By D.J. Fonntana-Schmidt, T.O.C.
On January 15, 2011, I made my final promises as a Third Order Lay Carmelite, in the Living Flame of Love Lay Carmelite Community of the Province of The Most Pure Heart of Mary. Our community is located in Bartlett, Illinois. As I prepared for my Final Profession I realized the stirring within my heart was the same I had experienced through the years that eventually led me to respond to Carmel’s call. There are so many beautiful mysteries to contemplate along this path. However, I tried to focus on that one mystery of our Catholic faith that had the strongest connection for me, personally, to my Lay Carmelite vocation, and I knew immediately it was The Lamb of God – Jesus Christ in the Eucharist, His most holy Sacrifice and Sacrament of the Altar.
The days before making my final promises actually elicited thoughts very much reminiscent of the days just before my first Holy Communion. The mystery and anticipation I felt were very much the same as I felt then. What was very different now were the many years which had given me a wealth of experience to draw upon, to help me understand the meaning of this mystery more clearly, of course, then I had at the age of seven. I began to look back on this experience to sort out wonder upon wonder of this holy sacrifice of Our Lord Jesus Christ in direct relationship to my Lay Carmelite vocation. What I came to understand is how, as Third Order Lay Carmelites, we are called to go out into the world to love and to serve others. Through the gift of the most Holy Eucharist we are given the direction and strength to do so with great zeal.
A few weeks before my final promises, I listened to a set of audio tapes recorded during a novena held by Bishop Fulton J. Sheen in 1973, where he spoke to a group in Ireland on the occasion of the 100th anniversary of the feast day of St. Thérèse of Lisieux.[1] As I listened to Bishop Sheen on these tapes, one part of his talk in particular brought all of my reflections together so wonderfully. Following are these words that I listened to that day:
Bishop Sheen read these words of St. Thérèse:
“…I have no wish to amass merits for heaven. I work for love alone, my sole aim being to console the Sacred Heart. So at the close of life’s evening I shall appear before You with empty hands and I ask You not to count my works. All I want to do is to console You. See then, all that Jesus asks of us; He has no need of our works, but only our love. This very God, who declares that He needs not to tell us if He were hungry, did not hesitate to beg of the Samaritan woman a little water. He thirsted, but in saying, ‘give me to drink’ it was the love of His poor creature that the creator of the universe besought. He thirsted for our love and He wants us to surrender ourselves to Him to make Him happy.”
Bishop Sheen then commented, as follows, on these words of St. Thérèse:
“Could it ever be, then, that our Blessed Lord, who lived on this earth and ascended into heaven, is sorrowing? Is Our Lord still on the cross, and will He be on the cross until the end of time? Passages of St. Thérèse have a very unusual point of view. She never looks to Our Lord to be consoled; she’s always looking to console Him; that’s the amazing thing! You always thought that our Blessed Lord was perfectly happy and needed no consolation; how then, does St. Thérèse say that He needs consolation? I will explain this to you now. When our Blessed Lord was on the cross He spoke seven times. They were almost like seven notes of a funeral dirge, and one of the last words that He said were ‘It is finished’. That did not mean, ‘Thank heaven it’s over’, but it means, ‘My mission is accomplished; I have done all that my Father has asked me to do.’ So you see, here, He is saying He has finished the work that He had to do. Now if He had finished his sufferings, how could St. Thérèse say she has to console Him? Well the answer is this: When the Lord was on the cross, the body that He suffered in is the body He took from Mary. The body to which St. Thérèse is referring is His mystical body, the Church. In other words, Christ is glorified in His glorified body in heaven, in the body He took from Mary, but He’s living in His body on earth and He’s suffering many indignities now just as He suffered indignities then. So then, His sufferings were finished in the physical body, but His sufferings are not finished in the mystical body, the Church.”
Having now listened to these words of St. Thérèse as spoken by Bishop Sheen, and hearing his interpretation and further explanation, my thoughts immediately turned toward a homily given by the associate pastor of our parish on January 1, 2009, which I had noted in my journal. Our priest spoke of Mary, the Mother of God, and the place of nurture vs. nature in trying to reconcile our understanding of this great mystery of the divine and human nature of Our Lord, God, Jesus Christ. Through this insight he conveyed the message that, while we may think it is ridiculous to believe that it is up to us to “care for Our Lord”, this is not unreasonable, and in fact it is expected. We are given the responsibility to maintain the integrity of our Catholic beliefs and our knowledge of Jesus as both human and divine, truly the Son of Mary, and the Son of God. He continued to explain that one of the ways in which we must work most diligently to accomplish this is to serve each other with love and kindness, but especially to serve the poor and those in need in our society.
Now, here, two years later, the words from the homily of the priest of our parish are re-affirmed through the words of St. Thérèse and the comments of Bishop Sheen that I’d heard for the first time. Now, as I reflected upon the great significance of my final promises to live my life as a Third Order Lay Carmelite, the Eucharistic connection in Carmel had been brought full circle. All of this now formed a more solid connection for me to the Body of Christ, The Lamb of God, in our Catholic faith, in my Carmelite Spirituality. Suddenly – so beautifully, words spoken and heard in a span of two years apart from each other came together, giving me a greater awareness of the wonder and mystery of Jesus and the victory of the Cross. I now understood even more clearly; yes, it is our responsibility to care for Our Lord, the Body of Christ, the Lamb of God. When we receive Holy Eucharist we receive God; we receive His Real Presence, to remain always with us, just as He promised. The reason we continue to believe and continue to receive is because we continue to know that Jesus dwells within us to give us the courage, support, and determination needed to lead good lives, and to do whatever we can to help those less fortunate than ourselves.
