OCTOBER 4th: Feast of St Francis of Assisi
 

St. Francis of Assisi

"My brothers, birds, you should praise your Creator."

    Francis of Assisi is honored by the Catholic Church as the patron saint of animals and ecology.  Francis was born at Assisi in Umbria in 1181 or 1182.  His father was a prosperous merchant, and Francis planned to follow him in his trade, although he also had dreams of being a troubadour or a knight.  In 1201 he took part in an attack on Perugia, was taken hostage, and remained a captive there for a year.  As a result of his captivity and a severe illness his mind began to turn to religion, but around 1205 he enlisted in another military expedition, to Apulia.  However, he had a dream in which God called him to his service, and he returned to Assisi and began to care for the sick.  In 1206, he had a vision in which Christ called him to repair His Church.  Francis interpreted this as a command to repair the church of San Damiano, near Assisi.  He resolved to become a hermit, and devoted himself to repairing the church.  His father, angry and embarrassed by Francis' behavior, imprisoned him and brought him before the bishop as disobedient.  Francis abandoned all his rights and possessions, including his clothes.  Two years later he felt himself called to preach, and was soon joined by companions.  When they numbered eleven he gave them a short Rule and received approval from Pope Innocent III for the brotherhood, which Francis called the Friars Minor.
    The friars traveled throughout central Italy and beyond, preaching for people to turn from the world to Christ.  In his life and preaching, Francis emphasized simplicity and poverty, relying on God's providence rather than worldly goods.  The brothers worked or begged for what they needed to live, and any surplus was given to the poor.  Francis turned his skills as a troubadour to the writing of prayers and hymns. 
    In 1212 Saint Clara Sciffi, a girl from a noble family of Assisi, left her family to join Francis.  With his encouragement she founded a sisterhood at San Damiano, the Poor Ladies, later the Poor Clares. 
    One of Francis's most famous sermons is one he gave to a flock of birds.  One day while Francis and some friars were traveling along the road, Francis looked up and saw the trees full of birds.  Francis "left his companions in the road and ran eagerly toward the birds" and "humbly begged them to listen to the word of God."  One of the friars recorded the sermon, which overflows with Francis's love for creation and its Creator: "My brothers, birds, you should praise your Creator very much and always love him; he gave you feathers to clothe you, wings so that you can fly, and whatever else was necessary for you.  God made you noble among his creatures, and he gave you a home in the purity of the air; though you neither sow nor reap, he nevertheless protects and governs you without any solicitude on your part."
    Thomas of Celano records that the birds stretched their necks and extended their wings as Francis walked among them touching and blessing them.  This event was a turning point of sorts for Francis.  "He began to blame himself for negligence in not having preached to the birds before" and "from that day on, he solicitously admonished the birds, all animals and reptiles, and even creatures that have no feeling, to praise and love their Creator."
    In time the brotherhood became more organized.  As large numbers of people, attracted to the preaching and example of Francis, joined him, Francis had to delegate responsibility to others.  Eventually he wrote a more detailed Rule, which was further revised by the new leaders of the Franciscans.  He gave up leadership of the Order and went to the mountains to live in secluded prayer.  There he received the Stigmata, the wounds of Christ.  He returned to visit the Franciscans, and Clara and her sisters, and a few of his followers remained with him.  He died at the Porziuncula on October 3, 1226.
    Francis called for simplicity of life, poverty, and humility before God.  He worked to care for the poor, and one of his first actions after his conversion was to care for lepers.  Thousands were drawn to his sincerity, piety, and joy.  In all his actions, Francis sought to follow fully and literally the way of life demonstrated by Christ in the Gospels.  His respect and appreciation for creation was so profound because it always led him to the Creator.

    For Francis, the Eucharist became the deepest source of support for his desire for cosmic peace and reconciliation.  Just two years before he died, St. Francis said:  "I beseech all of you, by whatever charity I can, that you show reverence and all honor to the most Holy Body and Blood of our Lord Jesus Christ, because (in Him) all things, whether on earth or in heaven have been pacified and reconciled with Almighty God".

    Every year on the Sunday nearest his October 4 feast day, Catholic and other Christian churches around the world host services where animals are blessed.  These services are a powerful way to celebrate both Francis's and God's compassionate concern for all creatures.
    Francis is well known for the "Canticle of Brother Sun."  Written late in the saint's life, when blindness had limited his sight of the outside world, the canticle shows that his imagination was alive with love for creation.  Visit our Prayers I section to read this wonderful prayer.
   Saint Francis of Assisi consented to being ordained to the Diaconate but not to the Priesthood.   Probably no saint has affected so many in so many different ways as the gentle Saint of Assisi who, born to wealth, devoted his life to poverty, concern for the poor and the sick, and so delighted in God's works as revealed in nature.

"If you have men who will exclude any of God's creatures from the shelter of compassion and pity, you will have men who deal likewise with their fellow men."

-St. Francis of Assisi 

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Reflections...

From St. Bonaventure

    "Francis sought occasion to love God in everything.  He delighted in all the works of God's hands and from the vision of joy on earth his mind soared aloft to the life-giving source and cause of all.  In everything beautiful, he saw him who is beauty itself, and he followed his Beloved everywhere by his likeness imprinted on creation; of all creation he made a ladder by which he might mount up and embrace him who is all-desirable.  By the power of his extraordinary faith he tasted the Goodness which is the source of all in each and every created thing, as in so many rivulets.  He seemed to perceive a divine harmony in the interplay of powers and faculties given by God to his creatures and like the prophet David he exhorted them all to praise God."

