Quote of the day, 28 March: Blessed Marie-Eugène

Mary… on the Way to Calvary

“The people followed him in great numbers.”

We had sought her, and we had not found her. And now—here she is: Mary, on the way to Calvary. She must be there.

Dark rumors had spread through the night about her Son—they said he had been arrested, brought before the Sanhedrin. She had come, accompanied by the holy women. She heard the cries: “Crucify him!” … They said he was to be crucified.

And here she is on the way to Calvary.

She wants to see her Son, and the holy women who accompany her make a way for her through the crowd—at a crossing, at a turn—so that she might be very near.

Jesus passes. Their eyes meet.

What happens in that gaze? All their love.

And the Virgin Mary looks at her Son. She looks upon that face, bruised and swollen. Oh, that gaze of a mother—what does it see? The Word is hidden. She is accustomed to mystery; yet she does not know this suffering. She does not yet know this form of the mystery presented to her.

She enters into it by faith. She accepts it in love.

Jesus, you look upon your Mother—and in that gaze, what a meeting! Your two loves, your two missions, your two offerings—united in the one will of God laid upon you: a shared acceptance of God’s design for each of you, a shared offering of your love for all humanity.

Mary, teach me to read, as you did, this living book that is Jesus on the way to Calvary.

Thank you, Jesus. Thank you, Mary, for your love.

Blessed Marie-Eugène of the Child Jesus

Assidus à la prière avec Marie, Fourth Sorrowful Mystery (excerpt)

Marie-Eugène de l’Enfant-Jésus. Assidus à la prière avec Marie: Méditations sur les mystères du Rosaire. Toulouse: Éditions du Carmel, 2017.

Translation from the French text is the blogger’s own work product and may not be reproduced without permission.

Featured image: Detail from Mater Dolorosa and Christ of Sorrows by Simon Marmion (French, 1420-1489). Oil on wood panel, ca. 1460, from the Museum of Fine Arts, Strasbourg. Image credit: jean louis mazieres / Flickr (Some rights reserved).

#BlessedMarieEugeneOfTheChildJesus #BlessedVirginMary #gaze #suffering #ViaCrucis

Quote of the day, 25 March: Blessed Marie-Eugène

Before the Annunciation, Mary was the daughter of God in prayer. Certainly, she didn’t yet know about her divine motherhood. She was aware of her grace, the treasure she possessed, the abundance of this grace; yet she remained unaware of herself in the sense that she didn’t recognize the superiority of this grace over ordinary and common grace.

The Virgin was concerned only with uniting herself to God. It was this self-forgetfulness, this purity, that allowed God to pour Himself into her. She continually sought Him, going to find Him in the Temple, and orienting herself toward Him like a child to her Father.

Let us not think that simplicity implies limited horizons. From a human perspective, Mary surely does not seek satisfaction for her faculties; no, she turns solely toward God, practicing in her external actions—required by this simple orientation—the virtue of obedience, like a child who does what is asked without seeking anything beyond it, without even becoming attached to the work itself.

We, on the other hand, are restless in our faculties; Mary is not. She finds this peace in faith. Everything else would be an unnecessary distraction, diverting her from her contact with God. For her, this contact is entirely simple, without ecstasies or raptures, for her faculties are flexible enough to receive and endure—without leaving a trace in her senses—the brilliance and anointing of the Divinity present within her.

What matters, in fact, is not strength but flexibility. The strong are inevitably broken; the flexible bend and endure. In the Virgin, simplicity and flexibility reach perfection. Nothing externalizes itself in her. “She is so simple that I fear she will not be recognized,” they said about Saint Thérèse of the Child Jesus. The same can be said of the Virgin at that moment.

Blessed Marie-Eugène of the Child Jesus

La Vierge Marie toute Mère (The Virgin Mary, All Mother)
Présence Maternelle: La prière de Marie (Maternal presence, Mary’s prayer)

de l’Enfant-Jésus, M 2019, La Vierge Marie Toute Mère, edited by Institut Notre-Dame de Vie, Éditions du Carmel, Toulouse.

Translation from the French text is the blogger’s own work product and may not be reproduced without permission.

Featured Image: This detail from The Annunciation by the Italian artist Orazio Lomi Gentileschi (1563–1639) is an oil on canvas painting executed in 1623 for Charles Emmanuel I, the Duke of Savoy. It is one of the masterpieces found in the collections of the Musei Reali di Torino. Image credit: Adobe Stock (stock photo)

#Annunciation #BlessedMarieEugeneOfTheChildJesus #BlessedVirginMary #prayer #unionWithGod

Quote of the day, 11 March: Blessed Marie-Eugène

“What happens is that my intellect is suddenly seized by things sometimes so trivial that at other times I would laugh about them. The devil makes the soul upset in every way he wants and shackles it there without its being master of itself or able to think of anything else than the absurdities he represents to it…”
(St. Teresa of Avila, The Book of Her Life, 30:11).

