Quote of the day, 21 March: St. Teresa of the Andes

Pray, Rev. Mother, for this poor exile that she may become a holy Carmelite soon.

Saint Teresa of the Andes

Teresa of the Andes—Teresa of Jesus, a Discalced Carmelite and the first flowering of holiness from the Teresian Carmel in Latin America—is a light of Christ for the whole Church in Chile. Today she is inscribed among the saints of the universal Church.

As in the first reading we have heard from the book of Samuel, Teresa’s greatness does not lie in “her appearance or her stature.” “The Lord’s gaze,” Sacred Scripture tells us, “is not like that of man: man looks at appearances, but the Lord looks at the heart.” Thus, in her young life of just over nineteen years, and in her eleven months as a Carmelite, God caused the light of His Son Jesus Christ to shine forth in her in a remarkable way, so that she might serve as a beacon and guide for a world that seems to be blinded by what only appears to be divine.

To a secularized society that lives turned away from God, this Chilean Carmelite—whom I present with great joy as a model of the perennial youth of the Gospel—offers the clear witness of a life that proclaims to the men and women of today that in loving, adoring, and serving God are found the greatness and joy, the freedom and the full realization of the human person. From within the cloister, the life of the blessed Teresa cries out in silence: “God alone suffices!”

And she proclaims this especially to the young, who hunger for truth and seek a light that gives meaning to their lives. To a youth surrounded by the constant messages and stimuli of an eroticized culture, and to a society that confuses genuine love—which is self-gift—with the hedonistic use of others, this young virgin of the Andes proclaims today the beauty and blessedness that radiate from pure hearts.

In her tender love for Christ, Teresa discovers the very essence of the Christian message: to love, to suffer, to pray, to serve. Within her family she learned to love God above all things. And in recognizing herself as the exclusive possession of her Creator, her love for neighbor became all the more intense and definitive. As she writes in one of her letters: “When I love, it’s forever. Especially, a Carmelite never forgets. From her cell, she accompanies souls she loved in the world.”

Saint John Paul II

Homily, Canonization of Claudine Thévenet and Teresa of Jesus of the Andes
Sunday, 21 March 1993

Note: On 21 March 1993, St. John Paul II presided at the canonization of Teresa of the Andes in St. Peter’s Basilica

Canonization of Claudine Thévenet and Teresa de Jesús “de los Andes”
21 March 1993, St. Peter’s Basilica
The Discalced Carmelite delegation can be seen at top left
Copyright © L’OSSERVATORE ROMANO (All rights reserved)

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

John Paul II, 1993. Canonizzazione di Claudine Thévenet e di Teresa de Jesús de los Andes. Omelia di Giovanni Paolo II, Domenica, 21 marzo 1993. Vatican.va. Available at: https://www.vatican.va/content/john-paul-ii/it/homilies/1993/documents/hf_jp-ii_hom_19930321_thevenet.html (Accessed: 19 March 2026).

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

Featured image: Detail from a photo of Saint Teresa that was taken a few months before she entered the Carmel of Los Andes. Image credit: Discalced Carmelites (by permission).

#canonization #DiscalcedCarmelite #StJohnPaulII #StTeresaOfTheAndes #vocation

Quote of the day, 11 December: St. John Paul II

Saint Maravillas of Jesus was motivated by a heroic faith that shaped her response to an austere vocation, in which she made God the centre of her life. Having overcome the painful circumstances of the Spanish Civil War, she established new foundations for the Order of Carmel, imbued with the characteristic spirit of the Teresian reform. Her life of contemplation and monastic enclosure did not prevent her from responding to the needs of the persons she dealt with and promoting social and charitable works around her.

The new Saints have very concrete faces, and their history is well known. What is their message? Their works, which we admire and for which we thank God, are not due to their own efforts nor to human wisdom but to the mysterious action of the Holy Spirit who inspired in them an unshakeable adherence to the risen and crucified Christ and the decision to imitate him. Dear Catholic faithful of Spain:  let yourselves be influenced by these marvellous examples!