--Major Life of St. Francis

    "His attitude towards creation was simple and direct, as simple as the gaze of a dove; as he considered the universe, in his pure, spiritual vision, he referred every created thing to the Creator of all.  He saw God in everything, and loved and praised him in all creation.  By God's generosity and goodness, he possessed God in everything and everything in God.  The realization that everything comes from the same source made him call all created things -- no matter how insignificant -- his brothers and sisters, because they had the same origins as he."

--Minor Life of St. Francis

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From Thomas of Celano...

    "For who could ever give expression to the very great affection he bore for all things that are God's?  Who would be able to narrate the sweetness he enjoyed while contemplating in creatures the wisdom of their Creator, his power and his goodness?  Indeed, he was very often filled with a wonderful and ineffable joy from this consideration while he looked upon the sun, while he beheld the moon, and while he gazed upon the stars and the firmament.  O simple piety and pious simplicity!  Toward little worms even he glowed with a very great love, for he had read this saying about the Savior: I am a worm, not a man.  Therefore he picked them up from the road and placed them in a safe place, lest they be crushed by the feet of the passersby.  What shall I say of the lower creatures, when he would see to it that the bees would be provided with honey in the winter, or the best wine, lest they should die from the cold?  He used to praise in public the perfection of their works and the excellence of their skill, for the glory of God, with such encomiums that would often spend a whole day in praising them and the rest of creatures....  This man, filled with the spirit of God, never ceased to glorify, praise, and bless the Creator and Ruler of all things in all the elements and creatures."

    "How great a gladness do you think the beauty of the flowers brought to his mind when he saw the shape of their beauty and perceived the odor of their sweetness? ...When he found an abundance of flowers, he preached to them and invited them to praise the Lord as though they were endowed with reason.  In the same way he exhorted with the sincerest purity cornfields and vineyards, stones and forests and all the beautiful things of the fields, fountains of water and the green things of the gardens, earth and fire, air and wind, to love God and serve him willingly.  Finally, he called all creatures brother, and in a most extraordinary manner never experienced by others, he discerned the hidden things of nature with his sensitive heart, as one who had already escaped into the freedom of the glory of the sons of God. "

--The First Life of St. Francis. 

Illustration by John August Swanson.

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From Pope John Paul II

    Francis and Clare not only became brother and sister to every human being but to all animate and inanimate creatures.  In contemplating nature, when Francis discovers that everything speaks to him of God, his eyes are filled with joy and he exclaims in the Canticle of Brother Sun: everything "... from you Most High, bears significance" (FF 263).

    Dear young people, may you too learn to look at your neighbor and at creation with God´s eyes.  Mainly respect its summit, which is the human person.  At the school of such excellent teachers, learn the careful and attentive use of goods.  Do your utmost to see that they are better distributed and shared, with full respect for the rights of every person.  In reading the great book of creation, may your spirit open to grateful praise to the Creator."

--Pope's address to "Young People to Assisi," August 26, 2001.

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From Sister Marjorie Keenan, RSHM

     St. Francis of Assisi fully understood this mysterious relationship between the world and the person seized by God's love.  At times, Francis could perhaps seem to us to be too simple, too naive, to content our complicated modern minds.  We pass far too quickly over his suffering, his hard and penitential life, his long hours of contemplation, his courage in face of the challenges of his time.  What was the fruit of this life entirely given to God?  A man that the animals considered their friend; a man who considered the sun and the moon as members of his family; a mendicant monk who gave all to the poor and who called death his sister.  Francis dared to plumb the depths of the mystery of creation: everything was created for the glory of God; everything should render God this glory.

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From Pope Benedict XVI

    There is a story that goes as follows: Francis told the brother responsible for the garden never to plant the whole area with vegetables but to leave part of the garden for flowers, so that at every season of the year it may produce our sisters, the flowers, out of love for she who is called "the flower of the field and the lily of the valley" (Song 2:1).  In the same way Francis wanted there always to be a particularly beautiful flower bed, so that, at all times, people would be moved by the sight of flowers to praise God...

    We cannot take this story and simply leave the religious element to one side as the relic of a bygone era, while appreciating its refusal of mean utility and its appreciation of the wealth of species.  This would in no way correspond to what Francis did and intended.  Above all, however, this story contains none of the bitterness that is directed against human beings (for their alleged interference in nature) such as one detects in so many conservationist manifestos today.  When man himself is out of joint and can no longer affirm himself, nature cannot flourish.  On the contrary: man must first be in harmony with himself; only then can he enter into harmony with creation and it with him.  And this is only possible if he is in harmony with the Creator who designed both nature and us.  Respect for man and respect for nature go together, but ultimately both can flourish and find their true measure only, if, in man and nature, we respect the Creator and his creation.  The two only harmonize in relationship with the Creator.  We shall assuredly never find the lost equilibrium if we refuse to press forward and discover this relationship.  Let Francis of Assisi, then, make us reflect; let him set us on the right path.

~ Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, Seek that Which is Above: Meditations Through the Year.  Trans. Graham Harrison (San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 2007), 176.

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Read an excellent article about St. Francis and Nature from the Franciscan Friars of the Province of the Holy Spirit by clicking here.

For more information about St. Francis, click here.

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150th Anniversary of the Consecration of Belmont Abbey Church

September 4th was the 150th anniversary of the consecration of Belmont Abbey church.   On the day of consecration, Dom Gueranger, restorer of French monasticism and founder of Solesmes Abbey, celebrated the Mass in the presence of Bishop Brown.   Belmont was to become pro-cathedral for Wales, even though it is over the border in English Herefordshire.   It was to become the first Catholic cathedral to celebrate the whole Divine Office in England since the Reformation, and it was the first Catholic church in Britain to use Gregorian chant since the Reformation, according to the school of Solesmes of course. 

Benedict XVI has said that the "hermeneutic of continuity", in other words "Tradition", is the basis for understanding every dimension of Catholic reality.   Continuity is built into every Benedictine community, and this is reflected in the Belmont liturgy, even today.   Gregorian chant is alive and well at Belmont, even though we have no difficulty celebrating a vernacular liturgy, with Mass facing the people, according to the mind of the post-conciliar Catholic Church, but in organic continuity with the past.

150th Anniversary of Monastic Life at Belmont Abbot Paul's Welcome 4th September 2010 Abbot Paul welcomed all those who had joined the community for its celebration with some words about the original dedication of the Church in 1860.
	The annals relate how on 4th September 1860 this church was consecrated by Bishop Thomas Brown of Newport and Menevia after which a solemn Pontifical Mass of Dedication was sung by Abbot Prosper Guéranger of Solesmes, the first mitred ruling abbot to set foot in Britain since the Reformation. Cardinal Wiseman had originally accepted an invitation to sing the Mass, but ill health prevented him from keeping his engagement. Then on 5th September the entire hierarchy, except the Cardinal and Bishop Grant of Southwark, was present in the church. Bishop Brown officiated at a Pontifical Mass in the presence of a hundred monks, priests from all over the country and a large number of dignitaries and other guests.
The bishop's train was carried by the five year old son of the founder, Mr Francis Richard Wegg-Prosser of Belmont House. The sermon was preached by Bishop Bernard Ullathorne of Birmingham, like Bishop Brown a monk of St Gregory's, Downside. Afterwards two hundred gentlemen guests were served lunch in the cloister, while the ladies were entertained in the guest-rooms. In the evening Bishop Brown presided at Pontifical Vespers, while the sermon was preached by Mgr. Henry Edward Manning on the history of the Benedictine Order in England and the prospect of the "Second Spring." We can well imagine what excitement was caused locally by these proceedings, and indeed interest was excited all over the country. In addition to being the Common Novitiate House for the English Benedictine Congregation from 1860 to the end of the First World War, Belmont also became the mother church of what are today the Catholic Dioceses of Cardiff and Menevia and the centre of the mission to re-evangelise Wales and Herefordshire under two great Benedictine bishops, Thomas Brown and Cuthbert Hedley. The tomb of the formerand a monument to the latter can be seen in the North Transept. Today it gives us immense pleasure to welcome the Most Reverend Vincent Nichols, Archbishop of Westminster, who will preside and preach at the Solemn Mass of Dedication. We welcome several of his fellow bishops together with the Abbot Primate of the Benedictine Confederation, Benedictine abbots and abbesses and diocesan clergy. We welcome in particular the Lord-Lieutenant of Herefordshire, the Countess of Darnley, the High Sheriff and Deputy Mayor. We welcome the Bishop of Hereford and other ecumenical guests. Finally we welcome you all: oblates, parishioners from the many parishes for which Belmont has pastoral care, former pupils of our schools, relatives, benefactors and friends. We ask you all to join with us in thanking God for 150 years' faithful service to Benedictine life and to the pastoral work of his Church. At the same time we ask your prayers that present and future generations of Belmont monks may continue the good work of their predecessors, building up the Church of Christ by their prayer and sacrifice and by their fidelity to the Rule of St Benedict and the teaching of the Catholic Church. We also ask you to pray with us that the forthcoming visit of Pope Benedict XVI to Great Britain and the Beatification of Cardinal John Henry Newman will strengthen our Christian faith and our resolve not only to preach but to live to the full the truth of the Gospel. May the good Lord bless and keep you all.

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 ARCHBISHOP NICHOLS' HOMILY

Today, as we celebrate the consecration of this Benedictine Abbey church, we also prepare for the Visit of Pope Benedict to the United Kingdom. Benedict – a name which echoes through the story of our faith, a name resonant with the call to praise God and the challenge of proclaiming the Gospel.

Benedict XVI is an eloquent preacher of the Gospel, attending carefully to the audience he addresses, as every preacher must. One of the themes central to his work is the need for people today not to forget their deepest identity, their roots, their heritage. I have little doubt that this will be part of his message to the United Kingdom.

Simply put, the message is this: Without roots there is no growth. Pope Benedict has often spoken of the need for Europe in particular to remember its Christian roots, to cherish its Christian heritage, to see within that heritage not a problem to be solved but a gift to be discovered afresh.  He has said that while the West is making a praiseworthy attempt to be completely open to other values, perhaps it no longer loves itself. He suggests that we are tempted to see in our own history only what is blameworthy and destructive and that we may be no longer capable of perceiving in it what is great and pure.