It is natural enough that the devil should use his great power and take advantage of the relative weakness of beginners in prayer, to stop them in their journey towards God by causing in them, as far as he is able, as much dryness and distraction as he can. That he thus intervenes—often successfully—in the prayer of beginners seems certain; and, although using on them much more benign procedures than on Saint Teresa, these are probably much more effective.

Blessed Marie-Eugène of the Child Jesus

Chapter VI, Distractions and dryness

Note: Blessed Marie-Eugène of the Child Jesus made his first religious profession on 11 March 1923.

Marie-Eugène de l’Enfant-Jésus & Doran V 1990, I Want to See God, Christian Classics, Allen, Texas.

Featured image: Father Marie-Eugène of the Child Jesus. Image credit: Discalced Carmelites (by permission)

#BlessedMarieEugeneOfTheChildJesus #distractions #prayer #religiousProfession #StTeresaOfAvila

Quote of the day, 4 February: Blessed Marie-Eugène

The contemplative is an explorer of realms that begin at the outer limits of human understanding and extend into the infinity of God. Having reached God, how could such a soul not also one day discover Mary—the one through whom every divine gift passes? In these mysterious expanses, the contemplative advances by the light of living faith: “The Lord lives, in whose presence I stand” [1 Kgs 17:1].

It is the living presence of God that the contemplative seeks; why, then, should that same gaze not also seek the living presence of Mary?

The contemplative discovery of the Blessed Virgin closely resembles the contemplative discovery of God Himself. It is of the same nature and unfolds under the same conditions. Both rest upon a presence within the soul of the living realities they are called to encounter.

God is present within us because He continually sustains our existence by His action and because He communicates to us grace, a participation in His own life. To this active and sustaining presence is added a new mode of presence brought about by grace itself. By drawing us, as children, into the movement of Trinitarian life, grace enables us to enter into relationship with God and to know Him directly and immediately as an object of knowledge and love. It is for this reason that this new mode of divine presence, created by these relationships, is called an objective presence.

With regard to the Blessed Virgin, we may affirm that there is a certain mode of presence, which we deliberately refrain from defining. We leave this task to theologians, so as not to tie truths that transcend all schools of thought to any single theological opinion… Mary could not communicate supernatural riches to us unless she were in real contact with us.

Blessed Marie-Eugène of the Child Jesus

Heureuse Celle qui a Cru: Découvrir Marie (1943)

de l’Enfant-Jésus, M 2017, Heureuse Celle qui a Cru, edited by Institut Notre-Dame de Vie, Éditions du Carmel, Toulouse.

Translation from the French text is the blogger’s own work product and may not be reproduced without permission.

Featured image: Detail from Madonna and Child, an undated oil on wood painting attributed to Bernardino Luini. Image credit: Smithsonian American Art Museum (Public domain).

#BlessedMarieEugeneOfTheChildJesus #BlessedVirginMary #grace #presenceOfGod #relationship

4 February: Blessed Marie-Eugene of the Child Jesus Grialou

February 4
BLESSED MARIE-EUGENE OF THE CHILD JESUS GRIALOU
Priest

Optional Memorial

Henri Grialou was born in Aubin, in Aveyron (France), on December 2, 1894. After his priestly ordination on February 4, 1922, he was captivated by the doctrine of St. Therese of the Child Jesus and St. John of the Cross and decided to join the Discalced Carmelites. After serving as superior in France, in 1937 he was elected to serve as a General Definitor of the Order in Rome. In 1948, he was appointed Apostolic Visitor of the Discalced Carmelite nuns in France and religious assistant to their federations. From 1955 he was able to devote himself full-time to the secular institute Notre Dame de Vie, which he started in 1932. He died in Venasque on March 27th, 1967, the feast day of the institute. He was beatified in 2016 by Pope Francis.

