 10, 10). “So that all may be one so that the world will believe that it was you who sent me” (Jn 17, 21). “Do not prevent them! Anyone who is not against us is for us” (Mk 9, 39.40).
4) Personal questions
• Does your family help or make it difficult for you to participate in the Christian community?
• How do you assume your commitment in the Christian community without prejudice for the family or for the community?
5) Concluding Prayer
Teach me, Yahweh, the way of your will,
and I will observe it.
Give me understanding and I will observe your Law,
and keep it wholeheartedly. (Ps 119,33-34)
Memorials in honor of Fr. John Knoernschild may be made to the Society of the Little Flower, 1313 Frontage Road, Darien, IL, 60561, or the Carmelite Mission Office, 8501 Bailey Road, Darien, IL, 60561. Holy Cross Mortuary 310-836-5500
Ordinary Time
Click here to read the Lectio Divina of the Memorial of St. Francis of Assisi
1) Opening prayer
Father,
You show Your almighty power
in Your mercy and forgiveness.
Continue to fill us with Your gifts of love.
Help us to hurry towards the eternal life You promise
and come to share in the joys of Your kingdom.
We ask this through our Lord Jesus Christ, Your Son,
who lives and reigns with You and the Holy Spirit,
one God, for ever and ever. Amen.
2) Gospel Reading - Luke 10:13-16
Jesus said to them, "Woe to you, Chorazin! Woe to you, Bethsaida! For if the mighty deeds done in your midst had been done in Tyre and Sidon, they would long ago have repented, sitting in sackcloth and ashes. But it will be more tolerable for Tyre and Sidon at the judgment than for you. And as for you, Capernaum, 'Will you be exalted to heaven? You will go down to the netherworld.' Whoever listens to you listens to me. Whoever rejects you rejects me. And whoever rejects me rejects the one who sent me."
3) Reflection
● The Gospel today continues speaking about the sending out of the seventy-two disciples (Lk 10:1-12). At the end, after sending them out, Jesus speaks about shaking off the dust from their shoes if the missionaries are not welcomed or accepted (Lk 10:10-12). Today's Gospel stressed and extends the threats upon those who refuse to receive the Good News.
● Luke 10:13-14: “Alas for you, Corazin! Alas for you, Bethsaida!” The space which Jesus traveled or covered in the three years of His missionary life was small. It measured only a few square kilometers along the Sea of Galilee around the cities of Capernaum, Bethsaida, and Corazin. Precisely in this very small space Jesus works the majority of His miracles and presents His discourses. He has come to save the whole of humanity, and He hardly went out of the limited space of His land. Tragically, Jesus had to see that the people of those cities do not want to accept the message of the Kingdom and are not converted. The cities fixed themselves in the rigidity of their beliefs, traditions and customs and they do not accept the invitation of Jesus to change life. Alas for you, Corazin; Alas for you Bethsaida! For if the miracle done among you had been done in Tyre and Sidon, they would have repented long ago, sitting in sackcloth and ashes". Jesus compares the two cities with Tyre and Sidon which in the past were unyielding enemies of Israel, ill-treating the people of God. For this reason they were cursed by the prophets: (Isa 23:1; Jer 25:22; 47:4; Ezek 26:3; 27:2; 28:2; Am 1:10). And now Jesus says that these same cities, symbols of all the evil done to the people in the past, would have already converted if so many miracles had been worked in them as in Corazin and in Bethsaida.
● Luke 10:15: “And you Capernaum. Did you want to be raised high as Heaven? You shall be flung down to hell.”Jesus recalls the condemnation which Isaiah, the prophet launched against Babylon. Proud and arrogant, Babylon thought, "I shall scale the heavens; higher than the stars of God I shall set my throne. I shall sit on the Mount of the Assembly far away to the north. I shall climb high above the clouds, I shall rival the Most High" (Isa 14:13-14). That is what it thought! But it completely deceived itself! The contrary happened. The prophet says, "Now you have been flung down to Sheol, into the depths of the abyss!" (Isa 14:15). Jesus compares Capernaum with that terrible Babylon which destroyed the monarchy and the temple and took the people as slaves, from which it never succeeded in recovering. Like Babylon, Capernaum thought it was something important, but it fell into the most profound hell. The Gospel of Matthew compares Capernaum with the city of Sodom, the symbol of the worst perversion, which was destroyed by God's anger (Gen 18:16 to 19: 29). Sodom would have converted if it had seen the miracles which Jesus worked in Capernaum (Mt 11: 23-24). Today, the same paradox continues to exist. Many of us, Catholics since we were children, have such consolidated convictions that nobody is capable of converting us. And in some places, Christianity, instead of being a source of change and of conversion, has become the refuge of the most reactionary forces of politics of the country.
● Luke 10:16: "Anyone who listens to you listens to Me; anyone who rejects you rejects Me. And those who reject Me reject the One who has sent Me". This statement places the accent on the identification of the disciples with Jesus, in so far as He is despised by the authority. In Matthew the same saying of Jesus, placed in another context, underlines the identification of the disciples with Jesus accepted by the people (Mt 10:40). In both cases, the disciples identify themselves with Jesus in the total gift and in this gift is realized their encounter with God, and God allows Himself to be found by those who seek Him.
4) Personal questions
● Do my city and my country deserve the warning of Jesus against Capernaum, Corazin and Bethsaida?
● How do I identify myself with Jesus?
● What does it mean to “listen to Jesus” or to “reject Jesus”? Is listening just a passive activity? By using this term in opposition to the term “reject”, it has meaning as “accept”. To accept something is active, a conversion. Do I merely listen, or do I act?
● What does it mean to “listen to Jesus” or to “reject Jesus”? Do I act on what I hear? Do I hear all of what is said, or just the parts that suit me, as many do? To say “I believe!” is a start. Do I treat it as the end of my part?
● What does it mean to “listen to Jesus” or to “reject Jesus”? One cannot see the whole person, much less the deeper meanings driving a person, by just looking at a moment here and there, or a quote here and there. There has to be effort in getting to know the whole person, and the motivations and drives beneath what one sees. It has to form a coherent picture and not a collection of disjointed fragments. Do I listen to all of Jesus, His life, His meaning, His story, His intent, His mission, His intersection with my life, and search for the cohesive picture that puts all of His parables and quotes and actions into what I should “listen” to? Or do I pick those things that suit me and aren't too challenging and convince myself I don't need to listen further?
5) Concluding prayer
Protect me, O God, in You is my refuge.
To Yahweh I say,
'You are my Lord, my happiness is in none.'
My birthright, my cup is Yahweh;
You, You alone, hold my lot secure. (Ps 16:1-2, 5)
A Circular Letter from the Superiors General
Fr. Fernando Millán Romeral O.Carm. And Fr. Saverio Cannistrà, O.C.D
on the occasion of the closing of the 4th centenary of the death of Fr. Jerónimo Gracián de la Madre de Dios (1614-2014)
“The Lord will guard the feet of his faithful ones” (I Sam 2,9)
Jerónimo Gracián, a man on a journey ......
Dear brothers and sisters:
1. In these most recent years we have been celebrating a number of centenaries that have great importance for the life of our Carmelite family. These significant recurrences allow us to feel that we are part of “the living history which surrounds us and carries us forward.”[1] Indeed, our tradition forms part of the story of salvation that God began to write with his people and that continues even still today in the Church. The believer is fundamentally a person who remembers, as Pope Francis reminded us.[2] We have no desire to forget our history, rather, we would like to keep it alive, grateful to the “cloud of witnesses” (Hb 12,1) that the Holy Spirit has raised up in the Carmelite family. All of them are eloquent signs to us as to how the Gospel may be lived. Among them some figures stand out, namely, “those who in some special way lit in us the joy of believing”,[3] and whom we now remember as their anniversaries occur: St. Albert of Jerusalem and Jerónimo Gracián, the 8th and 4th centenaries of whose respective deaths occur, and St. Teresa of Jesus, the 5th centenary of whose birth occurs.
2. In this letter we would like to share some reflections on Fr. Jerónimo Gracián with the whole Carmelite family. We begin from the story of his life, not always well known to everybody. It is true that in these last few years, thanks to the publication of a series of bibliographies, studies and the edition of some of his writings, Gracián is beginning to find some space in Carmelite bibliography. It is also worth noting that in this process of recovery, his, La Peregrinación de Anastasio has had an important place.[4] The majority of commentators affirm that his autobiographical style of writing, if we take it to be an unquestionable source of historical detail, possibly does not do justice to the nature of the content. In fact, the biographical episodes that Gracián selects, sometimes presented as a memorial, or as a work of apologetics, pro vita sua, are so intertwined with spiritual doctrine, that they give us a very singular work, which is also very engaging.
3. Jerónimo Gracián was a wandering God seeker, an untiring pilgrim. In this letter we will go back to the metaphor of “journey” which he used in the work we mentioned, La peregrinación de Anastasio to talk about his historical and spiritual development. Jerónimo Gracián professed the Carmelite Rule, and before his death on the 21st of September, spent half of his life as a Teresian Carmelite, and the other half as a Carmelite of the Ancient Observance. The richness of what he has left us and of his ministry all came from the same source and from the same Rule. It is not without significance that his anniversary falls between that of the legislator of the Carmelite Order and that of its great reformer. The fact of his having lived in both branches of Carmel is for all the Carmelite family and for the Church a great sign of communion.
1. A MAN OF HIS TIMES
Jerónimo Gracián Dantisco (1545-1572)
Your Word is a light for my steps
4. Jerónimo Gracián was born in the Castilian city of Valladolid, on the 6th of June, 1545. It was there that he received the imprint that would develop to maturity in later life. Spanish and Polish blood ran in his veins. His father, Diego Gracián de Alderete, was “Latin Secretary to his Majesty”, King Philip II and a humanist worthy of the name. He was distinguished for being an excellent calligrapher, polyglot and a connoisseur of classical culture. He worked as a secretary to bishops and as a translator of books, especially Greek and Latin books. In his youth he had a very close friendship with the one who would become his father-in-law, Juan Dantisco, Polish ambassador to the court of Charles I of Spain, and Charles V of Germany. With the passage of time he became a bishop, first of Culm, and later he was promoted to the Church of Warmia (Poland). Jerónimo Gracián would inherit both from his father and from his maternal grand-father a passion for literature and for classical culture.
5. Gracián was the third of twenty brothers. Teresa of Jesus used to sing the praises of his mother, Juana Dantisco on account of her deep piety, which she passed on to her children. Seven of them entered religious life. The Carmelites were, María de San José, Isabel de Jesús, Juliana de Santa Teresa y Lorenzo Gracián. From his earliest years Jerónimo had a Jesuit as his spiritual director. He studied in the well-known university of Alcalá de Henares. At only nineteen years of age, he was already a Master of Arts, a proof of his intelligence and his aptitude for study. He then studied theology, and got very close to the degree of Doctor. He was ordained a priest at twenty four years of age. His love for literature is widely known (cf. PA, c. XI): “Reading and study of good books (principally from when I began to study Theology, which is my profession) has been something very ordinary, since the time when I was ten years old and I began to study, up to the present day” (PA, c. XV). The light of the Word, the cornerstone of his academic and theological formation, directed his reason and intellect towards the mystery of God (cf. Ps 108,109) “Our Lord” helped him to understand that to knowledgeable people, whom he has enlightened through the ordinary pathway of study, it is not necessary to give particular revelations and visions..... “ (PA, c. XV). Hence he affirms, “I set about writing” and ”I did not hide the talent for writing that the Lord had given me” (PA, c. XV).
6. The roots of Jerónimo’s family, their links with the Spanish crown, his classic and Jesuitical formation, his later encounter with Teresa of Jesus, as well as the reform movements of that time, made him the intellectual, and a striking representative of Spain’s Golden Age. He had a passion for theology, and as the great humanist that he was, he discovered in the science of theology the best antidote to the dictatorship of “opinions” and the “idolatry of the relative”. The formation he received equipped him to be able to engage in dialogue with the culture of a society that was effervescent. He read everything, and wrote tirelessly, as he tells us, in the area of “mystical theology” (cf. PA, c. XII). Where there is no theology and no mysticism, there is no benefit for souls in whatever the Church may try to do. Everything would be reduced to mere speculation, or to a simplistic reading of few pages here and there, or a few bits of homilies written by others. Before “thinking” one has to “sit down” and spend time “with the Lord”, and so avoid every kind of superficiality, happenstance or hurry. Gracián had no use for words borrowed from others. He was a man of his times and an intelligent witness of the Gospel. His words and his message were pilgrims also. His international outlook gave him a broad vision, finding space in his life for the missionary drive and the spiritual teachings of his time. He had to suffer, as one might expect, firm opposition and the struggle for power. However, amid the contradictions of history, in that place where the Gospel is embodied, he succeeded in remaining faithful to God and to his principles. Indeed, the following of Christ and the proclamation of the Good News, following the logic of the Incarnation, come about in the midst of the circumstances and the people of each age. This way of thinking sets us free from the “temptation of an occult and individualistic spirituality”[5] and allows us to know that we are in communion with the rest of humanity.
2. His Encounter with Saint Teresa of Jesus
Jerónimo de la Madre de Dios, Discalced Carmelite (1572-1592
His choosing the Carmelite Order: this way is holy and good (Rule Ch.20)
7. When he was ordained and had finished his studies for a doctorate he began to think about the possibility of joining the Jesuits. In this time of searching he got to know the Carmelite nuns in Pastrana and the prioress of the community, Isabel de Santo Domingo. The life and spirit of these women fascinated him: “I received the habit in Pastrana, in 1572, having fought for a year and a half with this vocation, which was a real torment. All the natural reasons were against me at that point: poor health, natural laziness, study fatigue, obligations towards my parents and brothers (...) All of this, on the one hand, battled against a burning desire to serve our Lord, and on the other hand, since the reform of this Order was beginning at that time, it seemed to me that my Lord was calling me for that.” (PA, c.I). Our Lady of Mount Carmel would be his companion on the journey from the very beginning. Teresa of Jesus attributed his choosing the Carmelite Order to his great devotion to Mary and his great desire to serve her. He said, indeed, that when he was a child, he very often prayed before a statue of Mary, for whom he had a deep devotion and to whom he referred as his “lover”: I am blinded by the love of such a lady .... I would lose my life, which I would give so willingly to my Lady, the Virgin Mary (PA, c I). In the view of Teresa of Jesus, it was the intervention of the Blessed Virgin that led him to choose the Carmelite habit. (cf. F 23, 4-8).
8. His Carmelite adventure began with a lot of responsibilities, even though he was still only a novice. He recounts: “I received the habit, and straightaway the jobs began, and I was soon worn out from preaching and hearing confessions in the Carmelite house and in the town of Pastrana and in the towns and villages round about, where we had benefactors (...) I had to instruct thirty novices that later were the pride of the Order; and we were alone, so alone that we had to be careful that they were not affected by the antics of some of the professed who tried to tell them what to do, so that they would not leave the order, and we had to do no small amount of work in this regard”.(PA,c.I) He went on to illustrate the rigours and penances that the professed wanted to inflict on the novices. The first novices were young men who could neither read nor write, and had little experience or wisdom ..... All of this was the cause of a crisis for Fray Jerónimo: “ ... I was about to leave the Order and not make my profession on its account”. He persevered however in Carmel under the wise direction of Mother Isabel de Santo Domingo (PA, c.I)
His Commitment to the Reform
9. In Jerónimo Gracián there is a unity in his love for the Rule of Carmel and for the reform that Saint Teresa had begun, for the initial ideals and for the ability to achieve them in ways that were new and renewing. This convergence was an expression of the springtime that the Church was experiencing in the aftermath of the Council of Trent. In a certain sense, it is the same as we see in our own time. The II Vatican Council reminded us that the Church is faithful to its vocation only by being reformed constantly,[6] and Pope Francis has noted: There are ecclesial structures which can hamper efforts at evangelization, yet even good structures are only helpful when there is a life constantly driving, sustaining and assessing them. Without new life and an authentic evangelical spirit, without the Church’s “fidelity to her own calling”, any new structure will soon prove ineffective.[7] Gracián was good at freeing the beginnings of the reform of the friars from the kind of structures that would have spoiled the freshness of the work of Saint Teresa by being all too rigorous and penitential.
10. Teresa was a woman who exercised intensely the gift of friendship. In the first meeting with Fr. Jerónimo Gracián de la Madre de Dios, in Beas de Segura, in 1575, we find a certain empathy, openness and confidentiality between them: “The master, Gracián, was here for twenty days ... I think well of him, and for us it were best that we ask God for him .... I can now stop worrying about the running of these houses, for such perfection with such gentility, I have never seen” (MC 81, to Mother Isabel de Santo Domingo, 12th of May 1575) Following his profession Jerónimo began to carry out tasks of some importance in the newly born reform of Carmel. Just a few months after his profession he was appointed Apostolic Visitator of the Carmelites in Andalucia: “Here I am, at 28 years of age, and a half year of profession, appointed the Prelate of the Carmelites in Andalucia, against the will of the General and Protector of the Calced Order” (PA c.I) In 1575, he would become the Apostolic Visitator of all the Carmelites in Andalucia, including the Discalced. At that time, he acted as the head of the Reform, the white-headed boy of Teresa of Jesus, to bring to completion the creation of the Discalced Province. In time, he would find himself in prison. In the end, and with the help of Philip II, a Brief from Rome confirmed the creation of the Discalced Province as part of the Carmelite Order. At the Chapter celebrated in Alcalá de Henares, in March 1581, Fr. Jerónimo de la Madre de Dios was elected Provincial of the Reformed Province. This is how he told the story: The Fathers gathered for the Chapter in Alcalá; the province was set up; the laws were agreed; they elected me as their first Provincial, I governed the Province for my four years, opening houses of friars and nuns in the company of mother Teresa of Jesus, which involved all the ordinary work of travelling, doing business, writing letters, hearing confessions, preaching sermons and studying, etc.” (PA, c.III)
11. On the 4th of October, 1582, his great friend died in Alba de Tormes: “Blessed be God, for giving me such a great friend, whose love, now in heaven, will not grow cold and I can be sure that it will be a great help to me”. (PA, c. XVI) 11. The reformer found in him, providentially, the person who would consolidate and direct all that she had begun. Writing about him, she said that he was “a man who was very well educated, with great understanding and modesty, graced by many virtues all his life, it seems as if Our Lady chose him for the good of this primitive Order”.[8] What was notable, in talking about his style of governing, was the combination of goodness and firmness: “his manner is pleasant which means that for the most part those who deal with him love him (a grace from the Lord, such that he is loved very much by those who are under him, both men and women, and while he does not forgive any fault – because in this he cared very much about the spread of devotion – he was always able to act with such a pleasing gentleness that no one ever had reason to complain about him.”[9] Saint Teresa confided in him, promising him obedience (CC 30, 3), and thanks to this vow, Fr. Jerónimo de la Madre de Dios, could ask her not only to open new monasteries but also to complete the writing of her book on the Foundations and to write about her spiritual life which she did in the Interior Castle. Similarly, out of obedience to him, Teresa posed for her portrait to be painted by Fray Juan de la Miseria, thus leaving behind the well-known portrait which we has been handed down to us. (cf. PA, c. XIII).
