Quote of the day, 28 May: Silvio José Báez, ocd

From her personal experience of divine grace, Mary looks around and contemplates history. Having fixed her gaze upon God, she now looks in the very direction that He is looking. She sees history far beyond outward appearances and discerns the true depth of reality, discovering who, in the eyes of God, are exalted and who are brought low, who are filled and who are left empty, who are near and who are far off:

“He has shown strength with his arm; he has scattered the proud in the imagination of their hearts; he has put down the mighty from their thrones and exalted the humble; he has filled the hungry with good things, and the rich he has sent empty away” (Luke 1:51–53).

“Going beyond the surface, Mary ‘sees’ the work of God in history with the eyes of faith. … Her Magnificat, at the distance of centuries and millennia, remains the truest and most profound interpretation of history, while the interpretations of so many of this world’s wise have been belied by events in the course of the centuries” (Benedict XVI, Recitation of the Rosary, Saint Peter’s Square, 31 May 2008).  

Let’s not forget the prophetic words of the Virgin Mary that have never been disproved by history: “He has put down the mighty from their thrones” (Lk 1:52).

Bishop Silvio José Báez, o.c.d.

El Magnificat: Una Oración Para Tiempos Nuevos

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

Featured image: This detail of a stained glass window featuring the Visitation of the Blessed Virgin Mary is located in the historic Church of Saint-Laurent in Paris, specifically in the chapel of Notre-Dame-des-Malades (Our Lady of the Sick). The stained glass artists were Antoine Lusson (fils) and Léon Lefèvre. This window was crafted in 1874 by Lusson and Lefèvre. Image credit: Mbzt / Wikimedia Commons (Some rights reserved).

Learn more about Lusson, his collaboration with the Carmel of Le Mans, and the Carmelite stained glass at the Basilica of the Sacred Heart in South Bend, Indiana.

#BishopSilvioJoséBáez #BlessedVirginMary #history #Magnificat #prophetic

Quote of the day, 25 May: St. Mary Magdalen de’ Pazzi

The ecstasy [Saint Mary Magdalen de’ Pazzi] had on the 17th of September of the same year, 1587, was very wonderful and effective.

Being fiercely attacked in the virtue of chastity, as was related, and forbidden by her confessor and her mother prioress from again throwing herself among thorns, or doing any other injury to her body, she, by way of compensation, gave herself up to prayer with redoubled fervor, imploring above all the assistance of the Queen of virgins.

On the same day, it happened that, having withdrawn to a remote chamber, by prayers of a most suppliant devotion and by most touching tears, she turned to the most pure Mother of God, that she might obtain for her such a victory over the impure temptations, that her virginity would not be stained in the least thereby.

Having just made the request, the Blessed Virgin appeared to her in the form of a noble and tender mother, and, consoling her, told her to be calm, as in all such temptations she had never offended God; nay, by her courageous fight with the impure spirit, she had come out completely victorious, and, as a reward therefore, the Blessed Virgin put on her a pure white veil, and told her, moreover, that in the future she would not again have to suffer the temptations or suggestions of impurity.

At this moment, Mary Magdalen interiorly felt as if all appetite of carnal concupiscence was being reduced, and that all the disordered fire of sensuality had been extinguished in an ineffable manner.

In fact, during all her life, this angelic soul was not again molested by a desire of the flesh, nor even by any imagination or the least thought contrary to holy purity.

The Rev. Father Placido Fabrini

Chapter XIV

Note: Father Fabrini’s biography is based on the 1611 biography of St. Mary Magdalen de’ Pazzi, which was written by her spiritual director, Fr. Vincenzio Puccini.

Fabrini, P. & De’ Pazzi, M.M. 1900, The life of St. Mary Magdalen De-Pazzi: Florentine noble, sacred Carmelite virgin, translated from the Italian by Isoleri A., [publisher not identified] Philadelphia.