From the common of pastors or of holy men (religious)

Office of Readings

Second Reading
I Am A Daughter of the Church, Fides, Notre Dame Indiana 1955, 665-666

From the writings of Blessed Marie-Eugene of the Child Jesus, priest

The saint in the whole Christ

It is especially in their common work that the Holy Spirit glorifies the instruments He has chosen. The Holy Spirit makes Himself lowly with saints in order to glorify them. Inspirer of the work by His light, efficacious agent by His omnipotence, yet He hides Himself under the human traits of the apostle. Anyone wanting to analyze the character of the works could, in fact, find the raison d’être of each one of them in the personality of the saint. The manifold works and institutions in which the Spirit has put His leaven of immortality and in which the Church takes just pride, show forth admirably the gifts, the desires, the diverse genius of their founder. The Holy Spirit appears in this world under a thousand human faces that reflect the power and grace of His hidden presence. The Spirit never repeats Himself in the exterior forms He chooses. Is this not the reason why Saint John of the Cross asks us never to take a saint for our model? This would be to expose oneself to failure in suppleness, in fidelity to the movement of the Spirit, who manifests His power and perfection as Spirit in the variety of His works and the perfection of His incarnation in each one of His instruments.

The delicate charms of this loving collaboration of God and the soul, these playings of the love that unites them, in turn, brilliant and hidden, all these splendors of lowliness and of power are only beauties of here below, a reflection that reaches us from the beauty of the work the Holy Spirit is building. This work is the Spouse who comes up from the desert, flowing with delights, leaning upon her Beloved; this is the masterpiece of Divine Mercy, the whole Christ in whom God has brought together and orientated all things. For the beauty of the Church of God, Jesus gave His blood; and the Spirit continues to immolate His victims after filling them with the marvelous gifts of His grace. We are all dedicated to the consummation of this work. Our gaze must rest on it lovingly and there remain fixed.

The saint is such only because he has entered by transforming union in the whole Christ. Identified with Christ Jesus, he continues Christ’s priestly prayer for union. With the Spirit of Love, he groans within himself, “waiting for the adoption as sons”; and under Love’s captivation, works to consummate in unity all those whom God has “predestined to become conformed to the image of his Son.”

Responsory

R/. We have the first fruits of the Spirit; * as we wait for adoption as sons, the redemption of our bodies.
V/. For in this hope we were saved. * As we wait for adoption as sons, the redemption of our bodies.

Canticle of Zechariah

Ant. What you say of me does not come from yourselves; it is the Spirit of my Father speaking in you.

Prayer

God, rich in mercy,
you gave Blessed Marie-Eugene of the Child Jesus
the grace and light to guide your people
along the paths of contemplative prayer
and missionary witness toward the fullness of Christ.
Grant us through his intercession
to grow in submission to the Holy Spirit
and to work, in faith, for the coming of your Kingdom.

Through Jesus Christ, your Son, our Lord,
who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit,
God, for ever and ever.

Canticle of Mary

Ant. This is a faithful and wise steward: the Lord entrusted the care of his household to him, so that he might give them their portion of food at the proper season.

Blessed Marie-Eugene making a visitation
Image credit: Discalced Carmelites

This is a provisional English translation of the proper office for the optional memorial of Blessed Marie-Eugène of the Child Jesus Grialou, published by the Secular Institute Notre Dame de Vie pursuant to the Decree of the Congregation of Divine Worship and Discipline of the Sacraments (Prot. N. 638/16) dated 14 January 2019, its effective date. This translation was submitted to the General Secretary for Information of the Discalced Carmelite Order.

#BlessedMarieEugeneOfTheChildJesus #HenriGrialou #Liturgy #NotreDameDeVie #optionalMemorial #priest

Quote of the day, 2 February: Blessed Marie-Eugène

“Lord, now lettest thou thy servant depart in peace,
according to thy word;
for mine eyes have seen thy salvation
which thou hast prepared in the presence of all peoples,
a light for revelation to the Gentiles,
and for glory to thy people Israel.”
(Lk 2:29–32)

Turning toward the Virgin, Simeon makes a mysterious prediction: this rising light will be “a sign that is spoken against” (Lk 2:34). Jesus will always be a sign of contradiction because He is hidden, and only loving faith can discover Him. At the same time, He will be a cause of salvation for many. And Simeon announces to the Virgin: “A sword will pierce through your own soul also” (Lk 2:35).

This is the first time the Virgin hears such a confirmation of the message of the angel Gabriel, now accompanied by new details that illumine her path. How she must have been deeply moved by this announcement, which clarified the angel’s message.

Mary understands that she must bear the weight of this Divine Child by sharing in His mission. Yes, suffering will mark her life. This word will be inscribed not only in her soul, but in all her future horizons. She will walk in hope.

Blessed Marie-Eugène of the Child Jesus

Assidus à la prière avec Marie, Fourth Joyful Mystery (excerpt)

Marie-Eugène de l’Enfant-Jésus. Assidus à la prière avec Marie: Méditations sur les mystères du Rosaire. Toulouse: Éditions du Carmel, 2017.