Saint John Paul II

Homily, Mass and Canonization (excerpt)
Plaza de Colón in Madrid, 4 May 2003

Note: Those canonized with Saint Maria Maravillas were Saints Pedro Poveda, José María Rubio, Genoveva Torres Morales, and Ángela of the Cross Guerrero González.

Featured image: This portrait of Saint Maria Maravillas of Jesus hangs in the Cathedral of Our Lady of La Almudena, Madrid. Image credit: © José Luiz Bernardes Ribeiro (Some rights reserved)

#canonization #foundress #homily #stJohnPaulIi #stMariaMaravillasDeJesus

St. John of the Cross Novena, Day 4: Walking in love

Reading

The soul that walks in love neither tires others nor grows tired.

Sayings of Light and Love, 97

Scripture

If I have all the eloquence of men or of angels, but speak without love, I am simply a gong booming or a cymbal clashing. If I have the gift of prophecy, understanding all the mysteries there are, and knowing everything, and if I have faith in all its fullness, to move mountains, but without love, then I am nothing at all. If I give away all that I possess, piece by piece, and if I even let them take my body to burn it, but am without love, it will do me no good whatever.

Love is always patient and kind; it is never jealous; love is never boastful or conceited; it is never rude or selfish; it does not take offense, and is not resentful. Love takes no pleasure in other people’s sins but delights in the truth; it is always ready to excuse, to trust, to hope, and to endure whatever comes.

Love does not come to an end.

1 Corinthians 13:1-8

Meditation

“Love makes _____.”

How would you complete this sentence?

Our answers may give us clues as to how we understand love: God’s love, our love for God, and how love, in all its forms—filial, erotic, and caritative—is at work in our lives. In his first letter to the Corinthians, St. Paul is talking about charity, or what some refer to as agape love (αγαπη).

And like a professor standing at a blackboard or whiteboard, Paul defines his term, including both what love is and what it is not. We can feel fairly certain that he is sketching some of the basic parameters of love… as St. John of the Cross might define it in his saying, an untiring love.

Now, nowhere in this passage of his first letter to the Corinthians is St. Paul scolding the Church for possessing a lack of love or a warped concept of love. The context of this chapter is an instruction on worship in the Corinthian church, and how any worship—no matter how glorious it may be—that lacks the spiritual gift of charity, i.e. love, is so much dust in the wind. Hence that famous verse that we so often hear at weddings: “Love never ends; as for prophecies, they will pass away; as for tongues, they will cease; as for knowledge, it will pass away” (1 Cor 13:8)

It was in reading these chapters that St. Thérèse of the Child Jesus found her inspiration one day. “I opened the Epistles of St. Paul to find some kind of answer. Chapters 12 and 13 of the First Epistle to the Corinthians fell under my eyes… the Apostle explains how all the most PERFECT gifts are nothing without LOVE. That Charity is the EXCELLENT WAY that leads most surely to God” (Ms B, 3r-3v). Therefore, St. Paul urges the Corinthians, “make love your aim” (1 Cor 14:1).

St. John Paul II noted this inspired reading of First Corinthians in his 1997 Apostolic Letter Divini Amoris Scientia:

She discovered hidden treasures, appropriating words and episodes, sometimes with supernatural boldness, as when, in reading the texts of St Paul (cf. 1 Cor 12-13), she realized her vocation to love (cf. Ms B, 3r-3v). Enlightened by the revealed Word, Thérèse wrote brilliant pages on the unity between love of God and love of neighbor (cf. Ms C, 11v-19r).

St. Thérèse did not develop her mad love for God in a vacuum. Love was her aim from her youth, as she testified time and time again in her autobiographical manuscripts and letters. St. John Paul II explained the nature of her formation when he declared Thérèse to be a Doctor of the Universal Church:

Her doctrine, as was said, conforms to the Church’s teaching. From childhood, she was taught by her family to participate in prayer and liturgical worship. In preparation for her first Confession, first Communion and the sacrament of Confirmation, she gave evidence of an extraordinary love for the truths of the faith, and she learned the Catechism almost word for word (cf. Ms A, 37r-37v).

So what was this untiring love that St. Thérèse learned in her family? What did it look like? Who were her models?

