AND my patron-to-be in Carmel!  In the Carmel of the Holy Spirit in Kirk Edge, they give you your religious names BEFORE you enter.  I have mentioned in earlier posts my name to-be is “Sr. Mary Maravillas of Jesus and the Holy Face”.  I LOVE St. Maravillas of Jesus!  She is another St. Teresa of Avilas as she too reformed some of the Carmels in Spain founded by St. Teresa of Avila and founded many, many more under the same rules and constitutions and way of life that St. Teresa lived, taught and wanted all her Carmels to follow.

Her first foundation was at the Cerro de los Angeles where where was already a Sacred Heart statue – picture of it below – this monastery was called the “Cerro”:

A book I recently bought on St. Maravillas, “Following the Path of Divine Love” was recently mentioned as one of the best on life in Carmel.  This book is TREMDOUS on the life of Carmel and this fantastic saint!  It has much more on her life and her writings – excerpts of conversations, letters, etc.  Here’s the link to a Carmelite book service run by Carmelite priests/friars in the UK: http://www.carmelite.org.uk/acatalog/Online_Catalogue_SAINTS___BLESSEDS_OF_CARMEL_37.html (first book at the top) or you can buy it as I did from the Carmelite nuns in Brooklyn or Buffalo, New York as I live in the USA I bought mine from the Buffalo Carmelites.  Here is a picture of the cover of this book:

Another great book to get on her (that I have also) if you can find it for a reasonable price (not often but they do pop up on sites like Amazon, Bookfinder, Fetch.org, books4you etc – rare and out-of-print online book sites and even ebay) is:  “Let Him Do It: The Life of Mother Maravillas of Jesus” – it shows up on Amazon but I don’t see it here now.  It is pretty rare and often is pretty expensive.  I don’t know if the above mentioned Carmels have it to sell or not, worth asking about.  Here’s a picture of the cover of this book:

I have read this book so many times!  It is her life from birth to death and all the Carmels she founded, parts of her writings, teachings and letters, the hardships with the anti-Catholic regime in Spain and hardships with founding Carmels.

I love how St. Maravillas was able to reclaim land that once housed Carmelite monasteries in the time of St. Teresa of Avila and St. John of the Cross.  One of these pieces she built a monastery of nuns in the town of Duruelo on the land where St. John of the Cross founded the first monastery of the Reformed Discalced Carmelite Friars.  She didn’t want former consecrated land of the St. Teresa’s reformed Carmels to be lost.

From this book, comes one of Mother Maravillas’ prayers she wrote to her Lady for her help:

“Mother mine, how kind you have always been to me.  In your hands I put these supplications.  Bless them, present them to Jesus.  Make your love of a Mother and your power of a Queen have weight.  Oh, Mary I count on your help.  In confide in your power.  I give myself to your will.  I am certain of your mercy.  Mother of God and Mother mine pray for me.

May 30th, Cerro de los Angeles”

One story from this book is – an excerpt of St. Maravillas’ devotion and veneration of St. Teresa’s arm:

“What emotion does she received the visit of the holy arm of St. Teresa of Avila arm afterwards. (My note: after her death, St. Teresa’s body was cut into several pieces (arm, heart, etc.) and sent to her various monasteries – this story is of her arm).  She wishes to plan things as if it were Saint Teresa in person who had come to this convent of hers.

She puts the arm in the Choir on an altar full of flowers.  She later takes it to the refectory and places it on the table at the place of the Prioress.  She orders that that day they should read at meal-time paragraphs from Saint Teresa where she speaks to her Daughters.  The arm is present at their hour of prayer.  She then divides the night hours so that each nun can have this in her cell for a quarter of an hour.  She takes it all round the garden so that it may bless all things.”

Another funny story was when in a very isolated monastery Mother Maravillas was given a radio transmitter to speak to her monastery in the Cerro.  Excerpt:

“This convent, which is very isolated, did not have easy communications during the first years when they still had no telephone.

There were urgent messages, for doctors, the sick, etc.

They speak to her of a radio which is now used as a means of communication in many places and is pleased to think that this may be of the solution to many problems.  She is then given one, as is the Cerro, so that from here – for the Cerro does have a telephone – they can relay all the messages to Madrid.  She immediately baptizes her transmitter with the name of “Holy Mary” and the Cerro’s with “Heart of Jesus”.

It is not easy to establish communication and one can hear her in her library: “Heart of Jesus, Heart of Jesus…Here Holy Mary, Here Holy Mary.”

One day the lines cross.  A pious lady with another transmitter in a nearby farm believes she has heard a communication from heaven and devoutly answers: “In You I confide, In You I confide.”!

How Mother Maravillas laughed telling them about this.”

(Mother Maravillas at one of her Carmel foundations.)

The book is filled with beautiful stories like this of her life and sisters.  When she wanted all her nuns to wear the same type/style of stocking and sandals that their holy Mother St. Teresa of Avila wore.  She went to the Carmelite monastery of nuns in Burgos as they had an alparagates/rope sandal that St. Teresa wore (as did all her nuns) and made.  St. Maravillas had a pattern made of these sandals so ALL her nuns could make them and wear them so they could be close to and follow their holy Mother St. Teresa in what she mandated her nuns wear.  The wonderful part of this story is when the nuns in this monastery encouraged Mother Maravillas to try on St. Teresa’s sandals and they were a perfect fit in every way!  St. Maravillas WAS a perfect person to follow in and fit St. Teresa’s shoes!  She IS another St. Teresa!  Here is the excerpt from the book on this:

“Mother Maravillas had been thinking for some time whether the sandals and the stockings that the Carmelites used now were the same as those imposed by St. Teresa on her nuns.  St. Teresa did not quite describe having the foot covered as they did now. 

She spoke about this on various occasions to Fr. Silverio, and he was of the same opinion.  He was making inquiries to be properly informed.  He told her that if she had the opportunity on one of her foundation trips, she should not miss seeing a sandal of the Saint preserved in Burgos.

Fr. Silverio gathered all the necessary documentation, together with photographs of ancient carvings of St. Teresa in which she appears bare-toed, he measured and photographed the stocking that is conserved at Naples and sought advice from the Carmelites at Burgos, etc.  When he had all the loose-ends tied up, he decided to take the matter in hand.

In a letter written to Mother Maravillas he says:

“Each day I am more convinced that it was the intention of the Saint that the foot should be bare, with but a sandal.  To cover the leg, stockings (that should reach the ankle) etc.  I imagine all the youth to be enthusiastic about the idea and all the Discalced nuns too.  Without this I do not see how they can truly call themselves Discalced.”

In communication with San Jose de Avila and when everybody was in agreement, she writes to Batuecas saying:

“From there (San Jose de Avila) they write that most pleased to do this and we are too, for undoubtedly the austerity will be greater and we shall suffer greater cold.  It gives one such devotion that in these times of such great offence to God precisely in searching for greater pleasures, the Lord should request greater penance from His Carmelites.”

Over and above cutting the foot off the stockings, she wanted to have the authentic sandal to adopt for use at the same time.