Translation from the French text is the blogger’s own work product and may not be reproduced without permission.

Featured image: The Presentation of Christ in the Temple is color on poplar wood painting by Italian artist Fra Bartolomeo (1472–1517), the famous Dominican from Florence. It comes from the collections of the Kunsthistorisches Museum in Vienna. Image credit: Wikimedia Commons (Public domain)

#BlessedMarieEugeneOfTheChildJesus #BlessedVirginMary #FeastOfThePresentation #hope #suffering

Quote of the day, 11 January: Blessed Marie-Eugène

“The Spirit of the Lord is upon me” (Is 61:1)

This descent of the Holy Spirit upon Christ—what is it? It’s not only a sign; it’s a true descent of the Holy Spirit. It is the Spirit of the Father; it’s the Spirit of the Son. In Jesus, humanity is united to divinity. Our Lord is continually animated by his spirit of sonship, living from this filial movement as Son of the Father by nature, and as Son in his humanity. At the same time, his humanity, in all his actions, is guided and animated by the Spirit of God.

And there is not only the descent of the Holy Spirit; there is also the word of the Father: “This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased” (Mt 3:17). The Trinity is present there, in the prayer of Jesus, and each of the three Persons affirms what he is and what he does: the Father, in recognizing his Son; the Son, in becoming incarnate, in allowing himself to be baptized and in praying here below; the Spirit, in taking possession of the humanity of the Son.

This grasp of the Holy Spirit can be understood as a taking possession of the humanity of Christ for his public life, for all the acts he is going to accomplish. The Christian himself becomes perfect only when he is moved by the Holy Spirit. It is the Holy Spirit who does everything.

Let us learn how to place ourselves in cooperation with him, allowing his action to work within us. The saint is the one who understands that God is everything. “This is my joy: he must increase, and I must decrease,” said John the Baptist (Jn 3:30). This sanctifying grace, this presence, this ever more powerful action of the Holy Spirit, will make of us perfect children of God.

Blessed Marie-Eugène of the Child Jesus

Assidus à la prière avec Marie, First Luminous Mystery (excerpt)

Marie-Eugène de l’Enfant-Jésus. Assidus à la prière avec Marie: Méditations sur les mystères du Rosaire. Toulouse: Éditions du Carmel, 2017.

Translation from the French text is the blogger’s own work product and may not be reproduced without permission.

Featured image: Detail from Baie 20, Basilica of Our Lady of Beaune, depicting the Baptism of Christ and the Crucifixion. Image credit: GO69 / Wikimedia Commons (Creative Commons BY-SA 4.0).

#BaptismOfTheLord #BlessedMarieEugeneOfTheChildJesus #ChristianLife #HolySpirit #HolyTrinity

Quote of the day, 24 December: Blessed Marie-Eugène

We know what drama the Blessed Virgin experienced: the anguish of Saint Joseph, which she witnessed (cf. Mt 1:19–25). She withdraws into silence; she does not speak. How could she speak of such marvelous things? And how could it be believed that she had truly conceived by the Holy Spirit, that the Son she would bear was to be great before the Lord and would reclaim the throne of David?

Then the Angel, in turn, came down to Saint Joseph, telling him to take Mary as his wife and revealing to him also the great mystery. From that moment—after the Virgin Mary’s return to Nazareth—they lived together in a far deeper intimacy, above all a spiritual one, sealed by the angel and by the promises they had heard, by the mystery that was being accomplished.

We can sense the attitude of the Blessed Virgin—an attitude, I say, of silence and adoration before the mystery being fulfilled in her. It is a mystery in which light rises within her faculties and throughout her whole soul. It is surely a gentle clarity of dawn, of which Saint John of the Cross speaks, and which souls experience at the moment of perfect union with God.

Yes, what intimacy she has with the Word who is within her, who—under the action of the Holy Spirit—builds His humanity there with her own flesh! In The Living Flame of Love, Saint John of the Cross speaks of the “sleeping Word” within her womb, who at times awakens. This is truly what the Virgin Mary experiences, under the overshadowing of the Holy Spirit and the power of the Most High.

She experiences this mystery deeply. It is a mystery, I say, of light—but also of darkness; a mystery that remains, most certainly, the mystery.

Blessed Marie-Eugène of the Child Jesus

Heureuse Celle qui a Cru, Homily for the Fourth Sunday of Advent (1964)

de l’Enfant-Jésus, M 2017, Heureuse Celle qui a Cru, edited by Institut Notre-Dame de Vie, Éditions du Carmel, Toulouse.

