Quote of the day, 3 April: Père Jacques

At no moment did Christ conceal any element of his Passion from his mother. There has to be an unfathomable mystery in this freely willed suffering for God to treat his mother in that way. Christ treated all the saints, without exception, in the same way. To the measure that he loved a soul, to that degree he saddled it with trials.

What else would you expect? Christ is not someplace other than on the cross, with his head torn open by the crown of thorns and his body pierced by the whips and nails of his executioners.

Yes, Christ is on the cross. Christ without the cross would be too bland; the cross without Christ would be too severe. If you truly wish to do nothing apart from Christ, then you must meet him and embrace him, where he is.

You are familiar, are you not, with the vision of Saint Francis, depicted in a remarkable painting. Saint Francis is portrayed embracing Christ on the cross. But Our Lord draws his own right arm from the cross in order to embrace his friend Francis.

When Christ embraces someone, that person’s head is touched by the Crown of Thorns on the Lord’s head, and the mark of the cross is left on him. When Christ grasps someone’s hand, the mark of blood is left on him, because the Lord’s mangled hand is covered with blood. To espouse Christ is to espouse the cross. To be his companions, we must faithfully follow him, as he carries the cross and as he hangs on the cross.

Servant of God Jacques de Jésus (Lucien Bunel)

Conference 10, “The Cross: To baptize suffering and happiness”
Retreat for the Carmel of Pontoise, Friday evening, 10 September 1943

Jacques, P 2005, Listen to the silence: a retreat with Père Jacques, Murphy, F (trans. & ed.), ICS Publications, Washington DC.

Featured image: Pietà or The Dead Christ Supported by the Virgin Mary and Saint John the Evangelist is a painting in tempera on panel, which dates to c. 1465–1470 by the Italian Renaissance artist Giovanni Bellini, now in the Pinacoteca di Brera in Milan. Image credit: Pinacoteca di Brera (Public domain).

Quote of the day, 29 August: St. Elizabeth of the Trinity

The Master called the hour of his Passion “His hour,” (Jn 12:27) the one for which He had come, the one He called for with all his desires! When faced with great suffering or a tiny sacrifice, oh, let’s think right away that “this is our hour”, the hour when we will prove our love to the One who has “loved us exceedingly,” (Cf. Eph 2:4) says Saint Paul.

Saint Elizabeth of the Trinity

Letter 308 to her mother (excerpt)
29 August 1906

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: Cristo Crocifisso (Christ Crucified) by Giovan Angelo del Maino, early 16th century, carved wood, Sforza Castle Civic Museum, Milan. This exquisite Renaissance crucifix was originally designed for liturgical use and would have been adorned with a sumptuously embroidered loincloth and a wig of human hair, crafted by religious communities who considered it a great honor to create such devotional vestments. The sculpture reveals del Maino’s masterful carving even without these elaborate liturgical appointments. Photo credit: © Brad-Darren / Flickr (Some rights reserved).

#love #PassionOfChrist #sacrifice #StElizabethOfTheTrinity #StPaul #suffering

Opening Prayers for Palm/Passion Sunday Year C (April 13 2025)

These opening prayers for Sunday worship take their inspiration from the Scripture readings of the Revised Common Lectionary. Worship leaders are welcome to use them for worship, but if you print or display any part of them, please credit the author. Comments welcome.

The following prayers are for based on the readings for the Sixth Sunday in Lent, April 13, 2025: The Liturgy of the Palms and The Liturgy of the Passion. These prayers reflect my practice when in parish ministry in the Church of Scotland (Presbyterian). At the start of the service we concentrated on the Palm Sunday themes, reading an account of the entry into Jerusalem at the start of the service, followed by selected verses of Psalm 118 as a responsive Call to Worship. We would hear some or all of the Gospel account of the Passion just before the sermon.

Call to Worship

Open to me the gates of righteousness,
that I may enter through them and give thanks to the LORD.
This is the gate of the LORD;
the righteous shall enter through it.
The stone that the builders rejected
has become the chief cornerstone.
This is the Lord’s doing; it is marvellous in our eyes.
This is the day that the LORD has made;
let us rejoice and be glad in it.
Blessed is the one who comes in the name of the LORD.
O give thanks to the LORD, for he is good,
for his steadfast love endures forever.

