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

Quote of the day, 8 January: Peter-Thomas Rohrbach, OCD

Peter Thomas was born in a small town in the province of Périgord in Aquitaine about the year 1305. His father was a farm laborer, and the family was wretchedly poor.

Assigned to the monastery in Paris for the purpose of acquiring a higher degree in theology, he encountered a vexing and shameful problem—a growing abuse in the Order, which we will discuss in the following chapter, required that the university student obtain for himself the money to finance his education, either from his preaching, or his tutoring, or, most often, from his own relatives.

Therefore, Carmelites who came from affluent families were easily able to get the required money, while students from poorer backgrounds had to struggle. Peter’s family was impecunious, and with the pressure of his religious duties and his studies, he felt for a time that he would have to discontinue his studies.

He later recounted to Mezières an episode which happened as he paced the cloister corridor late one night, worrying about his problem. The Blessed Virgin appeared to him, saying:

“My son, do not worry about your lack of money, for I will not forsake you. Work hard at your studies and so you will serve my son and me.”

The next morning, he received a large and unexpected donation with which he was able to continue his studies. He obtained his doctorate in theology and was assigned to the important monastery at Avignon, where the papal court was located.

At Avignon, there also occurred the celebrated vision of the Blessed Virgin’s promise concerning the Carmelite Order. Peter had apparently been praying to her—late at night again—in behalf of the Order when he heard these words from her:

“Have confidence, Peter, for the Carmelite Order will last until the end of the world. Elijah, its founder, obtained it a long time ago from my Son.”

Peter-Thomas Rohrbach, O.C.D.

Journey to Carith, Chapter II

Note: Philip de Mezières, a layman and aide to Peter of Lusignan, king of Cyprus, became a close personal friend of Peter Thomas and wrote his biography based on firsthand experience and the saint’s own recollections. Unusual for its time, the work is candid and restrained, largely free of the embellishments typical of medieval hagiography, and is regarded as a notable achievement of medieval literature.

Rohrbach, P 1966, 2015, Journey to Carith: The Sources and Story of the Discalced Carmelites, ICS Publications, Washington DC.

Featured image: Saint Peter Thomas, by Fray Juan del Santísimo Sacramento, 1666 oil on canvas. Image credit: Museo de Bellas Artes de Córdoba (Public Domain).

#anxiety #apparition #BlessedVirginMary #StPeterThomas #study

Quote of the day, 1 January: Jessica Powers

There was nothing in the Virgin’s soul
that belonged to the Virgin—
no word, no thought, no image, no intent.
She was a pure, transparent pool reflecting
God, only God.
She held His burnished day; she held His night
of planet-glow or shade inscrutable.
God was her sky and she who mirrored Him
became His firmament.

When I so much as turn my thoughts toward her
my spirit is enisled in her repose.
And when I gaze into her selfless depths
an anguish in me grows
to hold such blueness and to hold such fire.
I pray to hollow out my earth and be
filled with these waters of transparency.
I think that one could die of this desire,
seeing oneself dry earth or stubborn sod.
Oh, to become a pure pool like the Virgin,
water that lost the semblances of water
and was a sky like God.

Sr. Miriam of the Holy Spirit, ocd (Jessica Powers)

The Pool of God (1950; 1984)

Powers, J 1999, The Selected Poetry of Jessica Powers, Siegfried, R & Morneau, RF (eds.), ICS Publications, Washington DC.

Featured image: French photographer Yoann Boyer captures this image of infinity from La Réunion. Image credit: Yoann Boyer / Unsplash (Stock photo)

#BlessedVirginMary #God #JessicaPowers #poetry #water

Quote of the day, 31 December: St. Titus Brandsma

In his Explanation of “The Living Flame of Love”, St. John of the Cross draws the Holy Mother of God as clearly as possible into the circle of his metaphor clarifying the mystical life.

Speaking of the shining of the Lamps of God in us and our intake of the divine Light, which means as much as participating in God’s characteristics and works, he says that this bears still another name, i.e. “to overshadow”.

And in connection to this, he reminds (us) that also the Archangel Gabriel called the exquisite privilege of Mary to conceive God’s Son, an overshadowing of the Holy Spirit [Cf. Lk 1:35]. 