When a Doctor of the Universal Church is born to a pair of Saints, one doesn’t have to look very far because ‘the apple doesn’t fall far from the tree.’ In fact, one particular letter from her mother, Saint Zélie Guérin Martin to her father, Saint Louis Martin, provides us with an example of the untiring love that was taught by example in the Martin family home. Written during the summer of 1873 after the birth of Thérèse, Zélie takes Pauline and Marie with her to visit her brother and the Guérin family in Lisieux. Can you read untiring, selfless love in the following lines?

Lisieux, August 31, 1873

My dear Louis,

We arrived yesterday afternoon at four-thirty. My brother was waiting for us at the station and was delighted to see us. He and his wife are doing everything they can to entertain us. This evening, Sunday, there’s a beautiful reception in their home in our honor. Tomorrow, Monday, we’re going to Trouville. Tuesday there will be a big dinner at the home of Madame Maudelonde and, perhaps, a drive to the country house of Madame Fournet. The children are thrilled and if the weather were good, they’d be ecstatic.

As for me, I’m finding it hard to relax! None of that interests me! I’m absolutely like the fish you pull out of the water. They’re no longer in their element and they have to perish! This would have the same effect on me if I had to stay a lot longer. I feel uncomfortable, I’m out of sorts. This is affecting me physically, and it’s almost making me sick. However, I’m reasoning with myself and trying to gain the upper hand. I’m with you in spirit all day, and I say to myself, “Now he must be doing such and such a thing.”

I’m longing to be near you, my dear Louis. I love you with all my heart, and I feel my affection so much more when you’re not here with me. It would be impossible for me to live apart from you.

This morning I attended three Masses. I went to the one at six o’clock, made my thanksgiving and said my prayers during the seven o’clock Mass, and returned for the high Mass.

My brother is not unhappy with his business. It’s going well enough.

Tell Léonie and Céline that I kiss them tenderly and will bring them a souvenir from Lisieux.

I’ll try to write you tomorrow, if possible, but I don’t know what time we’ll return from Trouville. I’m hurrying because they’re waiting for me to go visiting. We return Wednesday evening at seven-thirty. How long that seems to me!

I kiss you with all my love. The little girls want me to tell you that they’re very happy to have come to Lisieux and they send you big hugs.

Zélie

Family correspondence CF 108

Prayer

O St. John of the Cross
You were endowed by our Lord with the spirit of self-denial
and a love of the cross.
Obtain for us the grace to follow your example
that we may come to the eternal vision of the glory of God.

O Saint of Christ’s redeeming cross
the road of life is dark and long.
Teach us always to be resigned to God’s holy will
in all the circumstances of our lives
and grant us the special favor
which we now ask of you.

Mention your request

Above all, obtain for us the grace of final perseverance,
a holy and happy death and everlasting life with you
and all the saints in heaven.
Amen.

Let’s continue in prayer

Day 1 — Self-trust
Day 2 — Self-giving
Day 3 — Cleansing
Day 4 — Walking in love
Day 5 — Trust
Day 6 — Prayer
Day 7 — Humility
Day 8 — Eternal Silence
Day 9 — Silent love

Saint John of the Cross
17th c. French painting
Saints Pierre et Paul des Etangs (Leucate), Diocese of Carcasonne-Narbonne
Photo credit: Ministère de la Culture (France), Médiathèque de l’architecture et du patrimoine, diffusion RMN-GP

 The novena prayer was composed from approved sources by Professor Michael Ogunu, a member of the Discalced Carmelite Secular Order in Nigeria.

We always refer to the website of the Archives of the Carmel of Lisieux for the vast majority of our quotes concerning Saint Thérèse, Saint Zélie, and Saint Louis Martin. If you would like to purchase English translations for the collected works of St. Thérèse, please visit the website of our Discalced Carmelite friars at ICS Publications. 

All scripture references in this novena are from the New Revised Standard Version Bible: Catholic Edition, copyright © 1989, 1993 the Division of Christian Education of the National Council of the Churches of Christ in the United States of America as accessed from the Bible Gateway website.