Psalm 118.19-20, 22-24, 26, 29 (NRSV)

Let us worship God.

Prayer of Approach and Confession

Let us pray.

Blessed are you, Jesus of Nazareth.
You are the king who comes in peace,
riding on a donkey.
You have done deeds of power
and brought the message of God’s love
into the world.
Who can stop us from praising you?

Hosanna in the highest!
Hosanna in the highest!

Blessed are you, God the Father of all creation.
You have sent Jesus into our world
to share our joys and sorrows,
bringing healing and forgiveness.
Who can stop us from praising you?

Hosanna in the highest!
Hosanna in the highest!

Blessed are you, Holy Spirit of God.
You are the wisdom which lets us see in Jesus
a new kind of King-
a king who brings peace, joy, love, forgiveness and hope.
And so, we sing songs of praise to him-
for if we did not, the stones of the earth would shout out:

Hosanna in the highest!
Hosanna in the highest!

Blessed is the King who comes in the name of the Lord.
You bring peace on earth
from the glory of heaven.
Father, Son and Spirit,
we praise you today!

Yet we confess that our praise on Sunday
can turn to cynicism during the week,
and that our faith is often challenged
by the sort of darkness we see in the Cross-
the darkness of inhumanity and injustice
the darkness of death and despair.

Do not count our sins against us,
but for the sake of the Carpenter who won our salvation
through the wood and nails of the cross
forgive us our personal failings,
and strengthen us for the fight against evil.

silence

It is the Lord GOD who helps us; who will declare us guilty?

Isaiah 50:9a (alt)

Give us, O God, the mind that was in Jesus Christ-
help us to be humble servants of one another,
and obedient in all things to his law of love;
for now we confess
that the carpenter’s son who rode a donkey
is exalted above all kings and powers of this world
and we confess that Jesus is Christ is Lord
to the glory of God. Amen.

NOTE ‘Hosanna’ does not appear in Luke’s Gospel account of Palm Sunday, but tradition especially associates the word with this day (see Matthew 21.9, Mark 11.9f, John 12.13). Nor do palms feature in Luke!

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Featured image: Peter Koenig, Palm Sunday (20th century (United Kingdom).
from Art in the Christian Tradition, a project of the Vanderbilt Divinity Library, Nashville, TN. https://diglib.library.vanderbilt.edu/act-imagelink.pl?RC=58531 [retrieved April 1, 2025]. Original source: Peter Winfried (Canisius) Koenig, https://www.pwkoenig.co.uk/

#LectionaryPrayers #Lent #PalmSunday #PassionOfChrist

Truly, This Was the Son of God (A Lament at the Cross)

https://cdn1.suno.ai/6fe8e4e8-2e03-4fe8-b515-5bfd4f87404d.mp3

Verse 1
The sky turned black, the earth did shake,
The temple veil, it tore in two.
A broken man, His body bruised,
He spoke no words, but love shone through.

Through blood and pain, His gaze did rise,
And whispered out with shattered cries…

“My God, My God, why have You forsaken Me?”

Pre-Chorus
I stood unmoved, my heart of stone,
But in His voice, I felt unknown.
A King who died with crown of thorns,
I trembled, for I knew He mourned.

Chorus
Truly, this was the Son of God…
I see it now, through tears that flood.
Mercy given, love sustained,
His final breath, my soul remains.

Verse 2
The mocking crowd, the earth did moan,
Yet through the pain, He cried for grace.
“Father, forgive them, they know not what they do.”
In that prayer, my heart found truth.

Pre-Chorus
I thought I’d known the strength of war,
But strength was held in hands once torn.
He chose the nails, He bore the shame,
In His death, I knew my name.

Chorus
Truly, this was the Son of God…
I see it now, through tears that flood.
Mercy given, love sustained,
His final breath, my soul remains.

