NOVENA TO OUR LADY OF MOUNT CARMEL-Day 1

First Day

Mary, welcoming model

Listening to the Word: The Annunciation (Lk 1: 26-38)

In the sixth month the angel Gabriel was sent from God to a city of Galilee named Nazareth, to a virgin betrothed to a man whose name was Joseph, of the house of David; and the virgin's name was Mary. And he came to her and said, "Hail, full of grace, the Lord is with you!" But she was greatly troubled at the saying, and considered in her mind what sort of greeting this might be. And the angel said to her, "Do not be afraid, Mary, for you have found favour with God. And behold, you will conceive in your womb and bear a son, and you shall call his name Jesus. He will be great, and will be called the Son of the Most High; and the Lord God will give to him the throne of his father David, and he will reign over the house of Jacob for ever; and of his kingdom there will be no end." And Mary said to the angel, "How shall this be, since I have no husband?" And the angel said to her, "The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you; therefore the child to be born will be called holy, the Son of God.

And behold, your kinswoman Elizabeth in her old age has also conceived a son; and this is the sixth month with her who was called barren. For with God nothing will be impossible." And Mary said, "Behold, I am the handmaid of the Lord; let it be to me according to your word." And the angel departed from her.

Reflection: The Gospels begin by presenting Mary as a woman who embraces God's plan. In an attitude of prayer, she listens, meditates, consents and answers "yes" to God who calls her. In a word she is welcoming. It is this welcoming that gives birth to Life in her. "And the Word was made flesh."

 PRAYER

Hail, Flower of Carmel,

Hail, fruitful Vine!

Hail, ever Immaculate Queen,

In whom all virtues shine.

O Mother mild, implore your Son,

To hear our prayers now,

And at the hour of our death. Amen.

---

THE CARMELITE NUNS OF TERRE HAUTE, INDIANA

Peace be with you!

Rosemarie of the Hearts of Jesus and Mary, ocds

CARMELITE NUNS

DYSART, SCOTLAND

The Power of the Religious Habit: A True Story

Sister Mary Brendon Zajac, S.N.D., hails from a clan based in Ohio. I suppose that every Sister of Notre Dame deserves her personal Quasimodo, and for this one, I fit the bill.

Too many people are hesitant to relate to those enrolled in religious orders. True, nuns should be treated with reverence due to their special commitment and vows, and yet, like you and me, they are working out their salvation with fear and trembling. Unlike you and I, though, most of them are making great strides in sanctity because they usually keep Jesus Christ foremost in their minds—and rightly so, considering that eternity is forever, and this present life is short. Most of us are caught up in the distractions of the day.

We seem to be frightened of the idea of holiness. We get itchy and fidgety whenever we get close to it, as if suffering from an allergic reaction. We find it more comfortable to wallow in the muck of our fallen nature. This fright is silly when we stop to think about it, because we are invited by God, and to be as holy as he is. That’s why we call ourselves “Christians.” Read more...

Peace be with you!

Rosemarie, ocds

THREE WORDS OF WISDOM

FROM THE BOOK OF SIRACH

FEAR THE LORD

Photo: R. Massaro (C)2013 SpiritSinging
Our Lady of Consolation Carey, Ohio

You who fear the Lord, wait for his mercy,
   turn not away lest you fall.

You who fear the Lord, trust him,
   and your reward will not be lost.

You who fear the Lord, hope for good things,
   for lasting joy and mercy.
                                            (Sirach 2: 7-9)


Those who fear the Lord
   disobey not his words; those who love him
   keep his ways.

Those who fear the Lord seek to please him,
   those who love him are filled with his law.

Those who fear the Lord prepare their hearts
   and humble themselves before him.
                                         (Sirach 2: 15-18)

VISIT THE MONASTERY OF SAN RAFAEL CALIFORNIA

Peace be with you!
Rosemarie, ocds

CARMELITE MONASTERIES

CARMELITE MONASTERY

METZ-PLAPPEVILLE, FRANCE

CARMEL OF THE HOLY TRINITY

(click on photo)

Peace be with you!
Rosemarie, ocds

CARMELITE NUNS

CARMELITE NUNS OF VALLADOLID, SPAIN

Recently, we studied the Foundations of St. Teresa of Jesus (Avila). One of her foundations was at Valladolid, Spain in 1567 .   The monastery is still active and on the web. 