Don’t become discouraged and give up prayer, says St. John of the Cross. We offer varying novenas to Our Lady of Mount Carmel, as well as novenas to St. Teresa of Avila, St. John of the Cross, St. Thérèse of Lisieux, Sts. Louis and Zélie Martin, St. Elizabeth of the Trinity, and St. Joseph.

Let us unite in prayer

#agape #archives #carmelDeLisieux #carmelOfLisieux #charity #diviniAmorisScientia #doctorOfTheChurch #doctrine #johnOfTheCross #letter #letters #lisieux #love #novena #sanJuanDeLaCruz #stJohnOfTheCross #stJohnPaulIi #stJohnPaulIiDocuments #stTherese #stThereseOfLisieux #stThereseOfTheChildJesus #stZelieGuerin #stZelieMartin #stsLouisMartinAndZelieGuerin

Quote of the day, 22 October: St. John Paul II

Contemplation of the Virgin presents her to us as a loving Mother who sees her Son growing up in Nazareth (cf. Lk 2: 40, 52), follows him on the roads of Palestine, helps him at the wedding at Cana (cf. Jn 2: 5) and, at the foot of the Cross, becomes the Mother associated with his offering and given to all people when Jesus himself entrusts her to his beloved disciple (cf. Jn 19: 26).

As Mother of the Church, the Blessed Virgin is one with the disciples in “constant prayer” (Acts 1: 14); as the new Woman who anticipates in herself what will one day come to pass for us all in the full enjoyment of Trinitarian life, she is taken up into heaven from where she spreads the protective mantle of her mercy over her children on their pilgrimage to the holy mountain of glory.

Such a contemplative attitude of mind and heart prompts admiration for the Virgin’s experience of faith and love; she already lives in herself all that every believer desires and hopes to attain in the mystery of Christ and the Church (cf. Sacrosanctum Concilium, n. 103; Lumen gentium, n. 53).

Therefore, Carmelites have chosen Mary as their Patroness and spiritual Mother and always keep before the eyes of their heart the Most Pure Virgin who guides everyone to the perfect knowledge and imitation of Christ.

Thus, an intimacy of spiritual relations has blossomed, leading to an ever-increasing communion with Christ and Mary. For the members of the Carmelite Family, Mary, the Virgin Mother of God and mankind, is not only a model to imitate but also the sweet presence of a Mother and Sister in whom to confide.

St Teresa of Jesus rightly urged her sisters:  “Imitate Our Lady and consider how great she must be and what a good thing it is that we have her for our Patroness” (Interior Castle, III, 1, 3).

Saint John Paul II

Message to the Carmelite Family, 3
25 March 2001

John Paul II, Pope 2001, Message of John Paul II to the Carmelite family, Vatican, Vatican City, viewed 20 October 2025, https://www.vatican.va/content/john-paul-ii/en/speeches/2001/march/documents/hf_jp-ii_spe_20010326_ordine-carmelo.html.

Featured image: Ukrainian photographer Oleg D. captures this statue of St. John Paul II in front of the Roman Catholic Church of the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary in Truskavets, a resort town near Lviv, Ukraine. Image credit: OlegD / Adobe Stock

#BlessedVirginMary #Carmelite #contemplation #spirituality #StJohnPaulII

Quote of the day, 11 October: St. John Paul II

For the love of God and man, once again I raise an anguished cry: May such criminal deeds never be repeated against any ethnic group, against any race, in any corner of this world!

It is a cry to everyone: to all people of goodwill; to all who believe in the Just and Eternal God; to all who know they are joined to Christ, the Word of God made man. We must all stand together: human dignity is at stake. There is only one human family.

The new saint also insisted on this: “Our love of neighbour is the measure of our love of God. For Christians — and not only for them — no one is a ‘stranger’. The love of Christ knows no borders”.

Saint John Paul II

Homily for the Canonization of Edith Stein
11 October 1998

Note: St. John Paul II quotes from Edith Stein’s lecture, The Mystery of Christmas, given to Catholic Academics on 13 January 1931 in Ludwigshafen, Germany. In the section called “Union in God,” Professor Stein says: “For the Christian there is no stranger. Whoever is near us and needing us most is our ‘neighbour’; it does not matter whether he is related to us or not, whether we like him or not, whether he is morally worthy of our help or not. The love of Christ knows no limits. It never ends, it does not shrink from ugliness and filth. He came for sinners, not for the just. And if the love of Christ is in us, we shall do as He did and seek the lost sheep.”

