On the First Friday of each month, Mass at the Carmelite Monastery on Highway 1 in Carmel ends with Exposition of the Blessed Sacrament and a prayer of Consecration to the Sacred Heart of Jesus of all of our families. The video is a taping of the prayer. Text of the prayer is below video.
Consecration to the Sacred Heart of Jesus
Most sweet Jesus, humbly kneeling at your feet, we renew the
consecration of our family toyour
Divine Heart.Be our King forever!In you we have full and entire
confidence.May your Spirit penetrate
our thoughts, our desires, our words and our works.Bless our undertakings, share in our joys, in
our trials, and in our labors.Grant us
to know you better, to love you more, to serve you without faltering.
By the Immaculate Heart of Mary, Queen of Peace, set up your
kingdom in our country.Enter closely
into the midst of our families and make them your own through the solemn
enthronement of your Sacred Heart, so that soon one cry may resound from home
to home:“May the triumphant Heart of
Jesus be everywhere loved, blessed and glorified forever.”Honor and glory be to the Sacred Hearts of Jesus
and Mary!Sacred Heart of Jesus, protect
our families.Amen
"For all of you who were baptized into Christ have clothed yourselves with Christ." (Galatians 3:27)
Today we celebrate the feast day of Our Lady of Mount Carmel, institued for the Carmelites in 1332, and extended to the whole Church by Benedict XIII in 1726.
Mount Carmel
Mount Carmel, a coastal range in Northern Israel, is considered a sacred place. It's importance extends back to Old Testament time. In 1Kings 18:19-39 we read that Mount Carmel was the place where Elijah defended the God of Israel against the priests of Baal. After which Elijah "repaired the altar of the Lord which had been destroyed." (1 Kings 18:30) Mount Carmel is referred to as a symbol of beauty and fruitfulness in Isaiah 35:2, and a sign of the Lord's impending judgment if it were to wither and die. (Naham 1:4)
Pious Pilgrims
In the twelfth century, a group of hermits desiring to follow Christ, settled at the foot of Mount Carmel. This group of pious pilgrims dedicated themselves to Mary and became known by her name as "Brothers of Saint Mary of Mount Carmel." In order to give structure to their group, they asked for and received "a rule of life" (formula for living) from the Patriarch of Jerusalem, Saint Albert.
After approval from a succession of Pope's, this group, known then as the Carmelite's became a religious order with a small church built at the foot of Mount Carmel in the Holy Land. From there they grew throughout Europe.
The Brown Scapular
It can be said, that parents clothe their children as an outward sign of their love, protection and care. It is in this same fashion that Our Blessed Mother desires to care for us, her children, by clothing us in her special garment, a gament that signifies salvation in her Son, Jesus.
On July 16, 1251, Our Blessed Mother appeared to Saint Simon Stock, General of the Carmelites at Cambridge, England. The Carmelite Order had been going through some difficult times and Saint Simon prayed to Our Lady for her intercession. Her response was to give him a brown wool scapular, saying, "Receive, my beloved son, the Scapular of thy Order. It is the special sign of my favor, which I have obtained for thee and for the children of Mount Carmel. Whoever dies clothed with this Scapular shall be preserved from the eternal flames. It is a sign of salvation, a sure safeguard in danger, a pledge of peace and of my special protection until the end of the ages."
The Brown Scapular is a special garment - given by the Blessed Mother to her children as an outward sign of her love, protection and care, as well as a special garment worn by her children as a sign of their love, devotion and promise to walk in her footsteps in order to draw closer to her Son, Jesus.
In Our Blessed Mother's last visit to Fatima in 1917, she appeared to the three visionaries, Lucia, Jacinta, and Francisco, as Our Lady of Mount Carmel, holding the Brown Scapular in her hand.
Enrollment
The Brown Scapular of Our Lady of Mount Carmel is the habit of the Carmelite Order and signifies an affiliation with the Carmelites. Therefore, the wearer shares in the graces of the Carmelite family.