12. Jerónimo Gracián, for his part, followed the teaching of Teresa of Jesus. This gave him the imprint of the nascent charism, and became a source of great spiritual and human sustenance in his apostolic activity. Teresa’s regard for Jerónimo Gracián had many features that covered the spectrum from loving mother to grateful child. The intense correspondence that went between them is legendary (CC 29,1;30,3) and his friendship provided a valve for Teresa: “I am happy that Fray Antonio is not with you, because, they tell me, when he sees so many letters of mine and none of them for him, he gets upset.” (MC 170, to Padre Jerónimo Gracián, around December, 1576). Fr. Gracián remembered it as well: “She shared her spirit with me, not hiding anything from me, and I did the same with her, revealing everything I had inside, and in that way we were certain that we were in agreement on everything that had to do with the task in hand and she, as well as her religious vow, made another vow of obedience to me for the rest of her life, because of a particular revelation that she received” (PA, c. XIII). Friendship and mutual appreciation. Fr. Jerónimo Gracián, indeed, also gave of himself, by accepting all that she taught. Teresa gave him his dreams, and, something much more, his ideals and his charismatic commitment: that is why, as well as being a friend and confidante for him, she was also the “mother”. Not only that. He found in her the master that guided him through the pathways of the interior life, inspiring his ministry to the friars and nuns of the reform. This bond is an expression of a relationship that is essential and enriching, between the masculine and the feminine in living out the vocation and the mission of Carmel today.
The brothers say no
13. In Lisbon, in 1585, Fr. Nicolas Doria was elected the Provincial. Fr. Gracián remained as Vicar Provincial. Then, later, he was elected as the Vicar Provincial of the new province of Mexico at the intermediate chapter that was held in Valladolid in 1587. He could not leave with the fleet that sailed to the so-called West Indies, because in 1587 and in 1588 no fleet set sail. He would then spend two years in Portugal, at the request of Cardinal Alberto, the Viceroy of Portugal. He became the Apostolic Visitator of the Portuguese Carmelites. He was called to Madrid in 1590 and that was the beginning of his Calvary. He would end up being expelled from the Discalced Carmelites, among whom he had been the first provincial, on the 17th of February, 1592. The paradoxes of destiny. They accused him of not being strict enough and of devoting more time to the apostolate than to the regular life and of having dishonest dealings with Maria de San José, formerly the prioress of Seville and then at that time the prioress of Lisbon.
14. They stripped Fr. Jerónimo de la Madre de Dios of his discalced habit, that he had worn for twenty years, and dressed him in secular attire. “Finally they have taken away my habit, after a long period in prison. I was sorry that then they gave me a mantle and cassock of very good material, that belonged to a novice that had entered.” (PA, c. IV). He finished by confessing the pain that he felt: “Only the one who has suffered it can tell what it is like, for one who entered the Discalced Order with the vocation with which I entered, and suffered so much to build the Province, and given the habit to the ones who now have taken it from me.“(PA, c.IV). From that moment, he went back to being the priest, Don Jerónimo Gracián.
3. THE TEST OF FIDELITY
Don Jerónimo Gracián (1592-1596)
Go to the essential: “in obsequio Iesu Christi viviere debeat” (Rule,Ch.2)
15. The new stage in the life of the priest, Fr. Jerónimo Gracián runs through a continuous pilgrimage, from one place to another, from one experience to another, passing through the quest for justice, the search for a place where he would be welcomed, and a bitter captivity in a strange land. However, with St. Paul, we can say, “everything works for good for those who love the Lord, who were called according to his plan”, (Rm 8,28). This was a time of purification that was providential in that it helped him to centre himself in the heart of the Gospel, and in his religious life, helping to confirm his choosing to enter Carmel. It is certain that “the Lord watches over the feet of his faithful” (1 Sam 2,9) and guides them in the way of peace (cf. Lk 1,79). In the most adverse situations, when things were falling apart, Fr. Jerónimo Gracián managed always to look far ahead, by living in allegiance to Jesus Christ (Rule, Ch. 2) and by preaching the Gospel. Perhaps he is a more than significant witness for religious life today, in a time of crisis, and apparent disheartenment.
16. Love of the cross (cf. PA, Prólogo) and love for enemies were balm in the midst of so much tribulation. (cf. PA, c. VIII.XI). This is what he says when he talks about the ones who made life difficult for him, saying that they did the right thing, as they were only embodying the delicacies of God’s style (PA, c. IV) , the same as Job did, and St. Augustine and even Jesus himself. Later on he would say that he asked the Lord for the “desire to suffer” and to carry a “naked and shameful cross” because “it appeared to him as the straightest and safest way to reach heaven.” (PA, c.VIII). God heard his prayer. In time, he would say that the Lord did not delay in granting him what he had asked with such insistence: “Not long after this prayer I began to see that God was giving me his grace and was granting me all that I asked.” (PA, c.VIII). Indeed, he came to know persecutions, displacement, fears, dangers, insults and other labours, that taught him a very sweet science: that every virtue comes from the love of God and of neighbour and every virtue has that same love as its ultimate aim” (PA, c. XV). Once again, his reading of the fathers of the Church helped him to discern his own situation: “good” does not only refer to the one who does what is good, “good” is first of all the one who in loving puts up with evil. (cf. 1 Pe, 3,9-11; Rm 12,17) . Gracián discovered that we cannot decaffeinate the Gospel, and that anyone “who does not love the one who hates him is not a Christian,[10] because love for enemies is a fundamental law”[11] and “the supreme quintessence of virtue”.[12] In his Peregrinación he illustrates this with an example: “I thought of my adversaries as images of Christ .... If a tabernacle or a pyx of poor stone can contain the Most Blessed Sacrament, I would never not want to adore him and reverence him, even though I might like to see him dressed in gold and fine clothing. I know that God is in essence, presence and power in the one who persecutes me. Yes, I would love the tabernacle to be more beautiful, but I close my eyes to all that is outside and not to what is contained within”. (PA, c. XI)
17. ¿Ubi rigor, ibi virtus? (Where there is strictness, is there virtue?) Fr. Jerónimo Gracián did not share the view of those who made a virtue out of strictness of observance, the banner of the reform and an end in itself. The conflict that led to his expulsion could be summed up in a paragraph that he himself left us in his writings: “Because there are spirits to whom it seems that all Carmelite perfection lies in not leaving their cell, or in never missing choir, even though the whole world may have gone up in flames, and that the good of the Order consisted in multiplying houses in the small towns and villages in Spain, and leaving the rest, and that think that every other way of thinking is restlessness and laxity. God did not lead me by this route, but rather by the way of saving souls; and in relation to the people that we employ in small places, we should begin with them to found houses in the more important cities in the different kingdoms for the real spread and benefit of the Order. And, as I talked about this many times and in great detail with Mother Teresa of Jesus, whose zeal was for the conversion of the whole world, this way of doing things stuck to me even more.” (PA, c. III) One question went round and round in Gracián’s head: “Where is God?” The answer was clear: “there where love is uppermost” (PA, c. X) Gracián was faithful to the premise that “flexibility” is a good companion on the journey, that love is “creative” and that the one who does good is never lost.
18. Great fruit and great mercy come from the tree of the cross. (cf. PA, Prologue) The meekness with which he accepted his afflictions, insults, dangers and persecutions magnified his spirit (Lc 1,46) The Lord granted him two great graces: on the one hand, a deep spirit of contemplation, that helped him to do “much more for souls” (PA, c. XV) and to concentrate on what is essential: only to God .... Contemplation is “prolonged thoughtfulness, when the soul is attentive and quiet, absorbed in one concept, which is different from meditation in which the mind goes from one thought to another. It is like going into the workshop of an artist, where there are many paintings and seeing one picture that we like, and fixing our eyes there, looking closely and attentively, without turning to any other picture. That happened to me, with that one word: God ..... (cf. PA, c.XV); on the other hand, “mercy” (PA, c. XV), the most beautiful name of God, and “mercies” that enabled him not to judge others too quickly, waiting until the Lord should come (cf. I Cor 4,5), who will be the one who will reveal the intentions of every heart. “Lord, do not call your servant to judgement, for no one is just in your sight” Ps 142,2; Jn 8,7) The quest for God drives us in the same way that it did Jerónimo Gracián, to place the “mercy of God” on a lampstand (Mt 5,15), in a place where it is visible, so that it may give light to all those who live in the house. Mercy breaks through barriers, heals wounds, is the craftsman of fraternity, rebuilds family.
Perseverance in the test: “Adam’s habit”
19. Who will separate us from the love of Christ? Will hardship, or distress, or persecution, or famine or nakeness or peril, or sword? (Rm 8,35) Gracián’s pilgrimage continued with his journey to Rome to seek the protection of the Pope. He succeeded in speaking to Clement VIII. The Pontiff, through his secretaries, expressed the view that he should join another religious order. He asked to join “the Capuchins, the Cistersians, the Discalced Franciscans, and all the other orders, asking to receive their habit: none would give it to me, and I saw myself rejected by every Order, as if I was the most despicable religious that you could find on the earth” (PA, c. V). He passed through Naples, and Sicily, where he stayed for eight months, helping out and hearing confessions in a hospital. On the 27th of January, 1593, the Pope wrote a Brief, Uberes fructus, in which he confirmed Fr. Gracián’s expulsion from the Discalced Carmelites, ordering him to join the Augustinians or some other observant order. He left the port of Gaeta to travel to Rome: “as I came to the end of Mass, in which – against the interior pressure that came from the Virgin Mary and from Teresa of Jesus never to leave their Order – I decided to join the Discalced Augustinians, as the wind began to die down, the ships, on account of that, began to slow. I saw a ship in the distance. Our sailors could see smoke from their chimneys, a sure sign of pirates, and they began to weep ... (PA, c. V) “More captivity!” Gracián wrote, with a certain sense of humour, that the only habit that God asked him to wear now was his nakedness. he put on the “habit of Adam”, happy that no one could take it from me without skinning me.” (Pa, c. VI) This is how he described it: “I saw myself stripped naked in the hands of the Turks feeling the greatest joy I ever felt – as I will say later on – because I could see clearly what was God’s will in my new “Adam’s habit” and that my will was not going to be fulfilled, which was to hold on to the Carmelite habit, nor the will of my rivals, which was to take it from me” (PA, c. VI).
The Gospel proclaimed, by one in chains
20. So that mercy and love might not be a “cheap grace”,[13] that avoids the cross, or a badly negotiated forgiveness, they have to be weighed in the crucible of trials and of true discipleship: “just like the fire that refines gold and makes it shine is the same fire that makes smoke of hay and destroys it, so tribulations are the fire that to those who have the gold of virtue, brings perfection and an exemplary life”. (PA, Prologue). God worked hard on Jerónimo Gracián. He asked him for “humility” and life offered him more than enough “humiliations” and opportunities to demonstrate how right his petition was. One more episode was added to his turbulent biography: his captivity in Argel. In his Peregrinación Gracián writes about his ups and downs, his interest in evangelising, and finally, his freedom. More than once, while spending a long spell in prison he was sure that he was going to be executed: “It was just gone midday: they got me to eat, although I had little desire, as it is one thing to perform acts of martyrdom pure and simple, it is another to stare death in the face. More days passed, and every morning I waited for the sentence to be carried out, without any clear light as to what was happening.” (PA, c. VI). Gracián, zealous as ever for the salvation of souls, did not waste time. He writes about the conversations he had, how he preached, heard confessions and helped in getting release for people in prison. In the midst of the torment and restrictions of his own imprisonment he recounts: “I heard the confessions of my captive Christians ... comforting them when they were beaten with a stick, pacifying their quarrels and visiting them when they were sick. If they wanted to cut somebody’s nose or ears, I would manage to get forgiveness with a little money, which I got faithfully from the same Christians.” (PA, c. VI)
21. In many ways, throughout his whole life, Jerónimo was devoted to the mission of evangelisation. During his four years as Provincial he gave a missionary and expansionary slant to the Province that he governed: thus he had houses opened in Genoa (1584), the Congo (1584) and in Mexico (1585). Despite being held in captivity, he still managed to preach the Gospel to his companions and his captors. Returning to the Order he was at the Pope’s disposal to take on any missionary expedition and he dedicated some of his writings to this. This missionary zeal came out of his great desire to “save souls” and to bring the Gospel to the ends of the earth. He said to Teresa that “sometimes it seemed him that (a statue of the Blessed Virgin) had eyes that were swollen from weeping over the many offenses committed against her Son. As a result there arose in him a strong impulse and desire to help souls, and he felt it very deeply when he saw offenses committed against God. He has so great an inclination toward the good of souls that any hardship becomes small to him if he thinks that through it he can produce some fruit. I have seen this myself in the many trials that he has undergone.”[14] Teresa, evidently, did not imagine that still more trials awaited him, nor the greatness of spirit that he would show in them.
4. in mary’s habit
Fray Jerónimo Gracián, Carmelite (1596-1614)
Because he has clothed me honour and majesty ..
22. “God has given us freedom so that we may be free” On the 11th of April, 1595 the Bajá of Tunisia signed his letter of freedom. He arrived in Genoa. Here began a new and final stage in his life which covered the last eighteen years, as a Carmelite (O.Carm.) Gracián himself recounts that he arrived in Rome, threw himself at the feet of the Pope and got his permission to return to wearing the Carmelite habit. That is what Gracián tells us, as he summed up in just a few lines all that happened in his life until he got to Belgium. “He ordered me to put on the habit of the (calced) Carmelites despite the fact that the conclusion of the Consultation was that I was not to wear any habit, neither Carmelite nor Discalced Carmelite. I spent a short time in San Martin in Montibus (sic) with the (calced) Carmelites. From there the Protector of my Order sent me to the home of Cardenal Deza, the protector in Spain. I worked for him for five years as a theologian, writing and printing books. From the memos that I had written to the Pope it emerged that to the Congregation of Cardinals of Propaganda Fide De and to the Pope it seemed that I should return to Africa with a mission that they gave me to bring the Jubilee of the Holy Year to the Christians in those places. I had letters from the King for the guards at the borders that they should afford me safe passage. I was present for my mother’s death. I went to Cueta, and from there to Tetuan: I accomplished my mission; I returned with orders to make peace between our King and the Jarife; it didn’t work. I came to the house in Madrid: from there I went to Valencia and Alicante and then back to Rome to report to Pope Clement VIII: God took him to himself; I remained preaching and printing books in Valencia. They sent me to Pamplona to preach for Lent. From there I came to Flanders”. (PA, c. VIII).
23. Gracián in his Peregrinación never ceases to express his joy and contentment with the treatment he received in the Carmelite Order. “They showed great pleasure in seeing me wearing their habit. The General soon made me Master of the Order and they gave me the seniority that I would have had if I had made my profession with them when I made my profession with the Discalced, and I have held on to that always, which is no small thing for which to be thankful” (PA, c. XIV) While the time he spent with the Reform was particularly fruitful in terms of his work in governing, his time with the Ancient Observance was distinguished for his gifts as a preacher and prolific writer.[15] Jerӛnimo now wrote on behalf of prelates and of the Prior General of the Order and his works include everything from missionary activity to the history and spirituality of Carmel. On the instructions of Fr. Enrique Silvio, then Prior General of the Order, elected in Rome, in 1598, he wrote his famous commentary on the Rule of the Order, Della disciplina regolare [16]to stimulate the members of the Order towards greater observance. At that time he was also working tirelessly on printing the writings of Saint Teresa in other languages and on promoting her beatification.. Flanders was the last stop on his journey. There he finished the writing of his Peregrinación de Anastasio, Dialogues of the persecutions, works, tribulations and crosses that Fr. Jerónimo Graacian de la Madre de Dios suffered.
24. Gracián arrived in Brussels in 1607. He would spend the next years, alternating an eremitical life, in a hermitage in the garden of the house, with his preaching, and hearing confessions and working with the Discalced Carmelites who were beginning to open houses in this country. He had the joy of being alive when Mother Teresa of Jesus was beatified, on the 24th of April, 1614, by Paul V. On the 21st of September, 1614, at six o’clock in the evening on that Sunday, Jerónimo Gracián died, a Carmelite. We have to include in his missionary activities the publication of the works of Teresa in Protestant areas, as well as his own works: Diez lamentaciones del miserable estado de los ateístas[17] (Ten lamentations of the miserable condition of Atheists.) Leviatán engañoso, suma de algunos engaños [18](The Deceitful Leviathan, an account of some deceits) Just like Teresa, he wanted to respond, in a certain sense, to the schism that was created in the church by the Lutheran separation, by opening monasteries in which there would be faithful and joyful witness to the Gospel. Jerónimo, through the diffusion of her teaching, had the intention of offering a model of life transfigured by the Gospel and at the service of the Church. In this way, Carmel contributed to the apostolic fervour of the post-Tridentine church, and still today after the example of these masters, it is involved and takes new initiatives to bring about the dream of a Church “which ‘goes forth’ ... is a community of missionary disciples who take the first step, who are involved and supportive, who bear fruit and rejoice”.[19]
conclusion: victoria amoris (the victory of love) pa, c. x)
25. Caritas abundat in omnia (Charity abounds in all .... ) Clothe the naked (cf. Mt 25,36) is the first work of mercy according to the Hebrew tradition. It is the first thing that God did when he found Adam and Eve naked. God, according to some Jewish mystics, made for them “a garment of light” (cf. Gn 3,21). A play on words makes them suspect that Adam and Eve, did not only wear clothes of “skin” which would have been the logical thing, but rather clothes of “light” because the first night that they had to spend outside paradise they would not be unprotected.[20] Gracián spent his whole life looking for clothes to put on: “I received the Discalced habit”; “they dressed me up in secular dress”; “they gave me a cloak and cassock of the finest material”; “they made me wear the habit of wretchedness”; “I saw that I was naked and I put on my new Adam’s suit”; “they gave me once again the calced habit”, etc. At the end of his life, with wisdom and discernment, he was able to say: God is well able to see that there is as much fruit from one habit as from another, as my own experience has shown me. (PA, c. XVI) God was the tailor who took his measurements! It took a whole lifetime to finish it! Suffering and chains are the “garment of lovers”. The “habit” that he received went beyond his expectations, it was not an external garment, but an interior one. Gracián, just like Joseph in the book of Genesis, was stripped of his cloak (Gn 37,3.23.31; 39,12; 41,14) in order to put on the “cloak of fine linen” (cf. Gn 41,42) Linen, in order to be woven and become softer and more bright and luminous, has to be beaten and pounded. The linen are the good works of the saints ... (Ap 19,8). The epitaph of a Jewish rabbi illustrates what Jerónimo Gracián went through: “For every good work that a man does on the earth, a thread of light lights up in the heavens. Many good works make many threads. “Why?” In order to weave a garment of light. A garment of light that gives glory to the Master of the works”. A “garment of light” made from threads of mercy, goodness, humility, meekness, patience, forgiveness, peace, and the love which binds everything together in perfect harmony. (cf. Col 3,12-15)
26. Dear brothers and sisters: Love has the upper hand, it “abounds” and “loves all”.[21] Gracián invites us to become craftsmen and craftswomen of peace and reconciliation, so that, seeing our good works, the Father who is in heaven may be glorified (Mt 5,16) Gracián’s peregrinación (pilgrimage) is the expression of a deeper spiritual journey, which is a response to the love that God poured into his heart through our Blessed Mother, in his desire to take on the Rule of Carmel in accordance with the teachings of Teresa of Jesus and his passionate desire to give himself to others for their salvation. This victoria amoris (victory of love) (PA c. X) , lived, above all, in moments of tension, was an ecstasy of love for him, but not in the sense of a momentary flash, but as something permanent, a going out from the “I” closed in on itself, towards the liberation that comes from committing oneself and by so doing comes to find oneself again, and even more, to find God.[22] In Gracián’s pilgrimage we begin to see the pilgrimage of every disciple, and for that reason, our pilgrimage too, as we endeavour to follow that same path marked out by Jesus “which, through the cross brings him to the resurrection; the route of the grain of wheat that falls on the ground and dies, and so gives abundant fruit.”[23] We give thanks to God because we can reap the fruit of the witness and the message that our brother Jerónimo Gracián has left us.