Yet among the many influences which shape our lives, both personally and collectively, the saving message of the Gospel stands out as a source of hope, of compassion, of heroic generosity, of artistic inspiration of every kind. The Gospel has shaped our land just as it reveals the true shape of who we are and what we are to become. Christ is our Way, our Truth and our Life. While being humble and realistic, there is no need for us to be defensive about our Christian heritage, or apologise for our Catholic faith.

Churches are built to remind us who we truly are. They stand across our landscape as pointers to the truth that life is best lived in the conscious presence of a loving God. They help us, in the business of our lives, to retain our focus on God and to learn that God never takes his loving focus away from us. We gather in church, frequently or not, to be reminded and strengthened in our most profound identity. As St Paul tells us: ‘You belong to Christ and Christ belongs to God’ (1 Cor 3.23).  This is the saving truth of who we really are and where our well-being is to be found.

The readings of the Mass this morning help us to deepen this simple reflection. The gathering of the people depicted in the First Book of the Kings reveals the heart of this identity and well-being: here God lives with his people. Here God listens, God hears. The two words – listen, hear - are repeated six times, as a confident appeal and assertion. The same confidence is in our own hearts: ‘Hear the entreaty of your servant and of Israel your people as they pray in this place. From heaven where your dwelling is, hear; and, as you hear, forgive.’ (v.30)

But we come to church not simply to pray, and to be heard, but also to be built into something new. Here we are ‘being built into a house where God lives, in the Spirit’ (Eph 2.22). We are never visitors in a church. We are not even its owners. But we are part of what it is, what it stands for: its bricks and mortar in our flesh, its beauty and form in our virtue, its praise and liturgy in our lives.

If this is true of every church in our landscape, it is intensely true of this monastic church, whose consecration we celebrate, exactly 150 years from the day. This beautiful church, and the entire monastic building of which it is the heart and soul, stand in the landscape of our history as a monument to faith, to perseverance, to prayer,  and to the richness of the monastic tradition as a clear witness to faith in this land.

In celebrating this anniversary, much of which is handsomely narrated in the introduction to our Mass booklet, we celebrate the remarkable contribution to the life of the Church made by the English Benedictine Congregation. This is a story of the tenacity of a rich and validated pattern of discipleship, a true charism in the life of the Church and one which has proved its enduring worth here in this country.

But this is not a simple story. There are many aspects and nuances in the account of the English Benedictine tradition and mission. So I tread here as one less wise and therefore a little warily. But I am deeply encouraged by the fact that the preacher at the great celebration of Mass the day after the Consecration of this church was none other that Bishop Ullathorne, one of the great English Benedictine monk-bishops to serve in this land. He can be my guide, as for a while, as Archbishop of Birmingham, I had the privilege of standing in his shoes.

As you will well know, by the time he came here to preach on 5 September 1860 Ullathorne had already taken radical steps to build up a sense of mission within the re-emerging Benedictine communities. In September 1845 he had gone onto the streets of Coventry wearing the black Benedictine habit, provoking opposition and outrage, yet asserting that the great presence of the black monks was again part of public life in this land. In establishing St Osburg’s he asserted a role for a city-centre monastery, an extension community which would attract people through the vivid nature of its witness, which would offer them prayer and liturgy of the highest order and which would attractive vocations for the mother house. By that time he had also explored the role of the ‘missionary monk’, living alone, out of community, on the mission. But of this he was wary, believing it always to be a temporary measure.

Great initiatives also took place here, with the consecration of the Church marked by the presence of Abbot Gueranger of Solesmes, the first mitred Abbot to be seen in this land since the Reformation.

By 1860, Belmont was already the common Novitiate and House of Studies for the English Benedictine Congregation. It was pioneering not only in the thoroughness of its studies especially in Scripture and history, not only in its architecture, not only in its revival of plainchant, but also in the pathway of spirituality which it re-established from earlier riches, drawing in particular on the writings of Augustine Baker.

Yet this was not without controversy, as Baker believed that the mission was not an essential feature of the life of an English Benedictine monk, concentrating rather on the pattern of contemplative prayer as essential for the monk and the community.

Yet Belmont wanted to play its own role in the development of the mission of the Church. It did so less in the line of Bishop Ullathorne and more under the direction of Bishops Brown and Hedley with a close intertwining of the life of the Abbey and the life of the emerging diocese. Indeed, Belmont was unique in reviving the ancient tradition of the monastic chapter being the cathedral chapter itself, for Newport and Menevia.

Not surprisingly then, as Abbot Geoffrey Scott has written, Belmont sought not only to revive Augustine Baker’s lessons on the contemplative life but also to combine them with Francis de Sales’s pastoral guidance for busy parish priests. Bishop Hedley was the main inspiration behind this attempt to combine English Benedictine monastic and missionary spirituality.