If one wants to understand, the Saint thus follows, what is meant by that spreading of God’s shadow or that overshadowing or that shining, for all these expressions have an equal meaning, then one should remember that every creature evokes a shadow according to its own nature and capacity. A dark opaque object gives an obscure shadow: a bright translucent object a clear and transparent shadow.

Thus, the shadow of something dark will call forth a different darkness, darker to the extent that its cause is also darker, while the shadow of something bright will be light according to the nature of the original light.

Therefore, the shadow brought forth by the lamp of God’s beauty will be a different beauty, the shadow by the lamp of strength a different strength, etc. or better said, all these shadows will be the beauty itself, the strength itself of God, but in shadow, because the soul here on earth cannot perfectly understand or take God into itself.

Over Mary, the Holy Spirit came in all his fullness, and the power of the Most High overshadowed her in the most perfect way [Cf. The Living Flame of Love, III, 12].

Saint Titus Brandsma

Mary’s motherhood of God, leading idea in the mystical life (excerpt), Carmelrozen 20 (May 1931), pp. 11–15

Brandsma, T. 1931, Mary’s motherhood of God, leading idea in the mystical life (excerpt), Carmelrozen, vol. 20, May, pp. 11–15. English translation by the Titus Brandsma Instituut, Nijmegen, available at: https://www.titusbrandsmateksten.nl/marys-motherhood-of-god/

Featured image: The Virgin and Child (detail), after Raphael (1483–1520), oil on canvas. Cornwall Museum and Art Gallery (public domain).

#BlessedVirginMary #MotherOfGod #overshadow #StJohnOfTheCross #StTitusBrandsma

Quote of the day, 24 November: St. Teresa of Avila

I remember that when my mother died, I was twelve years old or a little less. When I began to understand what I had lost, I went, afflicted, before an image of our Lady and besought her with many tears to be my mother. It seems to me that although I did this in simplicity, it helped me. For I have found favor with this sovereign Virgin in everything I have asked of her, and in the end she has drawn me to herself.

Saint Teresa of Avila

The Book of Her Life, Chap. 1, no. 7

On 24 November 1528, St. Teresa’s mother, Doña Beatriz Ahumada made her last will and testament. Scholars such as Kieran Kavanaugh, OCD, and Joseph Pérez indicate that it is believed she expired soon after she made and signed her will, dying in her palace at Gotarrendura, Avila. From there, her body was taken to the city with all due ceremony, where she received a burial with honors in the Church of San Juan in Avila.

Spanish Wikipedia has a small biography for Doña Beatriz that draws upon the research of Pérez and others; it also consults the Cepeda genealogy from her husband’s side of the family.

Father Kavanaugh discusses the “image of our Lady” in his footnotes to Chapter 1 of St. Teresa’s autobiography, The Book of Her Life:

According to an old tradition, she is referring to a statue of Our Lady of Charity that was venerated in the hermitage of St. Lazarus, outside the walls of the city, near the river Adaja. After the destruction of the hermitage in the nineteenth century, the statue was moved to the cathedral, where it is venerated today.

This statue of Our Lady of Charity is found in the Chapel of Our Lady of Sorrows (Capilla de la virgen de la piedad o de los dolores) in the Cathedral of Avila. You can learn more about the chapel on the cathedral website and see a better photo of the chapel on Wikimedia Commons, which includes the statue of Our Lady of Charity.

Virgen de la Caridad, Cathedral of Avila | Photo credit: Juan Nolla Benages / Flickr (Some rights reserved)

Teresa of Avila, St 1985, The Collected Works of St. Teresa of Avila, Kavanaugh, K & Rodriguez, O (trans.), ICS Publications, Washington DC.

Featured image: In this stock photo of the city of Avila at night, the Cathedral of Avila rises above the old city in the center of the horizon.

#blessedVirginMary #death #donaBeatrizDeAhumada #grief #stTeresaOfAvila

Quote of the day, 19 November: St. Raphael Kalinowski

Just as there is nothing greater than God, says Saint Thomas, so none can attain a higher dignity than the Mother of God. Mary, with her Maternity, is like a book in which the world can read the Eternal Word, Jesus, the Lord.