To obtain the indulgences and other benefits promised to those who wear the Carmelite wool Brown Scapular, a person must be invested in the confraternity and do their best to lead a Christian life. Any priest or deacon who has been given the authority to act in the name of the Carmelite Order may conduct the Rite of Blessing and Enrollment in the Scapular of the Blessed Virgin Mary of Mount Carmel. This enrollement is done only once. Once enrolled the wool scapular may be replace with a Scapular Medal.
The Scapular is not a "magic charm," nor is wearing it an automatic guarantee of salvation. It is, rather, a sacramental approved by the Church. Wearing the Scapular stands for one's decision to follow Jesus, like Mary, by being open to God and His Will, guided by faith, hope and charity, conscious of the needs of others and to pray without ceasing.
"Be faithful unto death, and I will give you the crown of life."
(Revelation 2:10)
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Art
Our Lady of Mount Carmel - Pietro Novelli
Our Lady of Mount Carmel - Moretto da Brescia
Carmelite Monastery - Carmelite Sisters by the Sea, California
October 15 Saint Teresa of Jesus Mystic, Virgin Doctor of the Church Doctor of Prayer 1515-1582
"Christ has no body now, but yours.
No hands, no feet on earth, but yours.
Yours are the eyes through which
Christ looks compassion into the world.
Yours are the feet
with which Christ walks to do good.
Yours are the hands
with which Christ blesses the world."
Bornin Avila, Spain in 1515, Saint Teresa at seven years of age ran away from home to Africa in the hope of being martyred by the Moors, but thankfully was brought back by her uncle. She had much more to accomplish for her Heavenly Groom, Jesus. At the age of eighteen she joined the Carmelite Order.
Saint Teresa’s life revolved around prayer thus she was given the title Doctor of the Church as Doctor of Prayer.
“Anyone who has not begun to pray, I beg, for the love of the Lord, not to miss so great a blessing. There is no place here for fear, but only desire…..I hope in the mercy of God, whom no one has ever taken for a Friend without being rewarded; and mental prayer, in my view, is nothing but a friendly way of dealing, in which we often find ourselves talking in private with Him whom we know loves us.”
(Vol. I of Life of the Holy Mother Teresa of Jesus)
Saint Teresa’s prayer life became so deep, that in 1559 she experienced the mystical grace of Transverberation, or a piercing of her heart by a “dart of love”. In 1726, Pope Benedict XIII appointed a festival and office for Transverberation.
Gianlorenzo Bernini depicts the Ecstasy of St. Teresa in marble (shown to the left) in the Santa Maria della Vittoria, in Rome.
This statue illustrates the remarkable mystic experience related by St. Teresa herself in Chapter XXIX, part 13 of her autobiography, The Life of Teresa of Jesus.
"Beside me on the left appeared an angel in bodily form…He was not tall but short, and very beautiful; and his face was so aflame that he appeared to be one of the highest ranks of angels, who seem to be all on fire…In his hands I saw a great golden spear, and at the iron tip there appeared to be a point of fire. This he plunged into my heart several times so that it penetrated my entrails. When he pulled it out I felt that he took them with it, and left me utterly consumed by the great love of God. The pain was so severe that it made me utter several moans. The sweetness caused by this intense pain is so extreme that one cannot possibly wish it to cease, nor is one’s soul content with anything but God. This is not a physical but a spiritual pain, through the body has some share in it."
After the Transverberation, Teresa’s raptures became more and more frequent and she would see Christ in the Eucharist during Mass. After she was given many more spiritual gifts she was also given a vision of Hell.