Featured image: This detail of a portrait of Saint Mary Magdalen de’ Pazzi receiving the white veil from the Virgin Mary was painted by Bernard de Bailliu (Flemish, 1641–1694) and another unidentified artist; it is an oil paint illumination of an engraving attached to a panel (17th or 18th c.). The work is part of the collection in the Museo del Convento de Santa Teresa, Arequipa, Peru. Photo: Franz Grupp / PESSCA 2921B Image credit: Ojeda, A 2005–2023, Project for the Engraved Sources of Spanish Colonial Art (PESSCA), PESSCA, viewed 25 April 2019, https://colonialart.org/.

#BlessedVirginMary #mysticalExperience #purity #StMaryMagdalenDePazzi #veil

Quote of the day, 8 May: St. Elizabeth of the Trinity

“Virgo fidelis”: that is, Faithful Virgin, “who kept all these things in her heart.” [Lk. 2:19] She remained so little, so recollected in God’s presence, in the seclusion of the temple, that she drew down upon herself the delight of the Holy Trinity: “Because He has looked upon the lowliness of His servant, henceforth all generations shall call me blessed!” [Lk. 1:48]

The Father, bending down to this beautiful creature, who was so unaware of her own beauty, willed that she be the Mother in time of Him whose Father He is in eternity.

Saint Elizabeth of the Trinity

Heaven in Faith, 39

Elizabeth of the Trinity, S 2014, I Have Found God, The Complete Works of Elizabeth of the Trinity Volume 1: Major spiritual writings, translated from the French by Kane, A, ICS Publications, Washington DC.

Featured image: The Presentation of the Virgin in the Temple (detail), Pierre Mignard (French, 1612–1695), oil on canvas, 1635. Image credit: Private collection / Wikimedia Commons (Public domain).

#beauty #blessed #BlessedTrinity #BlessedVirginMary #creator #creature #eternity #faithful #generations #God #heart #HeavenlyFather #HolyTrinity #littleness #lowliness #MotherOfGod #motherhood #prayer #presence #recollection #secluded #seclusion #secret #servant #solitude #StElizabethOfTheTrinity #temple #virgin #VirginMary #VirgoFidelis

Quote of the day, May 7: St. Teresa of the Andes

I beg you, Rev. Father, to do me the favor of judging whether or not I have a true vocation to be a Carmelite sister, based on the reasons I have for feeling this is God’s will for me. I believe our Lord will enlighten you.

The life of prayer and union with God is what I love most of all, because I find it the most perfect; because it is a life of heaven, in a certain way, since a Carmelite is concerned only with being united to God and contemplating Him always and singing His praises. That thirst for prayer continually grows in me; my recollection is always continuous now, because whatever I do, I do with my Jesus and offer it to Him with love. When, for any reason whatever, I’m unable to make my prayer, I suffer at not being able to be with my God….

Now I will tell you why I want to go to Los Andes:

1. Because the monastery consists of nuns who are very observant of their Rule. The spirit of Saint Teresa is very evident among them.

2. I’ve seen that God grants them everything (almost everything) they ask for, since God has answered everything I recommended to their prayers…

5. I am used to the climate at Los Andes… I don’t know if I told you that they’ll call me Teresa of Jesus if I go there… Because I’ll be called after the great Saint Teresa, I am also very much under the obligation of becoming a saint by God’s grace… I have also reflected on how the Blessed Virgin Mary was a perfect Carmelite. Her whole life was to contemplate, suffer and love. And she did it all in silence and in solitude. This life was recommended by Our Lord to the Magdalene, when He told her she had chosen the better part, even though Martha served Him with love [here Teresa conflates Mary of Bethany with Mary Magdalene]. Our Lord spent 30 years in that life of recollection, and only three years evangelizing….

I beg you, Rev. Father, as an act of charity to tell me what you think of my vocation: whether I am or am not to become a Carmelite.