Whatever patterns are followed in working out this combination of monastery and mission – and there are many – I find myself coming back to earlier words of Bishop Ullathorne in trying to establish the heart of the matter. When addressing the General Chapter in July 1850, Bernard Ullathorne said:

‘I know well that the expansion of the Congregation would serve the best interests of the Church in England in very important ways. It is a deep conviction in my mind…that the spirit of St Benedict is as well-fitted for the exigencies of the Church in modern days as it was for those of the Middle Ages, for it is a spirit at once generous, practical and accommodating to circumstances.’

He illustrated this same conviction in an obituary for Dom Bernard Barber, President General of the EBC. There he spoke of Dom Bernard’s gift of combining high principles with gentleness and consideration of practice as the secret of the exercise of Christian authority and leadership. This is a spirit and practice we need today as much as ever. This is an enrichment that Benedictine life can surely continue to provide.

Today as we rejoice in the richness of that spirit, we thank God for the blessings of this monastic church. Here many have been formed in the way of high principle and gentleness of practice, rooted in a search in prayer for the God who calls us to great holiness yet never deserts us in our poverty and failure. We thank God for the missionary spirit of the English Benedictine Congregation and the many ways in which that spirit is expressed. We pray that this well-spring of rich life in the Church may be sustained and renewed so that its contribution to this land may again be in full-flow, deeply rooted in prayer and community, and reaching out in compassion and love.

We pray, too, for the success of the Visit of Pope Benedict to this land. We think particularly of the moment when, together with the Archbishop of Canterbury, he will pray at the tomb of St Edward the Confessor. At that moment we may think again of the great tradition of Benedictine life, recalling not only the name of Dom Sigebert Buckley, the last surviving monk of 17th century Westminster, but also the missionary days of recusancy and the 19th century revival embodied in this church. We ask the Lord that even the example of our poor faith, together with the eloquent words of the Holy Father, may help many to find again the richness and joy of the faith. In faith we echo the words of Peter, ‘You are the Christ, the Son of the living God’ and we hear in our hearts, ‘You are a happy man! Because it was not flesh and blood that revealed this to you but my Father in heaven. You are Peter and on this rock I will build my Church and the gates of the underworld can never hold out against it.’ (Mt16.15) Amen.

+Vincent Nichols
3-9-10.

Belmont Abbey Church

 Procession for the Mass

  close-up of the choir

Celebrant, guests and monastic choir

Gospel Procession

Offertory

Eucharistic Prayer (Anaphora)

Eucharistic Prayer (Anaphora)

:GUESTS:  

 Fr Nicholas with the Countess of Darnley, Lord-Lieutenant of Herefordshire who represented the Queen.

The Abbot of Belmont and his mother.

 SOLEMN VESPERS

 Archbishop Kevin McDonald with DD Bernard and Dyfrig

seen with the monastic choir

D. Brendan as Cantor in Vespers

D. Nicholas as Cantor in Vespers

Magnificat

D. Paul and assorted monks ( and the Abbess of Stanbrook) from Stanbrook)

Monks and celebrant (again)

OCTOBER 1ST: ST THERESE OF LISIEUX

 

 THE MOST ESSENTIAL ELEMENT IN THE LITTLE WAY.  

It is not easy to find one word in English which expresses exactly what St. Thérèse of Lisieux regarded as the heart of her Little Way of Love. In French one could call it L?abandon. The English word, abandonment, does not give its full meaning because generally abandonment means that one is obliged to leave a certain place by adverse circumstances. For example, an army yields a position because of the advance of an enemy. The term ?self-surrender? is perhaps a little nearer but even that sometimes implies that some circumstance has compelled or forced the issue. ?Resignation? is not exact either. By her way of abandonment Thérèse meant that one embraces enthusiastically and joyously a way that may involve immense sacrifice and even death itself with an exaltation of spirit that casts away every fear and anxiety about self and thinks only of the issue. One reads sometimes in the papers about a football team which played with great abandon, meaning that those eleven men played together in a wonderful spirit of exultant enthusiasm with no thought of anything hindering the vehemence with which they threw themselves into the game, determined to win. So the way of Thérèse demands that we are lovers in the sense that we abandon ourselves totally to the will of Him who is Love itself. We are ever conscious that God is Love, that His will is the will of infinite love. When St. Paul told those wise men in Athens that in God they lived and moved and had their being, he could well have said that in love we all live and move and have our being. That was what Thérèse meant. 

In July of 1897, Thérèse wrote to her sister, Leonie: ?I am not in the least troubled, for I would not enter heaven one single moment sooner by my own will. The only happiness here below is to live and rejoice in that which God gives us.? In that last sentence is meditation for a life-time. ?That which Jesus gives us.? Is He not in complete control? Do not even the most distasteful things of life happen by His permission? In our own day the political upheavals, the wars, the assassinations, even that attempted of the Vicar of Christ, are they not all permitted by the will of Infinite Love and will not that same Infinite Love draw even greater good out of them? This surrender is a complete way of life. It is really spiritual childhood. 

None of us knows when God will call us. It may be within the next hour, within the week or a month or a year or He may permit us to live on for many years yet. We simply do not know, but what we do know is that His call is the call of love and He wants us to be so completely abandoned that we will love that call whenever it comes. We may have set out hearts on doing some great work, we may have a book half finished, a church half built, a convert half instructed. What does it matter? Everything is safe in God?s hands. His call, be it repeated, is the call of Love. If He wills us to die suddenly then Love wills us to die suddenly. If He wills us to endure long suffering, again that is the will of Infinite Love and He will always give us the grace to respond to His call. Only one thing matters and that is to accept His will with all the love we can muster. Indeed, ?accept? is too weak a word. We must delight in His will, rejoice in His will, in every detail in which it expresses itself throughout life. 