Carmelites of Valladolid on Facebook

Community Website 

READ ABOUT SR. MAGDALENA OF THE EUCHARIST

CARMELITE NUN AT VALLADOLID (Click on photo)

(1978-2006)

Peace be with you!
Rosemarie, ocds

DISCALCED CARMELITE NUNS

Carmelite Nuns of San Jose, Santa Catarina, Brazil

Don't forget to use your translate button: Portuguese to English

Peace be with you!
Rosemarie, ocds

A poem by Jessica Powers 
(Sr. Miriam of the Holy Spirit, OCD)
1905-1988






To Live with the Spirit

To live with the Spirit of God is to be a listener.
It is to keep the vigil of mystery,
earthless and still.
One leans to catch the stirring of the Spirit,
strange as the wind's will.

The soul that walks where the wind of the Spirit blows
turns like a wandering weather-vane toward love.
It may lament like Job or Jeremiah,
echo the wounded hart, the mateless dove.
It may rejoice in spaciousness of meadow
that emulates the freedom of the sky.
Always it walks in waylessness, unknowing;
it has cast down forever from its hand
the compass of the whither and the why.

To live with the Spirit of God is to be a lover.
It is becoming love, and like to Him
toward Whom we strain with metaphors of creatures:
fire-sweep and water-rush and the wind's whim.
The soul is all activity, all silence;
and though it surges Godward to its goal,
it holds, as moving earth holds sleeping noonday,
the peace that is the listening of the soul.

Carmel of the Mother of God- Pewaukee, Wisconsin

Peace be with you!

Rosemarie, ocds

CARMELITE QUOTE

Photo:R.Massaro(2013)SpritSinging

Little Flower Church N.Canton, Oh.

Peaceful was the night and deep the silence
When my boat set sail on the open sea,
Gliding over the boundless ocean on the loveliest
   of journeys.

All was hushed beneath the vault of heaven
As if listening to the voice of the Eternal.
Suddenly the waves arose, engulfing my light
   barque--

It was the Trinity opening out to me:
In that divine abyss I found my deepest center.
No more will you find me at the water's edge;
I have plunged into infinity, where I belong.
With my Three I live at peace, in the wide
   freedom of eternity



Blessed Elizabeth of the Trinity, 1906

CARMELITE NUNS OF CHILE

MONASTERY OF MARY, MOTHER OF THE CHURCH

Peace be with you!
Rosemarie, OCDS

CARMELITE QUOTE

ST. THERESE OF THE CHILD JESUS AND OF
THE HOLY FACE
DOCTOR OF THE CHURCH-DOCTOR OF LOVE

Charity gave me the key to my vocation. I understood that since the Church is a body composed of different members, she could not lack the most necessary and most nobly endowed of all the bodily organs. I understood, therefore, that the Church has a heart-and a heart on fire with love. I saw, too, that love alone imparts life to all the members, so that should love ever fail, apostles would no longer preach the Gospel and martyrs would refuse to shed their blood. Finally, I realized that love includes every vocation, that love is all things, that love is eternal, reaching down through the ages and stretching to the uttermost limits of the earth.

CARMELITE NUNS IN DANVERS MASSACHUSETTS

Peace be with you!
Rosemarie, ocds

CARMELITE SAINT OF THE DAY

Blessed Archangela Girlani


Photo: carmelnet.org


Eleanor Girlani, from Trino in Monferrato, Italy, was given the name Archangela when, with her sisters Maria and Frances, she took the Carmelite habit in the monastery of Parma in 1477. Later, she was to become prioress of the monastery and then prioress of the new foundation at Mantua from 1492 until her death in 1495. It is written in an old manuscript that Blessed Archangela lived her religious life so intensely that, just as the monastery was entitled "Saint Mary in Paradise", she and the other nuns, even though still here on earth, lived as if already absorbed into heaven. She was distinguished by a special devotion to the Holy Trinity. Her liturgical cult was approved by Pius IX in 1864.


Carmelite Monastery Kilmacud, Dublin




Peace be with you!
Rosemarie, ocds

CARMELITE QUOTE

St. Therese of the Child Jesus:

Photo: R. Massaro

One Sunday, looking at a picture of Our Lord of the Cross, I was struck by the blood flowing from one of the divine hands. I felt a pang of great sorrow when thinking this blood was falling to the ground without any one's hastening to gather it up. I was resolved to remain in spirit at the foot of the Cross and to receive the divine dew. I understood I was then to pour it out upon souls. The cry of Jesus on the Cross sounded continually in my heart: " I thirst!" (John 19:28). These words ignited within me an unknown and very living fire. I wanted to give my Beloved to drink and I felt myself consumed with a thirst for souls.

