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, 2 June: St. Elizabeth of the Trinity

Dear Madame, through everything, let us constantly live in communion with this Incarnate Word, with Jesus who dwells in us and who wishes to tell us the whole Mystery.

On the eve of His Passion, He said to His Father in speaking of those who were His own: “The words which you gave me, I have given to them; the brightness that I had in you before the world began, I have given to them” (Cf. Jn 17:8, 22-24).

He is always living, always at work in our souls; let us allow ourselves to be formed by Him; may He be the Soul of our soul, the Life of our life, so that we may say with Saint Paul: “For me, to live is Christ” (Phil 1:21).

Saint Elizabeth of the Trinity

Letter 145 to Madame Angles (excerpt)
9 November 1902

Elizabeth of the Trinity, S 2003, The Complete Works of Elizabeth of the Trinity volume 2: Letters from Carmel, translated from the French by Nash, A, ICS Publications, Washington DC.

Featured image: The Last Supper (1799), tempera on canvas by William Blake (British, 1757–1827). Collection of the National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C. Image source: National Gallery of Art (Public domain).

⬦ Reflection Question ⬦
What might I need to surrender so Christ can be more fully the Soul of my soul?
⬦ Join the conversation in the comments.

#communion #IncarnateWord #indwelling #love #soul #StElizabethOfTheTrinity

Quote of the day, 17 January: Père Jacques

And the Incarnate Word humbles himself by bending beneath God’s eternal desires. He becomes obedient.

Oh, world, stop and look! You are but ashes and dust, you are only a being of one day, and you dare to cry out in your excessive pride, ‘Neither God nor Master!’

See this man, Jesus of Nazareth, he is a visible man, but he is the invisible God, his human nature subsists, borne by a divine personality, he is the Son of God, he is the one who created you, and nothing that was made was made without him—and behold this all-powerful being, this God-man annihilates himself before his Father, lets himself be insulted, lets himself be mocked, lets himself be crucified, and all out of obedience. Christus factus est obediens usque ad mortem, mortem autem crucis (Christ became obedient unto death, and death on the cross, Phil 2:8)….

Ah, world, will you still say that obedience degrades and diminishes you, when Christ has sanctified this admirable virtue to such an extent? Will you be afraid to follow such a Master?

Servant of God Père Jacques de Jésus

Homily, Triduum of Perpetual Adoration
16 November 1928

Note: On 17 January 1985, the Israeli Holocaust museum Yad Vashem recognized Père Jacques de Jésus, under his baptismal name Lucien Bunel, as Righteous Among the Nations. You can learn more about the Servant of God from the official website dedicated to his cause; you can also pray for his beatification.

As the years pass and more Holocaust survivors die, it is important to remember that the mass extermination of Jews by the Germans is not fiction. It is not a myth. Carmelites such as Titus Brandsma, Edith Stein, Georg Häfner, and Père Jacques were all victims of Hitler’s “final solution.” Learn more of the facts about the Holocaust.

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

Featured image: From 1934 until his arrest in January 1944, Père Jacques de Jésus, OCD was the headmaster of the Petit Collège Sainte Thérèse de l’Enfant-Jésus, the Carmelite boarding school in Avon, France. Père Jacques is seen here at his desk, speaking with one of the students. Image credit: Discalced Carmelites

#IncarnateWord #JesusChrist #LucienBunel #obedience #PèreJacquesDeJésus #RighteousAmongTheNations #ServantOfGod #spirituality #YadVashem

Quote of the day, 16 January: Blessed Marie-Eugène

We perceive the attitude of the Blessed Virgin: an attitude of silence, an attitude of adoration before the mystery unfolding within her. From this mystery arise lights within her faculties, illuminating her entire soul. Surely, it is a gentle dawn, the dawn of which our Father, St. John of the Cross, speaks. What intimacy with the Word, who dwells in her womb and takes on human nature from the Virgin’s flesh under the action of the Holy Spirit!

