St. John of the Cross-Sayings of Light and Love

SAYING #162

Anyone who complains or grumbles is not perfect, nor even a good Christian.

Visit the Carmel of St. Teresa in Little Rock, Arkansas

Peace be with you!
Rosemarie, ocds
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Carmelite Saint of the Day

Blessed Mary of Jesus Crucified

Biography of this holy Carmelite

Peace be with you!
Rosemarie, ocds

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August 23

Saint Rose of Lima

(Photo: R.Massaro)

A Prayer of St. Rose

Help me to remember what is really important:

that I am Your child

You are my Father

You love me for who I am and how I live

not what I look like or what I own.

Let me praise You Who sees into my heart,

Who is always with me

and Who eases my suffering.

Biography of St. Rose from

the Nashville Dominicans

(click here)

(Video from CatholicNews Agency)

Peace be with you!

Rosemariee, ocds

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Spiritual Direction with St. John of the Cross

O lamps of fire!

in whose splendors

the deep caverns of feeling,

once obscure and blind,

now give forth, so rarely, so exquisitely,

both warmth and light to their Beloved.

Three qualities of praise of the soul

in union with God:

1.  Praises him as its duty; for it sees that God created it for his own praise.

2. Praises God for the good it receives and the delight it has in praising.

3.  Praises God for what he is in himself. Even though the soul would experience no delight, it would praise him because of who he is.

Along with qualities of praise, St. John lists three qualities of gratitude experienced by the soul in union with him:

1.  Gratefulness for the natural and spiritual goods and blessings it has received.

2.  Gratefulness for the intense delight it has in praising God, for the souls is absorbed with extreme ardor in this praise.

3.  The third is praise only because of what God is, which is a much stronger and more delightful praise.

(Living Flame of Love, Stanza 3 No. 84-85)

READ MORE ABOUT ST. JOHN OF THE CROSS

Peace be with you!

Rosemarie, ocds

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Saturday of Our Lady

In the silence of the hills Mary came at Lourdes, and so much of the story of her visits is wrapped in a mysterious silence. The apparitions began and ended in silence "In the silence of the soul" said St. John of the Cross, "God makes himself heard." In the soul of Bernadette there was a calm peace that never deserted her, and made her utterly receptive of the Lady's word...


Prayer begins with listening, and Bernadette was a good listener. Every word of the message she received resounded in the depths of her soul. Not a detail of those words was lost. After the Lady had gone, this child moved into a world of deep unbroken silence; she went her way treasuring and pondering the words in her heart.

A pilgrimage is an invitatin to silence. "Try to maintain silence in your souls, "said Pope Pius XII, "and you will be able to contemplate the splendours realized in Mary."

PRAYER:

Immacualte Virgin, grant me something of that silence full of love and peace which always filled your soul. Make my ear always attentive to God's word, and may your message to Bernadette resound in the silence of my heart so that I may be drawn by prayer and penance close to your Divine  Son.  Amen.

(Pilgrims With Mary, John Moloney, P.P. )

LOURDES LIVE WEBCAM

Peace be with you!

Rosemarie, ocds

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CARMELITE QUOTE

 When I want to rest my heart fatigued by the darkness which surrounds it by the memory of the luminous country after which I aspire, my torment redoubles; it seems to me that the darkness, borrowing the voice of sinners, says mockingly to me: ' You are dreaming about the light, about a fatherland embalmed in the sweetest perfumes; you are dreaming about the eternal possession of the Creator of all these marvels; you believe that one day you will walk out of this fog which surrounds you! Advance, advance; rejoice in death which will give you not what you hope for but a night still more profound, the night of nothingness'...Ah! my Jesus pardon me if I have caused Him any pain, but He knows very well that while I do not have the joy of faith, I am trying to carry out its works at least."

I desire no longer either suffering or death, and still I love them both; it is love alone that attracts me...abandonment alone guides me. I have no other compass!

The Basilica and Sanctuary of

St. Therese-France

(click here)

Peace be with you!

Rosemarie, ocds

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St. Joseph Church

Randolph, Ohio

Feast of the Assumption

Annual Triduum

St. Joseph Randolph, Ohio - free slideshow

Peace be with you!

Rosemarie, ocds

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