Oh Mary, star of the sea and pilgrim of faith, show Jesus to us and help us to direct our footsteps towards the summit of Mount Carmel, until we come to union with God in love! Through Jesus Christ, Our Lord. Amen.
Fernando Millán Romeral, O.Carm.
Prior General
Saverio Cannistrà, O.C.D.
Provost General
[1] FRANCIS, Evangelii Gaudium, 13.
[2] Ibídem, 13.
[3] Ibídem, 13
[4] JERÓNIMO GRACIÁN DE LA MADRE DE DIOS, Peregrinación de Anastasio [Ed. Juan Luis Astigarraga] (Roma, 2001). Hereafter: PA with the number of the chapter.
[5] JOHN PAUL II, Novo Millennio Ineuente, 52
[6] Cf. Unitatis Redintegratio, 6; Lumen Gentium, 8; Gaudium et Spes, 21.
[7] FRANCIS, Evangelii Gaudium, 26.
[8] TERESA DE JESÚS, F 23, 1.
[9] Ibídem, F, 23, 7.
[10] 2 Epistle of Clement, 13ss.
[11] TERTULIAN, Tract on Patience, 6.
[12] JOHN CHRYSISTOM, Sermons on the Gospel according to Matthew, 18, 3.
[13] DIETRICH BONHOEFFER, The Cost of Discipleship.
[14] TERESA DE JESÚS, F, 23, 5.
[15] NICOLÁS ANTONIO, Bibliotheca Nova Hispana (Madrid 1684).
[16] Fr. JERÓNIMO GRACIÁN, Della Disciplina Regolare (Venice 1600).
[17] Fr. JERÓNIMO GRACIÁN, Diez lamentaciones del miserable estado de los atheístas (Brusselas 1611).
[18] Fr. JERÓNIMO GRACIÁN, Leviathan engañoso, suma de algunos engaños(Brusselas 1614).
[19] FRANCIS, Evangelii Gaudium, 24
[20] In Hebrew the word for “light” and the word for “skin” sound alike. Both are pronounced as “or” but they are written differently: with Alef, it means “light”; with Ayin, it means “skin”.
[21] HILDEGARD OF BINGEN, Symphonia armonie celestium revelationum, (Madrid 2003) 67-68.
[22] BENEDICT XVI, Deus caritas est, 6.
[23] Ibídem, 6
Ordinary Time
1) Opening prayer
God of power and mercy,
only with your help
can we offer you fitting service and praise.
May we live the faith we profess
and trust your promise of eternal life.
We ask this through our Lord Jesus Christ, your Son,
who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit,
one God, for ever and ever. Amen.
2) Gospel reading - Luke 14,12-14
Jesus said to his host, 'When you give a lunch or a dinner, do not invite your friends or your brothers or your relations or rich neighbours, in case they invite you back and so repay you. No; when you have a party, invite the poor, the crippled, the lame, the blind; then you will be blessed, for they have no means to repay you and so you will be repaid when the upright rise again.'
3) Reflection
• The Gospel today continues to present the teaching which Jesus was giving about different themes, all related to the cure in the environment of a banquet: a cure during a meal (Lk 14, 1-6); an advice not to take the first places (Lk 14, 7-12); advice to invite the excluded (Lk 14, 12-14). This organization of the words of Jesus around a determinate word, for example, table or banquet, helps one to perceive the method used by the first Christians to keep the words of Jesus in their memory.
• Luke 14, 12: Interested invitation. Jesus is eating in the house of a Pharisee who has invited him (Lk 14, 1). The invitation to share at table is the theme of the teaching of today’s Gospel. There are different types of invitations: the interested invitations for the benefit of oneself and disinterested invitations for the benefit of others. Jesus says: "When you give a lunch or a dinner, do not invite your friends or your brothers or your relations or rich neighbours, in case they invite you back and so repay you”. That was the normal custom of the people: to invite friends, brothers and relatives to eat. And nobody would sit at table with unknown persons. They would sit around the table only with persons who were their friends. That was the custom of the Jews. And even now we also act in the same way. Jesus thinks differently and orders to invite unknown people; these were invitations which nobody used to make.
• Luke 14, 13-14: Disinterested invitation. Jesus says. “On the contrary, when you have a party, invite the poor, the crippled, the lame, the blind; then you will be blessed, for they have no means to repay you. So you will be repaid when the upright rise again.” Jesus orders to break the closed circle and asks to invite the excluded: the poor, the crippled, the lame, and the blind. This was not the custom and it is not either today. But Jesus insists: “Invite these persons”. Why? Because in the disinterested invitation, addressed to excluded and marginalized persons, there is a source of happiness: “And then you will be blessed for they have no means to repay you”. This is a strange type of happiness, a diverse happiness! You will be blessed, for they have no means to repay you. It is the happiness that comes from the fact that you have done a gesture totally gratuitous, without asking for anything. Jesus says that this is the happiness which God will give us in the resurrection; the Resurrection which he will give us not only at the end of history, but even now. To act in this way is already a resurrection!
• It is the Kingdom which will be confirmed. The advice which Jesus gives us in the Gospel today recalls the sending out of the seventy-two on the mission of announcing the Kingdom (Lk 10, 1-9). Among the different recommendations given on that occasion, as signs of the presence of the Kingdom, there is: (a) the invitation to the table and (b) the acceptance of the excluded: “Whenever you go into a town, where they make you welcome, eat what is put before you, cure those who are sick and say: the Kingdom of God is very near to you!” (Lk 10, 8-9) Here, in these recommendations, Jesus orders to transgress that norm of legal purity which prevented fraternal living together.
4) Personal questions
• An interested or disinterested invitation: which of these takes place in my life?
• If you invited in a disinterested way, would this cause some difficulties? Which ones?
5) Concluding prayer
Yahweh, my heart is not haughty,
I do not set my sights too high.
I have taken no part in great affairs,
in wonders beyond my scope.
No, I hold myself in quiet and silence,
like a little child in its mother's arms,
like a little child, so I keep myself. (Ps 131,1-2)
Thank you for the martyrs you give to the Church…. (Pope Francis)
[Letter from the Prior General to the whole Carmelite Family on the occasion of the beatification of the martyrs of the provinces of Betica and Castille.]
On 29 November 2013, during the general assembly of the USG (Union of General Superiors), held in the so-called “Synod Hall”, there was a meeting between the general superiors of various male orders and congregations with Pope Francis. This was without doubt an historic encounter, during which the generals were able to ask the Holy Father about various topics and questions relating to the religious life, all without a pre-determined agenda. Pope Francis emphasised repeatedly in this meeting that what he hopes to find in the religious life is a “witness”. The Pope stressed that witness is a very serious thing because it implies great responsibility and honesty. When one lives in a profound way, with joy and coherence, despite inevitable human failings, religious consecration becomes a prophetic sign for the whole Church. At the end of the meeting and after having announced that 2015 would be the Year of Consecrated Life, the Pope concluded with words of affectionate gratitude:
Thank you for what you do, for your spirit of faith and of service. Thank you for your witness, for the martyrs you continually give to the Church and also for the humiliations that you must face: it is the Way of the Cross. Heartfelt thanks.[1]
Now just a few weeks before that meeting, on 13 October 2013, 522 martyrs of Spain of the 20th century were beatified in Tarragona in a celebration presided over by Cardinal Angelo Amato. Nineteen of these were Carmelites: nine from the province of Castille (Alberto Maria Marco Alemán and companions) and ten from the province of Betica (Carmelo Moyano and companions).
These two groups join the sixteen Carmelites of the province of Catalonia (a general commissariat in 1936[2]) together with an enclosed nun from the monastery of Vich, who were beatified in Rome in October 2007. This was the first group of Spanish Carmelites, of four groups who suffered the same fate, in whom the Church solemnly and officially recognized a witness to authentic faith by beatifying them. For me, this was a particularly emotional occasion because it was the occasion of my first public act as prior general after my election at the General Chapter held a month earlier in Sassone. In order to mark this beatification, I published an official letter, Perseverantes in caritate, which was sent to the whole Order and to the Carmelite Family.
Now we are a year on from the 2013 beatification, in a certain sense I would like to reprise my reflection from 2007, taking up again the message of hope which our Carmelite martyrs send to us. Since it was impossible for me to write a letter in 2013 due to the proximity of the general chapter and the 14 provincial chapters over which I presided from January to June the following year, I do not want to miss an opportunity which is so important for our Carmelite Family of sharing with it some brief reflections. These may help us to deepen the meaning of this beatification which doubtlessly is a reason for a healthy pride in witness of our brothers and sisters. I have taken the liberty, therefore, of using Pope Francis’ phrase as the title of this letter. I would like to organise my ideas around the three theological virtues, faith, hope and charity.
- Faith. The first thing I would like to stress is that the martyrs are, above and beyond all other considerations, “witnesses” to the faith, to Christian life and to the Gospel. These martyrs (and here it suffices to read the shocking accounts of their death) were not fanatical suicides nor radical defenders of some ideology or other, but simply believers.[3] This is to say, people who faithfully believed, who lived their faith with authenticity and who even in terrible times of persecution and faced with death, were able to witness to their faith, sealing it with their own blood. It is significant that witnesses to their deaths insist on one thing: they all died forgiving or even blessing their murderers. In his homily during the Mass of Thanksgiving for the beatification in 2007, Cardinal Bertone, Pope Benedict’s Secretary of State, insisted strongly on this point:
These martyrs have not been presented to the People of God to be venerated for their political significance nor as part of a struggle against who knows what, but to offer their very existence as a witness to their love of Christ. They were also fully aware of their membership of the Church. That’s why at the moment of death the martyrs all agreed to address those who were killing them in words of forgiveness and mercy.[4]
The Spanish Bishops’ Conference also insisted on this idea in their message sent in 2013 regarding the beatification we are marking now:
The martyrs died forgiving. This is why they are martyrs of Christ, who when he was on the Cross, forgave those who were persecuting him. In celebrating their memory and welcoming their intercession, the Church desires to be a sower of humanity and reconciliation […] There is no greater spiritual freedom than that of those who forgive the one who takes their life. This is a freedom which is born of hope in Glory.[5]
In some cases, this feature of forgiveness takes on a dramatic and emotional hue. Even today, many years after those tragic times, the example of these Carmelites moves us. They faced a firing squad, after receiving summary judgements without the least legal guarantees and guilty of the only “crime” of being religious… they were able to forgive their own murderers and died as a blessing for all. We can say that these men and women were able to give flesh to Peter’s recommendation to make real our basic vocation: to bless!
Finally, all of you, have unity of spirit, sympathy, love for one another, a tender heart, and a humble mind. Do not repay evil for evil or abuse for abuse; but, on the contrary, repay with a blessing. It is for this that you were called—that you might inherit a blessing.(1 Peter 3:8-9)
What has been said here perhaps explains a very surprising fact that when one reads the witnesses’ statements those Carmelites who were faced with death maintained a constant attitude of calm. They tried to communicate this, as far as they could, to those who were accompanying them. We can imagine that their interior richness (their faith, life of prayer, a deep spirituality lived for years) flowered at that dramatic and terrible moment. Even more surprising is the silence in which those men suffered humiliations, insults and even torture. In today’s world, inundated as we are by empty words, noise, tension, superficial and hasty opinions, Carmelites are called to an inner depth and not to let themselves be taken in by the shallowness which reigns everywhere. Recalling the words of the poet Antonio Machado (1875-1939), they are called to distinguish voices from echoes or even, taking a liberty, the Voice from the echoes.
This was not a cowardly silence, or even less a complicit one. That silence contained a calm declaration and a heart-felt prayer. In a certain sense these Carmelites were heroically putting into practice that which chapter 21 of the Carmelite Rule asks of us: to live a “theologal” (or “God-directed”) silence, to avoid, even on dramatic occasions, the triumph of vain words and the loss of meaning. That silence, as the Rule reminds us, quoting Isaiah, is the silence that favours justice.
Just as Dietrich Bonhoeffer (1906-1945) asked of his pastors during the Nazi persecution, the silence of our brothers and sisters made the only possible word ring out: the Word of God, who also remained silent faced with the Cross:
All that we can say regarding our faith seems therefore to be without meaning and empty with respect to the reality we are experiencing. It is a reality after which we believe in an ineffable mystery […] In this there is really something authentic, as long as a single word, the name of Jesus Christ, is not absent in us.[6]
A controversial author like Jean-Paul Sartre (1905-1980) in a little-known play from his youth (which he himself eliminated from the “canon” of his works), called Bariona, ou le fils du tonnerre speaks of a silence which raises itself to heaven and caresses the stars like a huge tree whose crown is rocked by the wind.[7] Our martyrs’ silence is still for us today a silent music and a resonant solitude to use the famous expressions of John of the Cross. It continues to move us, inspire us, emote us and invite us to a deeper and more sincere prayer for all of history’s victims. That silence was a true profession of faith.
It is well-known that this beatification took place at the end of the year of faith, called by Pope Benedict XVI at the end of his pontificate. In the Motu proprio that announced this event, Porta fidei, the Pope recalled the close bond between martyrdom and faith:
By faith, the martyrs gave their lives, bearing witness to the truth of the Gospel that had transformed them and made them capable of attaining to the greatest gift of love: the forgiveness of their persecutors. (“Porta fidei”, n. 13)
Anchored firmly in a solid faith and thus serene, tolerant, open, compassionate… the Carmelite of the 21st century is called on to imitate the example of our martyrs. These lived in more difficult times than ours and they were able to look beyond their circumstances and to contemplate, in the noblest and most beautiful sense of the world, the signs of God’s presence which never abandons us.
- Charity. In the light of the above, the martyrs call on us today, inviting us to be witnesses to and artificers of reconciliation. In a world broken by violence and by divisions of all sorts (family, social, political, economic, racial…), the believer, following Jesus Christ and witnessing to his Word, cannot be but a person of reconciliation and forgiveness. It would be a nonsense (and a scandal) to manipulate tendentiously these beatifications (whether in an approving or disapproving way) and to transform them into a “weapon” to use against those who think differently or against certain political opinions. All this would be a real distortion of the deepest sense of what we are celebrating. If these martyrs died forgiving, we too must live forgiving and sowing reconciliation. There is no other way. This is the Gospel for which the martyrs gave their life. We cannot manipulate their witness in a contrary sense.
Even within Spanish society, although much time has passed since those sad and deplorable days, there are wounds which are not yet healed, bitter divisions fomented deliberately, and so on. The same could be said of other countries and other circumstances: the very serious economic crisis that we are suffering in the whole world deepens divisions and creates great social tensions. We really hope that this beatification will be remembered as an invitation to harmony, to reconciliation and to a common effort to build a more just and more fraternal society. Moreover, we believers, Carmelite religious, cannot remain unmoved when faced with the social situation around us and we must redouble our efforts to help the needy and to be near those who suffer most from the impact of this crisis. Pope Francis has stressed this point very forcibly in the whole of his pontificate; this is why we cannot remain oblivious to his call.
Some of the murdered Carmelites in the time they spent in prison before their execution, comforted those who were desperate and shared the little they had with the neediest, especially when they were fathers of families. May this example of the martyrs who could show such charity in such a dramatic moment (far more dramatic than our times) inspire us to carry out the same mission. May they intercede from heaven so that Carmel in Spain can rise to the challenge of the current conditions.
Cardinal Vidal i Barraquer (1868-1943), archbishop of Tarragona during the Spanish war and an eyewitness to the events recalled here, in a wonderful text asked the Lord insistently to grant Spaniards a real spirit of harmony and reconciliation. We also make this prayer our own today:
May Our Divine Redeemer, through the intercession of so many of our brothers who are martyrs and confessors, grant us the grace of perfect reconciliation, so that with the fire of true, Christian, fraternal love and overcoming the spirit of hate, of vendetta and of discord, all Spaniards will be able to consecrate themselves to the great work of spiritual and material reconstruction, with a single heart and a single mind.[8]
- Hope. To conclude, it seems opportune to stress that the martyrdom of our brothers and sisters must become a sign of hope for us. From the human perspective, the death of those 56 Carmelites (including three cloistered nuns who were also murdered) was a real tragedy for the order in Spain. It was intent on rebuilding after the difficult years of the restoration of the religious life. Gradually the former houses were given back and new houses were founded, along with new ministries (parishes, schools, social services etc.) at the service of the local Church and the People of God. In a few months, it all fell apart. The scenario at national and international level was desolate. In post-war Spain, many Carmelite houses were in a terrible state. The long period after the war was marked by a deep famine which only served to devastate further a country already destroyed by death and hatred. At the same time, the central European provinces of the order were suffering the consequences of a cruel war that would last over five years and involve the whole world. In that contest, there were several Carmelites who died bearing witness to their faith. Two of these martyrs, blessed Titus Brandsma and blessed Hilary Januszewski have been solemnly and officially recognized by the Church.[9]
As soon as the war was over the official gazette of the order, the Analecta Ordinis Carmelitarum, published a letter from the prior general, Fr. Hilary Doswald (1887-1951), written in 1942 from the United States, where he had taken refuge during the war. In this letter, Doswald sent a message to the whole order entitled Incrementum in which he indicated that despite the very evident destruction in some provinces in terms of human loss and material devastation, the order would have to face up to the work of reconstruction with determination.[10] This is why he asked all the members of the order to work tirelessly, enthusiastically and generously to encourage vocations. The prior general mentioned an anecdote regarding Pope Benedict XV who in 1919 at the end of the First World War, received the members of the Carmelite General Chapter and challenged them with the clear message: Incrementum! Incrementum! Incrementum! This challenge made an impression in what we would call today the “collective unconscious” of the order and the Carmelites of that period worked ceaselessly to increase numbers in order to serve the people of God better.
Beyond the anecdotal, we can admire the contrast between the desolation evident everywhere (especially in Spain where the 56 Carmelites were murdered) and the order’s enthusiasm in facing up to its future. Their starting point was not defeatism nor pessimism, which would have been quite understandable, but from trust in the Lord of Life. At the end of the Second World War in only a few years the order grew very significantly (numerous vocations, new missions, intellectual and spiritual endeavours and so on). Once again, Tertullian’s phrase semen est sanguis Christianorum (“the blood of Christians is seed”) is borne out.[11]
In the light of the foregoing, I too am sure that these martyrs’ witness in giving up their life as a testimony to their faith helps us today, in very different circumstances, to be living witnesses to the faith, charity and hope that they showed up to the end. In fact, in the majority of Carmelite locations, everyone works ceaselessly, enthusiastically and creatively. However, our presence in Europe seems to be threatened by the prevailing materialism and relativism; by the lack of vocations; by difficulties of understanding our identity, (which cause us to search for the meaning of our consecration in other spiritualties); by tiredness and defeatism in aging provinces; by the lack of personnel which limits our service to the local Church and many other threats. In this context, our brothers and sisters’ witness must fill us with hope: our Carmelite religious life does have a value and a meaning. It is worthwhile to continue to work and to sow generously and creatively, with the joy of serving impartially men and women in our time.
