Contemplative Haven

…at Consecrated to Mary…

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Both The Visitation and The Immaculate Heart of Mary are being celebrated over at “Consecrated to Mary” today.

And if you’ve never had an experience with angelic voices, there’s no time like the present!

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In the recent Sacred Heart Reflection No. 2, we saw that the Heart of Jesus is a place of solitude, a place wherein we may enter and share in His prayer to the Father.

But prayer to the Father is only a portion of the divine activities of the Sacred Heart of Jesus.

One day, when St. Gertrude was too ill to attend Mass and regretted missing the pleasure of hearing the sermon, Our Lord asked her if she would like Him to teach her Himself.  “Then Our Lord made her rest on His Heart, so that her soul touched it; and as she remained there some time, she felt two most sweet and admirable movements therein.”

Jesus explained that the two movements of His Sacred Heart operate the salvation of humanity, and that each of the two movements operate in three different manners:

The first movement of His Sacred Heart operates the salvation of sinners, in the following three manners:

1. Jesus converses continually with His Eternal Father, appeasing the Father’s anger against sinners and inclining the Father to show them mercy;
2. Jesus speaks to His Saints, excusing sinners to them and urging them to intercede with God for them, with the zeal and fidelity of a brother;
3. Jesus speaks to sinners themselves, calling them mercifully to penance and awaiting their conversion with ineffable desire.

The second movement of His Sacred Heart operates the salvation of the just, in the following three manners:

1. Jesus invites His Father to rejoice with Him, that He has poured forth His Precious Blood so efficaciously for the just, in whose merits He finds delight;
2. Jesus invites all the heavenly host to praise His providences, give Him thanks for all the benefits He has given them, so that He may grant them more in the future;
3. Jesus speaks directly to the just, giving them many salutary caresses and warning them to profit faithfully by them, from day to day and hour to hour.

Jesus then told St. Gertrude:

“As the pulsations of the human heart are not interrupted by seeing, hearing, or any manual occupation, but always continue without relaxation, so the care of the government of Heaven and earth, and the whole universe, cannot diminish or interrupt for a moment these two movements of My Divine Heart, which will continue to the end of ages.”

O Sacred Heart of Jesus, help us love You more, to the end of ages.

[From:  The Life and Revelations of St. Gertrude the Great] pgs. 227-228

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Prayer to Our Lady of Fatima for Peace
“O Mary, Mother of God and Queen of Peace, you appeared to the children of Fatima at a time of great unrest and turmoil in the world. You asked then that the world pray for peace, so that the Reign of God may be known in every land.

Our world today continues to be mired in the vicious and fruitless cycle of hatred, violence and war. Your message of peace to the children of Fatima is needed as urgently today as it was when you first delivered it.

Grant us, Mary, that peace which is so much more than the mere absence of war. Grant us God’s peace, so that we might see every man and woman as a brother or a sister, as fellow creatures of the one God. Help us to build a world of justice, which is the only sure foundation of peace. And bring us all one day into the fullness of union with the Father, Son and Holy Spirit in eternity. This we ask through Christ, your Son and our Lord, the Prince of Peace. Amen.”

Taken from:  Our Lady of Fatima, with Prayers and Devotions (from the Florentine Series of booklets on the Lives of the Saints)

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The mystical life of St. Catherine of Siena (1347-1380) began early.  She was only six when she saw a vision of heaven in the sky, where Jesus appeared to her along with Peter, Paul and John the Evangelist.  Jesus smiled upon her lovingly while making the sign of the cross over her, and from that moment on Catherine knew that she wanted to devote herself and her life to God. Her continued absorption in God was profound, distressing her family very much, but upon finally realizing that Catherine’s mystical life was the will of God, her family conceded and Catherine was accepted as a Third Order Dominican with the Sisters of Penance. The Sisters of Penance were not cloistered, but lived withdrawn from the world in their own homes. In “Catherine of Siena“, by Igino Giordani, the author writes: “It seems curious that considering her absorption in God and her yearning to flee the world and conquer her flesh she did not seek admission into a cloistered convent. Instead, Catherine, whose only wish was to withdraw from the world, still determined to remain in it. The Lord had called her to a special mission: that of an apostle, whose vocation is to be in the world but not of the world.”