What can one say of the fullness of grace God bestowed on the Most Holy Virgin, to the limits of his power, giving her a dignity surpassing our capacity to understand? When a wise man was asked, “Who is God?” he answered, “If I could define who God is, either God would not exist or I myself would be God.”

Likewise, to the question “What is it to be the Mother of God?” one can only give a similar answer. “If anyone could comprehend this dignity, either Mary would not be the Mother of God, or the one claiming to understand such greatness would be superior to her whose dignity is immeasurable.”

Saint Raphael Kalinowski

Mother of God, Hope of the World, 6

Praskiewicz OCD, S 2016, Saint Raphael Kalinowski: An Introduction to his Life and Spirituality, ICS Publications, Washington DC.

Featured image: Virgin and Child is an oil on wood painting by Anthony Van Dyck (Flemish, 1599–1641) executed around 1620. It comes from the collections of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York (Public domain).

#blessedVirginMary #jesusChrist #motherOfGod #stRaphaelKalinowski #understanding

The Most Holy Name of the Blessed Virgin Mary

The Feast of the Most Holy Name of the Blessed Virgin Mary is an optional memorial celebrated in the liturgical calendar of the Catholic Church on September 12. It has been a universal Roman Rite feast since 1684, when Pope Innocent XI included it in the General Roman Calendar to commemorate the victory at the Battle of Vienna in 1683.

It was initially removed from the current Church calendar in the liturgical reform following Vatican II. But it was restored by Pope John Paul II in 2002 along with the Feast of the Holy Name of Jesus in January.

In the Eastern Orthodox Church, the feast is celebrated on September 7 in the Antiochian Western Rite Vicariate.

Promoters of veneration of the Holy Name of Mary include St. Anthony of Padua, St. Bernard of Clairvaux, & St. Alphonsus Maria de Liguori. A number of religious orders such as the Cistercian & the Servites, customarily give each member “Mary” as part of their religious name as a sign of honor & of entrustment to the Virgin.

The feast is a counterpart to the Feast for the Holy Name of Jesus on January 3. Its object is to commemorate all the privileges granted upon Mary by God & all the graces received through her intercession & mediation.

The feast day began in 1513 as a local celebration in Cuenca, Spain, celebrated on September 15. In 1587, Pope Sixtus V moved the celebration to September 17. Pope Gregory XV extended the celebration to the Archdiocese of Toledo (Spain) in 1622.

In 1666, the Discalced Carmelites received permission to recite the Divine Office of the Name of Mary 4x a year. In 1671, the feast was extended to the whole Kingdom of Spain. From there, the feast spread. It soon extended to the Kingdom of Naples.

In 1683, the Polish King John Sobieski arrived in Vienna with his army. Before the Battle of Vienna, Sobieski placed his troops under the protection of the Blessed Virgin Mary.

In 1684, to celebrate the victory, Pope Innocent XI added to the Roman calendar, assigning to it the Sunday within the Octave of the Nativity of Mary. An octave, in this case, is the 8th day after a feast, counted inclusively. So this always falls on the same day of the week as the feast itself. The Nativity of Mary refers to a Christian feast day celebrating the birth of the Virgin Mary.

The reform of Pope Pius X in 1911 restored to prominence the celebration of Sundays in their own right, avoiding their being replaced by celebrations from the sanctorale. The sanctorale is 1 of the 2 main cycles that, running concurrently, comprise the Liturgical year in Roman Catholicism, defined by the General Roman Calendar, & used by a variety of Christian denomination.

The celebration of the Holy Name of Mary was moved to September 12. Later in the same century, the feast was removed from the General Roman Calendar in 1969 as part of its reform by Pope Paul VI. As something of a duplication of the September 8 feast of the Nativity of the Blessed Virgin Mary.

But it didn’t cease to be a recognized celebration of the Roman Rite, being mentioned in the Roman Martyrology on September 12. In 2002, Pope John Paul II restored the celebration to the General Roman Calendar.

William Joseph Chaminade chose the Feast of the Holy Name of Mary as the patronal feast of the Society of Mary (Marianists). Rather than a day commemorating a particular dogma or devotion in order to focus on the person of Mary.

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