Yet again, I would defer to Pope Francis who writes so clearly, directly and personally, when he questions religious about our attitude:
I ask myself and I ask you: is this lamp still alight in monasteries? In your monasteries, are you waiting for God’s tomorrow?[12]
Carmel and the consecrated life in general must always be a sign of hope for men and women of our age. Carmelites through their life, in the midst of the fatigue and contradictions of every age, look to the future, to definitive Life and to the ultimate meaning of existence. When so many of our brothers fall prey to desperation and lack of confidence; when it’s easier to let oneself be carried away by a repetitive existence, bound by only limited horizons, by the small pleasure of the daily and immediate, by the cult of the individual and a presumed independence that sometimes is just a cover for egoism, then at those times Carmelites prove themselves to be people of hope. With great humility, not believing themselves to be better than others, considering themselves to be part of the world with whom they share their hopes, joys and sufferings, Carmelites must make their life into a continual witness to this hope which enlightens us and gives meaning to our journey. The martyrs were able to do this in very special and dramatic circumstances. Generally we need to be able to do the same in our daily life and this requires fidelity, courage and the power to believe and to hope.
All the above does not distance us from reality and does not exonerate us from the questions men and women ask in the world. It does not make us unfeeling (indeed the very opposite!) to the sufferings and the desperation of the “other”. This is not a hope that distracts nor a way of avoiding earthly engagement.
All the above also means that there is a contradiction and in a certain sense a counter-witness, when we consecrated men and women allow ourselves to be carried away by defeatism and apocalyptic ideas which are lacking any hope; when we let ourselves be contaminated by the irritation and negativity of the “culture of the disposable”, as Pope Francis has called it.
*****
To summarise then, the beatification of our brothers and sisters is a call to perseverance. Perseverance in vocation, in hope, in the joy of following the Lord, even to martyrdom if it is necessary. In today’s world, implicitly or explicitly, we tend to reject long-term commitments and lapse into a culture of the temporary, the relative and the unstable. The witness of believers, who with all their weaknesses and human limitations, who sets out on a journey and commit to following the Master to the end, is without doubt a witness which moves us and which has the flavour of something genuine and the authenticity of absolute value.
There are still circumstances in which our Carmelite brothers and sisters have to face various dangers, threats or situations of extreme poverty and which I can personally vouch for. However, generally we can say that we are called to offer witness in more tranquil circumstances and less violent than those of Alberto María Marco Alemán, O. Carm., Carmelo Moyano, O. Carm., Angel María Prat Hostench, O.Carm., and their companions. For this reason, we must not neglect the call to “daily martyrdom”, to the offering of our life to an everyday simplicity of journeying in fraternal and pastoral service.
Precisely in these years when in Carmel we are living a series of important and significant celebrations (centenaries, anniversaries, fusion of provinces and so on) we must not lose sight of the fact that basically it is in daily life that we are saved, that we live our vocation, where we make real what we believe, profess and preach.
*****
I would like to conclude this letter by entrusting to our martyrs the various projects in which the order is currently engaged and in a special way our missions. As you know, the theme of the General Chapter held in Sassone in September 2013, shortly before the beatification, was mission. The order has grown considerably in recent years and we are now in many countries where just a few years ago we never dreamt of their being a Carmelite presence. This was the reason why the various superiors who met at Niagara Falls in September 2011 at the General Congregation asked that the theme of the General Chapter be that of mission.
To this, we should add the constant invitation of Pope Francis to the whole Church that it become a “constantly out-going Church”; a missionary Church which is looking out to the edges, both geographically and existentially, to bring the Good News of salvation.
Carmel cannot remain unmoved faced with this call. Certainly our involvement in the Church’s’ missions must reflect our charism and identity. This is what the Church herself asks of us: to be Carmelites, to live our charism with authenticity and joy, to give the treasure of our spirituality to the whole Church.
So the martyrs lived and consecrated themselves to this mission and its extreme consequences with an exemplary and admirable fidelity. May these new blessed of Carmel help us in this difficult but fascinating task, inspiring us to live our charism with faithfulness and creativity.
May Mary, Star of the Sea, the Mother and Sister of Carmelites show us the road to follow.
Fernando Millán Romeral O. Carm.
Prior General
Rome, 13 October 2014
(First anniversary of the beatification of the martyrs)
[1] The original Italian can be found in Civiltà cattolica (1/2014) 3-17. Translations in various languages appeared at the same time.
[2] At the outbreak of the Civil War in 1936, there were only two provinces (Arago-Valentina and Betica) and a General Commissariat (Catalonia). In 1948 the General Commissariat of Castille was created which became a province in 1984. Catalonia became a province in 1950. In 2014 the provinces of Castille and Arago-Valentina were unified into the province of Arago, Castille and Valencia. However, the various groups of martyrs are still associated with the provinces that existed when they were beatified.
[3] For this reason, the Holy See is very cautious about those causes of religious who are linked to political organisations, even when exemplary faith has been demonstrated. This is to avoid any possible confusion or misunderstanding both regarding the final meaning of their death and the current interpretation of it.
[4] The original Italian text of the homily is in Osservatore Romano, 29-30 October, p.7.
[5] Plenary Session of the Spanish Bishops’ Conference, Los martires del siglo XX en España, firmes y valientes testigos de la fe, n. 12.
[6] See Dietrich Bonhoeffer, The Way To Freedom: Letters, Lectures and Notes, 1935-39. From the Collected Works of Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Volume 2. Edited and introduced by Edwin H. Robertson. Translated by Edwin H. Robertson and John Bowden. London: Collins, 1966.
[7] Jean-Paul Sartre, Bariona, ou le fils du tonnerre (1940). There is no English translation of this work. It was published in French in 1970.
[8] Cardinal Vidal i Barraquer intervened on various occasions on the side of peace and reconciliation during the Spanish Civil War. He was archbishop of Tarragona, the diocese where the beatification was celebrated and so his witness is particularly meaningful.
[9] Both were beatified by Pope John Paul II: the first in Rome on 3 November 1985, the second in Warsaw on 13 June 1999.
[10] The original English text of 1942 appeared in Analecta Ordinis Carmelitarum 13 (1946-1948) 120-122.
[11] Tertullian, Apologeticus, 50:13.
[12] Celebration of Vespers with the Camaldolese Benedictine Community, Address of Pope Francis to the Camaldolese Benedictine Nuns, Monastery of St Anthony the Abbot – Rome, Thursday, 21 November 2013. http://w2.vatican.va/content/francesco/en/speeches/2013/november/documents/papa-francesco_20131121_monache-aventino.html. Accessed 12 March 2015.
Pope Benedict XVI
Dear Brothers and Sisters,
In the course of the Catecheses that I have chosen to dedicate to the Fathers of the Church and to great theologians and women of the Middle Ages I have also had the opportunity to reflect on certain Saints proclaimed Doctors of the Church on account of the eminence of their teaching.
Today I would like to begin a brief series of meetings to complete the presentation on the Doctors of the Church and I am beginning with a Saint who is one of the peaks of Christian spirituality of all time — St Teresa of Avila [also known as St Teresa of Jesus].
St Teresa, whose name was Teresa de Cepeda y Ahumada, was born in Avila, Spain, in 1515. In her autobiography she mentions some details of her childhood: she was born into a large family, her “father and mother, who were devout and feared God”, into a large family. She had three sisters and nine brothers.
While she was still a child and not yet nine years old she had the opportunity to read the lives of several Martyrs which inspired in her such a longing for martyrdom that she briefly ran away from home in order to die a Martyr’s death and to go to Heaven (cf. Vida, [Life], 1, 4); “I want to see God”, the little girl told her parents.
A few years later Teresa was to speak of her childhood reading and to state that she had discovered in it the way of truth which she sums up in two fundamental principles.
On the one hand was the fact that “all things of this world will pass away” while on the other God alone is “for ever, ever, ever”, a topic that recurs in her best known poem: “Let nothing disturb you, Let nothing frighten you, All things are passing away: God never changes. Patience obtains all things. Whoever has God lacks nothing; God alone suffices”. She was about 12 years old when her mother died and she implored the Virgin Most Holy to be her mother (cf. Vida, I, 7).
If in her adolescence the reading of profane books had led to the distractions of a worldly life, her experience as a pupil of the Augustinian nuns of Santa María de las Gracias de Avila and her reading of spiritual books, especially the classics of Franciscan spirituality, introduced her to recollection and prayer.
When she was 20 she entered the Carmelite Monastery of the Incarnation, also in Avila. In her religious life she took the name “Teresa of Jesus”. Three years later she fell seriously ill, so ill that she remained in a coma for four days, looking as if she were dead (cf. Vida, 5, 9).
In the fight against her own illnesses too the Saint saw the combat against weaknesses and the resistance to God’s call: “I wished to live”, she wrote, “but I saw clearly that I was not living, but rather wrestling with the shadow of death; there was no one to give me life, and I was not able to take it. He who could have given it to me had good reasons for not coming to my aid, seeing that he had brought me back to himself so many times, and I as often had left him” (Vida, 7, 8).
In 1543 she lost the closeness of her relatives; her father died and all her siblings, one after another, emigrated to America. In Lent 1554, when she was 39 years old, Teresa reached the climax of her struggle against her own weaknesses. The fortuitous discovery of the statue of “a Christ most grievously wounded”, left a deep mark on her life (cf. Vida, 9).
The Saint, who in that period felt deeply in tune with the St Augustine of the Confessions, thus describes the decisive day of her mystical experience: “and... a feeling of the presence of God would come over me unexpectedly, so that I could in no wise doubt either that he was within me, or that I was wholly absorbed in him” (Vida, 10, 1).
Parallel to her inner development, the Saint began in practice to realize her ideal of the reform of the Carmelite Order: in 1562 she founded the first reformed Carmel in Avila, with the support of the city’s Bishop, Don Alvaro de Mendoza, and shortly afterwards also received the approval of John Baptist Rossi, the Order’s Superior General.
In the years that followed, she continued her foundations of new Carmelite convents, 17 in all. Her meeting with St John of the Cross was fundamental. With him, in 1568, she set up the first convent of Discalced Carmelites in Duruelo, not far from Avila.
In 1580 she obtained from Rome the authorization for her reformed Carmels as a separate, autonomous Province. This was the starting point for the Discalced Carmelite Order.
Indeed, Teresa’s earthly life ended while she was in the middle of her founding activities. She died on the night of 15 October 1582 in Alba de Tormes, after setting up the Carmelite Convent in Burgos, while on her way back to Avila. Her last humble words were: “After all I die as a child of the Church”, and “O my Lord and my Spouse, the hour that I have longed for has come. It is time to meet one another”.
Teresa spent her entire life for the whole Church although she spent it in Spain. She was beatified by Pope Paul V in 1614 and canonized by Gregory XV in 1622. The Servant of God Paul VI proclaimed her a “Doctor of the Church” in 1970.
Teresa of Jesus had no academic education but always set great store by the teachings of theologians, men of letters and spiritual teachers. As a writer, she always adhered to what she had lived personally through or had seen in the experience of others (cf. Prologue to The Way of Perfection), in other words basing herself on her own first-hand knowledge.
Teresa had the opportunity to build up relations of spiritual friendship with many Saints and with St John of the Cross in particular. At the same time she nourished herself by reading the Fathers of the Church, St Jerome, St Gregory the Great and St Augustine.
Among her most important works we should mention first of all her autobiography, El libro de la vida (the book of life), which she called Libro de las misericordias del Señor [book of the Lord’s mercies].
Written in the Carmelite Convent at Avila in 1565, she describes the biographical and spiritual journey, as she herself says, to submit her soul to the discernment of the “Master of things spiritual”, St John of Avila. Her purpose was to highlight the presence and action of the merciful God in her life. For this reason the work often cites her dialogue in prayer with the Lord. It makes fascinating reading because not only does the Saint recount that she is reliving the profound experience of her relationship with God but also demonstrates it.
In 1566, Teresa wrote El Camino de Perfección [The Way of Perfection]. She called it Advertencias y consejos que da Teresa de Jesús a sus hermanas [recommendations and advice that Teresa of Jesus offers to her sisters]. It was composed for the 12 novices of the Carmel of St Joseph in Avila. Teresa proposes to them an intense programme of contemplative life at the service of the Church, at the root of which are the evangelical virtues and prayer.
Among the most precious passages is her commentary on the Our Father, as a model for prayer. St Teresa’s most famous mystical work is El Castillo interior [The Interior Castle]. She wrote it in 1577 when she was in her prime. It is a reinterpretation of her own spiritual journey and, at the same time, a codification of the possible development of Christian life towards its fullness, holiness, under the action of the Holy Spirit.
Teresa refers to the structure of a castle with seven rooms as an image of human interiority. She simultaneously introduces the symbol of the silk worm reborn as a butterfly, in order to express the passage from the natural to the supernatural.
The Saint draws inspiration from Sacred Scripture, particularly the Song of Songs, for the final symbol of the “Bride and Bridegroom” which enables her to describe, in the seventh room, the four crowning aspects of Christian life: the Trinitarian, the Christological, the anthropological and the ecclesial.
St Teresa devoted the Libro de la fundaciones [book of the foundations], which she wrote between 1573 and 1582, to her activity as Foundress of the reformed Carmels. In this book she speaks of the life of the nascent religious group. This account, like her autobiography, was written above all in order to give prominence to God’s action in the work of founding new monasteries.
It is far from easy to sum up in a few words Teresa’s profound and articulate spirituality. I would like to mention a few essential points. In the first place St Teresa proposes the evangelical virtues as the basis of all Christian and human life and in particular, detachment from possessions, that is, evangelical poverty, and this concerns all of us; love for one another as an essential element of community and social life; humility as love for the truth; determination as a fruit of Christian daring; theological hope, which she describes as the thirst for living water. Then we should not forget the human virtues: affability, truthfulness, modesty, courtesy, cheerfulness, culture.
Secondly, St Teresa proposes a profound harmony with the great biblical figures and eager listening to the word of God. She feels above all closely in tune with the Bride in the Song of Songs and with the Apostle Paul, as well as with Christ in the Passion and with Jesus in the Eucharist. The Saint then stresses how essential prayer is. Praying, she says, “means being on terms of friendship with God frequently conversing in secret with him who, we know, loves us” (Vida 8, 5). St Teresa’s idea coincides with Thomas Aquinas’ definition of theological charity as “amicitia quaedam hominis ad Deum”, a type of human friendship with God, who offered humanity his friendship first; it is from God that the initiative comes (cf. Summa Theologiae II-II, 23, 1).
Prayer is life and develops gradually, in pace with the growth of Christian life: it begins with vocal prayer, passes through interiorization by means of meditation and recollection, until it attains the union of love with Christ and with the Holy Trinity. Obviously, in the development of prayer climbing to the highest steps does not mean abandoning the previous type of prayer. Rather, it is a gradual deepening of the relationship with God that envelops the whole of life.
Rather than a pedagogy Teresa’s is a true “mystagogy” of prayer: she teaches those who read her works how to pray by praying with them. Indeed, she often interrupts her account or exposition with a prayerful outburst.
Another subject dear to the Saint is the centrality of Christ’s humanity. For Teresa, in fact, Christian life is the personal relationship with Jesus that culminates in union with him through grace, love and imitation. Hence the importance she attaches to meditation on the Passion and on the Eucharist as the presence of Christ in the Church for the life of every believer, and as the heart of the Liturgy. St Teresa lives out unconditional love for the Church: she shows a lively “sensus Ecclesiae”, in the face of the episodes of division and conflict in the Church of her time.
She reformed the Carmelite Order with the intention of serving and defending the “Holy Roman Catholic Church”, and was willing to give her life for the Church (cf. Vida, 33,5).
A final essential aspect of Teresian doctrine which I would like to emphasize is perfection, as the aspiration of the whole of Christian life and as its ultimate goal. The Saint has a very clear idea of the “fullness” of Christ, relived by the Christian. At the end of the route through The Interior Castle, in the last “room”, Teresa describes this fullness, achieved in the indwelling of the Trinity, in union with Christ through the mystery of his humanity.
Dear brothers and sisters, St Teresa of Jesus is a true teacher of Christian life for the faithful of every time. In our society, which all too often lacks spiritual values, St Teresa teaches us to be unflagging witnesses of God, of his presence and of his action. She teaches us truly to feel this thirst for God that exists in the depths of our hearts, this desire to see God, to seek God, to be in conversation with him and to be his friends.
This is the friendship we all need that we must seek anew, day after day. May the example of this Saint, profoundly contemplative and effectively active, spur us too every day to dedicate the right time to prayer, to this openness to God, to this journey, in order to seek God, to see him, to discover his friendship and so to find true life; indeed many of us should truly say: “I am not alive, I am not truly alive because I do not live the essence of my life”.
Therefore time devoted to prayer is not time wasted, it is time in which the path of life unfolds, the path unfolds to learning from God an ardent love for him, for his Church, and practical charity for our brothers and sisters. Many thanks.
Lord our God,
you are a generous Father,
who give us what is good for us
simply because you love us.
Give us grateful hearts, Lord,
that we may learn from you
to give and share without calculation
but simply with love and joy,
as Jesus did among us, your Son,
who lives with you and with us for ever.
After this the Lord appointed seventy-two others and sent them out ahead of him in pairs, to all the towns and places he himself would be visiting. And he said to them, 'The harvest is rich but the labourers are few, so ask the Lord of the harvest to send labourers to do his harvesting. Start off now, but look, I am sending you out like lambs among wolves. Take no purse with you, no haversack, no sandals. Salute no one on the road. Whatever house you enter, let your first words be, "Peace to this house!" And if a man of peace lives there, your peace will go and rest on him; if not, it will come back to you. Stay in the same house, taking what food and drink they have to offer, for the labourer deserves his wages; do not move from house to house. Whenever you go into a town where they make you welcome, eat what is put before you. Cure those in it who are sick, and say, "The kingdom of God is very near to you."
• During the time of Jesus there were several movements which, like Jesus, sought a new way of living. For example, John the Baptist, the Pharisees and others. Many of them formed a community and had disciples. (Jn 1, 35; Lk 11, 1; Acts 19, 3) and they had their own missionaries (Mt 23, 25). But there was a great difference! The Pharisees, for example, when they went on mission, they went already prepared. They thought that they could not eat what the people would offer them, because the food was not always ritually “pure”. For this reason, they took with them purses and money in order to be able to take care of their own food. Thus, instead of working toward overcoming the divisions, this observances of the Law of purity weakened even more the living out of community values.
• The proposal of Jesus is different. He tries to rescue the community values which had been suffocated, and tries to renew and to reorganize the communities in such a way that they could, once again, be an expression of the Covenant, a sign of the Kingdom of God. And this is what is said to us in today’s Gospel which describes the sending out of the 72 disciples:
• Luke 10, 1: The Mission. Jesus sends the disciples to places where he himself has to go. The disciple is the spokesperson of Jesus. He is not the owner of the Good News. Jesus sends the disciples in pairs, two by two. That is useful for mutual help, because the mission is not individual, but rather communitarian. Two persons represent the community better than only one.
• Luke 10, 2-3: Co-responsibility. The first task is that of praying so that God may send workers. Every disciple - ,man and woman – has to feel responsible for the mission. And thus has to pray to the Father to send workers to continue the mission. Jesus sends his disciples as sheep among wolves. The mission is a difficult and dangerous task. Because the system in which they lived was and continues to be contrary to the reorganization of the people in a community of life. The Mission to which Jesus sends the 72 disciples tries to recover four community values:
- Luke 10, 4-6: Hospitality. Contrary to the other missionaries, the disciples of Jesus – men and women – cannot take anything with them, neither purse, nor sandals. They can and should only take peace. That means that they have to trust in the hospitality of the people. Because the disciple who goes without anything, taking only peace, shows that he/she trusts the people. The disciple thinks that he/she will be received, and the people feel respected and confirmed. Through this practice the disciple criticizes the laws of exclusion and recovers the ancient value of hospitality. Greet no one on the road, probably means, that no time should be lost in things which do not belong to the mission.