Featured image: Repairs in anticipation of the Jubilee Year were underway at St. Peter’s Basilica on the day of St. Edith Stein’s canonization. Image credit: Discalced Carmelites (By permission)

#humanDignity #Jewish #loveOfGod #StEdithStein #StJohnPaulII

Quote of the day, 10 September: St. John Paul II

This morning, dear Brothers and Sisters, our thoughts turn to the sixty-four French priests who died with hundreds of others on the “prison ships of Rochefort.” As Saint Paul exhorted Timothy, they “fought the good fight of faith.” They even endured a long calvary for remaining faithful to their faith and to the Church. If they died, it was for having maintained to the end their close communion with Pope Pius VI.

In profound moral solitude, they took care to maintain a spirit of prayer. “Prey to the torture” of hunger and thirst, they did not have a single word of hatred toward their executioners. Slowly, they allowed themselves to be identified with the sacrifice of Christ which they celebrated by virtue of their ordination. Henceforward, they are offered to our gaze as a living sign of the power of Christ who acts in human weakness.

In the depths of their distress, they maintained the sense of forgiveness. In their eyes, the unity of faith and the unity of their homeland were more important than anything else. We can therefore joyfully take up the words of Sacred Scripture: the souls of these righteous ones are in the hand of God. “They seemed to perish. Their departure was considered a misfortune, but they are at peace” [cf. Wis 3:1–3].

Saint John Paul II

Homily for the Beatification of 64 Victims of the French Revolution (excerpt)
1 October 1995

Note: Blessed Hubert of Saint Claude (Jacques Gagnot) was among three Discalced Carmelite martyrs imprisoned on the ship Les Deux Associés in Rochefort bay during 1794. While his two companions died aboard ship in July, Blessed Hubert endured through the summer months. When plague broke out, the survivors were transferred to Île Madame, where Blessed Hubert died and was buried on 10 September 1794. Witnesses observed that “compared to the hell of the ships, the island seemed a veritable paradise.”

This simple marker is the only engraved monument on the island to the 254 priests buried on Île Madame in 1794. View more photos of the island of Île Madame. Image credit: thierry llansades / Flickr (Some rights reserved) Every August, the Diocese of La Rochelle et Saintes in the Department of Charente-Maritime, France organizes a pilgrimage to the tiny island of Île Madame at low tide. View photos of the 2015 pilgrimage. Image credit: Emmanuel Bethoux / Flickr (Some rights reserved)

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

Featured image: Île Madame, Port des Barques, sunrise over the ox path, low tide. Image credit: © Thierry Llansades / Flickr (Some rights reserved)

#beatification #BlessedHubertOfSaintClaude #BlessedMartyrsOfRochefort #martyrdom #StJohnPaulII

Quote of the day, 27 August: St. John Paul II

Once again, during my service to the universal Church in the See of Saint Peter, I come to my native town of Wadowice.

With great emotion I gaze upon this city of my childhood years, which witnessed my first steps, my first words and those “first bows” which, as Norwid puts it, are “like the eternal profession of Christ: ‘Be praised!’” (cf. Moja piosenka [My Song]).

The city of my childhood, my family home, the church of my Baptism… I wish to cross these hospitable thresholds, bow before my native soil and its inhabitants, and utter the words of greeting given to family members upon on their return from a long journey: “Praised be Jesus Christ!”

In a particular way, I wish to greet the Discalced Carmelite Fathers of Górka in Wadowice. We are meeting on an exceptional occasion: 27 August this year marks the centenary of the consecration of the Church of Saint Joseph, at the Convent founded by Saint Raphael Kalinowski.

As I did as a young man, I now return in spirit to that place of particular devotion to Our Lady of Mount Carmel, which had such a great influence on the spirituality of the Wadowice area. I myself received many graces there, and today I wish to thank the Lord for them.

I am pleased that I was able to beatify, together with one hundred and eight martyrs, Blessed Father Alfonsus Mary Mazurek, a pupil and later a worthy teacher in the minor seminary attached to the Convent.

