Quote of the day, 13 November: St. Mary of Jesus Crucified

I was asking myself how to have perfect love of God. … How can I acquire, my God, your true love?

Then this Almighty God lowered himself to me, who am only a little bit of dust. Here’s how he made me understand: a soul that wants to have true love of God desires that the good God be loved by all.

She would want all the crosses, sufferings, and trials for herself; she accepts everything out of love for God. She rejoices in the happiness of others. She would want to be cut into pieces to make souls go to God; she rejoices in the good that souls receive; she rejoices that they love the good God more than she does, and that they’re loved by the good God more than she herself is.

Then, if they have something good in them, these souls would want to give everything to others, they forget themselves, and they don’t think about heaven or hell anymore, only that souls love God more than they do.

Then I heard a voice say to me: “When a soul has this attitude, God is obliged by his love and his mercy to save it and to forgive it all its crimes, even if they were bigger than the sea.”

Saint Mary of Jesus Crucified (Mariam Baouardy)

Letter 11 to Father Saint-Guily in Pau, about 1869 (excerpt)

Note: Mary of Jesus Crucified Baouardy was beatified by Saint John Paul II on 13 November 1983 in Saint Peter’s Basilica. This excerpt from Letter 11 is one of many quotes that will be featured in the 2025 Carmelite Online Advent Retreat. The retreat reflections are written by Father Didier Maury, OCD. Free registration is available now for “Mariam, or the Way of the Lord’s Poor”.

Baouardy, M 2011, Lettres de La Bienheureuse Marie de Jésus Crucifié, Editions 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 photo of Mariam was taken in August 1875 before her departure from France for the Holy Land. Image credit: Wikimedia Commons (Public domain)

#loveForNeighbor #loveOfGod #mariamBaouardy #salvation #StMaryOfJesusCrucified

Quote of the day, 13 September: St. Teresa of Avila

Discusses these words of the Our Father:
Dimitte nobis debita nostra.

He now tells the Father to forgive us our debts since we ourselves forgive. Thus, He says, going on with the prayer He teaches us, “And forgive us, Lord, our debts as we forgive our debtors.”

How the Lord must esteem this love we have for one another! Indeed, Jesus could have put other virtues first and said: forgive us, Lord, because we do a great deal of penance or because we pray much and fast or because we have left all for You and love You very much. He didn’t say forgive us because we would give up our lives for You, or, as I say, because of other possible things. But He said only, “forgive us because we forgive.”

Saint Teresa of Avila

The Way of Perfection, chap. 36, nos. 1, 7

Teresa of Avila, St. 1985, The Collected Works of St. Teresa of Avila, translated from the Spanish by Kavanaugh, K; Rodriguez, O, ICS Publications, Washington DC.

Featured image: Sunlight reveals the confessional in an old church. Image credit: Dominika / Adobe Stock

#forgiveness #loveForNeighbor #OurFather #StTeresaOfAvila #virtues

Yes, dear Madame, my happiness has never been so great, so true as it has since God deigned to associate me with the sufferings of the divine Crucified, so “I might suffer in my flesh what is lacking in His passion” (Col 1:24), as Saint Paul said.

I think I will soon be going to join your little Cécile in the bosom of Light and Love. Together, we will turn God’s graces and gifts in your direction…. We will watch over your dear son so He may keep him wholly pure, wholly worthy of the home where God has willed to shelter him; and also allow our little Marie-Madeleine, your beautiful little lily so beloved of my heart.

For you, dear Madame, we will ask, if you allow, those graces of union with the Master that give so much strength to the soul for passing through any trial and that transform life through continual contact with Him!

If you knew how well cared for I am in my dear Carmel, what a Mother I have unceasingly near me…. She is a true mama for her little patient. You would have tears in your eyes if you could see through the grilles the goodness lavished on me by this heart whom God has made so motherly.

Saint Elizabeth of the Trinity

Letter 326 to Madame Farrat, around 18 October 1906

Note: Cécile was the granddaughter Madame Farrat had lost. The Farrat family were neighbors of the Catez family. The “dear son” would have been young Olivier, who made his first Communion on 17 May 1903. Marie-Madeleine was born on 13 September 1901 in Dijon.

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: Latvian photographer Aleksejs Bergmanis captured this view of sunset above a sea of clouds in October 2017. Image credit: Aleksejs Bermanis / Pexels (Stock photo)

https://carmelitequotes.blog/2024/10/17/sabeth-18oct06/

#CarmelOfDijon #fruit #goodness #intercession #loveForNeighbor #prioress #StElizabethOfTheTrinity #StPaul #unionWithGod