This week's featured Catholic church:

Immaculate Conception Church

Dennison, Ohio

Parish Website

Immaculate Conception Church - Online Slideshow Maker

Peace be with you!

Rosemarie, ocds

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Feast of All Carmelite Saints

All of us who wear this holy Carmelite habit are called to prayer and contemplation. This is what we were founded for. We are descended from those holy fathers of ours on Mount Carmel, those who went in search of that treasure--the priceless pearl we are talking about--in such solitude and with such contempt for the world.

We must remember those holy fathers of ours who have gone before us, the hermits whose lives we are trying to imitate. We must remember our real founders, those holy fathers whose descendants we are. It was by way of poverty and humility, we know, that they came to the enjoyment of God.
From the works of St. Teresa of Jesus

General House of the Teresian Carmel

Peace be with you!
Rosemarie, ocds
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Sayings of Light and Love

SAYING #47

Lord, you return gladly and lovingly to lift up the one who offends you, but I do not turn to raise and honor the one who annoys me.

Visit the website of the Carmelite Vicariate in Nigeria

Peace be with you!
Rosemarie, ocds
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Saturday of Our Lady

Photo: R. Massaro Most Pure Heart of Mary Shelby, Ohio

My child, if you love the Lord, you will also love your neighbor for whose sake He came down from heaven, became a man, and offered His own life on the Cross.

Do not be satisfied with sentiments; let your love take concrete form. Many who are afflicted need the comfort of your words; many who are unhappy need the help of your generous gifts.

God has allowed many people to be unhappy in this world so that they might achieve holiness through their suffering and you through your charity.

Be ready to give all the help you can. Delay always means the loss of some of love's merit.

Let your love be generous and extend as far as possible.

To limit the service you offer your neighbor is to evade rather than carry out the duties of love.

When you yourself cannot help your neighbor, then try to bring others to help him, or at least invoke the Lord's providential care over him.

See in your neighbor not a mere man but God Himself. Then, no matter who asks your help, you will refuse him nothing, because you do not want to refuse it to the Lord...

Give the afflicted a consoling word, Then the God of all consolation (2 Cor 1,3) will sustain you in your own afflictions by His powerful grace.
The Imitation of Mary Book I, Chapter 21

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

Blessed Elizabeth of the  Trinity

O my God, Trinity Whom I adore, help me to forget myself entirely that I maybe established in You as still and as peaceful as if my soul were already in eternity. May nothing trouble my peace or make me leave You, O my Unchanging One, but may each minute carry me further into the depths of Your Mystery.



Give peace to my soul; make it Your heaven, Your beloved dwelling and Your resting place. May I never leave You there alone but be wholly present my faith wholly vigilant, wholly adoring, and wholly surrendered to your creative action.O my beloved Christ, crucified by love, I wish to be a bride for Your Heart;I wish to cover You with glory; I wish to love You even until I die of love!But I feel my weakness, and I ask You to "clothe me with Yourself,"to identify my soul with all the movements of Your Soul, to overwhelm me, to possess me, to substitute Yourself for me that my life may be but a radiance of Your life.

Come into me as Adorer, as Restorer, as Savior, O Eternal Word, Word of my God, I want to spend my life in listening to You, to become wholly teachable that I may learn all from You. Then, through all nights,all voids, all helplessness, I want to gaze on You always and remain in Your great light. O my beloved Star, so fascinate me that I may not withdraw from Your radiance.O Consuming Fire, Spirit of Love, "come upon me,"and create in my soul a kind of incarnation of the Word:that I may be another humanity for Him in which He can renew His whole Mystery.

And you, O Father, bend lovingly over Your poor little creature:"cover her with Your shadow," seeing in her only the "Beloved in whom You are well pleased."O my Three, my All, my Beatitude, infinite Solitude, Immensity in which I lose myself, I surrender myself to You as Your prey. Bury Yourself in me that I may bury myself in You until I depart to contemplate in Your light the abyss of Your greatness.

Read more about this saint

Peace be with you!
Rosemarie, ocds
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(Elizabeth's famous prayer to the Holy Trinity)

Three Ways of Prayer

Three Ways of Prayer:
Vocal, Meditation, Contemplation

Vocal Prayer: By words, mental or vocal, our prayer takes flesh. Yet it is most important that the heart should be present to him to whom we are speaking in prayer. Catechism #2700

Think of vocal prayer as a young flower, a few buds, but no full blooms.

