Tabernacle of the Week

Sacred Heart Church

Coshocton, Ohio

O Jesus, we adore you,

Who, in your love divine,

Conceal your mighty Godhead

In forms of bread and wine.

O sacrament most holy,

O sacrament divine,

All praise and all thanksgiving

Be every moment thine!

Peace be with you!

Rosemarie, OCDS

Catechism Quote

Catechism #1375

It is by the conversion of the bread and wine into Christ's body and blood that Christ becomes present in this sacrament. The Church Fathers strongly affirmed the faith of the Church in the efficacy of the Word of Christ and of the action of the Holy Spirit to bring about this conversion. Thus St. John Chrysostom declares:

It is not man that causes the things offered to become the Body and Blood of Christ, but

he who was crucified for us, Christ himself. The priest, in the role of Christ, pronounces

these words, but their power and grace are God's. This is my body, he says. This word

transforms the things offered.

And St. Ambrose says about this conversion:

Be convinced that this is not what nature has formed, but what the blessing has

consecrated. The power of the blessing prevails over that of nature, because by the

blessing nature itself is changed...Could not Christ's word, which can make from

nothing what did not exist, change existing things into what they were not before?

It is no less a feat to give things their original nature than to change their nature.

Peace be with you!

Rosemarie, OCDS

Blessed Nuno Alvares Pereira, Carmelite religious

TE DEUM

(Click here)

The Holy Father canonized Bl. Nuno Pereira today, Sunday, April 26, 2009. To learn more about this Carmelite, please visit www.blessednuno.org/about_us.html

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Saturday of Our Lady

O glorious Queen of Angels! Most pure and Ever blessed Virgin Mary of Mt. Carmel! Powerful Advocate of all those who wear your holy Scapular! Faithful Protector of all the servants of your Son Jesus Christ! I, an unworthy sinner, do this day, in the presence of your beloved Son;, my Savior, choose thee for my patroness, that through your intercession, I may receive from Him whatsoever grace may be necessary and profitable for me now, and at the hour of my death. Amen.

(click on image of Our Lady for information on the Brown Scapular)

Peace be with you!

Rosemarie, OCDS

Carmelite Quote

Brother Lawrence of the Resurrection

During our work and other activities, during our spiritual reading and writing, even more so during our formal devotions and spoken prayers we should stop as often as we can, for a moment, to adore God from the bottom of our hearts, to savor Him, by stealth as it were, as he passes by. Since you know God is with you in all your actions, that He is in the deepest recesses of your soul, why not, from time to time, leave off your external activities and even your spoken prayers to adore Him inwardly, to praise Him, to petition Him, to offer Him your heart and to give Him thanks?

What can be more agreeable to God than to withdraw thus many times a day from the things of man to retire into ourselves and adore Him interiorly; in addition these interior retreats to God gradually free us by destroying that self love which can exist only among our fellow human beings.

And finally, we can give God no greater witness of our fidelity than in renouncing and despising time and again material things to be with our Creator for a single moment.(From his spiritual maxims)

Brother Lawrence is a true son of St. Teresa of Jesus. In his own way, he is explaining what St. Teresa teaches us about interior recollection. She tells us to withdraw to that holy place within our heart where we can speak and listen to the one whom we know loves us. She further teaches us that this practice of interior recollection is the gateway to the higher mansions of pure contemplation.

We must also keep in mind, that even though we make the effort to remember God in our heart, it is the action of the Holy Spirit that gives us the desire to do so. If we remember God at a certain time in the midst of our activity, it is a great joy to know that He first thought of us and gave us pause to think of Him-in Brother Lawrence's words-to be present as He passes by!

Peace be with you!
Rosemarie, OCDS

Secular Carmelite-Servant of God Anita Cantieri

Many Secular Carmelites are unfamiliar with some of the holy members of the "Third Order" of the Discalced Carmelites. Did you know that the brother of St. John of the Cross, Francisco de Yepes was a Lay Carmelite? You may have heard of St. Vincent Pallotti, the founder of the Society for the Catholic Apostolate, he was a Lay Carmelite. Today, I highlight one of the more familiar holy tertiaries: Anita Cantieri, whose cause for sainthood is before the Holy See.