“I experienced a fire in the soul that I don’t know how I could describe. The bodily pains were so unbearable that though I had suffered excruciating ones in this life and according to what doctors say, the worst that can be suffered on earth for all my nerves were shrunken when I was paralyzed, plus many other sufferings of many kinds that I endured and even some as I said, caused by the devil, these were all nothing in comparison with the ones I experienced there. I saw furthermore that they would go on without end and without ever ceasing. This, however, was nothing next to the soul’s agonizing: a constriction, suffocation, an affliction so keenly felt and with such a despairing and tormenting unhappiness that I don’t know how to word it strongly enough. To say the experience is as though the soul were continually being wrested from the body would be insufficient, for it would make you think somebody else is taking away the life, whereas here it is the soul itself that tears itself in pieces. The fact is that I don’t know how to give a sufficiently powerful description of that interior fire and that despair, coming in addition to such extreme torments and pains. I didn’t see who inflicted them on me, but, as it seemed to me, I felt myself burning and crumbling; and I repeat the worst was that interior fire and despair."
"Being in such an unwholesome place, so unable to hope for any consolation, I found it impossible either to sit down or to lie down, nor was there any room, even though they put me in this kind of hole made in the wall. Those walls, which were terrifying to see, closed in on themselves and suffocated everything. There was not light, but all was enveloped in the blackest darkness. I don’t understand how this could be, that everything painful to see was visible, but I understood it to be a great favor, and that the Lord wanted me to see with my own eyes the place from which His Mercy had saved me…And so I don’t remember any times since that I have had trouble or pain, without thinking that everything that can be suffered here is nothing…From then on I had the greatest sorrow for the many souls that condemn themselves to hell.” (The Collected Works of St. Teresa of Avila, Volume 1, Chapter 32: paragraphs: 1,2,3. Published by Institute of Carmelite Studies Publications, Washington, D.C)
Though she had no ambitions on being a great writer, nor did she ever write during her lifetime for publication, St. Theresa has major written works -some are The Life of Teresa of Jesus, The Relations, The Way of Perfection, The Interior Castle and The Foundations. Since her death, there have been over 2,015 editions of her books written in over 22 languages.
Saint Teresa’s work of reforming the Carmelites began relatively late in her life; she made 21 foundations in her last 20 years, from the time she was 47 to her death at the age of 67.
Though St. Teresa suffered from heart trouble and upset stomach for decades and in her twenties she was paralyzed for three years, in her fifties she traversed across Spain by foot or mule forming 17 convents for nuns and along with Saint John of the Cross four monasteries for the Reformed or Discalced Friars.
After founding her last convent at age 67 she set back out for Avila the place of her birth and where she was still Prioress. On September 29, 1582, St. Theresa went to bed never to rise again. She would often repeat the words: “Lord, I am a daughter of the Church. My Lord, it is time to be going. Very well, Your will be done.”
Her body was buried in a wooden coffin. After nine months it was exhumed and to everyone’s amazement, though her clothes were decaying, her body was incorrupt.
While the Carmelite nuns placed her in new clothes a delightful perfume spread throughout the monastery. Later, her heart was removed to be enclosed in a reliquary. When this was being done they saw the wound from the angel’s dart. This is still visible today at the Carmelite Monastery of Alba de Tormes in Spain.
A bookmark found in one of St. Theresa’s books after her death read.
Let nothing disturb you;
Let nothing frighten you.
All things are passing.
God never changes.
Patience obtains all things.
Nothing is wanting to him who possesses God.
God alone suffices.
In 1970 Pope Paul VI named Teresa the first woman Doctor of the Church.
Quotes of Saint Teresa of Avila "It is love alone that gives worth to all things."
“Accustom yourself continually to make many acts of love, for they enkindle and melt the soul.”
"We shall never learn to know ourselves except by endeavoring to know God; for, beholding His greatness, we realize our own littleness; His purity shows us our foulness; and by meditating upon His humility we find how very far we are from being humble."
"There are more tears shed over answered prayers than over unanswered prayers."
"I would never want any prayer that would not make the virtues grow within me."
"You pay God a compliment by asking great things of Him."
"One must not think that a person who is suffering is not praying. He is offering up his sufferings to God, and many a time he is praying much more truly than one who goes away by himself and meditates his head off, and, if he has squeezed out a few tears, thinks that is prayer. "
"Suffering is a great favor. Remember that everything soon comes to an end . . . and take courage. Think of how our gain is eternal."
"Pain is never permanent."
"Truth suffers, but never dies."