St. Thérèse believed with all her heart that what the divine Lover was asking of her was the most tremendous, giving joyfully and gladly. For her the will of her infinite Lover was everything; nothing else mattered at all. In her own words: ?Jesus was pleased to show me the only way that leads to Love?s divine furnace: that way is theabandon of a little child who sleeps unafraid in the arms of the father. To ascend the mountain of love Jesus does not ask for great actions, but only abandon and gratitude. He has no need of our works, but only of our love. The very God who declares He has no need to tell us if He be hungry disdained not to beg a little water from the Samaritan woman . . . He is thirsty! But when He said: ?Give me to drink?, it was the love of the creatures for which the Creator of the universe cried out. He was thirsty for Love. Jesus has not changed. From the disciples of the world He receives only indifference and ingratitude; and amongst His very own disciples how few He finds willing to give their hearts up entirely to the tenderness of His Infinite Love.? 

That was how Thérèse, towards the end of her life, expressed her doctrine of abandon. Again she wrote: ?Now I have no desire for anything except to love Jesus even unto folly . . . Today the abandonis my only guide, I have no other compass. I no longer ask anything with eagerness, save the perfect accomplishment of God?s will in my soul.? 

As early as 1889 Thérèse wrote about the distinction between resignation to God?s will and true abandon. In that year she wrote to Céline: ?The other day I found this admirable passage: ?There is a difference between resignation and oneness of will with God, there is the same difference between them as there is between union and unity. In union there are yet two, in unity there is but one.? Yes, let us be one with God, even in this world, for that we must be more than resigned, we must embrace the cross with joy.? 

Again she wrote: ?I no more desire to die than to live. If the Saviour offered me the choice I would choose nothing. I only want what He wants. It is what He does that I love. Even if I recovered, let no one think that will defeat my little plans. Not at all. Age is nothing in God?s sight and I shall know how to remain like a little child even if I have a long life.? 

Very early in her short life Thérèse understood, with the special charism of the Holy Spirit, that the only way to true peace of heart is the way of total abandon to the will and good pleasure of God. There is no other way. She discovered this truth in the words of our Lord: ?In the world you shall have tribulations, but in me peace. Peace I give unto you, not as this world gives do I give to you. For the peace that I give this world cannot give, neither can it take away.? The peace of Christ rests on a will that is utterly and wholly united to His will, a will that is not only surrendered to His will but looks for and wishes for and desires nothing except His good pleasure in all things. He must be allowed to do what He will with His own. Thérèse wanted those who embrace her Little Way to give themselves wholly and utterly to the great Lover. She wanted Him to have and possess them for His own and to do with them exactly what-so-ever pleases Him. There must be no reservation in their giving for they have given everything. What will God do with them? What does the future hold for them? They do not even think. They know they are perfectly secure because He is always thinking of them and loving them. Whatever He does will be their delight, because their one and only delight is in His pleasure. 

That was the spirit of Thérèse in practice. Nothing could destroy her peace. In God?s will alone was her peace. Whatever came to her left her quite undismayed and untroubled. Her charism was to believe with immense and intense faith that God loved her with an infinite, everlasting, indescribable, unfathomable love. So nothing could cause trouble or disquiet in the depths of a soul so utterly abandoned.                                                                                                                                         

If all that meant so much to Thérèse in the Carmel at Lisieux where indeed she suffered so much, how much more applicable is it to the people of our day? The world around is so much more alluring. The media are so aggressive and inescapable. The news of the world is thrust on us whether we like it or not. A spirit utterly opposed to the spirit of Christ seems to dominate the world around us. We need a refuge. That is why God gave Thérèse to this generation. Her Little Way of abandon is the refuge for every soul from the troubles of the modern world. Those who adopt the Little Way of Thérèse with complete faith find their whole outlook upon life changed. The world becomes another place. The light of love makes its apparently incomprehensible mysteries become clear. Everything is dominated by the will of Love. Everything is seen to be happening under the governance of Love who at the same time is limitless Wisdom. 

We remember a story Thérèse herself told: ?Some days after I had taken the habit I was with our Mother. A lay sister who happened to be there remarked: ?Mother, you have received a novice who does you credit. How well she looks! I hope she may be able to observe the rule for many years!? I was feeling pleased with the compliment when another sister arrived, and looking at me said: ?My poor little Sister Thérèse.  How dreadfully tired you look! You make me tremble; if you go on like this you will not be able to follow the rule for long.??For Thérèse it was enough for her to see herself in God?s eyes. What others thought of her did not matter one little bit. 

We can apply this to every aspect of our work as priests. Recall the time when Thérèse had been trying to comfort somebody in the parlour. She seemed to have failed but she wrote: ?Jesus made me understand that I was incapable of comforting a soul. From that day I was no longer grieved when my visitors went away still sad. I confided their sufferings to God and was sure my prayers were heard. At the next visit I learned that I was not mistaken. After that experience, I never worry myself when I have involuntarily given pain. I just ask Jesus to repair what I have done.? 