Anita Cantieri

Secular Carmelite

1910-1942

Her Motto:

"To love, suffer, and be silent for the Church and others."

Her Life:

Anita was born in Lucca, Italy, March 30, 1910, and died August 24, 1942, about the same age as her Lord. Her life was one of innocence, love and suffering. She attained an extraordinary spiritual beauty. Anita was greatly loved in life and now she is prayed to by countless people. The Holy See has accepted her as a candidate for sainthood.

Anita came from a fine Catholic home and even in her school years was thoroughly good, generous, and desirous of sanctity. At twenty she tried entering the active Carmelite Sisters of St. Theresa but had to leave after fifteen months because of ill health. She took up her life at home again as a laywoman, always hoping her illness would pass and give her the chance to return to Carmel. But at twenty-four she found herself confined to bed almost continuously with excruciating suffering. Realizing at last that it was not our Lord' wish that she become a Carmelite Sister, she became a Secular Carmelite on July 1, 1935.

Anita devoted herself with all her heart to the vocation she had discovered on her sickbed: that of sharing the sufferings of Jesus Crucified for the salvation of others. This union with Jesus on the Cross, along with love for him in the Blessed Sacrament and love for Mary were the great devotions of her life. She carried on a remarkable apostolate from her very sickbed. People who at first came to console the sufferer went away themselves comforted counselled and encouraged. Toward the end of her life there was a constant stream of visitors to her bedside. Anita had become a fountain of grace for all who came near her. It is still that way, as anyone who approaches her in prayer quickly learns. She welcomes you even now with the same smile and the same love, imparting spiritual favors; peace of heart, strength, a desire for holiness, the desire for God.

Prayer for Anita's Intercession:

Anita, you are now with God and beyond all the troubles of this life. Help me to serve Jesus generously, as you did. Make me willing to suffer for Him and share His cross if He should ask it. Dear and saintly sister, please intercede with our Lord for me in the matter I bring before you now...Thank you with all my heart. Amen.

(Source: Prayer pamphlet from Sioux City Carmel)

Peace be with you!

Rosemarie,OCDS

Saturday of Our Lady

PRAYER FOR PRIESTS

BY ST. CHARLES BORROMEO

(click on photo for link to article on "Year of the Priest")

O Holy Mother of God, pray for the priests Your Son has chosen to serve the Church. Help them by your intercession, to be holy, zealous and chaste. Make them models of virtue in the service of God's people.

Help them be pious in meditation, efficacious in preaching and zealous in the daily offering of the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass. Help them administer the Sacraments with joy. Amen.

As Lay Carmelites, one of our main charisms is to pray for priests. Please visit the above link to read the Holy Father's declaration of 2009 as the "Year of the Priest." This would be a good time to incorporate some special prayer and apostolate into our local community for the upbuilding of the priesthood.

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April 18

Memorial of Blessed Mary of the Incarnation, OCD

Barbe Avrillot was born in Paris in 1566. At the age of sixteen she married Pierre Acarie, by whom she had seven children. In spite of her household duties and many hardships, she attained the heights of the mystical life. Under the influence of St. Teresa' writings, and after mystical contact with the Saint herself, she spared no effort in introducing the Discalced Carmelite nuns into France. After her husband's death, she asked to be admitted among them as a lay sister, taking the name of Mary of the Incarnation; she was professed at the Carmel of Amiens in 1615. She was esteemed by some of the greatest men of her time, including St. Francis de Sales; and she was distinguished by her spirit of prayer and her zeal for the propagation of the Catholic faith. She died at Pontoise on April 18, 1618.

(From the Carmelite Proper)

Peace be with you!

Rosemarie, OCDS

Stained Glass Flowers-Little Accounts of the Miraculous

From A Story of A Soul: St. Therese of the Child Jesus recounts her miraculous healing during prayer to Our Lady--now known as Our Lady of the Smile.