Visit the Carmelite Monastery of New Ross, Ireland

Peace be with you!

Rosemarie, ocds

Carmelite Monasteries

THE DISCALCED CARMELITE NUNS OF SACRAMENTO, CALIFORNIA

(Click on photo)

Peace be with you!

Rosemarie, ocds

CARMELITE MONASTERIES

CARMELITE NUNS

YORK, ENGLAND

Peace be with you!
Rosemarie, ocds

THREE WORDS OF WISDOM

A JOYFUL BALANCE



In the morning, fill us with your love;

we shall exult and rejoice all our days.

Give us joy to balance our affliction

for the years when we knew misfortune.

                                Excerpt from Psalm 90


In these trying times, it may difficult for one to find joy in life.  As Christians, this gift is the hallmark of our response of accepting God's gift of our salvation: Jesus Christ.  Do you find your joy in God alone? Or does it depend on the circumstances of the day-if things are going well?

As Secular Carmelites, we can ask ourselves, am I a joyful person? Do I find a positive outlook on challenging situations?  Or, do I always find the negative in people and situations?  If our prayer life is authentic, the grace of God changes us into peaceful and happy and joyful people, despite the problems we are facing. 

St. Teresa of Jesus (Avila) had a famous saying.  She stated, "I would run a hundred miles from a sour-faced saint."  Wow!  Maybe we should be more observant in our daily life.  Do people want to run the other way when they see us?  Or, do we welcome loved ones and strangers with a smile?  I know when I am having a difficult day, sometimes just a smile from a stranger lifts my spirit.  Sometimes, that little gift from God is all it takes to "balance our affliction."

Detachment from worldly pleasures can also bring us joy.  St. John of the Cross teaches us that beginners find it hard to wean themselves from the pleasure of the senses.  This, as we know, can be a life-long battle.  But we may ask ourselves if we have been following a life of prayer for a number of years, have we truly begun to detach ourselves from the pleasure of the senses? Do we become irritable when we fast and pray?


St. Therese was not a sour-faced saint


We know that the saints gave up sleep and fasted.  When was the last time we gave up a little sleep in order to pray?  When was the last time (outside of Lent) that we gave up a favorite food or pastime? We want to become saints, but the time is now, not tomorrow.  The saints became saints, not because they were faithful to disciplines of the flesh, but because they were faithful to prayer.  Prayer leads to the life of virtue.  It makes us holy people.  Who are holy people?  The people who respond in love to their neighbor and who remain joyful about it! 

The saints were great evangelizers, maybe not in giving sermons publicly, but their lives were an open book of the Gospels.  We can't evangelize if we are unhappy people, for people will not be spiritually attracted to us. Let us pray, that through our life of prayer and service, God transforms us into living charity and joy, a reflection of the kingdom.

God certainly does give us joy to balance the afflictions of daily life.  We only need to look around us.  The gift of life and the beauty of nature is all around us.  The joy and consolation we receive in the Holy Eucharist and the Sacraments is overwhelming when we think about it.  We can experience great joy in remembering that God has given us the angels and the saints to help us on our journey, and, most importantly, he has given us his blessed Mother to be our Mother! What great joy to know that she loves us and prays for us!


Our Lady: Mother of the Church
cares for each member


Where do you find your joy that God has given you to balance your purification in this life?  Look for this joy.  Some days it may be harder to see than others, but if we have the gift of faith, we know that God has not left us orphans.  He remains with us.

Let us be instruments of God's joy.  Let us bring joy to others to balance their affliction, especially to those who are sad and lonely and find life burdensome.

...You changed my mourning into dancing; you took off my sackloth and clothed me with gladness.
Psalm 30

The joy in giving oneself to God alone: Carmelite Nuns in Italy





Peace be with you!
Rosemarie, ocds



CARMELITE MONASTERIES

CARMELITE NUNS IN THAILAND

MY VOCATION IS LOVE

Peace be with you!
Rosemarie, ocds

CARMELITE NUNS

Carmelite Monastery of the Holy Spirit

Ormiston Australia

Click on photo to visit their website

Peace be with you!

Rosemarie, ocds

Carmelite Movie

After ten years of correspondence, filmmaker Michael Whyte was given unprecedented access to the monastery of the Most Holy Trinity, in London's Notting Hill. The monastery, founded in 1878, is home to the nuns of the Discalced Order of Carmelites, who lead a cloistered life dedicated to prayer, work and contemplation, rarely leaving the monastery except to visit a doctor or dentist. Silence is maintained throughout the day with the exception of two periods of recreation.