- Luke 10, 7: Sharing. The disciples should not go from house to house, but should remain in the same house. That is, they should live together with the people in a stable way, participate in their life and in the work of the people of the place and live from what they receive in exchange, because the labourer deserves his wages. This means that they have to trust in sharing. Thus, through this new practice, they recover an ancient tradition of the people, they criticize the culture of accumulation which distinguished the politics of the Roman Empire and announced a new model of living together.
- Luke 10, 8: Communion around the same table. The disciples should eat what the people offer them. They cannot live separated, eating their own food. That means that they should accept the communion and cannot be separated, eating their own food. This means that they have to accept to sit around the table with the others. In this contact with the others, they should not fear to loose the legal purity. Acting in this way, they criticize the laws of purity which were in force and they announce a new access to purity, to the intimacy with God..
- Luke 10, 9a: The Acceptance of the excluded. The disciples should cure those who are sick, cure the lepers and cast out the devils (Mt 10, 8). This means that in the community they should accept those who are excluded. This practice of solidarity criticizes society which excludes and indicates concrete solutions.
• Luke 10, 9b: The coming of the Kingdom. If all these requirements are respected, the disciples can and should cry out in the four directions: The Kingdom is here! Because the Kingdom is a new way of living and of living together with others, according to the Good News which Jesus has come to reveal to us: God is Father and because of this we are all brothers and sisters. In the first place, to educate for the Kingdom is to teach a new way of living and of living together with others, a new way of acting and of thinking.
• Why are all these different attitudes recommended by Jesus signs of the coming of the Kingdom of God?
• How can we practice today what Jesus asks: “do not take with you any purse”, do not move from house to house”, “do not greet anyone on the road”, announce the Kingdom?
The Law of Yahweh is perfect,
refreshment to the soul;
the decree of Yahweh is trustworthy,
wisdom for the simple. (Ps 19,7)
The first conflict arising
from the proclamation of the Good News
The Good News of God is like a light:
it brings to light contradictions
Mark 2:1-12
1. Opening prayer
Lord Jesus, send your Spirit to help us to read the Scriptures with the same mind that you read them to the disciples on the way to Emmaus. In the light of the Word, written in the Bible, you helped them to discover the presence of God in the disturbing events of your sentence and death. Thus, the cross that seemed to be the end of all hope became for them the source of life and of resurrection.
Create in us silence so that we may listen to your voice in Creation and in the Scriptures, in events and in people, above all in the poor and suffering. May your word guide us so that we too, like the two disciples from Emmaus, may experience the force of your resurrection and witness to others that you are alive in our midst as source of fraternity, justice and peace. We ask this of you, Jesus, son of Mary, who revealed to us the Father and sent us your Spirit. Amen.
2. Reading
a) A key to the reading:
The Gospel text this Sunday deals with two intertwining themes: it describes the healing of a paralytic and mentions the discussion Jesus had with the doctors of the law or the scribes on the matter of forgiving sins.
b) A division of the text as an aid to the reading:
Mark 2:1-2: The people seek Jesus and Jesus proclaims the Word.
Mark 2:3-5: The faith of the paralytic and his friends obtains forgiveness of sins.
Mark 2:6-7: Jesus is accused of blasphemy by the authorities
Mark 2:8-11: To prove that he has the power to forgive sins, Jesus heals the paralytic.
Mark 2:12: The reaction of the people: “We have never seen anything like this!”
c) The text:
1 When he returned to Capernaum, some time later word went round that he was in the house; 2 and so many people collected that there was no room left, even in front of the door. He was preaching the word to them.
3 when some people came bringing him a paralytic carried by four men, 4 but as they could not get the man to him through the crowd, they stripped the roof over the place where Jesus was; and when they had made an opening, they lowered the stretcher on which the paralytic lay. 5 Seeing their faith, Jesus said to the paralytic, 'My child, your sins are forgiven.'
6 Now some scribes were sitting there, and they thought to themselves, 7 'How can this man talk like that? He is being blasphemous. Who but God can forgive sins?'
8 And at once, Jesus, inwardly aware that this is what they were thinking, said to them, 'Why do you have these thoughts in your hearts? 9 Which of these is easier: to say to the paralytic, "Your sins are forgiven" or to say, "Get up, pick up your stretcher and walk"? 10 But to prove to you that the Son of man has authority to forgive sins on earth' -- 11 he said to the paralytic - 'I order you: get up, pick up your stretcher, and go off home.'
12 And the man got up, and at once picked up his stretcher and walked out in front of everyone, so that they were all astonished and praised God saying, 'We have never seen anything like this.'
3. A moment of prayerful silence
so that the Word of God may penetrate and enlighten our life.
4. Some questions
to help us in our personal reflection.
a) What pleased you most in this text and what caught your attention?
b) What is the conflict between Jesus and the scribes? Where did it take place and who started the argument? Why?
c) What does this text reveal about Jesus and about God the Father?
d) Do you think that there is a connection between sickness and sin?
e) What message does this text send to the communities at the time of Mark and to us today?
5. A key to the reading
for those who wish to go deeper into the theme.
a) The Context
* In Mk 1:1-15, Mark showed how the Good News must be prepared and spread. Immediately after, in Mk 1:16-45, we find the teaching on the objective of the Good News and the mission of the communities. Now, in chapter 2, we find that the proclamation of the Good News, when carried out faithfully, is a source of conflict. In Mk 2:1-3,6, we come across five conflicts provoked against Jesus arising from the proclamation of the Good News of God.
* In the 70s, the time that Mark is writing, the proclamation of the Good News had given rise to many conflicts against the communities. They did not always know how to deal with these and how to answer the accusations brought against them by the Romans or by the Jews. The story of the five conflicts served as a kind of manual of directives.
b) Comments
* Mark 2:1-2: The people seek Jesus and wish to listen to the Word of God. Jesus is about to go home. The people seek him. Many people gather outside the door. Jesus welcomes all and Mark says that he proclaims the Word to the people. Often, Mark informs us that Jesus proclaims the Word of God to the people (Mk 1:21,22,27,39; 2:2,13; 4:1; 6:2,6,34; etc.). But only on a few occasions does he tell us what Jesus said. What did Jesus teach the people? He spoke of God and in order to do that he used examples from life (parables) and popular stories (the Bible). He spoke from his own experience of God. Jesus lived in God. The people listened to him willingly (Mk 1:22,27). His words touched their hearts. From what Jesus said, God, instead of being a harsh judge who threatened punishment and hell, became a friendly presence, good News for the people.
* Mark 2:3-5: The faith of the paralytic and his friends obtains forgiveness of sins. While Jesus is speaking, a paralytic comes carried by four persons. Jesus is their only hope. They climb on the roof, open it and let the paralytic down in front of Jesus. This is a sign of great solidarity. Jesus, seeing their faith, said to the paralytic, your sins are forgiven. In those times, people thought that physical defects, such as paralysis, were a punishment from God for some sin. The doctors taught that such a person was impure, incapable of getting close to God. That is why sick people, the poor, paralytics and many others felt rejected by God. But Jesus thought differently. He thought the opposite. The great faith of the paralytic and his friends was a sign that the man was at peace with God, welcomed by God. Hence Jesus says, your sins are forgiven. That is, “You are not far away from God”. Through this affirmation, Jesus denied that sickness was a punishment for the sins of that man.
* Mark 2:6-7: Jesus is accused by the chiefs of blaspheming. What Jesus said was not in accordance with that which the doctors of the law thought of God. They, therefore, react and accuse Jesus: He is being blasphemous! According to their doctrine, only God can forgive sins. And only a priest could pronounce people forgiven and purified. How is it, then, that Jesus of Nazareth, an uneducated man, an ordinary labourer, a carpenter, could pronounce people forgiven and purified from sin? Besides, they must have thought: “If what Jesus is saying is true, we risk losing our power and raison d’être! We could also lose our source of income”.
* Mark 2:8-11: Jesus heals in order to prove that he has power to forgive sins. Jesus understood that they were condemning him. That is why he asks: Which of these is easier: to say to the paralytic, ‘Your sins are forgiven’ or to say, ‘Get up, pick up your stretcher and walk’? Clearly it is easier to say: “Your sins are forgiven”, because no one can verify in fact whether the sin has been forgiven or not. But if I say: “Get up and walk”, then everyone can verify whether I have the power to heal or not. Thus, to show that he had the power to forgive sins in the name of God, Jesus said to the paralytic: Get up, pick up your stretcher and go off home! He healed that person. He proved that paralysis is not a punishment from God and that the faith of the poor is a sign that God had already welcomed him in love.
* Mark 2:12: The reaction of the people: we have never seen anything like this. The paralytic gets up, picks up his stretcher and goes off, and all exclaim: We have never seen anything like this! The meaning of the miracle is clear: 1) Sick people must not think that God is punishing them for some sin. 2) Jesus opened a new way to God. That which the religion of the time called impurity was no longer an impediment for a person to draw close to God. 3) The face of God, revealed in Jesus’ attitude, was quite different from the harsh face of the god revealed by the attitude of the doctors.
c) Further information
The five conflicts told by Mark (Mk 2:1-3,6)
* The content of the conflicts: The conflicts revolve around the fundamental themes of the religion of the time: forgiveness of sins, communion at the table with sinners, the practice of fasting, the observance of the Sabbath, the practice of medicine or caring for persons on the Sabbath.
* Jesus’ adversaries: The Scribes represented religious doctrine, catechesis. The Pharisees represented the laws and religious practice, especially those concerning the observance of the pure/impure. The disciples of John the Baptist represented other Messianic tendencies. The Herodians represented the government of Galilee. Herod Antipas had governed for over thirty years (4 BC to 39 AD). He was, so to say, the owner of Galilee.
* The causes of the conflict: The first conflict has to do with the relationship with God: forgiveness of sins. The second: with the relationship between persons: eating with sinners. The third with religious customs: observance of the fast. The fourth with the observance of God’s law: the Sabbath. It is others who provoke these four conflicts against Jesus. The fifth, provoked by Jesus himself, shows the seriousness of the conflict between himself and the religion of his time.
Sickness and sin
In those days, it was taught that each suffering was the result of a sin. When faced with the man born blind, Peter asked: “Who sinned, he or his parents that he should be born blind?” (Jn 9:1-3). Jesus answered: neither he nor his parents. Jesus distances sin from the sick person. He will not allow religion to be used to say to the paralytic: “You are a sinner!” Jesus says the opposite: “You are not a sinner! God welcomes you even though you are a paralytic. Your sickness is not the result of your sin!” To have the courage to say such things in front of the authorities present was revolutionary! A huge change. The people were enthusiastic about Jesus because he was setting them free. This is one side of the coin. But there is also another side. In the past as in the present, much suffering is the result of sin. For instance, the suffering of a mother who weeps over the murder of her child. Jesus has something to say about this too. Once, in Jerusalem, a tower fell and killed 18 persons (Lk 13:4). In another place, Pilate massacred a group of Galileans and mingled their blood with that of the sacrifices (Lk 13:1). Jesus asks: “Do you suppose these Galileans who suffered like that were greater sinners than any other Galileans? They were not, I tell you. No, but unless you repent you will all perish as they did” (Lk 13:2.4). Jesus transformed evils by appealing to conversion and change. But there was no repentance or change, and forty years later, in the year 70, Jerusalem was destroyed, many towers fell and much blood was spilt! Today too, many evils that we suffer are not a matter of destiny but are the consequence of sinful actions. Other evils are the result of culture. Others still are the result of a neo-liberal system that has been imposed on us and that oppresses us. Thus the evils we suffer are a call to conversion. An appeal to our responsibility. That which came into the world as a result of free actions to cause evil, can be driven out by free actions for good.
6. Psalm 32 (31)
Confession and faith free us from sin
Blessed is he whose transgression is forgiven,
whose sin is covered.
Blessed is the man to whom the Lord
imputes no iniquity,
and in whose spirit there is no deceit.
When I declared not my sin,
my body wasted away through my groaning all day long.
For day and night thy hand was heavy upon me;
my strength was dried up as by the heat of summer.
I acknowledged my sin to thee,
and I did not hide my iniquity; I said,
"I will confess my transgressions to the Lord";
then thou didst forgive the guilt of my sin.
Therefore let every one who is godly offer prayer to thee;
at a time of distress, in the rush of great waters,
they shall not reach him.
Thou art a hiding place for me,
thou preservest me from trouble;
thou dost encompass me with deliverance.
I will instruct you and teach you the way you should go;
I will counsel you with my eye upon you.
Be not like a horse or a mule,
without understanding,
which must be curbed with bit and bridle,
else it will not keep with you.
Many are the pangs of the wicked;
but steadfast love surrounds him who trusts in the Lord.
Be glad in the Lord, and rejoice,
O righteous, and shout for joy,
all you upright in heart!
7. Final Prayer
Lord Jesus, we thank for the word that has enabled us to understand better the will of the Father. May your Spirit enlighten our actions and grant us the strength to practice that which your Word has revealed to us. May we, like Mary, your mother, not only listen to but also practice the Word. You who live and reign with the Father in the unity of the Holy Spirit forever and ever. Amen.
Vinita Hampton Wright
In being attracted to solitude and prayerful meditation, Thérèse was following in the foot-steps of her founding Carmelite saint, St. Teresa of Avila. The great reformer of the order had not only brought its religious back to a lifestyle of true poverty, work, and prayer but had, along with fellow Carmelite St. John of the Cross, further developed the concept of mental prayer.
Teresa and John were both what we would call natural mystics. They used vocal prayer—that is, prayers of the regular liturgies and of the Divine Hours—but much of their most profound spiritual formation and communion with God happened during times of silence, solitude, meditation, and deeper contemplation. Their writings, with which young Thérèse was quite familiar as a Carmelite, testified to the kind of union with God that happened when a person was alone and focused simply upon God’s presence.
Thérèse was also a natural for mental prayer. In fact, traditional modes of prayer were often difficult for her.
“I feel then that the fervor of my sisters makes up for my lack of fervor; but when alone (I am ashamed to admit it), the recitation of the rosary is more difficult for me than the wearing of an instrument of penance. . . . I force myself in vain to meditate on the mysteries of the rosary; I don’t succeed in fixing my mind on them. . . .” When she felt so arid that it was “impossible to draw forth one single thought to unite me with God, I very slowly recite an ‘Our Father.’” Though no more conscious of what was occurring than she had been conscious of praying in the old days [as a child] when she sat behind her bed and thought about God, Thérèse’s difficulty with conventional forms signaled, according to the teaching of John of the Cross, the call to contemplation.
Not only did Thérèse have trouble with vocal prayers, she didn’t take easily to spiritual direction either. She was willing, but with the exception of one priest she had known briefly, but who subsequently moved away, she had difficulty connecting spiritually to a confessor:
I went to confession only a few times, and never spoke about my interior sentiments. The way I was walking was so straight, so clear, I needed no other guide but Jesus. I compared directors to faithful mirrors, reflecting Jesus in souls, and I said that for me God was using no intermediary, he was acting directly!
For Thérèse, as with most mystics, her spiritual nature tended toward solitude and a fellowship with the Divine that was as profound as it was uncomplicated.
Still, contemplation was not merely a matter of sitting around and allowing thoughts of God to float to the surface. Often a person would use an image to focus upon—for Thérèse it was sometimes a picture of the Holy Face of Jesus. Sometimes she used a prayer such as the “Our Father.” Thérèse mentioned that this was at least a beginning point.
But what most commonly informed Thérèse’s long hours of mental prayer were the Scriptures, and more specifically, the Gospels. This aspect of her life is discussed later, but it’s important to connect it here with the mental prayer she practiced. Without the Gospels—without God’s revelation as a foundation—any sort of contemplation would have been meaningless to Thérèse—as it would have been to Mother Teresa of Avila, whose own words were a regular part of the young nun’s life.
For Teresa of Avila, St. John of the Cross, Thérèse of Lisieux, and others, mental prayer has served as a powerful spiritual discipline for placing themselves in God’s presence with few, if any, outer trappings. Most mystics don’t seek this kind of relationship; rather, it is their most honest and natural mode of being with their God.
Br. Gunter Benker, O.Carm. is a member of the Province of Upper Germany. He has many years working in the formation program of the Province, he is and also a member of the Formation Commission of the Order. He has Published many articles on Carmelite Charism and Spirituality.
from January 2013 the two Provinces of Germany merged into one province called
German Province
The earliest extant Constitutions of the Carmelite Order, those of 1281, already show a German Province, eighth in precedence of ten Provinces. By 1294 it had been divided into the Lower and Upper German Provinces. During the first half of the 14th century the two Provinces were several times reunited and divided, probably because of the differences between Louis of Bavaria and the papacy, but in 1348 the division became definitive. The Province of Lower Germany extended over the Rhineland, Belgium, and the Netherlands.
The Province with its principal convent in Cologne suffered less from the Reformation than its sister Province, and in Eberhard Billick, its Provincial, it provided the Church with an outstanding champion of the Catholic faith. The Thirty Years War delayed the revival of the Province, but at the cessation of hostilities it became possible to introduce the Stricter Observance, especially through the efforts of Antonin de la Charité, of the province of Touraine. By 1660 the Province had become completely reformed.
The sixteen convents of this flourishing province vanished without a trace in the Napoleonic suppression of 1803 and subsequently. Only in 1924, when the Province of The Netherlands repossessed our ancient church in Mainz, did a Carmelite presence return to these regions. Other foundations followed, and in 1969 the Lower Germany Province again became a reality. It has a mission in Camerun.
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Ordinary Time
1) Opening prayer
Father of everlasting goodness,
our origin and guide,
be close to us
and hear the prayers of all who praise You.
Forgive our sins and restore us to life.
Keep us safe in Your love.
We ask this through our Lord Jesus Christ, Your Son,
who lives and reigns with You and the Holy Spirit,
one God, for ever and ever. Amen.
2) Gospel Reading - Matthew 15:21-28
At that time Jesus withdrew to the region of Tyre and Sidon. And behold, a Canaanite woman of that district came and called out, "Have pity on me, Lord, Son of David! My daughter is tormented by a demon." But he did not say a word in answer to her. His disciples came and asked him, "Send her away, for she keeps calling out after us." He said in reply, "I was sent only to the lost sheep of the house of Israel." But the woman came and did him homage, saying, "Lord, help me." He said in reply, "It is not right to take the food of the children and throw it to the dogs." She said, "Please, Lord, for even the dogs eat the scraps that fall from the table of their masters." Then Jesus said to her in reply, "O woman, great is your faith! Let it be done for you as you wish." And her daughter was healed from that hour.
3) Reflection
Context. The bread of the children and the great faith of a Canaanite woman is the theme presented in the liturgical passage taken from chapter 15 of Matthew, who proposes to the reader of his Gospel a further deepening of faith in Christ. The episode is preceded by an initiative of the Pharisees and scribes, who go down to Jerusalem and cause a dispute to take place with Jesus, but which did not last long, because He, together with His disciples, withdrew to go to the region of Tyre and Sidon. While He is on the way, a woman from the pagan region comes to Him. This woman is presented by Matthew by the name of “a Canaanite woman” who, in the light of the Old Testament, is presented with great harshness. In the Book of Deuteronomy the inhabitants of Canaan were considered people full of sins: evil and idolatrous people.