"I am afraid that if we begin to put our trust in human help, some of our Divine help will fail us."
"We can only learn to know ourselves and do what we can - namely, surrender our will and fulfill God's will in us."
"Remember that you have only one soul; that you have only one death to die; that you have only one life, which is short and has to be lived by you alone; and there is only one Glory, which is eternal. If you do this, there will be many things about which you care nothing. "
Saint Therese of the Child Jesus and the Little Flower
Saint Therese of Lisieux
Saint Therese of the Child Jesus
Doctor of the Little Way of Spiritual Childhood
Doctor of Merciful Love
(1873 - 1897)
The last child of the Martin family was born January 2, 1873 and was baptized Marie Francoise Therese. At the age of four her mother died leaving her sister Pauline to care for Therese as a mother. In 1882 when Therese was nine Pauline entered the Carmelite convent leaving Therese with a deep sense of loss, as if losing a second mother before the age of ten. At the age of fourteen Therese entered what she considered to be the third part of her life, she wanted to be a Carmelite. When asked why she answered, “I came to save souls and especially to pray for priests.” (Story of a Soul, p. 149).
“When giving Therese his permission to enter Carmel, Therese’s father had plucked a tiny flower, roots and all, from where it grew in a crevice in the garden wall and had presented it to her. The little white flower represented his own sadness at losing his “little queen” and became for her a symbol of herself, soon to be “transplanted” to Carmel. Therese kept the flower throughout her life. Divine Providence has allowed her to be known and loved as the Little Flower.” (The 33 Doctors of the Church, p. 648)
On a pilgrimage to Rome, Therese asked the Holy Father Pope Leo XIII to allow her to enter the Carmelites at age fifteen. Therese asked, “Holy Father, in honor of your Jubilee, permit me to enter Carmel at the age of fifteen.” After he told her to do as the superiors decided, she reminded the Pope that if he would give permission, all would agree. Pope Leo XIII blessed her, saying, “You will enter if God wills it.” (Story of a Soul, p. 134-135)
At the age of fifteen on the feast of the Annunciation Therese entered Carmel, as God willed it. In the course of her two years as a postulant and novice and her seven years under vows, Therese performed a variety of jobs. The daily schedule of the Lisieux Carmelite convent began with rising at 5 a.m. to a wooden clapper, an hour of mental prayer, Mass, and the Little Hours of the Divine Office. Breakfast followed with bread and coffee then off to work, a main meal at 11 a.m. an hour of recreation, Vespers, spiritual reading, a hour of mental prayer, followed by a light super and a second recreation period. At 7:30 p.m. Matins and Lauds were chanted with the end of the day coming at 11 p.m.
At fifteen could Therese have understood what she was entering with the Carmelite convent? Did she have any reservations? In her own words Therese says, “God gave me the grace not to have a single one when entering Carmel." (Story of a Soul, p. 149)
The prayer Therese carried on the day of her religious profession September 8, 1890 sums up the way in which she gave herself completely to God’s will. She wrote this prayer the day before her profession.
“O Jesus, my divine spouse! May I never lose the second robe of my Baptism; take me before I can commit the slightest voluntary fault. May I never seek nor find anything but Yourself alone. May creatures be nothing for me and may I be nothing for them, but may You, Jesus, be everything… Never let me be a burden to the community, let nobody be occupied with me, let me be looked upon as one to be trampled underfoot, forgotten like Your little grain of sand, Jesus. May Your will be done in me perfectly, and may I arrive at the place You have prepared for me. Jesus, allow me to save very many souls; let no soul be lost today; let all the souls in Purgatory be saved. Jesus, pardon me if I say anything I should not say. I want only to give You joy and to console You.” (Story of a Soul, p. 275)
On the night between Holy Thursday and Good Friday 1896 Therese coughed up what appeared to be blood. Verified the following morning as blood, Therese was not frightened. She felt closer to being with the one she loved in Heaven. Her last year and a half brought increased bodily pain as her tuberculosis ravaged her system. She went home September 30, 1897 at age 24.