In 1947, during one of her journeys to see a place for the transfer of the community at Batuecas, she goes through Burgos.  As she had agreed with Father Silverio she goes to the convent and asks to see the sandal of St. Teresa.  She is attended with affection and they were delighted to bring it to her.  She tried it on and was delighted to see the coincidence that she had the same foot size as her holy Mother.  She was able to prove that it was as she had imagined.  it had only the sole and the front part which left the toes bare.  only the heel was worn.  She took a pattern and measurements.”

St. Maravillas carried Carmel through the second Vatican Council and kept the true life of St. Teresa intact for the daughters of St. Teresa who valued and wanted to live the life of a Carmelite, her daughters, the life she founded and reformed for Carmel.  These were the 1581 Constitutions then and her Carmels and others follow these same constitutions according to to the norms given by His Holiness John Paul II on 15th. October 1984 and promulgated by him on 8th. December 1990, Solemnity of the Immaculate Conception, hence they are called today the 1990 Constitutions by the Carmels that follow this original and authentic rule/constitutions of St. Teresa’s (barring minor changes).

**Photo Albums for more pictures of St. Maravillas of Jesus: – see right side bar of this blog under “Photo Albums for clickable link.**

St. Maravillas of Jesus Part 1

St. Maravillas Part 2

Saint Maria Maravillas of Jesus

Short video on St. Maravillas of Jesus. Her feast day is December 11th.  I am blessed to be given her name as my religious name and her as my patron saint in Carmel.  My religious name on the day I enter Carmel in Kirk Edge will be “Sr. Mary Maravillas of Jesus and the Holy Face” – though for brevity sake I will be called Sr. Maravillas in the community.  My favorite saint and favorite devotion!

***VIDEO  CORRECTION!:  I noticed in the video when they say that St. Maravillas was influenced by the writings of St. Teresa of Avila, they showed the Carmelite saint, St. Teresa of the Andes!  This MAY be an error or not.  While there are no photographs of St. Teresa of Avila as she lived in the 1500s, there are paintings of her they could have used.  Why they used St. Teresa of the Andes I don’t know.  This is just a clarification in case there are any who think the photo IS St. Teresa of Avila!)***

The video also doesn’t mention that she founded and refounded (Carmels that were getting lax) with the true rule and constitutions of St. Teresa of Avila that she instituted when she founded HER Carmels.  These were the 1581 rule/constitutions – we know them as 1990 – and she helped Carmel weather and come through the crazy misunderstandings of Vatican II with the true and authentic Teresian Carmel.

From the “Meditations of Carmel” site:

María de las Maravillas was born in Madrid, Spain, on November 4, 1891, the fourth child of Luis and Cristina. At the time her father was the Spanish Ambassador to the Holy See, and she grew up in a devout Catholic family.

María made a vow of chastity at the age of five and devoted herself to charitable work. After coming into contact with the writings of St John of the Cross and St Teresa of Jesus, she felt called to become a Discalced Carmelite.

Her father, whom she had faithfully assisted when he became ill, died in 1913, and her mother was reluctant to accept her daughter’s decision to enter the Carmelite monastery. However, on October 12, 1919, María did enter the Discalced Carmelites in Madrid and made her simple vows on May 7, 1921.

Before her final profession on May 30, 1924, Sr María had already received a special call from God to found the Carmel of Cerro de los Ángeles, and the foundation was inaugurated in 1926 with three other Carmelites. This was the first of many Teresian Carmelite Monasteries that she would establish, according to the Rule and Constitutions of the Discalced Carmelites. María was not being called to found a new order or to “branch off” from the Discalced Carmelites – she herself was very careful in pointing this out; she only sought to live deeply and to transmit the spirit and ideals of her holy parents in Carmel, St Teresa and St John.

Her role as prioress would be permanent in the various monasteries she founded throughout her life, notwithstanding the natural aversion and sense of inadequacy she felt in accepting positions of responsibility. María’s spirit of obedience and love for the Church and for her Carmelite sisters, however, gave her the strength and diligence to carry out this duty with love.

The Spanish Civil War erupted in July of 1936 and the sisters at Cerro de los Angeles were arrested and lived for fourteen months in a small apartment under house arrest. Even amid enormous deprivation, Mother Maravillas instilled courage and happiness, always being an admirable example to her daughters.

But she also remained a mystery even to the nuns closest to her, since only her spiritual directors knew the “dark night of the soul” that she lived throughout her life, which kept her in profound spiritual aridity and trials, and made total faith and abandonment to the will of God her guide.

In the following years, foundations were established in other parts of Spain. From what I could tell on a time line on the internet, she found 11 new communities and was involved with restoring others damaged by the Civil War.

She distinguished herself by her faithfulness in fulfilling the Rule and Constitutions of the Discalced Carmelites and supported many charitable projects for the poor in Spain. She had a great enthusiasm for the charism of Carmel. By word and example she led a fervent contemplative life in service to the Mystical Body of Christ.

In order to unite the monasteries she had established and others associated with them, Mother Maravillas obtained approval in 1972 from the Holy See to found the Association of St Teresa. There are a total of 10 monasteries in the US and Canada that belong to this Association, one of those being our nuns here at St. Joseph. The intro about the Assoc. reads, “The St. Teresa Association is a group of monasteries of Discalced Carmelite Nuns formed in 1975 to strengthen one another in living our contemplative vocation in the Church. Membership is based on spiritual affinity rather than geographical boundaries, and we share a common desire to bear witness in these times to the charism and spirit of the Order of Discalced Carmelite Nuns founded by St. Teresa of Avila in 1562.”

On December 8, 1974, Mother Maravillas was anointed and received Holy Communion. On December 11, surrounded by her community, she died in peace at the age of 84. As she died she kept repeating “What happiness to die a Carmelite!” A perfume of spice arose from her body.

She was beatified by Pope John Paul II on May 10, 1998 at St. Peter’s in Rome and canonized on May 4, 2003 in Madrid. Her feast day is Dec 11th, the anniversary of her entrance into eternity.

From the letters of St. Maravillas of Jesus, Virgin (Letters to her spiritual directors: 305, 254, 101, 458b)

Yesterday, Sunday, on climbing the stairs to go to the upper choir for the sung Mass, I was quite recollected, yet without any particular thought, when I heard clearly within me, “My delight is to be with the children of men.” These words which made a strong impression on me, I understood were not for me this time, but rather in the nature of a request the Lord was making me to offer the whole of myself to give Him these souls He so much desires. It is hard to explain, but I saw clearly, that a soul which sanctifies itself becomes fruitful in attracting souls to God. This so deeply moved me that I offered with my whole heart to the Lord all my sufferings of body and soul for this purpose, despite my poverty. It then seemed to me that this offering was right, but what was strictly important was to surrender myself, wholly and completely to the divine will, so that He could do what He desired in me and likewise I would accept the pain along with the pleasure. I seemed to understand that what pleased Him was not the greatest sacrifice but rather the exact and loving fulfillment in the least detail of that will. In this I understood many things I find hard to explain, and how He wished me to be very sensitive in this fulfillment, which would carry me a long way in self-sacrifice and love.