Bridge
Oh, the blood that stained the ground,
The silence deep, no hope, no sound.
The breath that left, the light that died,
A world forever crucified.

Chorus
Truly, this was the Son of God…
I see it now, through tears that flood.
Mercy given, love sustained,
His final breath, my soul remains.

Outro
I came a soldier, left as a son,
Kneeling before the lifeless One…

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#Aramaic #atTheCross #BibleStory #bloodOfJesus #brokenness #centurionConversion #centurionSTestimony #ChristianFaith #ChristianMusic #ChristianRock #ChristianThemes #contemporaryChristian #contemporaryWorship #Cross #crossOfChrist #Crucifixion #deathAndResurrection #deathOfJesus #EasterSong #eternalLife #Faith #faithThroughJesus #faithThroughPain #finalBreath #forgiveness #gospel #hopeInChrist #hopeThroughChrist #Jesus #JesusDeath #JesusFinalWords #JesusLove #JesusSacrifice #KingOfKings #loveAndRedemption #loveAndSacrifice #mercy #mercyAtTheCross #painOfTheCross #PassionOfChrist #Redemption #Resurrection #RomanCenturion #RomanGuard #RomansAtTheCross #sacrifice #sacrificeForHumanity #salvation #salvationSong #soldierConversion #SonOfGod #spiritualAwakening #spiritualJourney #spiritualTransformation #worshipLyrics #worshipSong #worshipSongLyrics

“In my own flesh I fill up what is lacking in the passion of Christ for the sake of His body, which is the Church” [Col 1:24]. The apostle finds his happiness in this!

The thought pursues me and I confess that I experience a profound inner joy in thinking that God has chosen to associate me in the passion of His Christ. This way of Calvary I climb each day seems to me more like the path of Beatitude!

Have you ever seen those pictures depicting death reaping with his sickle? Well, that is my condition; I seem to feel myself being destroyed like that. Sometimes it is painful for nature and I can assure you that if I were to remain at that level, I would feel only my cowardice in the face of suffering. But that is looking at things from the human point of view!

Very quickly “I open the eye of my soul in the light of faith” [cf. St. Catherine of Siena]. And this faith tells me that it is love who is destroying me, who is slowly consuming me; then I feel a tremendous joy, and I surrender myself to Him as His prey [cf. her prayer to the Holy Trinity, “I surrender myself to you as your prey”].

Saint Elizabeth of the Trinity

The Greatness of our Vocation, 8
Letter 310 to Françoise de Sourdon
About 9 September 1906

Note: At the end of the letter, Elizabeth writes: I wonder what our Reverend Mother is going to think when she sees this journal. She does not let me write anymore because I am extremely weak, and I feel as if I would faint at any moment. This will probably be the last letter from your Sabeth; it has taken her many days to write, and that explains its incoherence. And yet this evening I cannot bring myself to leave you. I am in solitude; it is seven-thirty, and the community is at recreation. As for me, I feel already as if I were almost in Heaven here in my little cell, alone with Him alone, bearing my cross with my Master. Framboise, my happiness increases along with my suffering! If you only knew how delicious the dregs are at the bottom of the chalice prepared by my Heavenly Father! A Dieu, beloved Framboise; I cannot go on. And in the silence of our rendezvous you will guess, you will understand, what I do not tell you. I send you a kiss. I love you as a mother loves her little child. A Dieu my little one. In the shadow of His wings may He guard you from all evil. [Ps 91:4]. Indeed, this was the last letter Elizabeth wrote to her young friend, Françoise.

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: Death is depicted as the Grim Reaper with his scythe in this manuscript illumination by an anonymous artist, which appeared in Book Four of the multi-volume work, Pèlerinage de Vie Humaine (Pilgrimage of Human Life) by Guillaume de Digulleville. This image and the work date to 1390, now conserved in Paris by Bibliothèque Sainte-Geneviève. Image credit: POP : la plateforme ouverte du patrimoine (Public domain)

https://carmelitequotes.blog/2024/09/09/sabeth-ltr310/

#Calvary #death #faith #joy #love #PassionOfChrist #StElizabethOfTheTrinity #suffering #surrender