Similarly, she spoke of her novices: ?I throw to the right and to the left to my little birds the good grain God gives into my hands. And then that comes which will! I trouble myself no further. Sometimes it is as if I have thrown nothing; at others it does good. But God says to me: ?Give, give always without troubling yourself about the result?. After all, it is God who gives the increase! What we have to do, all He asks of us is to do our part, and then having done it, leave results to him.? 

?We must realize the moment when our work is done, or rather the work God has given us to do for Him, and when we have to step aside and leave the rest to Him. So many souls fill themselves with utterly needless disquiet, wondering whether what they have done will be crowned with success, whether they ought not to have said or done something in a different way to what they have done. No! What is done has been done, and now leave the rest to God. The work is His not ours, and we are stupidly blind and hopelessly foolish if we think He does not know how to look after His own work. Yet, how many fail here; they want to put out their arms to steady the Ark of God when God Himself is within it, as if He was not well able to guard His own. All we have to do is to rest with complete abandonment in His good pleasure and be pleased with the issue He gives, whatever it be.? We can apply that to almost everything we do in our priestly lives. 

But let us read more of our Little Saint: ?Each day brings with it both its own joys and sorrows and duties. Some days almost everything seems to go wrong from the beginning. Our words are misunderstood, our actions misinterpreted, and it seems as if we could not do or say or think anything that is not grounds for some complaint.? 

?Well! We must say to ourselves: ?This is the day that the Lord has made; I shall rejoice and be glad in it?. Yes, this day which seems so impossible when I am asked to do one thing after another until it seems I shall never see either the end of the day or the work! This is the day the Lord has made ? and He has made it from all eternity, knew exactly every single incident of it, knew how everything I did and said today would turn out, knew all I should have to put up with, knew it would seem endless and calls on my goodwill almost beyond endurance. It is His day and He has made it. Well then, what can I do but rejoice and be glad in it. The more there is to be done in it, the more there is to suffer, the more I must rejoice. It is the Lord who has made this day; had the making been mine it would almost certainly have been very different. It is the Lord?s day! Well then, I must be filled with joy and gladness when I realize that He has made it and every happening in it.? How different would the life of every priest be who accepted this teaching in all its fullness. 

But we have not finished with Thérèse yet. She continues: ?It is true it has taken a lot out of us, and when it comes to the end it seems as if it had been a year rather than a day, but if we have embraced all that it has brought us, joyously and courageously, it has been a happy day indeed?.

 ??Those were great days and I did not know it? ? the words of one who realized looking back on an experience in the past, how great those days had been, when it was too late. Well, for those who tread the sure way of love and abandon every day is a great day, because in it they can combat and suffer for the Lord they love, give glory to Him, and by their prayers and suffering win souls who will be their crown of glory in heaven. Let us rather say when the days are strenuous and the battle long: ?These are great days and I know it?. I am going to give God every heart-beat and every action of this day; I shall spend it all for Him.?? 

??These are great days?, yes! Even when we wake in the morning, so utterly exhausted we feel if we move we must die. That makes it a great day at the very beginning. And if the day is spent in pain and weakness, go on cheerfully and happily, and above all else keep smiling and perform all the duties of the day as if in perfect health, and then, when utterly worn out, evening comes at last, you can say in truth: ?This has been a great day, and I know it!?? 

?Those are great days in which, when we have planned to have a good day?s work, all our calculations are upset by an unexpected series of happenings. Interruption succeeds interruption until night comes and we have done nothing. A day wasted! No, a day spent just as the Lord willed, so a great day for two reasons, first, because our own arrangements have been upset; second, because the Lord has arranged it according to His own liking. So we rejoice and are glad.? 

Even Thérèse?s own sisters never knew how the cold troubled her during the nine years of her life in Carmel. Her acceptance of what God sent was so complete. Yet she wrote in her private notes: ?Oh! The cold! How I have suffered from it. Ah! I thought I should have died of it.? If Thérèse found it difficult to abandon herself to the weather, what a test that is for us priests. It is almost constantly a topic of conversation. But do we let it affect us too much? Do we allow it to interfere too much with our work? Do we accept it always as God?s will? For example, when we have to go out to a graveyard in pouring rain or on a sick call in deep snow. Do we grumble when the Sunday is wet and our collections are down? 

Thérèse mentioned interruptions. How familiar we are with them! We settle down to work or to our Office and the door bell or the telephone rings. Our plans are interrupted. Perhaps we could think about the time when Thérèse had planned to have a good evening?s work. She went to take her lamp thinking of how much she could do. Some other sister had carried it off thinking it was hers. Thérèse tells us: ?It was the hour of the great silence so I could not ask for its return. But must I pass the whole hour in darkness on account of the mistake? Quite rightly I had reckoned on getting through a lot of work during that time. Without the interior light of grace, I should have certainly pitied myself, but instead, reflecting that poverty consists in being deprived not only of agreeable but even necessary things, I was quite happy, and in the midst of the darkness my soul was illuminated by divine light.? Thérèse tells us how she found a source of peace in obeying the call of obedience even if it meant leaving a single letter incomplete. 