On the Sunday, during the novena for me in Paris, Marie went into the garden leaving me with Leonie who was sitting reading near the window. After a minute or two I began calling, almost in a whisper: "Marie, Marie!"...I was suffering intensely but Marie suffered even more. She tried in vain to make me recognize her. Then, with Leonie and Celine, she knelt by my bed. They gazed toward the statue of the Blessed Virgin and prayed to her with all the passion of a mother asking for the life of her child. Marie got her desire. I could find no help on earth, so I also turned to my heavenly Mother and beseeched her to have pity on me. Suddenly the Blessed Virgin glowed with a beauty beyond anything I had ever seen. Her face was alive with kindness and an infinite tenderness, but it was her enchanting smile which really moved me to the depths. My pain vanished and two great tears crept down my cheeks--tears of pure joy.

Peace be with you!

Rosemarie, OCDS

Spiritual Life Dictionary

TODAY'S TERM: ECSTASY

A very vivid act of contemplation accompanied by the alienation of the sense life. A state in which the soul is rapt in God and receives wonderful spiritual illumination: so intense is the prayer that the soul goes out of the body, as it were, the senses are inhibited, and the vegetative functions slow down. The body is not injured but strengthened by the experience. (Catholic Dictionary)

According to Fr. Tanquerey, in his work The Spiritual Life, (who uses St. Teresa's Interior Castle as his source) there are three phases of Ecstatic Union:

1. Simple Ecstasy-which could be described as a fainting-spell. This experience is a mixture of pleasure and pain.

2. Rapture-Is a more "violent" and powerful action that may produce fear in the soul. This stage of ecstasy concludes the spiritual betrothal. A state of spiritual inebriation may last for days at a time.

3. Flight of the Spirit-The person may believe that her soul has left its body. This deep ecstasy is impossible to control. It has been written that St. John of the Cross would beat his hands against a wall to try and stave off the ecstasy if others were present. During this ecstasy one experiences the light and beauty of God. A spiritual truth will be revealed to the soul-afterwards it will be impossible to described this revealed truth.

St. Teresa states:

In one sort of rapture the soul, although perhaps not engaged in prayer at the time, is struck by some word of God which it either remembers or hears, His Majesty, touched with pity by what He has seen it suffer for so long past in its longing for Him, appears to increase the spark I described in the interior of the spirit until it entirely inflames the soul which rises with new life like phoenix from the flames.

Interior Castle, Sixth Mansion, Chapter 4, No. 3

The test of true ecstasy are the effects they produce in the soul.

St. Teresa teaches us that the soul:

1. Has a great desire to praise God and desires that others help her to praise Him.

2. She longs to perform severe penance-although the experience of love may not allow the soul to feel pain of these penances.

3. She desires to keep these favors hidden from others.

It must be kept in mind that the soul must not seek these favors. St. Teresa teaches us that we should not desire to travel this road of extra-ordinary favors. St. Therese of the Child Jesus also states this in her writitngs. She tells us clearly that she did not have visions or extra-ordinary favors and that she was thankful for this grace. She desired to travel the road of humble faith in God. We know that she inspires us to travel this same road of simplicity and childlike faith which brought her to the heights of holiness. May she and all the Saints pray for us.


Peace be with you!

Rosemarie, OCDS

Saturday of Our Lady

Our Lady of Consolation

National Shrine & Basilica

Carey, Ohio

MOLOBEN TO OUR MOTHER

(BYZANTINE PRAYER)

O my ever-gracious Queen, my hope, O Mother of God, Comfort of the orphan,the harbor of the harborless, the joy of the suffering, the refuge of the despised, behold my trial, behold my tribulation, help me, as I am without shelter. Beholding my destitution, loosen my bonds, if Thou wilt, for I have no help but Thee, no other refuge, no kindly comfort, but Thee, O Mother of God, Thou wilt guard and protect me for all eternity.