I offered myself in such a way that nothing would excuse me, not even hell, (if there you can love the Lord), but then I am so cowardly. The Lord will remedy that, since I can do no more than commit myself to Him in all my misery. I began experiencing this as a desire to commit myself for souls and to be faithful for this purpose: thinking about what He had done for them, it seemed He was saying to me I could not do much, but He could, with my help. On feeling this immense desire of the Lord for the salvation of souls, it seemed so amazing that nothing remained but to be committed to God so that He could carry out all His work in the soul and thus make it, despite its poverty, capable of giving Him what He desires. Each time it became clearer to my soul so that nothing of my own remained important, except that the Lord alone be glorified. What a treasure the Lord has given me in allowing me to live in Carmel! Here, everything is arranged with such simplicity, yet in such a way that, living it to the full, you can do everything. How can we live in the House of the Virgin, pleasing the Lord with her, yet not imitating her, as the Holy Mother desired? I felt that this is the Carmelite’s way, imitating Mary, how we must grow less, to be truly poor, self-sacrificing, humble, nothing. I felt quite deeply how Jesus gives us in His own life continual examples of sacrifice, of humiliation, of making ourselves small, yet we do not understand. I felt His mercy and zeal for souls in this way, that here is the strength that can take hold of our life through His mercy. By His grace, may I, who am so absolutely poor in everything, be well able to imitate Him in this with more ease than other creatures. I seemed also to understand that these lights were not given only for myself, but also for guiding my sisters. The sole thing I do, many times in the day, is to say to the Lord that I wish to live only to love Him and to please Him, that I desire all that He wishes in the way that He wills.

Prayer

Lord God,
Who drew St. Maria Maravillas of Jesus
into the secrets of the Heart of Your Son,
grant through her intercession and example,
that we may work together for the salvation of souls,
experiencing the delights of Your love.
Through our Lord Jesus Christ Your Son, Who lives and reigns
with You and the Holy Ghost one God for ever and ever.

(St. Maravillas, small nun in the center, with her daughers)

Here are words of advise for those aspiring to Carmel: Mother Maravillas advised aspirants to Carmel “to live crucified with Christ” as their sole idea and goal of their religious life.  Anyone who builds her vocation on such a solid foundation cannot afterwards be deceived, and whoever embraces the life of Carmel with this spirit has advanced a great deal and is not likely to retreat before the sacrifices the life imposes.  When the first splinters of Christ’s Cross are felt, a novice will not be dismayed, since that is what she came to seek.  Neither will the renunciations or humiliations seem excessive because she entered Carmel determined to live with her eyes fixed on Christ Crucified, and in that way everything becomes slight.

This is something I really enjoyed also; concerning a novice who felt she did not have the strength to continue (from a letter Saint Maravillas wrote) : “Of course, if she came seeking happiness it cannot be. One must seek Christ and the imitation of Him. The life of Christ is not one of consolation but of the Cross, although in His infinitely merciful love, He may fill us with happiness in serving Him.”

I thought this one was very thought provoking because she says the importance of what it really means to sacrifice oneself and follow Him most closely by not seeking happiness and that if someone isn’t happy in religious life it doesn’t necessarily mean that its not for them, but that they have to strive more to die to yourself and in this way by seeking to become more like Him and to give ourselves more to Him by a life of sacrifice and that its in this sacrifice that we find our true joy. Also for the importance of living this life of self denial and sacrifice as the preparation for entrance and out here there are so many times we are able to practice these things especially in the world we live in today with so many distractions and things we can become attached to.

Here is another quote. “A Carmelite should place her happiness only in pleasing God and should accept the fact that her only suffering is in displeasing Him.”

Above St. Maravillas on the left with a daugher, Sr. Dolores at her foundation of Duruelo.  St. Maravillas is holding a book which is her Divine Office book that she carried with her very often.

St. Maravillas of Jesus is my patron and namesake in Carmel (and now!) as I will have her name when I enter Carmel:  Sr. Mary Maravillas of Jesus and the Holy Face.

I have a Picasa photo album with many pictures of St. Maravillas, young and old at: https://picasaweb.google.com/jmjtcarmelite/StMaravillasOfJesus

Mother Maravillas and Sister Dolores de Jesús seeing the land for the founding of Duruelo – Duruelo is the land and monastery that St. John of the Cross lived in for years and St. Maravillas wanted to reclaim this land/monastery as well as others and bring them back into Carmel as monasteries as nuns or friars.  This one in Duruelo became a monastery of nuns.

Abpve. Padre Valentine with (Saint) Madre Maravillas in the first visit to Duruelo monastery on 25th June 1941.

St. Maravillas of Jesus was canonized by Bl. John Paull II on May 10, 1998.

Above, St. Maravillas at one of her foundations.

“I consider myself to be a mere nothing, so incapable of any virtue. But it seems to me as if the Lord wants me to let all this nothingness be lost in him, and for him to live in me. For a while I have had a sort of attraction just to stay loving and adoring the Lord whom I feel in the deepest recesses of my soul, however obscure and hidden he may be. It’s as if I am aware of someone better inside me. It’s like the different dwellings of the soul that St. Teresa speaks about. Father, could it be the case that what the Lord wants of me is to remain like this, loving and adoring him in greater or lesser emptiness, in sorrow or in joy, just observing how he can do whatever he likes in the center of this soul, just letting him work?“
(Letter to Fr. Torres-1932)

“I was drawn to the Carmelites because of my desire to imitate the life of Jesus Christ our God.” 

-  St. Maravillas of Jesus

“We only have to live by faith and then everything becomes easy.  Who could see Him acting so kindly towards us, so full of love, so attentive to our needs, and then not live for Him alone and love Him madly?
What does it matter if someone does not feel faith, provided they are living every moment by it?
Always live a life full of faith and trust, letting the Lord steer your boat and even sleep in it if He wants.“

- St. Maravillas of Jesus

St. Maravillas of Jesus was a saint that stayed calm under horrible times during the Spanish Civil War. On December 11, 1974, whilst repeating “What joy to die a Carmelite” she experienced a peaceful death in the Carmel of La Aldehuela, Madrid, one of the many Carmels she founded.

(St. John of the Cross painted by St. Therese’s sister, Mother Agnes (Pauline)

Prayer to St. John of the Cross For His Intercession

O glorious St. John of the Cross, through a pure desire of being like Jesus crucified, you longed for nothing so eagerly as to suffer, to be despised, and to be made little of by all; and your thirst after sufferings was so burning that your noble heart rejoiced in the midst of the cruelest torments and afflictions. Grant, I beseech you, O dear Saint, by the glory which your many sufferings have gained for you, to intercede for me and obtain from God for me a love of suffering, together with strength and grace to bear with firmness of mind all the trials and adversities which are the sure means to the happy attainment of all that awaits me in heaven. Dear Saint, from your most happy place in glory, hear, I beseech you, my prayers, so that after your example, full of love for the cross I may deserve to be your companion in glory. Amen.

***This page, http://www.pathsoflove.com/john/LivingFlameLove.htm, has St. John of the Cross’ full “The Living Flame of Love” online to read.