• The dynamic of the account. While Jesus carries out His activity in Galilee and is on the way toward Tyre and Sidon, a woman comes up to Him and begins to bother Him with a petition for help for her sick daughter. The woman addresses Jesus using the title “Son of David,” a title which sounds strange pronounced by a pagan and that could be justified because of the extreme situation in which the woman finds herself. It could be thought that this woman already believes in some way, in the person of Jesus as final Savior, but this is excluded because it is only in v. 28 that her act of faith is recognized precisely by Jesus. In the dialogue with the woman Jesus seems to show that distance and diffidence which reigned between the people of Israel and the pagans. On one side Jesus confirms to the woman the priority for Israel to have access to salvation, and before the insistent prayer of His interlocutor Jesus seems to withdraw, to be at a distance; an incomprehensible attitude for the reader, but in the intention of Jesus it expresses an act of pedagogical value. To the first invocation “Have pity on me, Lord, Son of David” (v. 22) Jesus does not respond. To the second intervention, this time on the part of the disciples, who invite Him to listen to the woman’s prayer, He only expresses rejection that stresses that secular distance between the chosen people and the pagan people (vv. 23b-24). But at the insistence of the prayer of the woman who bows before Jesus, a harsh and mysterious response follows: “It is not fair to take the children’s food and throw it to little dogs” (v. 26). The woman goes beyond the harsh response of Jesus’ words and gets a small sign of hope: the woman recognizes that God’s plan being carried out by Jesus initially concerns the chosen people, and Jesus asks the woman to recognize that priority; the woman takes advantage of that priority to present a strong reason to obtain the miracle: “Ah yes, Lord, but even little dogs eat the scraps that fall from their masters’ table” (v. 27). The woman has exceeded the test of faith: “Woman, you have great faith” (v. 28); in fact, to the humble insistence of her faith corresponds a salvific gesture.
This episode addresses an invitation to every reader of the Gospel to have that interior attitude of “openness” toward everyone, believers or not, that is to say, availability and acceptance without distinction toward all people.
4) Personal questions
• The disturbing word of God invites you to break open your smugness and all of your small plans. Are you capable of accepting all the brothers and sisters who come to you?
• Are you aware of your poverty to be able, like the Canaanite woman, to entrust yourself to Jesus’ word of salvation?
5) Concluding Prayer
Lord, do not thrust me away from Your presence;
do not take away from me Your spirit of holiness.
Give me back the joy of Your salvation,
sustain in me a generous spirit. (Ps 51:11-12)
Ordinary Time
1) Opening prayer
God of power and mercy,
protect us from all harm.
Give us freedom of spirit
and health in mind and body
to do your work on earth.
We ask this through our Lord Jesus Christ, your Son,
who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit,
one God, for ever and ever. Amen.
2) Gospel reading - Luke 17,7-10
Jesus said: 'Which of you, with a servant ploughing or minding sheep, would say to him when he returned from the fields, "Come and have your meal at once"? Would he not be more likely to say, "Get my supper ready; fasten your belt and wait on me while I eat and drink. You yourself can eat and drink afterwards"? Must he be grateful to the servant for doing what he was told? So with you: when you have done all you have been told to do, say, "We are useless servants: we have done no more than our duty." '
3) Reflection
• The Gospel today narrates the parable which is found only in Luke’s Gospel, and has no parallel in the other Gospels. The parable wants to teach that our life has to be characterized by an attitude of service. It begins with three questions and at the end Jesus himself gives the answer.
• Luke 17, 7-9: The three questions of Jesus. It treats of three questions taken from daily life, and therefore, the listeners have to think each one on his own experience to give a response according to that experience. The first question: “Which of you, with a servant ploughing or minding sheep would say to him when he returned from the fields, ’Come and have your meal at once?” All will answer: “No!” Second question: “Would he not be more likely to say, ‘Get my supper ready; fasten your belt and wait on me while I eat and drink. You yourself can eat and drink afterwards?” All will answer: “Yes! Certainly!” Third question: “Must he be grateful to the servant for doing what he was told?” All will answer “No!” The way in which Jesus asks the questions, people become aware in which way he wants to orientate our thought. He wants us to be servants to one another.
• Luke 17, 10: The response of Jesus. At the end Jesus himself draws a conclusion which was already implicit in the questions: “So with you, when you have done all you have been told to do, say ‘We are useless servants, we have done no more than our duty”. Jesus himself has given us example when he said: “The Son of Man has not come to be served, but to serve” (Mk 10, 45). Service is a theme which Luke likes. Service represents the form in which the poor in the time of Jesus, the anawim, were waiting for the Messiah: not like a king and glorious Messiah, high priest or judge, but rather as the Servant of Yahweh, announced by Isaiah (Is 42, 1-9). Mary, the Mother of Jesus, says to the Angel: “Behold the handmaid of the Lord, may it be done to me according to your word!” (Lk 1, 38). In Nazareth, Jesus presents himself as the Servant described by Isaiah (Lk 4, 18-19 and Is 61, 1-2). In Baptism and in the Transfiguration, he was confirmed by the Father who quotes the words addressed by God to the Servant (Lk 3, 22; 9, 35 e Is 42, 1). Jesus asks his followers: “Anyone who wants to be first among you must be your slave” (Mt 20, 27). Useless servants! This is the definition of the Christian. Paul speaks about this to the members of the community of Corinth when he writes: “I did the planting, Apollos did the watering, but God gave growth. In this neither the planter nor the waterer counts for anything, only God who gave growth” (1Co 3, 6-7). Paul and Apollos are nothing; only simple instruments, “Servants”. The only one who counts is God, He alone! (1Co 3, 7).
• To serve and to be served. Here in this text, the servant serves the master and not the master the servant. But in the other text of Jesus the contrary is said: “Blessed those servants whom the master finds awake when he comes. In truth, I tell you, he will do up his belt, sit them down at table and wait on them” (Lk 12, 37). In this text, the master serves the servant and not the servant the master. In the first text, Jesus spoke in the present. In the second text, Jesus is speaking in the future. This contrast is another way of saying: the one who is ready to lose his life out of love for Jesus and the Gospel will find it (Mt 10, 39; 16, 25). Anyone who serves God in this present life will be served by God in the future life!
4) Personal questions
• How do I define my life?
• Do I ask myself the three questions of Jesus? Do I live, perhaps, like a useless servant?
5) Concluding prayer
The lives of the just are in Yahweh's care,
their birthright will endure for ever.
Yahweh guides a strong man's steps and keeps them firm;
and takes pleasure in him. (Ps 37,18.23)
Ordinary Time
1) Opening prayer
Almighty and ever-living God,
your Spirit made us Your children,
confident to call You Father.
Increase your Spirit within us
and bring us to our promised inheritance.
We ask this through our Lord Jesus Christ, Your Son,
who lives and reigns with You and the Holy Spirit,
one God, for ever and ever. Amen.
2) Gospel Reading - John 12:24-26
Jesus said to his disciples: "Amen, amen, I say to you, unless a grain of wheat falls to the ground and dies, it remains just a grain of wheat; but if it dies, it produces much fruit. Whoever loves his life loses it, and whoever hates his life in this world will preserve it for eternal life. Whoever serves me must follow me, and where I am, there also will my servant be. The Father will honor whoever serves me."
3) Reflection
• This passage contains solemn and crucial words concerning the method by which the mission of Jesus and His disciples “produces much fruit.” This solemn and central declaration of Jesus; “unless a wheat grain falls into the ground and dies, it remains only a single grain; but if it dies, it yields a large harvest” (v. 24), is inserted in the narrative of 12:12-36 where the encounter of Jesus as Messiah with Israel and the rejection by the Jews of His messianic proposal is told. What are the principal themes that describe the messianism of Jesus? The Jews expected a messiah who would be a powerful king, who would continue with the royal style of David and would restore to Israel its glorious past. Instead, Jesus, places in the center of His messianism the gift of His life and the possibility given to humanity of accepting God’s plan for His life.
• The story of a seed. The gift of His life, as a crucial characteristic of His messianism. Jesus outlines it with a mini parable. He describes a central and decisive event of His life drawing from the agricultural environment, where He takes the images to render His parables interesting and immediate. It is the story of a seed: a small parable to communicate with the people in a simple and transparent way: a seed begins its course or journey in the dark matter of the earth, where it is suffocated and withers but in the spring it becomes a green stalk and in the summer a spike charged with grain. The focal points of the parable are both the production of much fruit and the finding of eternal life. The seed that breaks through the darkness of earth has been interpreted by the early Fathers of the Church as a symbolical reference to the Incarnation of the Son of God. In the ground it seems that the vital force of the seed is destined to get lost because the seed withers and dies. But then the surprise of nature: in the summer when the spikes turn golden, the profound secret of that death is revealed. Jesus knows that death is becoming imminent, threatens His person, even though he does not see it as a beast that devours. It is true that it has the characteristics of darkness and of being ripped, but for Jesus it contains the secret force typical of child birth, a mystery of fecundity and of life. In the light of this vision one can understand another expression used by Jesus: “Anyone who loves his life will lose it and anyone who hates his own life in this world will preserve it for eternal life.” Anyone who considers his own life as a cold property to be lived in egoism is like a seed enclosed in itself and without any hope for life. On the contrary, if one who “hates his life,” a very sharp semitic expression, it is only then that life becomes creative: it is a source of peace, of happiness and of life. It is the reality of the seed that sprouts. But the reader can also see in the mini parable of Jesus another dimension: that of the “Passover.” Jesus knows that in order to lead humanity to the threshold of divine love He has to go through the dark way of death on the cross. On the trail of this life the disciple also faces his own “hour”, that of death, with the certainty that it will lead to eternal life, that is to say, to full communion with God.
• In synthesis. The story of the seed is that of dying in order to multiply itself; its function is that of service to life. The annihilation of Jesus is comparable to the seed of life buried in the earth. In Jesus’ life, to love is to serve and to serve is to lose oneself in the life of others, to die to oneself in order to allow others to live. While His “hour” is approaching, the conclusion of His mission, Jesus assures His own with the promise of a consolation and of a joy without end, accompanied by every type of disturbance or trouble. He gives the example of the seed that has to wither and of the woman who has to endure the pangs of childbirth. Christ has chosen the cross for Himself and for His own: anyone who wants to be His disciple is called to share the same path. He always spoke to His disciples in a radical way: “Anyone who wants to save his life will lose it; but anyone who loses his life for My sake, will save it” (Lk 9: 24).
4) Personal questions
• Does your life express the gift of yourself? Is it a seed of love that makes love be born? Are you aware that in order to be a seed of joy, so that there will be joy in the wheat grain, the moment of sowing is necessary?
• Can you say that you have chosen the Lord if later you do not embrace the cross with Him? When the hard struggle breaks out in you between “yes” or “no,” between courage and fear, between faith and unbelief, between love and egotism, do you feel lost, thinking that such temptations are not suitable for those who follow Jesus?
5) Concluding Prayer
All goes well for one who lends generously,
who is honest in all his dealing;
for all time to come he will not stumble,
for all time to come the upright will be remembered. (Ps 112:5-6)
- Monday, November 1, 2010
- Tuesday, November 2, 2010
- Wednesday, November 3, 2010
- Thursday, November 4, 2010
- Friday, November 5, 2010
- Saturday, November 6, 2010
- Sunday, November 7, 2010
- Monday, November 8, 2010
- Tuesday, November 9, 2010
- Wednesday, November 10, 2010
- Thursday, November 11, 2010
- Friday, November 12, 2010
- Saturday, November 13, 2010
- Sunday, November 14, 2010
- Monday, November 15, 2010
- Tuesday, November 16, 2010
- Wednesday, November 17, 2010
- Thursday, November 18, 2010
- Friday, November 19, 2010
- Saturday, November 20, 2010
- Sunday, November 21, 2010
- Monday, November 22, 2010
- Tuesday, November 23, 2010
- Wednesday, November 24, 2010
- Thursday, November 25, 2010
- Friday, November 26, 2010
- Saturday, November 27, 2010
END LITURGICAL YEAR C - PLEASE GO TO DECEMBER 2010 OF LITURGICAL YEAR A
“Blessed are you who are poor!
Alas for you who are rich!”
The light of the Gospel changes our way of looking.
Luke 6:17, 20-26
1. Opening prayer
Lord Jesus, send Your Spirit to help us to read the scriptures with the same mind that You read them to the disciples on the way to Emmaus. In the light of the Word, written in the bible, You helped them to discover the presence of God in the disturbing events of Your sentence and death. Thus, the cross that seemed to be the end of all hope became for them the source of life and of resurrection.
Create silence in us so that we may listen to Your voice in creation and in the scriptures, in events and in people, above all in the poor and suffering. May Your word guide us so that we too, like the two disciples on the way to Emmaus, may experience the force of Your resurrection and witness to others that You are alive in our midst as source of fraternity, justice and peace. We ask this of You, Jesus, Son of Mary, who revealed the Father to us and sent us Your Spirit. Amen.
2. Reading
a) A key to the reading:
In this Sunday’s Gospel, Jesus declares blessed those who are poor, those who weep, those who are hungry and who are persecuted. And He declares bound to unhappiness the rich, those who laugh, who are satisfied, or who are praised by all. Of what does the happiness consist which Jesus attributes to the poor, to the hungry, to those who weep, to those who are persecuted? Is it happiness? The words of Jesus contrast with the daily experience of our life. The common ideal of happiness is quite different from the happiness that Jesus speaks about. And you, in your heart, do you think that a person who is poor and hungry is really happy?
Keeping in mind these questions, which result from our daily experience, read the text of this Sunday’s Gospel. Read it attentively, perhaps without trying to understand it all. Allow the word of Jesus to enter into you. Keep silent. During the reading try to be attentive to two things: (i) to the social category of people who say they are happy, as well as those who are threatened by unhappiness; (ii) to people whom you know and who are part of the group of your friends and who could be part of one or another of these social categories.
The text of this Sunday’s Gospel omits verses 18 and 19. We take the liberty to include them in the brief comment that follows, because they explain a bit better the public, those to whom the word of Jesus is addressed.
b) A division of the text to help in the reading:
Luke 6:17: Places the action of Jesus in time
Luke 6:18-19: The crowd seeking Jesus
Luke 6:20-23: The four beatitudes
Luke 6: 24-26: The four threats
c) Text:
Jesus came down with the twelve and stood on a stretch of level ground with a great crowd of his disciples and a large number of the people from all Judea and Jerusalem and the coastal region of Tyre and Sidon
came to hear him and to be healed of their diseases; and even those who were tormented by unclean spirits were cured. Everyone in the crowd sought to touch him because power came forth from him and healed them all.
And raising his eyes toward his disciples he said: “Blessed are you who are poor, for the kingdom of God is yours. Blessed are you who are now hungry, for you will be satisfied. Blessed are you who are now weeping, for you will laugh. Blessed are you when people hate you, and when they exclude and insult you, and denounce your name as evil on account of the Son of Man. Rejoice and leap for joy on that day! Behold, your reward will be great in heaven. For their ancestors treated the prophets in the same way. But woe to you who are rich, for you have received your consolation. Woe to you who are filled now, for you will be hungry. Woe to you who laugh now, for you will grieve and weep. Woe to you when all speak well of you, for their ancestors treated the false prophets in this way.”
3. A moment of prayerful silence
so that the Word of God may penetrate and enlighten our life.
4. Some questions
to help us in our personal reflection.
a) Which is the point that you liked best or that struck you the most? Why?
b) Who constituted the great crowd around Jesus? From where did they come and what were they seeking?
c) What are the social categories of the people who are declared happy (Lk 6:20-23)? What is the promise that each one of them receives from Jesus? How are these promises to be understood?
d) When saying “Blessed are the poor”, would Jesus be trying to say that the poor should continue to live in their poverty?
e) What are the social categories of the people who are threatened by unhappiness? (Lk 6:24-26)? What are the threats for each one of them? How is this threat to be understood?
f) Do I look at life and at people as Jesus does?
5. For those who wish to deepen more on the theme
a) Context of the time and that of today:
Luke presents the teaching of Jesus in a progressive revelation. First, up to verse 6:16, Luke says many times that Jesus taught, but says nothing on the content of the teaching (Lk 4:15,31-32,44; 5:1,3,15,17; 6:6). Now, after informing us that Jesus saw a great multitude desirous of opening themselves to the Word of God, Luke presents the first sermon. The sermon is not long, but it is significant. The one who reads it unprepared will almost be afraid. It seems to be a sort of shock therapy!
The first part of the sermon (Lk 6:20-38) begins with a provocative contrast: “Blessed you who are poor!” “Alas to you who are rich!” (Lk 6:36-38). The second part (6:39-49) says that nobody can consider himself superior to others (Lk 6:39-42); the good tree bears good fruit, the bad tree bears bad fruit (Lk 6:43-45). Certainly, a person is not helped by hiding behind beautiful words and prayers. What matters is to put the word into practice (Lk 6:46-49).
b) Commentary on the text:
Luke 6:17: Places the action of Jesus in time and space.
Jesus has spent the night in prayer (Lk 6:12) and has chosen the twelve to whom He has given the name of apostles (Lk 6:13-16). Now He goes down from the mountain together with the twelve. Having reached level ground, He finds two groups of people: a numerous group of disciples and an immense crowd of people who had come there from all of Judea, Jerusalem, Tyre, and Sidon.
Luke 6:18-19: The crowds who seek Jesus.
The crowds feel disoriented and abandoned and seek Jesus for two reasons: they want to listen to His word and they want to be cured of their illnesses. Many people were cured, who had been possessed by the evil spirits. The people try to touch Jesus because they are aware that there is a force in Him which does good and cures people. Jesus accepts all those who seek Him. Among these crowds there are also some Jews and foreigners. This is one of the favorite themes of Luke!
Luke 6:20-23 The four Beatitudes
*Luke 6:20: Blessed are you who are poor!
Fixing His eyes on His disciples, Jesus declared, “Blessed are you who are poor, because the Kingdom of God is yours!” This first Beatitude identifies the social category of the disciples of Jesus. They are poor! Jesus guarantees for them: “Yours is the Kingdom of Heaven!” It is not a promise concerning the future. The verb is in the present. The Kingdom is already theirs. Even being poor, they are already happy. The Kingdom is not a good future. It already exists in the midst of the poor.
In the Gospel of Matthew, Jesus makes the meaning clear and says, “Blessed are the poor in spirit!” (Mt 5:3). The poor are those who have the Spirit of Jesus, because there are also the poor who have the spirit and the mentality of the rich. The disciples of Jesus are poor and have the mentality of the poor. They also, like Jesus, do not want to accumulate, but accept their poverty and like Jesus, struggle for a more just living together where there will be a fraternal spirit and the sharing of goods, without discrimination.
* Luke 6:21: Blessed are you, who are now hungry, blessed are you who now weep!
In the second and third Beatitude Jesus says, “Blessed are you who are now hungry, because you shall have your fill! Blessed are you who now weep, because you shall laugh!” The first part of these declarations is in the present, the second part in the future. What we now live and suffer is not definitive. What is definitive will be the Kingdom which we are constructing today with the force of the Spirit of Jesus. To construct the Kingdom presupposes suffering and persecution, but one thing is certain: the Kingdom will arrive and “you shall have your fill and shall laugh!” The Kingdom is at the same time a present and a future reality. The second Beatitude evokes the Canticle of Mary: “He has filled the starving with good things” (Lk 1:53). The third one evokes the prophet Ezekiel who speaks of those who “grieve and lament over all the loathsome practices” carried out in the city of Jerusalem (Ezek 9:4; cf. Ps 119: 136).
* Luke 6:23: Blessed are you, when people hate you…!
The fourth Beatitude refers to the future: “Blessed are you when people will hate you and will denounce your name as criminal, on account of the Son of Man! Rejoice when that day comes and dance for joy, for your reward will be great in Heaven. This was the way the prophets were treated!” With these words of Jesus, Luke points out that the future announced by Jesus is about to arrive,and these people are on the right path.
Luke 6:24-26: The four threats.