Catherine, continually absorbed in contemplative prayer and well-practiced in asceticism and mortification, reached the heights of love of God and experienced the mystical espousal with the Lord when she was only twenty.  Quickly thereafter, the Lord sent her back out into the world to care for the sick, give her followers spiritual direction, and teach the most learned and powerful.  Igino Giordani beautifully writes:

“Thus appears a second phase of Catherine’s life:  the phase of active life; but not as a change or turning point in her former life - rather as its increase and complement.  She merely joined action to contemplation; or, more exactly, her contemplation was so penetrating that it had to express itself in action.  She was united to God; therefore she had to be united to men.  And if she will no longer live enclosed in a cell with walls, [my note:  Catherine’s bedroom] she will always live in the cell which is knowledge of self.  She will carry her cloister, her cell, with her wherever she goes; her rule will ever be love.”  

[For a beautiful prayer written by St. Catherine of Siena to the Blessed Virgin, please see my post of today at Consecrated to Mary.]

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Today’s beautiful feast will be celebrated over at Consecrated to Mary.  Come join us for a little Adrienne von Speyr and J.S. Bach.

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As I was listening to some lovely Celtic music on YouTube a few days ago, I came across this video taken by a lad here in Ottawa, of St. Patrick’s Basilica.  I’m really excited to show it to you, because it’s the kind of thing I just never think of doing, and now you’ll be able to see my “stomping grounds”, so to speak.  St. Patrick’s Basilica is not my parish, but I work just a few blocks from it, and it has become my downtown sanctuary and more. 

The little door that the filmmaker enters, to the left side of the front of the church as you’re facing it, is the door I usually use too.  No matter what time of the day you go, there are usually people sitting quietly praying or meditating, others making the Stations of the Cross, or simply walking around quietly venerating the many beautiful statues.  Every day at three o’clock there is a holy hour.  I love getting away from the office for Mass and/or confession during lunch hour, and often I am able to stop in after work for a while, just to sit, or to light a candle for someone.

You will see in the video, after showing us the beautiful stainglass window above the altar, the filmmaker scans the large painting of Jesus on the left as you’re viewing, and then quickly scans the one on the right, which is actually a most beautiful painting of the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin.  Then we see the little alcove with the statue of Mary and all the blue votive candles - that is exactly where I made my consecration on the Feast of the Assumption this past August 15th.  You can even see where I go to confession!  How about that? 

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To celebrate the 150th Anniversary of the apparitions of Our Lady of Lourdes to St. Bernadette, I would like to direct you to the official celebration website, where, among other things, you can watch a selection of lovely, short videos direct from Lourdes.  Just click on the link in the section marked “Multimedia Space”, and then go to the “Video Reports” button, and you will see a variety of videos listed in a menu on the left-hand side.

If you would like to read an excerpt from a speech given in Lourdes by Pope John XXIII (then Cardinal and Patriarch of Venice) in March 1958, please see my post today at Consecrated to Mary.

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“On the Feast of the Epiphany this holy soul offered to God, in imitation of the Three Kings - for myrrh, the Body of Jesus Christ, with all the merits of His Passion, for the remission of all the sins of men, from the first to the last of the human race; for incense, the Soul of Jesus Christ, with all His holy actions, for the negligences of the whole world; for gold, His Divinity, with all its perfections and joys, in satisfaction for the defects of all creatures.  Then Our Lord appeared and presented her offering as a most worthy New Year’s gift to the Most Holy and august Trinity.  As He passed through the midst of Heaven, all the celestial court inclined profoundly before Him to honor this gift, as men prostrate before the Holy Sacrament when it is present.”

[From:  The Life and Revelations of St. Gertrude the Great, 1256-1302]

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“In Nazareth the concrete relationship between the Christian and God is created.  From there all Christians, particularly all the saints, draw the measure of their relationship to God.  The Son as God, Mary as the Immaculate Conception, and Joseph as Saint, participate as much in the grace of heaven as they do in earthly realities.  They could, if they wanted to, live as if in heaven while still here below.  But their mission puts them on earth, and only with great discretion do they make use of their heavenly life.  They themselves give earth the preponderance.  For the mission wills it so.  Therefore they do not live in Nazareth simply a life of pleasure and joy in one another.  They live there already for the Christians to come, for us.  The house at Nazareth is no closed house, nor a closed paradise; it has doors and windows that open out into the Church.  From this we ourselves learn first to order our lives behind closed doors and windows, until we, too, open them and place ourselves at the Church’s disposal.” 

[Excerpt from:  “Handmaid of the Lord”, by Adrienne von Speyr]  

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