Favorite Quotes from St. John of the Cross

- If you do not learn to deny yourself, you can make no progress in perfection.
- Where there is no love, pour love in and you will draw love out.
- In detachment, the spirit finds quiet and repose for coveting nothing.
- To be taken with love for a soul, God does not look on its greatness, but the greatness of its humility.
- The Lord measures our perfection neither by the multitude nor the magnitude of our deeds, but by the manner in which we   perform them.

- I wish I could persuade spiritual persons that the way of perfection does not consist in many devices, nor in much cogitation, but in denying themselves completely and yielding themselves to suffer everything for the love of Christ.
- Live in the world as if only God and your soul were in it; then your heart will never be made captive by any earthly thing.
- O you souls who wish to go on with so much safety and consolation, if you knew how pleasing to God is suffering, and how much it helps in acquiring other good things, you would never seek consolation in anything; but you would rather look upon it as a great happiness to bear the Cross of the Lord.
- In giving us His Son, His only Word, He spoke everything to us at once in this sole Word — and He has no more to say … because what he spoke before to the prophets in parts, he has now spoken all at once by giving us the All Who is His Son.
- God desires the smallest degree of purity of conscience in you more than all the works you can perform.
- With what procrastinations do you wait, since from this very moment you can love God in your heart?

Born in Spain in 1542, John learned the importance of self-sacrificing love from his parents. His father gave up wealth, status, and comfort when he married a weaver’s daughter and was disowned by his noble family. After his father died, his mother kept the destitute family together as they wandered homeless in search of work. These were the examples of sacrifice that John followed with his own great love — God.

When the family finally found work, John still went hungry in the middle of the wealthiest city in Spain. At fourteen, John took a job caring for hospital patients who suffered from incurable diseases and madness. It was out of this poverty and suffering, that John learned to search for beauty and happiness not in the world, but in God.

After John joined the Carmelite order, Saint Teresa of Avila asked him to help her reform movement. John supported her belief that the order should return to its life of prayer. But many Carmelites felt threatened by this reform, and some members of John’s own order kidnapped him. He was locked in a cell six feet by ten feet and beaten three times a week by the monks. There was only one tiny window high up near the ceiling. Yet in that unbearable dark, cold, and desolation, his love and faith were like fire and light. He had nothing left but God — and God brought John his greatest joys in that tiny cell.

After nine months, John escaped by unscrewing the lock on his door and creeping past the guard. Taking only the mystical poetry he had written in his cell, he climbed out a window using a rope made of stirps of blankets. With no idea where he was, he followed a dog to civilization. He hid from pursuers in a convent infirmary where he read his poetry to the nuns. From then on his life was devoted to sharing and explaining his experience of God’s love.

His life of poverty and persecution could have produced a bitter cynic. Instead it gave birth to a compassionate mystic, who lived by the beliefs that “Who has ever seen people persuaded to love God by harshness?” and “Where there is no love, put love — and you will find love.”

John left us many books of practical advice on spiritual growth and prayer that are just as relevant today as they were then. These books include:

Ascent of Mount Carmel

Dark Night of the Soul

and A Spiritual Canticle of the Soul and the Bridegroom Christ

Since joy comes only from God, John believed that someone who seeks happiness in the world is like “a famished person who opens his mouth to satisfy himself with air.” He taught that only by breaking the rope of our desires could we fly up to God. Above all, he was concerned for those who suffered dryness or depression in their spiritual life and offered encouragement that God loved them and was leading them deeper into faith.

“What more do you want, o soul! And what else do you search for outside, when within yourself you possess your riches, delights, satisfaction and kingdom — your beloved whom you desire and seek? Desire him there, adore him there. Do not go in pursuit of him outside yourself. You will only become distracted and you won’t find him, or enjoy him more than by seeking him within you.” — Saint John of the Cross

***This page, http://www.pathsoflove.com/john/LivingFlameLove.htm, has St. John of the Cross’ full “The Living Flame of Love” online to read.

((St. John of the Cross with St. Teresa of Avila)

Early life and education

He was born Juan de Yepes y Álvarez^[2] into a Jewish converso family in Fontiveros, near Ávila, a town of around 2,000 people.^[3][4] His father, Gonzalo, was an accountant to richer relatives who were silk merchants. However, when in 1529 he married John’s mother, Catalina, who was an orphan of a lower class, Gonzalo was rejected by his family and forced to work with his wife as a weaver.^[5] John’s father died in 1545, while John was still only around seven years old.^[6] Two years later, John’s older brother Luis died, probably as a result of insufficient nourishment caused by the penury to which John’s family had been reduced. After this, John’s mother Catalina took John and his surviving brother Francisco, and moved first in 1548 to Arevalo, and then in 1551 to Medina del Campo, where she  was able to find work weaving.^[7][8]

In Medina, John entered a school for around 160^[9] poor children, usually orphans, receiving a basic education, mainly in Christian doctrine, as well as some food, clothing, and lodging. While studying there, he was chosen to serve as acolyte at a nearby monastery of Augustinian nuns.^[7] Growing up, John worked at a hospital and studied the humanities at a Jesuit school from 1559 to 1563; the Society of Jesus was a new organization at the time, having been founded only a few years earlier by the Spaniard St. Ignatius Loyola. In 1563^[10] he entered the Carmelite Order, adopting the name John of St. Matthias.^[7]

The following year (1564)^[11] he professed his religious vows as a Carmelite and travelled to Salamanca, where he studied theology and philosophy at the prestigious University there (at the time one of the four biggest in Europe, alongside Paris, Oxford and Bologna) and at the Colegio de San Andrés. Some modern writers^{[citation needed]} claim that this stay would influence all his later writings, as Fray Luis de León taught biblical studies (Exegesis, Hebrew and Aramaic) at the University: León was one of the foremost experts in Biblical Studies then and had written an important and controversial translation of the Song of Songs into Spanish. (Translation of the Bible into the vernacular was not allowed then in Spain.)

Joining the Reform of Teresa of Jesus

John was ordained a priest in 1567, and then indicated his intent to join the strict Carthusian Order, which appealed to him because of its encouragement of solitary and silent contemplation. A journey from Salamanca to Medina del Campo, probably in September 1567, changed this.^[12] In Medina he met the charismatic Carmelite nun, Teresa of Jesus. She was in Medina to found the second of her convents for women.^[13] She immediately talked to him about her reformation projects for the Order: she was seeking to restore the purity of the Carmelite Order by restarting observance of its “Primitive Rule” of 1209, observance of which had been relaxed by Pope Eugene IV in 1432.

Under this Rule, much of the day and night was to be spent in the recitation of the choir offices, study and devotional reading, the celebration of Mass and times of solitude. For the friars, time was to be spent evangelizing the population around the monastery.^[14] Total abstinence from meat and lengthy fasting was to be observed from the Feast of the Exaltation of the Cross (September 14) until Easter. There were to be long periods of silence, especially between Compline and Prime. Coarser, shorter habits, more simple than those worn since 1432, were to be worn.^[15] They were to follow the injunction against the wearing of shoes (also mitigated in 1432). It was from this last observance that the followers of Teresa among the Carmelites were becoming known as “discalced”, i.e., barefoot, differentiating themselves from the non-reformed friars and nuns.