I had the opportunity to meet personally this witness of Christ who in 1944, as prior of the convent of Czerna, confirmed his fidelity to God by a martyr’s death.

I kneel in veneration before his relics, which rest in the Church of Saint Joseph, and I give thanks to God for the gift of the life, martyrdom, and holiness of this great Religious.

Saint John Paul II

Homily, Eucharistic celebration in Wadowice, Poland
Wednesday, 16 June 1999

Featured image: Opening of the John Paul II Museum in Wadowice, 9 April 2014. Image credit: M. Śmiarowski / KPRM (Polish Foreign Ministry) / Flickr

#BlessedAlphonsusMaryMazurek #Czerna #DiscalcedCarmelites #friars #homily #martyrs #StJohnPaulII #StRaphaelKalinowski #Wadowice

Quote of the day, 19 June: St. John Paul II

As we read in the canonical decree of beatification, “the humble servant of Christ, Mary of Jesus Crucified—belonging by lineage, rite, vocation, and pilgrimage to the peoples of the East and in some way representing them—is like a gift offered to the universal Church by those who, amid the wretched conditions of struggle and bloodshed in which they are immersed, especially now turn with great trust of heart to her fraternal intercession, in the hope that also through the prayers of the Servant of God, peace and harmony may finally be restored to those lands where ‘the Word became flesh’ (Jn 1:14), He who is himself our peace.”

Blessed Mariam was born in Galilee. For this reason, today our prayerful thoughts turn in a special way to the land where Jesus taught love and died so that humanity might be reconciled.

“That Land,” as I recalled on another occasion, “for decades has seen two peoples opposed in a hitherto irreducible antagonism. Each of them has a history, a tradition, a story of their own, which seem to make it difficult to reach an agreement” (John Paul II, Angelus Address, 4 April 1982).

Today more than ever, the threats hanging over us urge us to make love and brotherhood the fundamental law of social and international relations, in a spirit of reconciliation and forgiveness—taking inspiration from the way of life exemplified by Blessed Mary of Jesus Crucified, not only for her people but for the entire world.

May this new way of life give us peace based not on terror, but on mutual trust.

With the Psalmist, let us pray through the intercession of the new Blessed, that the Lord may grant peace to her land:

“Pray for the peace of Jerusalem: ‘May they prosper who love you. Peace be within your walls, and security within your towers.’ For the sake of my relatives and friends I will say, ‘Peace be within you.’ For the sake of the house of the Lord our God, I will seek your good” (Ps 122:6–9).

Saint John Paul II

Homily, Beatification of St. Mary of Jesus Crucified
13 November 1983, St. Peter’s Basilica

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

Featured image: A canonization banner of Saint Mary of Jesus Crucified (Mariam Baouardy) hangs from St. Peter’s Basilica, framed by a Palestinian pilgrim’s flag at the 2015 canonization Mass. Image credit: Discalced Carmelites (Used by permission).

⬦ Reflection Question ⬦
What’s one concrete way you can help promote peace in the Holy Land, following the vision of St. John Paul II and St. Mary of Jesus Crucified?
⬦ Join the conversation in the comments.

#HolyLand #peace #StJohnPaulII #StMaryOfJesusCrucified #terror #trust

Quote of the day, 12 June: St. John Paul II

Today we are celebrating the victory of those who, in our time, gave their lives for Christ, in order to possess life forever in his glory. This victory has a special character, since it was shared by clergy and laity alike, by young people and old, by people from different classes and states….

There are diocesan and religious priests who died because they chose not to abandon their ministry and because they continued to serve their fellow prisoners who were sick with typhus; some were tortured to death because they defended Jews.

In the group of Blessed there are religious brothers and sisters who persevered in the service of charity and in offering their torments for their neighbour. Among the blessed martyrs there are also lay people.

There are five young people formed in the Salesian oratory; a zealous activist of Catholic Action, a lay catechist tortured to death for his service, and a heroic woman, who gave up her own life in exchange for that of her daughter-in-law who was with child.

These blessed martyrs are today inscribed in the history of holiness of the People of God on pilgrimage for over a thousand years in the land of Poland.