After receiving Christ Jesus in Holy Eucharist, each of us leaves Mass as a living tabernacle, being asked at the final blessing from our priest, acting in persona Christi, to go out and be Christ in the world. Through my journey as a Lay Carmelite I’ve come to realize more than ever how we are meant to carry this glorified gift of Holy Eucharist, of Jesus Christ, human and divine, out into the world. We are to continue to carry the light of Christ, burning as this “Living Flame of Love” within us. We are called to radiate this light of love upon all we meet. How wonderful this sounds – how difficult to achieve.
In His humanity Jesus attained the victory of the cross for us. In His divinity Jesus re-presents the Sacrifice of Himself as The Lamb of God, and once again gives the gift of Himself to each of us in Holy Eucharist… truly God present with us! As we humbly and gratefully accept His gift of vulnerable, whole, complete self, wouldn’t it be a remarkable slight to leave that gift behind, forgotten and unappreciated, as we go out to continue our day-to-day lives? Of course, it would be a terribly offensive act on our part! However, as a Lay Carmelites we’ve been fully vested with the armour of God to enable us to fight adversity in the secular world in which we live and work, thus enabling us to actively communicate His Love through our words and actions.
Through instruction on the Rule of St. Albert I know that I need to be “stout in conscience in full allegiance to Jesus Christ”, and I can persevere, because I am also under the protection of Our Lady of Mount Carmel. It is with these protections and reinforcements that I am able, and expected, to do much more to love and serve others. Again… very easily expressed, but very difficult to achieve. Unless, of course, I try to remember St. Thérèse and her “little ways”; unless I try to achieve this – not in giant strides of philanthropy or missionary pilgrimage – but in “little ways” of kindness, helpfulness, thoughtfulness to family, friends, neighbours, co-workers, strangers, as I meet them each and every day. Through my Lay Carmelite vocation I have come more clearly to understand how much I have been given in the gift of the Eucharist. It is through Holy Eucharist that I know I am given strength and new resolve to return to others a small portion of the immense love that I have been given by Christ Jesus. St. Thérèse conveys to us, so beautifully, her little ways and how we, as insignificant as we are, with continuing faults and failures, can work continually toward the true virtue of complete and sincere love for all.
Often I have expressed to others the fact that I want to come to a place in my life where I will immediately see only God in everyone and see everyone only through the eyes of Christ, without hesitation, without pause. Each time I am reminded that we are human; we are finite and flawed, and can only hope to achieve this perfection when we finally leave this earthly home. Each time I become quiet and still and do not respond, because I know that everyone is right. Only God is perfect love, and we may never attain this state, here or hereafter. What I do feel, though, is the call to never stop working toward this goal, no matter how elusive and unachievable it may appear to be. We are all called to achieve the seemingly unachievable: “Be you therefore perfect as your heavenly Father is perfect.” (Matthew 5:48).
And so, I can only hope to persevere in achieving this way of perfection, through the Carmelite Way, through consistent little steps of love. I believe that to allow myself to fall deeply into the streams of Carmel will bring about the true humility necessary to eventually be able to live this love that has been given to me, given to all, and meant to be shared by all mankind. For me, then, the Lamb of God brought together all that I have been given, and all that is meant to be given in return, as best as I can. At Holy Mass the day after my final promises, I heard these words in the consecration, as well as from the Gospel, “– Behold, The Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world.” (John 1:29). What wonderful affirmation!
I know full well that I am not now, and never will be, worthy of this gift of Carmel’s Call. However, if it is God’s Will for me, then that is all I ever need to know, and this, then, is certainly where I belong. In accepting this gift I also know that I must continue to work toward reflecting Christ’s “Living Flame of Love” to everyone, as best as I can. I must always remember the words of Bishop Sheen, (commenting on St. Thérèse and her words on the consolation of Christ):
“…He’s suffering many indignities now just as He suffered indignities then. So then, His sufferings were finished in the physical body, but His sufferings are not finished in the mystical body, the Church.”
I believe that the main focus of my Lay Carmelite vocation, then, must be to try always to “console Christ” in striving to relieve the indignities and suffering in the world today. Again, I cannot do this on some grand scale, but in “little ways”, through genuine acts of love and kindness to each and everyone in my daily interactions. This sacrifice of the gentle lamb for all mankind, for all eternity, can never be repaid. His life was offered so we may know God’s great love for us and reflect His great love to others. Therefore, for me, The Lamb of God encompasses all. It is the Paschal Mystery, the Eucharistic Mystery of the Church; the centre and core of my Catholic belief and my Lay Carmelite Spirituality. It is my life and my salvation.
*From Carmel in the World No2 2011
[1] “Novena to St. Thérèse of the Little Flower” by Archbishop Fulton J. Sheen; Given at the Carmelite Church, Whitefriars Street, Dublin, in 1973. Audio tapes by: Carmelite Church, Whitefriar Street, Dublin, 1988.