 Peace be with you!
Rosemarie, OCDS

Good Friday

PRAYER BEFORE A CRUCIFIX

(The Anima Christi)

Look down upon me, good and gentle Jesus

While before Thy face, I humbly kneel

And beg you, to instill within me lively sentiments of

Faith, Hope, and Charity

True repentance for my sins

And a firm purpose to amend them

While I contemplate thy five most

Precious Wounds

I remember the words of David, the Prophet

"They have pierced my my hands and feet,

They have numbered all my bones."

Peace be with you!
Rosemarie, OCDS

Tabernacle of the week

Our Lady of Consolation Shrine

Carey, Ohio

Side Chapel of Our Lady of Sorrows

Prayer for a Happy Death

O Mary, my good Mother, after Jesus you are my hope and consolation. By your protection make me persevere in my firm determination to offend God no more and to prefer a thousand deaths to the deliberate commission of one mortal sin! Obtain for me the grace of final perseverance, and grant that I may remember to ask for it during the time of temptation at the hour of death. You are the refuge of sinners and our perennial help. Our Lady of Perpetual Help, pray for me.

O Mother of Jesus, I offer you the last day, last hour and last moment of my life, and everything that shall take place in me at that last moment--in honor of the last moment, hour and day of your life, and of all that occurred in you on that day. If it pleases you, unite me with all the holy and divine dispositions of your maternal heart and your pure soul. Grant that, by your merits and prayers, my last thoughts, words, acts and breaths may be consecrated to the honor of the last thoughts, words, acts and breaths both of your Son and of yourself. Grant that I may die loving him with his holy love; that I may be utterly consumed and sacrificed to his glory; that my life may end with a last act of most pure love of him.

Prayer of St. John Eudes

Peace be with you!

Rosemarie, OCDS

Carmelite Quote

St. Teresa of the Andes:

see that God wants to prove me because at every moment He invites me to share His sufferings. I understood that it was through them that I will become like to the Crucified Jesus. This is my only goal...Yes, I want to be crucified in His likeness...I have suffered such aridity and abandonment, that there is no way of describing them...But this does not astonish me because I myself asked Christ to deprive me of all consolation, so that other souls that I love may find peace and joy in the sacraments and in prayer.

From her diary, entry April 2, 1918

Peace be with you!

Rosemarie, OCDS

Carmelite Quote

St. John of the Cross: 
Dark Night of the Soul

Because of the strong desire of many beginners for spiritual gratification, they usually have many imperfections of anger...Among these spiritual persons there are also those who fall into another kind of spiritual anger. Through a certain indiscreet zeal they become angry over the sins of others, reprove these others, and sometimes even feel the impulse to do so angrily, 
which in fact they occasionally do, setting themselves up as lords of virtue. All such conduct is contrary to spiritual meekness.

Others, in becoming aware of their own imperfections, grow angry with themselves in an unhumble impatience. So impatient are they about these imperfections that they want to become saints in a day. Many of these beginners make numerous plans and great resolutions, but since they are not humble and have no distrust of themselves, the more resolves they make the more they break, and the greater becomes their anger. They do not have the patience to wait until God gives them what they need, when he so desires. Their attitude is contrary to spiritual meekness and can only be remedied by the purgation of the dark night.

The Dark Night, Chap. 5, 1,3

Peace be with you!

Rosemarie, OCDS

Palm Sunday-Jesus' Triumphant Entry into Jerusalem

HOSANNA!

...They spread their cloaks on the roadway as he moved along; and on his approach to the descent from Mount Olivet, the entire crowd of disciples began to rejoice and praise God loudly for the display of power they had seen saying:

Blessed is he who comes as king

in the name of the Lord!

Praise in heaven

and glory in the highest!

Some of the Pharisees in the crowd said to him, "Teacher, rebuke your disciples." He replied, "If they were to keep silence, I tell you the very stones would cry out."

(Luke 19:37-40)

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Jesus' entry into Jerusalem manifests the coming of the kingdom that the Messiah-King, welcomed into his city by children and the humble of heart, is going to accomplish by the Passover of his Death and Resurrection.