Translation from the French text is the blogger’s own work product and may not be reproduced without permission.

Featured image: Virgin and Child is one of the true gems of the Robert Lehmann Collection at New York’s Metropolitan Museum of Art. This small oil on oak panel painting—its overall dimensions are 6 1/8 x 4 1/2 inches (15.6 x 11.4 cm)—from the workshop of early 16th c. master Gerard David is a testimony to the success of the studio. Image credit: Metropolitan Museum of Art (Public domain).

#Advent #BlessedMarieEugeneOfTheChildJesus #mystery #silence #VirginMary

Quote of the day, 23 December: Blessed Marie-Eugène

What we are going to do during these days is this: to make our faith, our affection, and our love more penetrating and greater. And with this loving gaze, we will go to the Virgin Mary, to Our Lady of Life who is there upon the altar, and we will tell her our joy: Prope est iam Dominus — “The Lord is near.”

We know, O Virgin, that in a few days you will give us Jesus. And so we already congratulate you—not only for your purity and your integrity, but for your motherhood.

We remain close to you in order to receive this Child Jesus, this Incarnate Word whom we dare to touch, whom we wish to receive in our arms as though He were our own: He is Emmanuel, God with us.

He became incarnate to be with us, so that we might touch Him, embrace Him, and that through this outward and tangible contact we might realize an interior contact of faith and love, still deeper and more effective for our souls.

Blessed Marie-Eugène of the Child Jesus

Heureuse Celle qui a cru, Homily for the Fourth Sunday of Advent (1960)

de l’Enfant-Jésus, M 2017, Heureuse Celle qui a Cru, edited by Institut Notre-Dame de Vie, Éditions du Carmel, Toulouse.

Translation from the French text is the blogger’s own work product and may not be reproduced without permission.

Featured image: AI-generated artwork in the style of Gari Melchers, created using Midjourney.

#BlessedMarieEugeneOfTheChildJesus #Emmanuel #IncarnateWord #OAntiphons #VirginMary

Quote of the day, 8 December: Blessed Marie-Eugène

The Holy Church has established a feast to praise and thank God for the marvel of the Immaculate Conception of the Blessed Virgin. The Immaculate Conception is, indeed, an exception to this law of misery and privation that strikes all humanity coming into this world since the fall of our first parents.

At Mass, the holy Church had us read, in the Book of Wisdom, the passages that concern in a special way the Word of God—the Wisdom of God—always present before the gaze of the Most Holy Trinity before anything existed, and present as He created all things.

This assimilation of the Virgin Mary to divine Wisdom shows us that, from all eternity, when God was bringing forth His creative work, His contemplation did not rest only upon the distant vision of the Incarnate Word and His Church—His masterpiece, the end of all things, the goal of His creation. Already, He was distinguishing, in a clear and precise way, this Immaculate Conception whose realization filled Him with joy in advance.

Let us enter into this joy of God, which we sense in these passages from the Book of Wisdom. God rejoiced beforehand, and He rejoiced immeasurably when His work was accomplished. In doing so, He affirmed His power—the power of His Love and His mercy. Let us rejoice today in the joy of God. And let us also offer our congratulations to the Blessed Virgin in her joy.

Did she realize the privileges she had received? Perhaps not. The Virgin was so humble, so simple; the light within her was so pure that she scarcely perceived she could ever have been stained. She hardly saw how she had been preserved. But now, in heaven, she certainly sees it; today she sings the mercy of God. Saint Teresa of Avila, Saint Thérèse of the Child Jesus, Saint John of the Cross—they all sang this mercy, just as we ourselves sing it.

On certain days of grace, we feel in a special way the weight of God’s grace upon our souls. The Virgin sang it; let us unite ourselves to her canticle of thanksgiving. We will offer the merits of the Sacrifice of the Mass to help her, in a certain way, to sing even more perfectly this glory of God and her gratitude toward the Eternal One.

Blessed Marie-Eugène of the Child Jesus

La Vierge Marie Toute Mère, “Marvel of Mercy” (excerpt)

Marie-Eugène de l’Enfant-Jésus, B & Centre Notre-Dame de Vie 1988, La Vierge Marie Toute Mère, Editions du Carmel, Toulouse.

Translation from the French text is the blogger’s own work product and may not be reproduced without permission.

Featured image: This cope hood featuring an image of Mary Immaculate was created ca. 1850 by the Dominican Sisters of St Catherine of Siena in Staffordshire, England. Image credit: Lawrence Lew OP (Some rights reserved)

#blessedMarieEugeneOfTheChildJesus #gratitude #immaculateConception #joy #mercy2