Our Father, St. John of the Cross, speaks in his Living Flame of Love about the Word, who, though seemingly asleep in the soul, sometimes awakens. This is what the Virgin Mary experiences in the depths of her being under the overshadowing of the Holy Spirit, under the power of the Most High. She lives profoundly this mystery—a mystery of light and darkness, a mystery that remains ever hidden.

We too must adore this incarnate Word, who is soon to be revealed and will become our brother. Let us adore this humanity of Christ, who is being formed in the Virgin’s womb and about to appear. Yes, we can adore—not the Virgin Mary herself, of course, but the Word who dwells within her.

In giving birth to the incarnate Word, Mary, in a certain sense, also gives birth to the Church, for the Church is nothing other than the fullness of Christ. During these days, let us also turn our gaze to St. Joseph. We can imagine the affectionate reverence with which he gazes on the Virgin Mary. We can also perceive his faith and his hope in the great things about to unfold.

The prophets contemplated this mystery from afar; Joseph contemplates it up close. Let us behold St. Joseph—the faith shining in his eyes, the hope filling his soul and faculties, all directed toward these imminent fulfillments. Let us also consider the profound and affectionate respect with which he gazes on the Virgin Mary. During these days, let us ask him to be our master of prayer, to lead, guide, and inspire us, instilling in our prayer the faith required to contemplate this doubly hidden mystery: hidden now, and hidden in the hearts of all the souls Christ came to save.

At the same time, may he place within us the hope of renewal and rebirth—for our souls and for the Church—and the love that orders everything: love not only for the Virgin Mary and St. Joseph but also for the incarnate Word, the Child Jesus who is about to appear.

Blessed Marie-Eugène of the Child Jesus

Homily, 20 December 1964 (excerpt)

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

Featured image: The Holy Family is an oil on canvas painting by American artist Henry Ossawa Tanner (1859–1937) created around 1910. It comes from the collections of the Muskegon Museum of Art in Michigan. Image credit: Muskegon Art Museum / Wikimedia Commons (Public domain)

#BlessedMarieEugeneOfTheChildJesus #HenriGrialou #IncarnateWord #Jesus #mystery #silence #StJoseph #VirginMary

Quote of the day, 19 December: St. Teresa of St. Augustine

Spiritual childhood is about uniting oneself to the mystery of Christmas. Here are the instructions you requested concerning the “Incarnate Word,” so that you may begin it at Christmas. I am eager to send them to you.

Let us unite ourselves, my dearest child, to honor this mystery of love by adoring our God who became a child. Let us humble ourselves, annihilate ourselves, and embrace this state of spiritual childhood, this practice of holy simplicity, in the way we have so often discussed.

I invite you to meet me at the manger every day until the Feast of the Presentation.

Saint Teresa of St. Augustine

Letter to Mademoiselle de Grand-Rut
15 December 1789

Morgain, S 2023, Les Carmélites Martyres De Compiègne : Pour La Paix De L’église Et De L’état, Nouvelle édition revue et augmentée, 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: Philipp Roth from Hügelhof in Baden-Württemberg, Germany shared this image of a nativity scene on Christmas Eve 2008. Image credit: Philipp Roth / Flickr (Some rights reserved)

#adoration #Christmas #Compiegne #humility #IncarnateWord #love #mystery #simplicity #spiritualChildhood #StTeresaOfStAugustine

we have not tooted our cardinal mascot in awhile, and it is FIFA Women's World Cup right now, so here is our cardinal soccer mascot!

https://pixels.com/featured/soccer-cardinal-college-mascot-designs.html

#BuyIntoArt #Soccer #Futbol #Cardinals #GoCards #GoCardinals #UofL #Louisville #WeareCatholic #CatholicU #SVSU #Wesleyan #SJFC #Lamar #BallState #IncarnateWord #UIW #Otterbein #Plattsburgh #WheelingJesuit #WilliamJewell #NorthCentral