After the four Beatitudes on behalf of the poor and the excluded, follow the four threats against the rich, those who are filled, those who laugh or who are praised by everyone. The four threats have the same literary form as the four Beatitudes. The first one is in the present. The second and third one have a part in the present and a part in the future. The fourth one refers completely to the future. These four threats are found in the Gospel of Luke and not in Matthew. Luke is more radical in denouncing injustice.
* Luke 6:24: Alas for you who are rich!
Before Jesus, on that level ground, there are only poor and sick people who have come from all parts (Lk 6:17,19). But before them, Jesus says, “Alas for you who are rich!” In transmitting these words of Jesus, Luke is thinking of the communities of his time, toward the end of the first century. There were rich and poor, there was discrimination against the poor on the part of the rich, discrimination which also affected the structure of the Roman Empire (cf. Jas 2:1-9; 5: 1-6; Rev 3:15-17). Jesus harshly and directly criticizes the rich: “You rich, you have already had your consolation!” It is good to remember what Jesus says at another moment concerning the rich! He does not believe very much in their conversion (Lk 18:24-25). But when the disciples are frightened, He says that nothing is impossible for God (Lk 18:26-27).
* Luke 6:25: Alas for you who now laugh because you will be afflicted and will weep!
“Alas for you who have now been filled, because you will be hungry! Alas for you who now laugh, because you will be afflicted and will weep!” These two threats indicate that for Jesus poverty is nothing fatal, and much less the fruit of prejudices, but rather the fruit of an unjust enrichment on the part of others. Here also, it is good to recall the words of the Canticle of Mary: “You sent the rich away empty handed!” (Lk 1:53).
* Alas for you when everyone speaks well of you!
“Alas for you when everyone speaks well of you; in fact, their fathers did the same with the false prophets!” This fourth threat refers to the Jews, that is, the sons of those who in the past praised the false prophets. In quoting these words of Jesus, Luke thinks about some converted Jews of his time who used their prestige and their authority to criticize the openness toward the gentiles (cf. Acts 15:1,5).
c) Extending the information:
The Beatitudes in Luke
The two affirmations “Blessed are you who are poor!” and “Alas for you who are rich!” urge those who listen to make a choice, an option on behalf of the poor. In the Old Testament, several times God places the people before the choice of the blessing or the curse. The people are free to choose: “I place you before life and death, blessing and curse; choose, therefore, life so that you and your descendants may live” (Deut 30:19). It is not God who condemns. It is the people who choose life or death, it depends on their position before God and of others. These moments of choice are moments of the visit of God to His people (Gen 21:1; 50:24-25; Ex 3:16; 32:34; Jer 29:10; Ps 59:6; Ps 65:10; Ps 80:15; Ps 106:4). Luke is the only evangelist who uses this image of God’s visit (Lk 1:68,78; 7:16; 19:44). For Luke, Jesus is the visit of God who places the crowds before the choice of blessing or the curse: “Blessed are you who are poor!” and “Alas for you who are rich!” But the people do not recognize God’s visit (Lk 19:44).
The message of Luke for the converted pagans
The Beatitudes and the threats form part of a sermon. The first part of the sermon is addressed to the disciples (Lk 6:20). The second part is addressed to “You who listen to Me” (Lk 1:27), that is to those immense crowds of the poor and the sick, who had come from all parts (Lk 6:17-19). The words which Jesus addressed to this crowd are demanding and difficult: “love your enemies” (Lk 6:27), “blessed are those who curse you” (Lk 6:28), “to those who slap you on one cheek, present the other cheek” (Lk 6:29), to anyone who takes your cloak from you, do not refuse your tunic” (Lk 6:29). Taken literally, these words may benefit the rich, because the harder choice is always for the poor. And these words seem to say the opposite of the message of the Beatitudes and of the threats which Jesus had communicated before to His disciples.
But they cannot be taken literally. Not even Jesus took them like that. When the soldier slaps Him in the face, He does not offer the other cheek; rather, He reacts firmly: “If there is some offense in what I said, point it out; but if not, why do you strike Me?” (Jn 18:22-23). Then how can we understand these words? Two sentences help to understand what these words want to teach. The first sentence: “Treat others as you would like people to treat you!” (Lk 6:31). The second sentence: “Be compassionate just as your Father is compassionate!” (Lk 6:36). Jesus does not simply want to change something, because that would change nothing. He wants to change the system. The new way which Jesus wants to construct comes from the new experience that Jesus has: the Father full of tenderness who accepts everyone! The words of threat against the rich cannot be an occasion of revenge on the part of the poor. Jesus commands them to have the contrary attitude: “Love your enemies!” True love cannot depend on what I receive from the other. Love should want the good of the other independently from what the other does for me. God’s love for us is like this.
The sermon on the mountain, the sermon on the level ground
In the Gospel of Luke Jesus comes down from the mountain and stops on level ground to give a sermon (Lk 6:17). This is why some call it the “sermon on the plain”. In the Gospel of Matthew, this same sermon is given on the mountain (Mt 5:1) and is called the “sermon on the mount”. Because Matthew seeks to present Jesus as the new legislator, the new Moses. It was on the mountain where Moses received the Law (Ex 19:3-6; 31:18; 34:1-2). And it is on the mountain that we receive the new law of Jesus.
6. Prayer of Psalm 34 (33)
“Gratitude which comes from a diverse way of looking at things”
I will bless Yahweh at all times,
His praise continually on my lips.
I will praise Yahweh from my heart;
let the humble hear and rejoice.
Proclaim with me the greatness of Yahweh,
let us acclaim His name together.
I seek Yahweh and He answers me,
frees me from all my fears.
Fix your gaze on Yahweh and your face will grow bright,
you will never hang your head in shame.
A pauper calls out and Yahweh hears,
saves him from all his troubles.
The angel of Yahweh encamps around those who fear Him,
and rescues them.
Taste and see that Yahweh is good.
How blessed are those who take refuge in Him.
Fear Yahweh, you His holy ones;
those who fear Him lack for nothing.
Young lions may go needy and hungry,
but those who seek Yahweh lack nothing good.
Come, my children, listen to me,
I will teach you the fear of Yahweh.
Who among you delights in life,
longs for time to enjoy prosperity?
Guard your tongue from evil,
your lips from any breath of deceit.
Turn away from evil and do good,
seek peace and pursue it.
The eyes of Yahweh are on the upright,
His ear turned to their cry.
But Yahweh's face is set against those who do evil,
to cut off the memory of them from the earth.
They cry in anguish and Yahweh hears,
and rescues them from all their troubles.
Yahweh is near to the broken-hearted;
He helps those whose spirit is crushed.
Though hardships without number beset the upright,
Yahweh brings rescue from them all.
Yahweh takes care of all their bones,
not one of them will be broken.
But to the wicked evil brings death,
those who hate the upright will pay the penalty.
Yahweh ransoms the lives of those who serve Him,
and there will be no penalty for those who take refuge in Him.
7. Final Prayer
Lord Jesus, we thank You for the Word that has enabled us to understand better the will of the Father. May Your Spirit enlighten our actions and grant us the strength to practice what Your Word has revealed to us. May we, like Mary, Your mother, not only listen to but also practice the Word. You who live and reign with the Father in the unity of the Holy Spirit forever and ever. Amen.
- Paulo Cardoso da Silva, O. Carm. (Priest: 11 Dec 1960 to 30 Nov 1984)
- José Cardoso Sobrinho, O. Carm. (Priest: 28 Apr 1957 to 29 Mar 1979)
- João José da Costa, O. Carm. (Member: 1986; Priest: 12 Dec 1992 to 7 Jan 2009)
- António Vitalino Fernandes Dantas, O. Carm. (Priest: 3 Aug 1968 to 3 Jul 1996)
- Alberto Johannes Först, O. Carm. (Priest: 29 Jun 1952 to 6 Jul 1988)
- Francis Xavier Sudartanta Hadisumarta, O. Carm. (Priest: 12 Jul 1959 to 1 Mar 1973)
- Filippo Iannone, O. Carm. (Member: 1 Oct 1977; Priest: 26 Jun 1982 to 12 Apr 2001)
- Miguel La Fay Bardi, O. Carm. (Priest: 4 Jul 1960 to 26 Jul 1999)
- Antônio Muniz Fernandes, O. Carm. (Member: 20 Feb 1976; Priest: 24 May 1980 to 4 Feb 1998)
- Herman Joseph Sahadat Pandoyoputro, O. Carm. (Priest: 2 Aug 1970 to 15 May 1989)
- Lucio Angelo Renna, O. Carm. (Member: 12 Sep 1958; Priest: 2 Apr 1966 to 9 Jun 1999)
- Vital João Geraldo Wilderink, O. Carm. (Priest: 7 Jul 1957 to 5 Jun 1978)
- Martín Acuña, O. Carm. †
- Antoine Everardo Giovanni Albers, O. Carm. † (Priest: 14 Jun 1930 to 15 Mar 1939)
- Amador Arrais (de Mondoza), O. Carm. †
- Antonio Baistrocchi, O. Carm. † (Priest: 1678 to 12 May 1708)
- Fernando del Barco, O. Carm. †
- Angelicus Bedenik, O. Carm. †
- Agustín Benito Torres, O. Carm. †
- Zenobius Benucci, O. Carm. †
- Ludovicus Benzoni, O. Carm. † (Priest: 18 Sep 1700 to 22 Jul 1738)
- Timoteo Berardi, O. Carm. †
- Giovanni Bonella, O. Carm. †
- Anthony Borghi, O. Carm. †
- Alberto Botti (Blotto), O. Carm. †
- Pedro Brandão, O. Carm. † (Priest: 26 Jan 1556 to 8 Aug 1588)
- Gabriel Paulino Bueno Couto, O. Carm. † (Priest: 9 Jun 1933 to 26 Oct 1946)
- Hilger de Burgis, O. Carm. †
- Andrés Capero Agramunt, O. Carm. †
- Alessandro Caputo, O. Carm. †
- Cajetan Carli, O. Carm. †
- Pedro Carranza Salinas, O. Carm. † (Member: 25 Nov 1583 to 30 Mar 1620)
- Galcerán Cassanyach, O. Carm. †
- Gavino Cattayna, O. Carm. †
- Telesforo Giovanni Cioli, O. Carm. † (Priest: 15 Mar 1930 to 5 Sep 1956)
- Carlo Cornaccioli, O. Carm. † (Priest: 11 Feb 1692 to 3 Jun 1726)
- Sebastiano d’Alessandro, O. Carm. †
- Francisco de Lima (Lemos), O. Carm. † (Member: 25 Sep 1650 to 19 Dec 1691)
- Giovanni Battista del Tinto, O. Carm. †
- José Vicente Díaz Bravo, O. Carm. †
- Jerónimo Domín Funes, O. Carm. †
- Bartolomeu do Pilar, O. Carm. † (Member: 31 Oct 1686 to 4 Mar 1720)
- Fabio dos Reis Fernandes, O. Carm. † (Member: 2 Jan 1621 to 16 May 1672)
- Matthias Emich, O. Carm. †
- Anselmo Fauli, O. Carm. †
- Antoine-Joseph-Amable Feydeau, O. Carm. † (Priest: 18 Dec 1683 to 26 Nov 1728)
- Ephrem-Edouard-Lucien-Théoponte Garrelon, O. Carm. †
- Eliseo Giordano, O. Carm. †
- Juan Feyjóo González de Villalobos, O. Carm. †
- Henri Hachette des Portes, O. Carm. †
- Heinrich von Hattingen, O. Carm. †
- Nevin William Hayes, O. Carm. † (Priest: 8 Jun 1946 to 10 Jan 1959)
- Kilian J. Healy, O. Carm. † (Member: 15 Aug 1931; Priest: 11 Aug 1937; Prior General: Sep 1959 to 1971)
- Pietro Isimbardi, O. Carm. †
- Felipe Itúrbide (Yturibe), O. Carm. † (Priest: 14 Jun 1710 to 31 Jul 1726)
- Juan Ladrón de Guevara, O. Carm. †
- Donal Raymond Lamont, O. Carm. † (Priest: 11 Jul 1937 to 6 Feb 1953)
- Giovanni Maria de Laurentiis, O. Carm. † (Priest: 23 Oct 1695 to 22 Dec 1727)
- Diego de León, O. Carm. †
- Vincenzo de Leone, O. Carm. †
- Baltazar Limpo, O. Carm. † (Member: 1494 to 1537)
- Juan José Llamas Rivas, O. Carm. †
- Rafael Llinás, O. Carm. †
- Joaquín Lluch y Garriga, O. Carm. † (Priest: 1838 to 27 Sep 1858)
- José López Gil, O. Carm. †
- Diego Lozano, O. Carm. †
- Raimundo Luí, O. Carm. † (Priest: 8 Dec 1939 to 11 Jun 1962)
- Jacques Maistret, O. Carm. †
- Lodovico Malaspina, O. Carm. † (Member: 20 Jul 1642 to 8 Feb 1672)
- João Manuel, O. Carm. †
- Clemente Manzini, O. Carm. †
- Jaime Martínez Casanat, O. Carm. †
- Louis de Sainte Thérèse Martini, O. Carm. †
- Salvatore Angelo de Martis, O. Carm. † (Member: 1 May 1836; Priest: 20 Aug 1840 to 22 Feb 1867)
- Federico Mascaretti, O. Carm. †
- Diego Merino, O. Carm. †
- Ramón María de San José Moreno y Castañeda, O. Carm. † (Member: Feb 1857; Priest: 1862 to 22 Dec 1873)
- Kaspar Münster, O. Carm. † (Priest: 1625 to 13 Feb 1631)
- Matteo Orlando, O. Carm. †
- Giuseppe Palma, O. Carm. † (Priest: 22 Sep 1798 to 3 Apr 1843)
- Juan Bautista Pes Polo, O. Carm. † (Priest: 5 Oct 1687 to 20 Sep 1728)
- Hyacinth Petit, O. Carm. † (Priest: 8 Mar 1704 to 11 Feb 1718)
- Anthony Pezzoni, O. Carm. †
- Giuseppe Maria Pilo, O. Carm. †
- Santiago Pinaque, O. Carm. † (Priest: 28 Jun 1696 to 11 Dec 1730)
- Gaspare Pizzolanti, O. Carm. † (Priest: 2 Mar 1697 to 25 Jun 1727)
- Gioacchino Maria Pontalti, O. Carm. † (Priest: 24 Jun 1731 to 23 Nov 1761)
- Luis Pueyo Abadía, O. Carm. †
- Francesco Maria Raiti, O. Carm. †
- Johannes Reuther, O. Carm. †
- Francisco Romero, O. Carm. †
- Agnello Rossi, O. Carm. †
- Benito Sabater, O. Carm. †
- Manuel a Santa Catharina, O. Carm. †
- Salvatore Scaglione, O. Carm. † (Member: 28 May 1639 to 6 Jun 1678)
- Juan Alonso de Solis y Mendoza, O. Carm. †
- Juan Bautista Sorribas, O. Carm. †
- Simone Spilotros, O. Carm. †
- Peter Spitznagel, O. Carm. †
- Dionisio Tomacelli, O. Carm. †
- Petrus Tris, O. Carm. †
- Gabino Valladares Mejía, O. Carm. †
- Ambrosio Vallejo Mejía, O. Carm. † (Member: 25 Jan 1581 to 2 Dec 1619)
- Clemente van der Pas, O. Carm. †
- Eliseu Van der Weijer, O. Carm. † (Priest: 17 Jun 1905 to 25 May 1940)
1) Opening prayer
Lord, God of our fathers,
you brought Saint Teresa Benedicta
to the fullness of the science of the cross
at the hour of her martyrdom.
Fill us with that same knowledge;
and, through her intercession,
allow us always to seek after you, the supreme truth,
and to remain faithful until death to the covenant of love
ratified in the blood of your Son
for the salvation of all men and women.
We ask this through Christ, our Lord.
• Matthew 25, 1ª: The beginning: “At that time”. The parable begins with these two words: “At that time”. It is a question of the coming of the Son of Man (cfr. Mt 24, 37). Nobody knows when this day, this time will come, “not even the angels in Heaven nor the Son himself, but only the Father” (Mt 24, 36). The fortune tellers will not succeed in giving an estimate. The Son of Man will come as a surprise, when people less expect him (Mt 24, 44). It can be today, it can be tomorrow, that is why the last warning of the parable of the ten Virgins is: “Keep watch!” The ten girls should be prepared for any thing which may happen. When the Nazi Policemen knocked at the door of the Monastery of the Carmelite Sisters of Echt in the Province of Limburgia, in the Netherlands, Edith Stein, Sister Teresa Benedicta of the Cross, was prepared. She took on the Cross and followed the way to martyrdom in the extermination camp out of love for God and for her people. She was one of the prudent virgins of the parable.
• Matthew 25, 1b-4: The ten virgins ready to wait for the bridegroom. The parable begins like this: “The Kingdom of Heaven is like this: ten wedding attendants took their lamps and went to meet the bridegroom”. It is a question of the girls who have to accompany the bridegroom to the wedding feast. Because of this, they have to take the lamps with them, to light the way, and also to render the feast more joyful with more light. Five of them were prudent and five were foolish. This difference is seen in the way in which they prepare themselves for the role that they have to carry out. Together with the lighted lamps, the prudent ones had taken some oil in reserve, preparing themselves in this way for anything which could happen. The foolish ones took only the lamps and they did not think to take some oil in reserve with them.
• Matthew 25, 5-7: The unforeseen delay of the arrival of the bridegroom. The bridegroom was late. He had not indicated precisely the hour of his arrival. While waiting the attendants went to sleep. But the lamps continue to burn and use the oil until gradually they turned off. Suddenly, in the middle of the night, there was a cry: “Look! The bridegroom! Go out and meet him!” All the attendants woke up, and began to prepare their lamps which were burning out. They had to put in some of the oil they had brought in reserve so that the lamps would not burn out.
• Matthew 25, 8-9: The different reactions before the delay of the bridegroom. It is only now that the foolish attendants become aware that they should have brought some oil in reserve with them. They went to ask the prudent ones: “Give us some of your oil, our lamps are going out”. The prudent ones could not respond to this request, because at that moment what was important was not for the prudent ones to share their oil with the foolish ones, but that they would be ready to accompany the bridegroom to the place of the feast. For this reason they advised them: “You had better go to those who sell it and buy some for yourselves”.
• Matthew 25, 10-12: The fate of the prudent attendants and that of the foolish ones. The foolish ones followed the advice of the prudent ones and went to buy some oil. During their brief absence the bridegroom arrived and the prudent ones were able to accompany him and to enter together with him to the wedding feast. But the door was closed behind them. When the others arrived, they knocked at the door and said: “Lord, Lord, open the door for us!” and they received the response: “In truth I tell you, I do not know you”.
• Matthew 25, 13: The final recommendation of Jesus for all of us. The story of this parable is very simple and the lesson is evident: “So stay awake and watch, because you do not know either the day or the hour”. The moral of the story: do not be superficial, look beyond the present moment, and try to discover the call of God even in the smallest things of life, even the oil which may be lacking in the small light or lamp.
• Do you know the life of Saint Edith Stein, Teresa Benedicta of the Cross?
his praise continually on my lips.