A highly acclaimed, multiple award-winning documentary, No Greater Love follows in the wake of the great success of a similar film, Into Great Silence, as it gives a unique insight into this closed world of these nuns where the modern world's materialism is rejected; they have no television, radio or newspapers. The film interweaves a year in the life of the monastery with the daily rhythms of Divine Office and work. Centered on Holy Week, it follows a year in which a novice is professed and one of the older nuns dies. Though mainly a meditational film, there are several interviews with the nuns, which offer insights into their lives, faith, moments of doubt and their belief in the power of prayer in the heart of the community. A beautifully filmed and deeply inspiring production.
(Description from You Tube Movie Trailer)




Peace be with you!
Rosemarie, ocds

The Season of Advent: A Time of Waiting upon the Lord in Faith...
Let us keep watch with Mary, Our Mother!

The Catechism of the Catholic Church on Prayer

Pope Benedict XVI Declares a "Year of Faith"

Pope Benedict XVI has declared a Year of Faith, beginning on October 11, 2012, the fiftieth anniversary of the Second Vatican Council.

I have decided to announce a Year of Faith. It will begin on 11 October 2012, the fiftieth anniversary of the opening of the Second Vatican Council, and it will end on the Solemnity of Our Lord Jesus Christ, Universal King, on 24 November 2013. The starting date of 11 October 2012 also marks the twentieth anniversary of the publication of the Catechism of the Catholic Church, a text promulgated by my Predecessor, Blessed John Paul II, with a view to illustrating for all the faithful the power and beauty of the faith. This document, an authentic fruit of the Second Vatican Council, was requested by the Extraordinary Synod of Bishops in 1985 as an instrument at the service of catechesis and it was produced in collaboration with all the bishops of the Catholic Church...

The Year of Faith, from this perspective, is a summons to an authentic and renewed conversion to the Lord, the one Savior of the world. In the mystery of his death and resurrection, God has revealed in its fullness the Love that saves and calls us to conversion of life through the forgiveness of sins (cf. Acts 5:31). For Saint Paul, this Love ushers us into a new life: "We were buried ... with him by baptism into death, so that as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, we too might walk in newness of life" (Rom 6:4). Through faith, this new life shapes the whole of human existence according to the radical new reality of the resurrection.

Peace be with you!

Rosemarie, ocds

___________________

Saturday of Our Lady

...Free of every profane entanglement, Mary attended to God and her domestic duties with the freedom of a soul that is liberated from all purely human thoughts and worries.
Through a special grace Mary had a sure mastery of all the movements of her heart; yet she took the most scrupulous care to keep it free of any distraction...
How many holy hermits and virgins have reached the heights of sanctity simply through the merits of an interior life!
The man given to externals, on the contrary, is anxious and agitated by countless trifles that are unworthy of his attention, and so he loses pace and tranquility...
Try, then, to remain within yourself and give yourself to external affairs only when God requires it...
From the Imitation of Mary Book II Chap. 19

Carmelite Nuns-Sioux City, Iowa

Peace be with you!
Rosemarie, ocds
______________________

Let us pray to Christ the King. He is the firstborn of all creation; all things exist in him.

– May your kingdom come, O Lord.

Christ, you are our savior and our God, our shepherd and our king,
lead your people to life-giving pastures.
– May your kingdom come, O Lord.

Good Shepherd, you laid down your life for your sheep,
rule over us, and in your care we shall want for nothing.
– May your kingdom come, O Lord.

Christ, our redeemer, you have been made king over all the earth,
restore all creation in yourself.
– May your kingdom come, O Lord.

King of all creation, you came into the world to bear witness to the truth,
may all men come to acknowledge your primacy in all things.
– May your kingdom come, O Lord.

Christ, our model and master, you have brought us into your kingdom,
grant that we may be holy and blameless before you this day.
– May your kingdom come, O Lord.

PRAYER:
Almighty and merciful God,

you break the power of evil
and make all things new
in your Son Jesus Christ, the King of the universe.
May all in heaven and earth acclaim your glory
and never cease to praise you.
We ask this through our Lord Jesus Christ, your Son,
who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit,
one God, for ever and ever.
– Amen.

Visit the Carmelite Monastery-Zephyr, Canada

Peace be with you!
Rosemarie, ocds
_____________________