If we rejoice today for the beatification of one hundred and eight martyrs, clergy and lay people, we do so above all because they bear witness to the victory of Christ, the gift which restores hope.

As we carry out this solemn act, there is, in a way, rekindled in us the certainty that, independently of the circumstances, we can achieve complete victory in all things through the One who has loved us (cf. Rom 8:37).

The blessed martyrs cry to our hearts: Believe in God who is love! Believe in him in good times and bad! Awaken hope! May it produce in you the fruit of fidelity to God in every trial!

Saint John Paul II

Homily, Eucharistic Celebration, Apostolic Journey to Poland
Beatification of 108 Polish Martyrs
Warsaw, Sunday, 13 June 1999

Note: Three days later, during the Eucharistic celebration in Wadowice, St. John Paul II remarked: “I am pleased that I was able to beatify, together with one hundred and eight martyrs, Blessed Father Alfonsus Mary Mazurek, a pupil and later a worthy teacher in the minor seminary attached to the Convent. I had the opportunity to meet personally this witness of Christ who in 1944, as prior of the convent of Czerna, confirmed his fidelity to God by a martyr’s death. I kneel in veneration before his relics, which rest in the Church of Saint Joseph, and I give thanks to God for the gift of the life, martyrdom, and holiness of this great Religious.”

Featured image: Then-Prime Minister Donald Tusk and Cardinal Stanisław Dziwisz, longtime secretary to Pope John Paul II, at the opening of the Family Home Museum of Saint John Paul II in Wadowice, 9 April 2014. Photo by M. Śmiarowski / KPRM. Source: Kancelaria Premiera / Flickr (Some rights reserved).

⬦ Reflection Question ⬦
Have you ever met someone whose faith, courage, or love made you think: “This person is a saint”?
⬦ Join the conversation in the comments.

#BlessedAlphonsusMaryMazurek #fidelity #GodIsLove #holiness #martyr #StJohnPaulII #Wadowice

Marie du jour, 18 May: St. John Paul II

At the end of the daily Liturgy of the Hours, among the invocations addressed to Mary by the Church is the following:

“Loving Mother of the Redeemer, gate of heaven, star of the sea,
assist your people who have fallen yet strive to rise again.
To the wonderment of nature you bore your Creator!”

At the center of this mystery, in the midst of this wonderment of faith, stands Mary. As the loving Mother of the Redeemer, she was the first to experience it: “To the wonderment of nature you bore your Creator”!

This is the invocation addressed to Mary, the “loving Mother of the Redeemer,” the invocation addressed to Christ, who through Mary entered human history. Year after year, the antiphon rises to Mary, evoking that moment which saw the accomplishment of this essential historical transformation, which irreversibly continues: the transformation from “falling” to “rising.”

The Church sees the Blessed Mother of God in the saving mystery of Christ and in her own mystery. She sees Mary deeply rooted in humanity’s history, in man’s eternal vocation according to the providential plan which God has made for him from eternity.

She sees Mary maternally present and sharing in the many complicated problems which today beset the lives of individuals, families, and nations; she sees her helping the Christian people in the constant struggle between good and evil, to ensure that it “does not fall,” or, if it has fallen, that it “rises again.”

Saint John Paul II

Papal Encyclical Redemptoris Mater, Conclusion
25 March 1987

John Paul II, St. 1987, Redemptoris Mater: On the Blessed Virgin Mary in the life of the Pilgrim Church, Vatican, Rome. Available at: https://www.vatican.va/content/john-paul-ii/en/encyclicals/documents/hf_jp-ii_enc_25031987_redemptoris-mater.html.

Featured image: Madonna and Child, created by the workshop of Sassoferrato (Italian, 1609–1685), executed in oil on canvas (date unknown). Image credit: Indianapolis Museum of Art at Newfields (Public domain).

⬦ Reflection Question ⬦
How do I let Mary accompany me in the struggle between falling and rising?
⬦ Join the conversation in the comments.

#AlmaRedemptorisMater #BlessedVirginMary #encyclical #inspiration #MotherOfGod #MotherOfTheRedeemer #StJohnPaulII