I will praise Yahweh from my heart;
let the humble hear and rejoice. (Ps 34,1-2)
by Greg Mitchell
St. Therese or the Little Flower once said “Charity is the most excellent way that leads to God. I finally had rest…I understood that the Church had a Heart and that this Heart was burning with love. !” One can contemplate why Pope Pius XI, in 1927, declared St. Therese of Lisieux the Patroness of the missions. Having never left the cloister, she was given this title along side her co-patron the great St. Francis Xavier who traveled to many lands and converted much of Asia. Vatican II defined missionary activity in these terms: “The special end of missionary activity is the evangelization and the implantation of the Church among peoples or groups in which it has not yet taken root.” As a missionary working with a pre-Christian culture it brings me great comfort to have saints like St. Francis Xavier and St. Therese of Lisieux along side me in the work of the missionary apostolate in Central America. In her autobiography, The Story of a Soul, St. Therese reflects on the new freedom of a new joy she will enjoy in heaven. She writes, “There will be no longer any cloister and grilles and my soul will be able to fly with you into distant lands” [1] . In 1927, Pope Pius XI declared St. Therese of Lisieux the patroness of the missions. But how would a person who never even left the cloister come to be named with the title Patroness of the Missions? Can a person be a missionary for souls without ever leaving home?
An Ardent Desire for Souls
From a young age St. Therese had the desire to go to the missions. Her great zeal and ardent desire for souls was instilled in her from early on. She writes about a grace she received at her conversion: “Like His apostles: ‘Master, I have fished all night and caught nothing’… He made of me a fisher of souls. I experienced a great desire to work for the conversion of sinners, a desire I hadn’t experienced so intensely before.” Months later, in July of 1887, she would be confirmed in her vocation. It happened in the Cathedral of Lisieux. “One Sunday, looking at a picture of Our Lord on the Cross, I was struck by the blood flowing from one of the divine hands. I felt a great pang of sorrow when thinking this blood was falling to the ground without anyone’s hastening to gather it up. I was resolved to remain in spirit at the foot of the Cross and to receive the divine dew. I understood I was then to pour it out upon souls… I wanted to give my Beloved to drink and I felt myself consumed with a thirst for souls. As yet, it was not the souls of priests that attracted me, but those of great sinners.” [1] Her physical life on earth was anchored to the cloister but her missionary heart burning with zeal for souls was already in the mission fields and distant lands.
To Contemplate Christ the Key to Missionary Authenticity and Activity
Saint John Paul II on many occasions has said “man needs to contemplate the face of Christ.” The face is intimate and encompasses much of our senses, it is how we know others. We see with our eyes and discern and a smile or a frown is a sign of the emotions we are experiencing from moment to moment. St. Therese contemplated the face of Christ Crucified, and for love of souls, gave her life to Christ Crucified. St. Therese, once in Carmel, understood her missionary vocation from a contemplative point of view. She writes. “I had declared at the feet of Jesus–Victim, in the examination preceding my Profession, what I had come to Carmel for: I came to save souls and especially to pray for priests. When one wishes to attain a goal, one must use the means; Jesus made me understand that it was through suffering that he wanted to give me souls, and my attraction for suffering grew in proportion to its increase.”In the note she composed for, September 8, 1890, she petitioned Jesus: “That I save many souls . . .” Toward the end of her life (19.03.1897) she will add that she wants to “even save souls after my death.”The principle of her Carmelite life was constant: It is “for prayer and sacrifice that one can help the missionaries.” [2] Following her example it has been my experience that a contemplative prayer life is indispensable in the work of the missions. Holy Mass, Eucharistic Adoration, prayer and fasting are very important in the life of the missionary and the “source and summit” of which all missionary activity flows.
Vatican II and the Missions
Vatican II defined the missionary activity in these terms: “The special end missionary activity is the evangelization and the implantation of the Church among peoples or groups in which it has not yet taken root. [3] John Paul II stated in Redemptoris Missio that the steps of evangelization of the Church can be summarized in these points: 1) the simple presence and witness to Christian life; 2) human development; 3) liturgy and prayer; 4) interreligious dialogue; 5) the explicit announcement of the Gospel and of the catechism. [4] As a missionary in the field, I have personally found these steps to be both integral and a valid reality of missionary life here in the Cabecar Reserve.
Pope Pius XI and the Patroness of Missions
So along with St. Francis Xavier who converted much of Asia, Pope Pius XI recognized the absolute essential of prayer and the contemplative life for those active in the mission fields in the example of St. Therese of Lisieux . St. Therese was a spiritual master of the contemplative life. She considered her call and the call of her fellow sisters to be the spiritual mother of the missions and missionaries, She stated “Our vocation is not go to reap in the fields of the mature crops; Jesus doesn’t tell us: ‘Lower your eyes, look at the fields and go and reap’. Our mission is more sublime still. Here are Jesus’ words: ‘Lift your eyes and see. See how in heaven there are empty places, he asks you to fill them. You are my praying Moses on the mountain; request workers of me, and I will send them. I only wait for a prayer, a sigh of your heart! The apostolate of prayer, is it not so to say, higher than that of preaching? Our mission, as Carmelite, is one of forming evangelical workers that will save millions of souls whose mothers we will be”. [5] By baptism we are all called to be missionaries. Some are called to go into the mission fields while others follow Christ into the mission fields while never leaving home. There are some who follow the example of St. Francis Xavier and others the example of St. Therese of Lisieux who are both called to the mission, the mission of saving souls. Please join us in adding the missions and the work our family is doing here in Costa Rica to your St. Therese novena prayers.
[1] Dámaso Zuazua, OCD, General Secretary of the Missions. Story of a Soul: The Autobiography of Saint Thérèse of Lisieux, 3rd ed. Trans. By John Clark. Institute of Carmelite Studies, Washington, D.C. 1996.
[2] Dámaso Zuazua, ocd, General Secretary of the Missions. Story of a Soul: The Autobiography of Saint Thérèse of Lisieux, 3rd ed. Trans. By John Clark. Institute of Carmelite Studies, Washington, D.C. 1996.
[3] Vatican II Documents
[4] Redemptoris Missio
[5] Story of a Soul: The Autobiography of Saint Thérèse of Lisieux, 3rd ed. Trans. By John Clark. Institute of Carmelite Studies, Washington, D.C. 1996. p. 254. Henceforth referred to as Story of a Soul.
This Province is honoured by the fact that it is the Province of two great saints of the Church: Teresa of Jesus and John of the Cross. It was founded in 1416, when the Province of Spain was split into the two Provinces of Aragon and Castile. It was this Province which preserved the title and location of the ancient Province of Spain up to 1469. It included the convents of Toledo, Requena, Avila, Salamanca, San Pablo de la Moraleja, Santa Maria de los Valles, Gibraleon, Seville and Escacena, and, a little later, Ecija. In 1498 the four last mentioned houses were separated from Castile to form the new Province of Andalusia (Betica). The same thing had happened previously in 1425 when the convents of Moura and Lisbon, which belonged to Castile, gave rise to the Province of Portugal.
The Province remained relatively small, a situation which led St. Teresa to say that it was about to disappear. But later events have shown that the fear of St. Teresa was not well-founded, for in the years 1550-1557, the Prior General, Nicholas Audet, had included the Province among those which had accepted completely his reform, and which consequently grew in number of convents and religious, and, during the closing decades of the XVIIth century and through the following century, enjoyed its period of grand splendour. In the schools of the Province, which were affiliated to the Universities of Toledo, Salamanca, Alcala de Henares and Valladolid, many religious flourished in wisdom and virtue. Among these we recall especially the great mystic, Miguel de la Fuente and the great theologians, Pedro Cornejo de Pedrosa, Juan Bautista de Lezana and Luis Pérez de Castro. This Province, which through the centuries has given to the Order two Priors General, Juan González Feijoo de Villalobos (1692-1698) and Manuel Regidor y Brihuega (1825-1831), and fourteen bishops to the Church, also included the monasteries of nuns in Avila, Fontiveros and Piedrahita, founded at the end of the XVth and the beginning of the XVIth centuries. There were also two more monasteries of nuns founded in the XVIIth century in Madrid.
As was the case with all religious in Spain, the Province of Castile was suppressed by the government in 1835. The restoration of the Province began in 1948, when the Commissariat of Castile was established with houses in El Henar, Salamanca and Lomas de Zamora (Argentina). To these were added the houses in Madrid and Valladolid. The monasteries of nuns in Madrid (Maravillas), Piedrahita and Fontiveros, which managed to survive the decree of exclaustration, also belonged to the Commissariat. In 1984, Castile regained its status as a Province.
When appearances take revenge on love…
The greatest commandment: love of God and of neighbor
Mark 12:28-34
1. Opening prayer
Lord Jesus, send Your Spirit to help us to read the Scriptures with the same mind that You read them to the disciples on the way to Emmaus. In the light of the Word, written in the bible, You helped them to discover the presence of God in the disturbing events of Your sentence and death. Thus, the cross that seemed to be the end of all hope became for them the source of life and of resurrection.
Create in us silence so that we may listen to Your voice in creation and in the scriptures, in events and in people, above all in the poor and suffering. May Your word guide us so that we too, like the two disciples on the way to Emmaus, may experience the force of Your resurrection and witness to others that You are alive in our midst as source of fraternity, justice and peace. We ask this of You, Jesus, son of Mary, who revealed to us the Father and sent us Your Spirit. Amen.
2. Reading
a) A key to the reading:
In this Sunday’s Gospel one of the doctors of the law, who were responsible for the teaching of religion, wants to know from Jesus, which commandment is the greatest. Today, many people want to know what is most important in religion. Some say it is baptism, others going to Mass or some other Sunday liturgy, others say to love one’s neighbor! Some are only worried about externals or positions in the Church. Before reading Jesus’ reply, try to look into yourself and ask: “For me, what is the most important thing in religion and life?”
The text gives us the conversation between Jesus and the doctor of the law. As you read, try to focus on the following: “What does Jesus praise in the doctors of the law and what does He criticize in them?”
b) A division of the text to help with the reading:
Mark 12:28: The doctor of the law’s question concerning the greatest commandment
Mark 12:29-31: Jesus’ reply
Mark 12:32-33: The doctor approves Jesus’ reply
Mark 12:34: Jesus confirms the doctor
c) Text:
One of the scribes came to Jesus and asked him, "Which is the first of all the commandments?" Jesus replied, "The first is this: Hear, O Israel! The Lord our God is Lord alone! You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your mind, and with all your strength. The second is this: You shall love your neighbor as yourself. There is no other commandment greater than these." The scribe said to him, "Well said, teacher. You are right in saying, 'He is One and there is no other than he.' And 'to love him with all your heart, with all your understanding, with all your strength, and to love your neighbor as yourself' is worth more than all burnt offerings and sacrifices." And when Jesus saw that he answered with understanding, he said to him, "You are not far from the kingdom of God." And no one dared to ask him any more questions.
3. A moment of prayerful silence
so that the Word of God may penetrate and enlighten our life.
4. Some questions
to help us in our personal reflection.
a) What struck you most in the text? Why?
b) What did Jesus criticize in the doctor of the law and what did He praise?
c) How should our love of God be according to verses 29 and 30? What do the following words mean in these verses: “heart, mind, strength”? Do all these words point to the same thing?
d) What is the relationship between the first and second commandments? Why?
e) Are we closer or further away from the Kingdom of God today than the doctor who was praised by Jesus? What do you think?
5. For those who wish to go deeper into the theme
a) The context:
i) When Jesus began His missionary activity, the doctors in Jerusalem even went to Galilee to observe Him (Mk 3:22; 7:1). They were disturbed by Jesus’ preaching and already accepted the disparagement that said He was possessed by the devil (Mk 3:22). Now, in Jerusalem, they again start arguing with Jesus.
ii) In the 70’s, when Mark was writing his Gospel, there were many changes and persecutions, so the life of the Christian communities was precarious. In times of change and uncertainty there is always the risk or temptation to seek security, not to trust in the goodness of God towards us, but rather, to trust in the rigorous observance of the law. Faced with this kind of thinking, Jesus insists on the practice of love that softens the observance of the law and gives it its true meaning.
b) A commentary on the text:
Mark 12:28: The doctor of the law’s question
Just before the doctors put the question to Jesus, Jesus had had a discussion with the Sadducees on the matter of faith in the resurrection (Mk 12:18-27). The doctor of the law, who was present at the discussion, liked Jesus’ reply, and realized that He was someone very intelligent, so he makes most of the occasion and asks a question of his own for clarification: “Which is the greatest of all the commandments?” In those days, the Jews had very many laws to regulate the practice of the observance of the Ten Commandments of the Law of God. Some said, “All these laws carry the same weight, because they come from God. It is not up to us to make distinctions in the things of God.” Others replied, “No! Some laws are more important than others and so are more binding!” The doctor wants to know Jesus’ opinion: “Which is the first of all the commandments?” This matter was hotly debated in those days.
Mark 12:29-31: Jesus’ reply
Jesus replies by quoting from the Bible, which says the first commandment is “you must love God with all your heart, with all your soul and with all your strength!” (Dt 6:4-5). These words formed part of a prayer called the Shemá. In Jesus’ days, the Jews recited this prayer twice a day: in the morning and in the evening. It was as well known to them as the Our Father is to us today. Then Jesus adds, still quoting the bible: “The second is this: ‘You will love your neighbor as yourself’ (Lev 19:18). There is no commandment greater than these.” A short and very deep answer! It is a summary of all that Jesus taught about God and life (Mt 7:12).
Mark 12:32-33: The doctor of the law’s reply
The doctor agrees with Jesus and concludes, “Yes! To love Him with all your heart, with all your understanding and strength, and to love your neighbor as yourself, this is far more important than any burnt offering or sacrifice”. In other words, the commandment of love is more important than all the commandments that have to do with cult or sacrifices in the Temple. This statement comes from the prophets of the Old Testament (Hos 6:6; Ps 40:6-8; Ps 51:16-17). Today we would say: the practice of love is more important than novenas, vows, Masses, prayers and processions. Or rather, novenas, vows, Masses, prayers and processions must be the result of the practice of love and must lead to love. This a fine and subtle distinction, and worthy of reflection.
Mark 12:34: A summary of the Kingdom
Jesus affirms the conclusion drawn by the doctor and says, “You are not far from the Kingdom!” Indeed, the Kingdom of God consists in recognizing that the love of God and neighbor are the most important things. If God is Father, then we all are brothers and sisters and we must show this in practice by living as a community. “On these two commandments hang the law and the Prophets!” (Mt 22:40) Jesus’ disciples must engrave this great law on their memory, their intellect, their heart: only thus can we attain God in the total gift of self to the neighbor!
Mark 12:35-37: Jesus criticizes the teaching of the doctors of the law on the Messiah
The official propaganda of the state and of the doctors of the law stated that the messiah would come as Son of David. This was meant to teach that the messiah would be a glorious, strong and dominating king. This is what the crowd shouted on Palm Sunday: "Blessed is the coming kingdom of David, our Father!" (Mk 11:10). The blind man from Jericho also cried out: “Jesus, Son of David, have pity on me!” (Mk 10:47). But here Jesus questions this teaching of the doctors. He quotes a psalm of David: “The Lord said to my lord, take your seat at my right, till I make your enemies your footstool!” (Ps 110:1) Then Jesus goes on, “If David himself says my Lord, how can the Messiah be his son?” This means that Jesus did not agree with the idea of a glorious king Messiah, who would come to dominate and impose his reign on all his enemies. Jesus prefers being the servant Messiah proclaimed by Isaiah (Is 42:1-9). He says: “The Son of Man Himself came not to be served but to serve, and to give His life as a ransom for many” (Mk 10:45).
Mark 12:38-40: Jesus criticizes the doctors of the Law
Jesus then draws the disciples’ attention to the one-sided and hypocritical attitude of some of the doctors of the law. These doctors liked to walk about in squares wearing long tunics, being greeted by people, taking first place in the synagogues and places of honor at banquets. They liked going into the homes of widows and preaching long sermons so as to get money! Then Jesus ends by saying, “The more severe will be the sentence they receive!” It would be good for us also to make an examination of conscience based on this text to see whether we can see ourselves mirrored in there! Jesus has harsh words for those who mislead others (Mt 18:6, 23:3-5), and so we should be careful how our actions and words influence and lead others.
C) Further information:
The greatest commandment
The greatest and first commandment is and ever will be “love God with all your heart, with all your mind and with all your strength” (Mk 12:30). At the times when the people of God, throughout the centuries, deepened their understanding of and gave importance to the love of God, then they became aware that the love of God would be real only when it becomes concrete in the love of neighbor. That is why the second commandment, to love the neighbor, is similar to the first, to love God (Mt 22:39; Mk 12:31). “Anyone who says “I love God’ and hates his brother, is a liar” (1 Jn 4:20). “On these two commandments hang the whole Law, and the Prophets too” (Mt 22:40). At first, it was not clear what the love of neighbor entailed. Concerning this point, there was an evolution in three stages in the history of the people of God:
1st Stage: “Neighbor” is kindred of the same race
The Old Testament already taught the obligation to “love your neighbor as yourself!” (Lev 19:18). In those long distant days, the word neighbor was synonymous with kindred. They felt obliged to love all those who were members of the same family, clan, tribe and people. As for foreigners, that is, people who did not belong to the Jewish people, Deuteronomy says, “You may exact remission of debt from foreigners, but you must remit whatever claim you have on your brother (kindred, neighbor)!” (Dt 15:3).
2nd Stage: “Neighbor is anyone I approach or who approaches me
Gradually, the concept of neighbor grew. Thus, in Jesus’ time there was a great discussion as to “who is my neighbor?” Some doctors said that the concept of neighbor had to be extended beyond the limits of race. Others, however, would not hear of this. That is why a doctor went to Jesus with the debated question: “Who is my neighbor?” Jesus replied with the parable of the Good Samaritan (Lk 10:29-37), where the neighbor was not a relative, nor a friend, nor a nobleman, but the one who approached you, independent of religion, color, race, sex or language. You must love him!
3rd Stage: The measure of our love of “neighbor” is to love as Jesus loves us
Jesus had said to the doctor of the Law: "You are not far from the kingdom of God!" (Mk 12:34). The doctor was already close to the Kingdom because in fact the Kingdom consists in uniting the love of God with the love of neighbor, as the doctor had solemnly declared in Jesus’ presence (Mk 12:33). But to enter the Kingdom he still needed one more step. The criterion for loving the neighbor as taught in the Old Testament was “as yourself”. Jesus stretches this criterion and says: “This is My commandment: love one another as I have loved you! No one can have greater love than to lay down his life for his friends!” (Jn 15:12-13). The criterion in the New Testament then is: “To love one’s neighbor as Jesus has loved us!”. Jesus gave the true interpretation of the Word of God and showed the sure way to attain a more just and fraternal way of life.
6. Praying with Psalm 46 (45)
God, revealed in Jesus, is our strength!
God is both refuge and strength for us,
a help always ready in trouble;
so we shall not be afraid though the earth be in turmoil,
though mountains tumble into the depths of the sea,
and its waters roar and seethe,
and the mountains totter as it heaves.
There is a river whose streams bring joy to God's city,
it sanctifies the dwelling of the Most High.
God is in the city, it cannot fall;
at break of day God comes to its rescue.
Nations are in uproar, kingdoms are tumbling,
when He raises His voice the earth crumbles away.
Yahweh Sabaoth is with us,
our citadel, the God of Jacob.
Come, consider the wonders of Yahweh,
the astounding deeds He has done on the earth;
He puts an end to wars over the whole wide world,
He breaks the bow,
He snaps the spear,
the shields He burns in the fire.
“Be still and acknowledge that I am God,
supreme over nations, supreme over the world.”
Yahweh Sabaoth is with us,
our citadel, the God of Jacob.
7. Final Prayer
Lord Jesus, we thank You for the word that has enabled us to understand better the will of the Father. May Your Spirit enlighten our actions and grant us the strength to practice that which Your Word has revealed to us. May we, like Mary, Your mother, not only listen to but also practice the Word. You who live and reign with the Father in the unity of the Holy Spirit forever and ever. Amen.