Teresa asked John to delay his entry into the Carthusians and to follow her. Having spent a final year studying in Salamanca, in August 1568 John traveled with Teresa from Medina to Valladolid, where Teresa intended to found another monastery of nuns. Having spent some time with Teresa in Valladolid, learning more about this new form of Carmelite life, in October 1568, accompanied by Friar Antonio de Jesús de Heredia, John left Valladolid to found a new monastery for friars, the first for men following Teresa’s principles. The were given the use of a derelict house at Duruelo (midway between Avila and Salamanca), which had been donated to Teresa. On 28 November 1568, the monastery,^[16] was established, and on that same day John changed his name to John of the Cross.

Soon after, in June 1570, the friars found the house at Duruelo too small, and so moved to the nearby town of Mancera de Abajo. After moving on from this community, John set up a new community at Pastrana (October 1570), and a community at Alcalá de Henares, which was to be a house of studies for the academic training of the friars. In 1572^[17] he arrived in Avila, at the invitation of Teresa, who had been appointed prioress of the Monastery of the Visitation there in 1571.^[18] John become the spiritual director and confessor for Teresa and the other 130 nuns there, as well for as a wide range of laypeople in the city.^[7] In 1574, John accompanied Teresa in the foundation of a new monastery in Segovia, returning to Avila after staying there a week. Beyond this, though, John seems to have remained in Avila between 1572 and 1577.^[19]

Drawing of the crucifixion, by John of the Cross, which inspired Salvador Dali

One day at some point between 1574 and 1577, while praying in the monastery of the Incarnation in Ávila, in a loft overlooking the sanctuary, John had a vision of the crucified Christ, which led him to create his famous drawing of Christ “from above.” In 1641 this drawing was placed in a small monstrance, and kept in Avila. This drawing inspired the artist Salvador Dali’s 1951 work, Christ of Saint John of the Cross.

The height of Carmelite tensions

The years 1575-77, however, saw a great increase in the tensions among the Spanish Carmelite friars over the reforms of Teresa and John. Since 1566 the reforms had been overseen by Canonical Visitors from the Dominican Order, with one appointed to Castile and a second to Andalusia. These Visitors had substantial powers: they could move the members of religious communities from house to house and even province to province. They could assist religious superiors in their office, and could depute other superiors from either the Dominicans or Carmelites. In Castile, the Visitor was Pedro Fernández, who prudently balanced the interests of the Discalced Carmelites against those of the friars and nuns who did not desire reform.^[20]

In Andalusia to the south, however, where the Visitor was Francisco Vargas, tensions rose due to his clear preference for the Discalced friars. Vargas asked them to make foundations in various cities, in explicit contradiction of orders from the Carmelite Prior General against their expansion in Andalusia. As a result, a General Chapter of the Carmelite Order was convened at Piacenza in Italy in May 1575, out of concern that events in Spain were getting out of hand, which concluded by ordering the total suppression of the Discalced houses.^[7]

This measure was not immediately enforced. For one thing, King Philip II of Spain was supportive of some of Teresa’s reforms, and so was not immediately willing to grant the necessary permission to enforce this ordinance. Moreover the Discalced friars also found support from the papal nuncio to King Philip II, Nicolò Ormanetto, Bishop of Padua, who still had ultimate power as nuncio to visit and reform religious Orders. When asked by the Discalced friars to intervene, Ormanetto replaced Vargas as Visitor of the Carmelites in Andalusia (where the troubles had begun) with Jerónimo Gracián, a priest from the University of Alcalá, who was in fact a Discalced Carmelite friar himself.^[7] The nuncio’s protection helped John himself avoid problems for a time. In January 1576 John was arrested in Medina del Campo by some Carmelite friars. However, through the nuncio’s intervention, John was soon released.^[7] When Ormanetto died on 18 June 1577, however, John was left without protection, and the friars opposing his reforms gained the upper hand.

Imprisonment, writings, torture, death and recognition

On the night of 2 December 1577, a group of Carmelites opposed to reform broke into John’s dwelling in Avila, and took him prisoner.

El Greco’s landscape of Toledo depicts the Priory in which John was held captive, just below the old Muslim Alcazar and perched on the banks of the Tajo on high cliffs

John had received an order from some of his superiors, opposed to reform, ordering him to leave Avila and return to his original house, but John had refused on the basis that his reform work had been approved by the Spanish Nuncio, a higher authority than these superiors.^[21] The Carmelites therefore took John captive. John was taken from Avila to the Carmelite monastery in Toledo, at that time the Order’s most important monastery in Castile, where perhaps 40 friars lived.^[22][23] John was brought before a court of friars, accused of disobeying the ordinances of Piacenza. Despite John’s argument that he had not disobeyed the ordinances, he received a punishment of imprisonment. He was jailed in the monastery, where he was kept under a brutal regimen that included public lashing before the community at least weekly, and severe isolation in a tiny stifling cell measuring ten feet by six feet, barely large enough for his body. Except when rarely permitted an oil lamp, he had to stand on a bench to read his breviary by the light through the hole into the adjoining room. He had no change of clothing and a penitential diet of water, bread and scraps of salt fish.^[24] During this imprisonment, he composed a great part of his most famous poem Spiritual Canticle, as well as a few shorter poems. The paper was passed to him by the friar who guarded his cell.^[25] He managed to escape nine months later, on 15 August 1578, through a small window in a room adjoining his cell. (He had managed to pry the cell door off its hinges earlier that day).

After being nursed back to health, first with Teresa’s nuns in Toledo, and then during six weeks at the Hospital of Santa Cruz,^[26] John continued with reform. In October 1578 he joined a meeting at Almodovar del Campo of the supporters of reform, increasingly known as the Discalced Carmelites. There, in part as a result of the opposition faced from other Carmelites in recent years, they decided to demand from the Pope their formal separation from the rest of the Carmelite Order.^[7]

At this meeting John was appointed superior of El Calvario, an isolated monastery of around thirty friars in the mountains about 6 miles away^[27] from Beas in Andalucia. During this time he befriended the nun Ana de Jesús, superior of the Discalced nuns at Beas, through his visits every Saturday to the town. While at El Calvario he composed his first version of his commentary on his poem, The Spiritual Canticle, perhaps at the request of the nuns in Beas.

In 1579 he moved to Baeza, a town of around 50,000 people, to serve as rector of a new college, the Colegio de San Basilio, to support the studies of Discalced friars in Andalucia. This opened on 13 June 1579, and he remained there until 1582, spending much of his time as a spiritual director for the friars and townspeople.

1580 was an important year in the resolution of the disputes within the Carmelites. On 22 June, Pope Gregory XIII signed a decree, titled Pia Consideratione, which authorised a separation between the Calced and Discalced Carmelites. The Dominican friar, Juan Velázquez de las Cuevas, was appointed to carry out the decisions. At the first General Chapter of the Discalced Carmelites, in Alcalá de Henares on 3 March 1581, John of the Cross was elected one of the ‘Definitors’ of the community, and wrote a set of constitutions for them.^[28] By the time of the Provincial Chapter at Alcalá in 1581, there were 22 houses, some 300 friars and 200 nuns in the Discalced Carmelites.^[29]

Saint John of the Cross’ shrine and reliquary, Convent of Carmelite Friars, Segovia

Reliquary of John of the Cross in Úbeda, Spain

In November 1581 John was sent by Teresa to help Ana de Jesus in founding a convent in Granada. Arriving in January 1582, she set up a monastery of nuns, while John stayed in the friars’ monastery of Los Martires, beside the Alhambra, becoming its prior in March 1582.^[30] While here, he learned of the death of Teresa in October of that year.