Meditation: Meditation is above all a quest...The required attentiveness is difficult to sustain. We are usually helped by books...Catechism #2705

Think of meditation as a more mature flower, it has been nurtured and well-tended and has produced a beautiful bloom

Contemplation: What is contemplative prayer? St. Teresa answers: "Contemplative prayer in my opinion is nothing else than a close sharing between friends; it means taking time frequently to be alone with him who we know loves us." Catechism #2709
Think of Contemplation as the exquisite Rose, a symbol of God's beauty and purity shining through the soul. Now in full bloom, it's only requirement: to soak in the sunlight.

Vocal and Meditative prayer require human effort. It is difficult to pray when one does not "feel" like it. As Carmelites, we have made a commitment to 1/2 hour of mental prayer each day. This requires the taking up of our cross in being present to the Lord amid dryness, distractions,and a lack of sensible consolation. St. John of the Cross warns us about being attached to sensible consolations in prayer. And many souls who begin the life of prayer quickly give up when the consolations cease. The Lord desires faithful lovers, who love him because he is worthy to be loved and not for the favors he bestows upon the soul.


Here is a beautiful quote from the Catechism's section on prayer-#2711:

Entering into contemplative prayer is like entering in to the Eucharistic Liturgy: we "gather up:" the heart, recollect our whole being under the prompting of the Holy Spirit, abide in the dwelling place of the Lord which we are, awaken our faith in order to enter into the presence of him who awaits us. We let our masks fall and turn our hearts back to the Lord who loves us, so as to hand ourselves over to him as an offering to be purified and transformed.


Wow! What a beautiful description of the contemplative heart. A heart that all the faithful are called to. In this prayer, our whole being participates in the love and adoration of the Holy Trinity. As the Virgin Mary, our model exclaimed, "My soul proclaims the greatness of the Lord!"


Carmelites are a witness to the world of this call. A call that is stifled in our society. A society that is focused on material things, on sensible things, on my own things, on a number of things.


Who will climb the mountain of the Lord? Who will heed the call of the Lord? A call to intimate union, intimate friendship with him? We need the Holy Spirit to enlighten the hearts of the faithful. Remember, we too were once in the dark before the Lord opened our eyes to see him and to begin the pilgrimage up Mount Carmel.


St. John of the Cross began his pilgrimage in the dark night of faith.

One dark night,

fired with love's urgent longings

--ah, the sheer grace!--

I went out unseen,

my house being now all stilled.

Peace be with you!
Rosemarie, ocds
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Solemnity of All Saints

QUEEN OF ALL SAINTS, PRAY FOR US!

Pope Benedict XVI Homily for All Saints Day (2009):

With great joy, we celebrate the feast of All Saints. Visiting a nursery garden, one remains taken aback at the variety of plants and flowers, and spontaneously begins to think of the Creator's fantasy that made the earth a marvellous garden.

These same sentiments come to us when we consider the spectacle of hol-iness: the world appears to us as a "garden," where the Spirit of God has sustained with remarkable wonder a multitude of saints, male and female, from every age and social condition, of every tongue, people and culture. Each is different from the others, with the uniqueness of personality and spiritual charism.

All, however, were marked by the "seal" of Jesus, the imprint of his love, witnessed upon the Cross. All now are at joy, in a feast without end as, like Jesus, they reached this goal across toil and trial, each one encountering a share of sacrifice to participate in the glory of the resurrection.

This spiritual measure, to which all the baptised are called, is accomplished in following the way of the evangelical beatitudes. It is the same path traced by Jesus and which the saints pushed themselves to follow, always aware of their human limits. In their earthly existence, in fact, they were poor in spirit, pained by their sins, starved of and thirsting for justice, merciful, pure of heart, peacemakers, persecuted for righteousness' sake.

On this day let us revive in ourselves an attraction toward Heaven that calls us to carry on in our earthly pilgrimage. Let us lift in our hearts the desire to always unite ourselves to the family of the saints, of which we already have the grace to be a part. In the words of a celebrated song, "When the saints go marching in, oh how I'd want, Lord, to be in their number!"

May this beautiful aspiration burn in all Christians and help them to surpass every difficulty, every fear, every tribulation. Let us place, dear friends, our hand in the maternal one of Mary, Queen of All Saints, and let ourselves be led by her toward our heavenly homeland, in the company of the blessed spirits "of every nation, people and language." And let us unite ourselves in prayer already recalling our dear departed ones whom we commemorate on this feast day.

LITANY OF THE SAINTS

Peace be with you!
Rosemarie, ocds
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