Catechism #570


Image: Stained glass window-St. Joan of Arc Church
Canton, Ohio


Peace be with you!
Rosemarie, OCDS

Saturday of Our Lady

Our Lady of Sorrows

The Blessed Virgin Mary grants seven graces to the souls who honor her daily by meditating on her tears and dolors (sorrows). The Hail Mary is prayed seven times , once after each meditation. This devotion was passed on by St. Bridget.

The Seven Graces:

1. I will grant peace to their families.

2. They will be enlightened by the divine mysteries.

3. I will console them in their pains and I will accompany them in their work.

4. I will give them as much as they ask for as long as it does not oppose the adorable will of my divine Son or the sanctification of their souls.

5. I will defend them in their spiritual battles with the infernal enemy and I will protect them at every instant of their lives.

6. I will visibly help them at the moment of their death, they will see the face of their Mother.

7. I have obtained (This Grace) from my divine Son, that those who propagate this devotion to my tears and dolors will be taken directly from this earthly life to eternal happiness since all of their sins will be forgiven and my Son and I will be their eternal consolation and joy.

The Seven Sorrows:

1. The prophecy of Simeon (Luke 2:34,35)

2. The flight into Egypt. (Matthew 2:13-14)

3. The loss of the Child Jesus in the Temple. (Luke 2:43-45)

4. The meeting of Jesus and Mary on the Way of the Cross

5. The Crucifixion

6. The taking down of the body of Jesus from the Cross

7. The burial of Jesus

The Hail Mary: Hail Mary, full of grace, the Lord is with thee: blessed art thou amongst women and blessed is the fruit of they womb, Jesus. Holy Mary, Mother of God, pray for us sinners now and at the hour of our death. Amen.

Sorrowful Mother Shrine-Bellevue, Ohio

http://www.sorrowfulmothershrine.com/

Our Lady of Sorrows, pray for us!

Peace be with you!

Rosemarie, ocds

Carmelite Quote

Today's Quote from St. Teresa of Jesus (Avila)

Speaking of the great benefits we reap in prayer by meditating on the humanity of Christ, she states:

As a rule, our thoughts must have something to lean upon, though sometimes the soul may go out from itself and very often may be so full of God that it will need no created thing to assist it in recollection. But this is not very usual: when we are busy, or suffering persecutions or trials, when we cannot get as much quiet as we should like , and at seasons of aridity, we have a very good Friend in Christ. We look at him as a man; we think of his moments of weakness and times of trial; and He becomes our companion. Once we have made a habit of thinking of him in this way, it becomes very easy to find Him at our side, though there will come times when it is impossible to do either the one thing or the other.For that reason it is advisable to do as I have already said: we must not show ourselves to be striving after spiritual consolations; come what may, the great thing for us to do is to embrace the Cross. The Lord was deprived of all consolation; they left Him alone in His trials.

(The Life, Chap. 22)

From the Secular Carmelite Rule (Article 6):

The Secular Carmelite highly esteems the invitation of the Lord to deny himself and willingly take up his cross daily and follow Him; he will therefore gladly mortify himself in union with the sacrifice of Christ, remembering too our Holy Mother Teresa's remark that "prayer cannot be accompanied by self-indulgence." (Way of Perfection 4,2).

Peace be with you!

Rosemarie, OCDS

In Loving Remembrance of His Holiness, John Paul II

Born May 10, 1920

Ordained Priest: Nov. 1, 1946

Consecrated Bishop: Sept. 28, 1958

Appointed Archbishop of Kracow:Jan. 13, 1964

Created Cardinal: June 26, 1967

Elected Pope: Oct. 16, 1978

Died: April 2, 2005

Prayer: God our Father, in your wise and loving care you made your servant, John Paul II, Pope and teacher of all your Church.

He did the work of Christ on earth.

May your Son welcome him into eternal glory, where he lives and reign with you and the Holy Spirit, one God for ever and ever. Amen.

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