In February 1585, John travelled to Malaga and established a monastery of Discalced nuns there. In May 1585, at the General Chapter of the Discalced Carmelites in Lisbon, John was elected Provincial Vicar of Andalusia, a post which required him to travel frequently, making annual visitations of the houses of friars and nuns in Andalusia. During this time he founded seven new monasteries in the region, and is estimated to have travelled around 25,000 km.^[31]

In June 1588, he was elected third Councillor to the Vicar General for the Discalced Carmelites, Father Nicolas Doria. To fulfill this role, he had to return to Segovia in Castile, where in this capacity he was also prior of the monastery. After disagreeing in 1590-1 with some of Doria’s remodeling of the leadership of the Discalced Carmelite Order, though, John was removed from his post in Segovia, and sent by Doria in June 1591 to an isolated monastery in Andalusia called La Peñuela. There he fell ill, and traveled to the monastery at Úbeda for treatment. His condition worsened, however, and he died there on 14 December 1591, of erysipelas.^[7]

Veneration

The morning after John’s death, huge numbers of the townspeople of Úbeda entered the monastery to view John’s body; in the crush, many were able to take home parts of his habit. He was initially buried at Úbeda, but, at the request of the monastery in Segovia, his body was secretly moved there in 1593. The people of Úbeda, however, unhappy at this change, sent representative to petition the pope to move the body back to its original resting place. Pope Clement VIII, impressed by the petition, issued a Brief on 15 October 1596 ordering the return of the body to Ubeda. Eventually, in a compromise, the superiors of the Discalced Carmelites decided that the monastery at Úbeda would receive one leg and one arm of the corpse from Segovia (the monastery at Úbeda had already kept one leg in 1593, and the other arm had been removed as the corpse passed through Madrid in 1593, to form a relic there). A hand and a leg remain visible in a reliquary at the Oratory of San Juan de la Cruz in Úbeda, a monastery built in 1627 though connected to the original Discalced monastery in the town founded in 1587.^[32]

The head and torso was retained by the monastery at Segovia. There, they were venerated until 1647, when on orders from Rome designed to prevent the veneration of remains without official approval, the remains were buried in the ground. In the 1930s they were disinterred, and now sit in a side chapel in a marble case above a special altar built in that decade.^[32]

Proceedings to beatify John began with the gathering of information on his life between 1614 and 1616, although he was only beatified in 1675 by Pope Clement X, and was canonized by Benedict XIII in 1726. When his feast day was added to the General Roman Calendar in 1738, it was assigned to 24 November, since his date of death was impeded by the then-existing octave of the Feast of the Immaculate Conception.^[33] This obstacle was removed in 1955 and in 1969 Pope Paul VI moved it to the dies natalis (birthday to heaven) of the saint, 14 December.^[34] The Church of England commemorates him as a “Teacher of the Faith” on the same date. In 1926, he was declared a Doctor of the Church by Pope Pius XI.

Editions of his works

His writings were first published in 1618 by Diego de Salablanca. The numerical divisions in the work, still used by modern editions of the text, were introduced by Salablanca (they were not in John’s original writings), in order to help make the work more manageable for the reader.^[7] This edition does not contain the ‘’Spiritual Canticle’’, however, and also omits or adapts certain passages, perhaps for fear of falling foul of the Inquisition.

The ‘’Spiritual Canticle’’ was first included in the 1630 edition, produced by Fray Jeronimo de San Jose, at Madrid. This edition was largely followed by later editors, although editions in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries gradually included a few more poems and letters.^[35]

Literary works

St. John of the Cross is considered one of the foremost poets in the Spanish language. Although his complete poems add up to fewer than 2500 verses, two of them—the Spiritual Canticle and The Dark Night of the Soul are widely considered masterpieces of Spanish poetry, both for their formal stylistic point of view and their rich symbolism and imagery. His theological works often consist of commentaries on these poems. All the works were written between 1578 and his death in 1591, meaning there is great consistency in the views presented in them.

The poem The Spiritual Canticle, is an eclogue in which the bride (representing the soul) searches for the bridegroom (representing Jesus Christ), and is anxious at having lost him; both are filled with joy upon reuniting. It can be seen as a free-form Spanish version of the Song of Songs at a time when translations of the Bible into the vernacular were forbidden. The first 31 stanzas of the poem were composed in 1578 while John was imprisoned in Toledo. It was read after his escape by the nuns at Beas, who made copies of these stanzas. Over the following years, John added some extra stanzas. Today, two versions exist: one with 39 stanzas and one with 40, although with some of the stanzas ordered differently. The first redaction of the commentary on the poem was written in 1584, at the request of Madre Ana de Jesus, when she was prioress of the Discalced Carmelite nuns in Granada. A second redaction, which contains more detail, was written in 1585-6.^[7]

The Dark Night (from which the spiritual term takes its name) narrates the journey of the soul from her bodily home to her union with God. It happens during the night, which represents the hardships and difficulties she meets in detachment from the world and reaching the light of the union with the Creator. There are several steps in this night, which are related in successive stanzas. The main idea of the poem can be seen as the painful experience that people endure as they seek to grow in spiritual maturity and union with God. The poem of this title was likely written in 1578 or 1579. In 1584-5, John wrote a commentary on the first two stanzas and first line of the third stanza of the poem.^[7]

The Ascent of Mount Carmel is a more systematic study of the ascetical endeavour of a soul looking for perfect union, God, and the mystical events happening along the way. Although it begins as a commentary on the poem ‘’The Dark Night’’, it rapidly drops this format, having commented on the first two stanzas of the poem, and becomes a treatise. It was composed sometime between 1581 and 1585.^[7]

A four stanza work, Living Flame of Love describes a greater intimacy, as the soul responds to God’s love. It was written in a first redaction at Granada between 1585-6, apparently in two weeks,^[7] and in a mostly identical second redaction at La Penuela in 1591.

These, together with his Dichos de Luz y Amor, or “Sayings of Light and Love,” and St. Teresa’s writings, are the most important mystical works in Spanish, and have deeply influenced later spiritual writers all around the world. Among these can be named T. S. Eliot, Thérèse de Lisieux, Edith Stein (Teresa Benedicta of the Cross), and Thomas Merton. John has also influenced philosophers (Jacques Maritain), theologians (Hans Urs von Balthasar), pacifists (Dorothy Day, Daniel Berrigan, and Philip Berrigan) and artists (Salvador Dalí). Pope John Paul II wrote his theological dissertation on the mystical theology of Saint John of the Cross.

LITANY OF ST. JOHN OF THE CROSS

Lord, have mercy on us.

Christ, have mercy on us.

Lord, have mercy on us. Christ hear us.

Christ, graciously hear us.

God the Father of Heaven, Have mercy on us.