Saint Teresa of Jesus of the Andes

Letter 58 to her spiritual director, 3 February 1919

Note: Juana Enriqueta Josefina of the Sacred Hearts Fernandez Solar entered the Carmel of the Holy Spirit in the township of Los Andes, some 90 kilometers from her home in Santiago de Chile, on 7 May 1919.

Griffin, M D & Teresa of the Andes, S 2023, The Letters of Saint Teresa of Jesus of the Andes, ICS Publications, Washington DC.

Featured image: This striking image of Chile’s national patroness, Our Lady of Mount Carmel, was taken on her feast day, 16 July 2010, at the Votive Church of Maipú. Image credit: Municipalidad de Maipú / Flickr (Some rights reserved).

#BlessedVirginMary #DiscalcedCarmelite #silence #StTeresaOfTheAndes #vocation

Quote of the day, 19 April: St. Teresa of Avila

We always find that those who walked closest to Christ Our Lord were those who had to bear the greatest trials.

Consider the trials suffered by His glorious Mother and by the glorious Apostles. How do you suppose Saint Paul could endure such terrible trials? We can see in his life the effects of genuine visions and of contemplation coming from Our Lord and not from human imagination or from the deceit of the devil. Do you imagine that he shut himself up with his visions so as to enjoy those Divine favours and pursue no other occupation? You know very well that, so far as we can learn, he took not a day’s rest, nor can he have rested by night, since it was then that he had to earn his living [cf. 1 Thess 2:9].

I am very fond of the story of how, when Saint Peter was fleeing from prison, Our Lord appeared to him and told him to go back to Rome and be crucified. We never recite the Office on his festival, in which this story is found, without my deriving a special consolation from it. How did Saint Peter feel after receiving this favour from the Lord? And what did he do? He went straight to his death; and the Lord showed him no small mercy in providing someone to kill him.

Saint Teresa of Avila

The Interior Castle, VII.4

Note: In the old Carmelite Breviary, which St. Teresa would have used, the Antiphon of the Magnificat at First Vespers on June 29 runs: “The Blessed Apostle Peter saw Christ coming to meet him. Adoring Him, he said: ‘Lord, whither goest Thou?’ ‘I am going to Rome to be crucified afresh.'” The story has it that St. Peter returned to Rome and was crucified.

John of the Cross, St; de Santa Teresa, S; Peers, E 1934–1935, The complete works of Saint John of the Cross, doctor of the Church, translated from the Spanish by Peers, E, Burns Oates & Washbourne, London.

Featured image: The Domine Quo Vadis window in Saint Alban’s Cathedral, Hertfordshire. Image credit: Father James Bradley / Flickr (Some rights reserved).

#BlessedVirginMary #StPaul #StPeter #StTeresaOfAvila #trials

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, 26 February: Madame Acarie

O most glorious Virgin Mary,
most gentle Mother of our Lord Jesus Christ,
my good Advocate,
have pity upon me,
a poor and wretched sinner.

O most excellent Lily
of the radiant and admirable Trinity,
I beseech thee, pray for me,
that through thine intercession
I may embrace with a perfect love
thy dear Son, Jesus Christ,
and that I may be made
a soul according to His Heart.

Blessed Mary of the Incarnation, “Madame Acarie”

Vrais Exercises

Carmes de Paris 2020, S1 – Avent 2020–1, retraites.carmes-paris.org, viewed 24 February 2026, https://retraites.carmes-paris.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/12/S1-Avent-2020-1.pdf.

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

Featured image: The Madonna and Child appearing to Blessed Marie of the Incarnation is an oil on canvas painting attributed to Pierre Delestres, ca. 1750. It is part of the collection of artworks at the Discalced Carmelite monastery of Pontoise that depicts Madame Acarie. Image credit: Discalced Carmelites (By permission).

#BlessedMaryOfTheIncarnation #BlessedVirginMary #love #MadameAcarie #prayer

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

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