Perhaps all this applies especially to our life of prayer. We have probably experienced the dark nights of the senses and of the spirit. We have to direct others through them also. For the greater

part of her religious life our Lord led Thérèse through the way of spiritual darkness and blindness. She rejoiced saying: ?I thank Jesus for making me walk in darkness, and in this darkness I enjoy a most profound peace?. And: ?Your Thérèse is not found up in the heights these moments; but when in this dryness and incapacity for prayer, in order to practise virtue, I look for those small occasions, those trifles in order to give pleasure to Jesus, a smile, or a kind word for instance, when I would wish to be silent. If these occasions do not come I at least try to tell Him often how much I love Him . This is not difficult and helps to keep the fire of love burning in my heart . . . . What I have to do is to give myself entirely, without any reserve, without the joy of knowing what it is bringing me . . . . After all, I am not the prodigal child, so Jesus had no need to make a feast for me who am ever with Him.? 

The story of the severity with which Mother Gonzague, who was Thérèse?s Prioress for the first five years of her religious life, treated her is well known. Of those days Thérèse says: ?Illusions! God has preserved me from them by His mercy. I have found the religious life exactly what I had expected, no sacrifice surprised me; and as you know, my Mother, in my first days I found more thorns than roses. To begin with, I had for the daily bread of my soul bitter dryness; moreover, our Lord permitted that I should be treated with more than usual severity by our Mother (Mother Gonzague). I never met her without receiving some reprimand. I remember on one occasion when I had left a cobweb in the cloister she said before the whole community: ?It is easy to see our cloisters are swept by a child of fifteen. What a pity! Go and remove that cobweb and be more careful for the future.? On the rare occasion when she spent an hour with me she scolded me all the time.? 

About quarter past four every afternoon during her noviciate Thérèse was sent to weed the garden. Almost invariably she met Mother Gonzague who would remark: ?Why, this child does absolutely nothing. What are we to think of a postulant who has to be sent out into the garden for a walk every day?? Thérèse said that was her ordinary way of dealing with her. But she looked beyond the Superior to God and saw how good this training was for her: ?How I bless God for having given me a training so sound and valuable. What would have become of me had I been, as was supposed in the world, the plaything of the community? Instead of finding our Lord in my superiors, I might have considered only the creatures, and my heart, so well guarded in the world, would have been ensnared by merely human attachments in the cloister. Happily I was saved from such a misfortune.? She even thanked Mother Gonzague for this treatment. In 1896 she wrote: ?How I thank you, Mother, for not sparing me. Jesus knew well how His Little Flower needed the refreshing waters of humiliation; she was too feeble to take root without that help, and it is through you that He has bestowed upon me that inestimable benefit.? 

Mother Gonzague changed her method. She made Thérèse Novice Mistress. Still writing for Mother Gonzague, Thérèse could say: ?For some months the Divine Master has changed completely His method of cultivating His Little Flower. Finding no doubt that she had been sufficiently watered, He allowed her to enjoy the warm rays of a brilliant sun. It is His own pleasure to smile on her now, and that smile He gives her through you.? 

Every life is different but in every life abandon has its place. Possibly more than other people we priests see around us what the world regards as tragedies. We know that they are the blessings of God. A young child is deprived of a parent by death. We know that that parent is probably in heaven praying for the welfare of that child. A young man is sent home from college where he is training for the priesthood. We recognize God?s will again at work and believe that good will come from it. People in the prime of life are stricken down with cancer which may prove fatal. Again, Infinite Good is at work. Works which have apparently been successful suddenly fail. We know that He who is limitless Love and Wisdom is in control. We cannot see the reason for these things but abandon not only takes away the spirit of rebellion but makes one rejoice in the will of Infinite Love manifested in these ways. One can go on for page after page recounting incidents from one?s own experiences. But the lesson is always the same. God loves us. We live in His love. He died for us. He wants us to come to Him in heaven. The circumstances in which we live are the conditions He has laid down for us to sanctify ourselves. The very things which seem to be the greatest obstacles are in fact the instruments God gives for our sanctification. He is the loving Father, we are the children who ought to appreciate His love. The soul walking along the Little Way in genuine childhood and simplicity rejoices in what is seen to be the conduct of God. A saint prefers to die on the cross of Calvary rather than to live in softness on Tabor. As for prayer, Thérèse knew that the best prayer is that in which one abandons oneself most completely to the dispositions and feelings God sends into one?s soul and in which one studies oneself with more simplicity, humility and conformity to the true will and to the example of our Lord who is infinite love. True simplicity makes us live in a continual death and perfect detachment for it sends us to God by a perfectly straight path without stopping for any creature. Simplicity is not obtained by speculation but by purity of heart, true mortification and contempt for ourselves. We will never enter or persevere in the Little Way if we flee from humiliation, from suffering, from death to self. 

If there is a short way to the Little Way it is the way of perfect consecration to our Blessed Lady. Thérèse chose that way. She lived it. In fact the words of the Blessed Mother are a summary of her whole life: ?Be it done to me according to thy word; whatsoever He shall say to you do it?. Yes, the Little Way of Thérèse of Lisieux, the way of complete abandon, simplicity and self surrender, lived in union with Mary, is the greatest help in enabling us to bear with optimism the struggles through which our dear Mother Church is passing in our day. 

                                                                 CANON FRANCIS RIPLEY

                                   Sicuit Parvuli Vol. XL111 No. 3