God the Son, Redeemer of the world, Have mercy on us.

God the Holy Ghost, Have mercy on us.

Holy Trinity, one God, Have mercy on us.

Holy Mary, Mother of God, Pray for us.

Queen and Beauty of Carmel, Pray for us.

Saint John of the Cross, Pray for us.

St. John, our glorious Father, Pray for us.

Beloved child of Mary, the Queen of Carmel, Pray for us.

Fragrant flower of the garden of Carmel, Pray for us.

Admirable possessor of the spirit of Elias, Pray for us.

Foundation stone of the Carmelite Reform, Pray for us.

Spiritual son, and beloved Father of St. Teresa, Pray for us.

Most vigilant in the practice of virtue, Pray for us.

Treasure of charity, Pray for us.

Abyss of humility, Pray for us.

Most perfect in obedience, Pray for us.

Invincible in patience, Pray for us.

Constant lover of poverty, Pray for us.

Dove of simplicity, Pray for us.

Thirsting for mortification, Pray for us.

Prodigy of holiness, Pray for us.

Mystical Doctor, Pray for us.

Model of contemplation, Pray for us.

Zealous preacher of the Word of God, Pray for us.

Worker of miracles, Pray for us.

Bringing joy and peace to souls, Pray for us.

Terror of devils, Pray for us.

Model of penance, Pray for us.

Faithful guardian of Christ’s Vineyard, Pray for us.

Ornament and glory of Carmel, Pray for us.

Lamb of God, Who takest away the sins of the world: Spare us, O Lord.

Lamb of God, Who takest away the sins of the world: Graciously hear us, O Lord.

Lamb of God, Who takest away the sins of the world: Have mercy on us.

V. Holy Father Saint John of the Cross, pray for us: R. That we may be made worthy of the promises of Christ.

Let us pray. O God, Who didst instill into the heart of Saint John of the Cross, Thy Confessor and our Father, a perfect spirit of self-abnegation, and a surpassing love of Thy Cross: grant, that assiduously following in his footsteps, we may attain to eternal glory. Through Christ Our Lord. R.  Amen.

Fr. Joachim, of the Franciscans of the Immaculate on the life of St. John of the Cross, Doctor of the Church, how he had early mystical and miraculous experiences, entered religious life, started a reform of the Carmelites which resulted in many persecutions and wrote many classic spiritual books.

St. John of the Cross teaches us to find delight in spiritual things and to wean ourselves from the delights of the world. The depths of his insights on mystical prayer have earned him the title of Doctor of the Church.

The Saints Show Us The Gospel in Practice: Mother Elias of the Blessed Sacrament. St Therese the Little Flower once said “I love to read the lives of the saints very much. The count of their heroic deeds inflames my courage & spurs me on to imitate them.” Here’s a story of a little know saint during the Mexican persecutions in the 1910s.

You can read online/e-book the life of Mother Elias here, “A Dove with a Scarlet Collar”,  https://archive.org/stream/dovewithscarletc00tere#page/n1/mode/2up

Mother Mary Elias of the Blessed Sacrament, OCD (1879-1943)

 Little known among Catholics in America today are the sufferings of our Mexican brethren at the hands of the Communist, anti-clerical forces of the revolutionary government, amid a series of persecutions which were focused particularly on religious orders. Many communities of consecrated life in the United States owe their existence to Mexican priests and nuns who fled here in the first three decades of the twentieth century.

One of the most fascinating and enigmatic of the refugee-foundresses is the Discalced Carmelite prioress, Mother Mary Elias of the Blessed Sacrament. Of Napoleon’s line, Elena Maria Thierry was born on August 15, 1879 to a devout family of European extraction. The second to the youngest of twenty children, she received a thorough education, including operatic training, gifted as she was with a beautiful singing voice.

Called by God to the religious life, she first sought to enter a teaching order. On September 30, 1897, when traveling on a train to the convent, she suddenly found herself face to face with a young Carmelite nun. The nun looked at her knowingly and said, “You will remain there a short time. Then you will come to my order.” The mysterious nun vanished.

Elena Maria was dismissed from the teaching order after a few years and sought to enter the Mexico City Carmel. On the walls of the Carmel hung a picture of the same nun Elena Maria had seen on the train. She was told it was the Little Flower who was already world famous because of her autobiography and the prodigies which had been worked through her intercession. The day Elena Maria had seen her on the train was the exact day Sister Therese of the Child Jesus had died far away in France.

Around 1904, Elena Maria Thierry entered the Carmel of Mexico City and was given the name of “Mary Elias of the Blessed Sacrament.” Due to her fervor, charity and leadership abilities, she was transferred to the Carmel of Queretaro. Queretaro Carmel had been closed for many years because of the persecution and needed nuns like Mother Elias to help rebuild it. In 1910, the persecution broke out again. In 1913, Mother Elias, who by that time had been elected prioress, decided to move the community to the town of Aguascalientes where she thought they would be safer. However, there were few safe places for Mexican religious. The soldiers of the Revolution often broke into convents and kidnapped the young sisters. In 1914, Mother Elias decided she had better get all of her younger nuns out of Mexico.

LITANY OF REPARATION

Lord, have mercy on us.
Lord, have mercy on us
Christ, have mercy on us.
Christ, have mercy on us.
Lord, have mercy on us.
Lord, have mercy on us.
Christ, hear us.
Christ, hear us.
Christ, graciously hear us.
Christ, graciously hear us.
God the Father of Heaven,
Have mercy on us.
God the Son, Redeemer of the world,
Have mercy on us.
God the Holy Spirit,
Have mercy on us.
Holy Trinity, One God,
Have mercy on us.
Sacred Host, offered for the salvation of sinners,
Have mercy on us.
Sacred Host, annihilated on the altar for us and by us,
Have mercy on us.
Sacred Host, despised by lukewarm Christians,
Have mercy on us.
Sacred Host, mark of contradiction,
Have mercy on us.
Sacred Host, delivered over to unbelievers and heretics,
Have mercy on us.
Sacred Host, insulted by blasphemers,
Have mercy on us.
Sacred Host, Bread of angels, given to animals,
Have mercy on us.
Sacred Host, flung into the mud and trampled underfoot,
Have mercy on us.
Sacred Host, dishonored by unfaithful priests,
Have mercy on us.
Sacred Host, forgotten and abandoned in Thy churches,
Have mercy on us.
Be merciful unto us,
Pardon us, O Lord.
Be merciful unto us,
Hear us, O Lord.
For the outrageous contempt of this most wonderful Sacrament,
We offer Thee our reparation.
For Thine extreme humiliation in Thine admirable Sacrament,
We offer Thee our reparation.
For all unworthy Communions,
We offer Thee our reparation.
For the irreverences of wicked Christians,
We offer Thee our reparation.
For the profanation of Thy sanctuaries,
We offer Thee our reparation.
For the holy ciboriums dishonored and carried away by force,
We offer Thee our reparation.
For the continual blasphemies of impious men,
We offer Thee our reparation.
For the obduracy and treachery of heretics,
We offer Thee our reparation.
For the unworthy conversations carried on in Thy holy temples,
We offer Thee our reparation.
For the profaners of Thy churches
which they have desecrated by their sacrileges,
We offer Thee our reparation.
That it may please Thee to increase in all Christians
the reverence due to this adorable Mystery,
we beseech Thee, hear us.
That it may please Thee to manifest the Sacrament
of Thy Love to heretics,
we beseech Thee, hear us.
That it may please Thee to grant us
the grace to atone for their hatred
by our burning love for Thee,
we beseech Thee, hear us.
That it may please Thee
that the insults of those who outrage Thee
may rather be directed against ourselves,
we beseech Thee, hear us.
That it may please Thee graciously
to receive this our humble reparation,
we beseech Thee, hear us.
That it may please Thee to make our adoration acceptable to Thee,
we beseech Thee, hear us.
Pure Host,
hear our prayer.
Holy Host,
hear our prayer.
Immaculate Host,
hear our prayer.
Lamb of God, Who takest away the sins of the world,
Spare us, O Lord.
Lamb of God, Who takest away the sins of the world,
Graciously hear us, O Lord.
Lamb of God, Who takest away the sins of the world,
Have mercy on us.
V. See, O Lord, our affliction,
R. And give glory to Thy Holy Name.
Let us pray.
O Lord Jesus Christ,
Who dost deign to remain with us
in Thy wonderful Sacrament unto the end of the world,
in order to give eternal glory to Thy Father,
by the perpetual oblation of Thy Passion,
and to give to us the Bread of life everlasting:
Grant us, we beseech Thee, the grace to mourn,
with a heart full of sorrow,
over the injuries which Thou hast received
in this adorable Mystery,
and over the many sacrileges
which are committed by the impious and by heretics,
and even alas, by weak, ignorant, and wicked Catholics.
Inflame us with an ardent zeal
to repair all the ignominies to which,
in Thine infinite mercy,
Thou hast preferred to expose Thyself
rather than deprive us of Thy Presence on our altars,
Who with God the Father
and the Holy Spirit
livest and reignest one God,
world without end.

How are we to respond to crimes against the adorable Body of Christ in the Blessed Sacrament and His Holy Face? First, we must pray for the perpetrators of the sacrilege.

Father, forgive them,
for they know not what they do.
Lamb of God, who takest away the sins of the world,
turn their hearts to Thee in sorrow and in love.
Holy Ghost, Living Flame of Love,
pierce their hearts with true repentance.
Amen.

Then we must pray in reparation:

Beloved Lord Jesus Christ,
hidden in the Most Holy Sacrament of the Altar;
silent, humble, defenceless,
and motionless in the Sacred Species;
handled by the faithless
and, alas, even by those
who having received the faith,
have fallen into darkness and spiritual perversion;
we offer ourselves to Thee in adoration,
to make reparation
for every sin of irreverence, sacrilege,
blasphemy, and hatred of Thy Divine Person
in the Sacrament of Thy Love.
We further offer ourselves to Thee in adoration,
believing for those who do not believe in Thee,
hoping for those who have lost hope in Thee,
loving for those who do not love Thee.
Avenge this act of sacrilege, we pray Thee,
by a triumph of Thy merciful love
in the hearts of those who have so offended Thee,
and, by sending forth Thy Holy Angels,
restore the Sacred and Adorable Species
into the hands of Thy priests,
and into guardianship of Thy grieving Church.
Amen.

Public Acts of Reparation

Finally, it is fitting that there should be public acts of reparation: penitential processions, adoration of the Most Blessed Sacrament, and a public act of honourable amendment engaging all the clergy, religious, and lay faithful of the parish. The honourable amendment consists in an act of reparation recited by all, holding lighted candles in their hands and, if deemed suitable, with a length of rope about the neck as a sign of solidarity with sinners, even as one kneels in contrition and reparation before the Most Blessed Sacrament.

Bl. Anne of St. Bartholomew was very close to St. Teresa of Avila, a BFF, you could say.  She went on to found Carmels in France after St. Teresa’s death.

Above, the Infant of Prague statue dressed in a Carmelite friar habit.

In 1628, the Carmelite friars in Prague received a gift of a beautiful statue of the infant Jesus from a devout noblewoman, a Princess Polixena. They placed the statue in their Church in order to venerate the infant Jesus of Prague, their veneration then being the source of numerous and miraculous favors.

In 1631, when enemies of the Church sacked Prague, they mocked the Holy Infant and threw the statue into a heap of trash in an obscure place. Some years later, Ven. Father Cyril of the Mother of God, a Carmeiite of the Prague monastery, found the statue. One day, while praying before the holy image, Father Cyril heard the consoling words, “Have pity on Me and I will have pity on you; restore My hands and I will give you peace; the more you honor Me, the more I will bless you.”

So many graces, blessings, and miraculous cures came to those who embraced this devotion that it spread throughout the Catholic world and continues to be a source of much grace to this day.

Prayer to The Infant Jesus

by Ven. Father Cyril, O.C.D.

Infant Jesus,
unto You With a humble trust I pray.

Through Your mother’s sinless heart,
Help me in my need today.

I believe that You are God,
With a power that is divine.
Full of confidence I ask
That You grant this prayer of mine.

Firm my purpose to amend,
I resolve to grieve no more
That most loving heart of Yours
Out of which all mercies pour.

My whole life I give to You,
I will serve You , Infant King,
Suffer for You patiently,
Do Your will in everything.

Little Jesus, for Your sake
I will love my neighbor, too.
I will seek the other’s good
Through the love I bear for You.
Save me through Your mother’s prayers,
And St. Joseph’s, grant me then
With the heavenly choirs to sing
Endless praise to You. Amen!

Source: “The Little Book of Carmelite Spirituality and Practice”

CHAPLET OF THE INFANT JESUS
Jesus Himself revealed this devotion to the Ven. Margaret of the Blessed Sacrament, Dicalced Carmelite nun, who dies at Beaune, France in the year 1648.  Jesus exhorted her to make it known among the faithful and promised most special graces, especially innocence and purity, to those who would carry the chaplet in their person and recite it with the intention to honor the Mysteries of the Divine Infancy.

METHOD OF RECITING THE CHAPLET
O God, come to my aid,
O Lord, make haste to help me.
Glory Be..
Holy Infant Jesus, bless me.

On the first three beads:
And the Word was made Flesh…. Our Father

Then say:
And the Word was made Flesh and dwelt among us.

The “Hail Mary” is recited on each of the other 12 beads in honor of the 12 years of Our Lord’s childhood.

Glory be… is said in the end.


POWERFUL NOVENA PRAYER TO THE INFANT JESUS

O Jesus, who has said, “Ask and you shall receive, seek and you shall find, knock and it shall be opened to you,” through the intercession of Mary, Your Most Holy Mother, I seek, I knock, I ask that my prayer be granted.  O Jesus, who has said: “All that you ask of the Father in My Name He will grant you,” through the intercession of Mary, Your Most Holy Mother, I humbly and urgently ask Your Father in Your Name that my prayer be granted.  O Jesus, who has said: “Heaven and earth will pass away but My word will not pass away,” through the intercession of Mary, your Most Holy Mother, I feel confident that my prayer will be granted.” Amen.