Lawrence of Brindisi: Happy St. John, Blessed with the Gift of Divine Charity, because Jesus Loved Him Thursday, Jul 21 2011

St. John, the Apostle and Evangelist, the beloved disciple of Christ and, after the Most Holy Virgin Theotokos, the singular son of the Cross of Christ, was relegated to the island of Patmos.

There he suffered many things for the Faith of Christ, but was consoled in the same place by God with many celestial and divine revelations.

For, as St Paul says:  As there has abounded in us the sufferings of Christ, so also through Christ abound our consolations.

Again, According to the number of my sorrows in my heart, Thy consolations have made my soul rejoice.

St. John had rested upon the breast of the Lord during the Last Supper, and had chosen the best part, as Mary had done, which would not be taken from him.

With singular effort he had always been intent, after the Ascension of Christ the Lord into Heaven, upon divine contemplations.

In the time of tribulation he used to employ himself more vehemently with divine things; for this was the custom of the Saints.

At that time St. John, enkindled by a more ardent flame, was rapt unto God, and driven above by certain, seraphic ardors.

He began also to be overflowed more abundantly that usual and much more copiously with the sweetness of divine contemplation, and to feel more accumulatively the gifts of heavenly emissions.

God the Father of mercies, and the God of all consolation, who consoles us in our every tribulation had consoled him, just as once He did to Jacob, the Patriarch, with the vision of the heavenly Staircase, to Moses with the divine apparition in the burning bush, to the three youths in the ardent furnace with angelic consolation and heavenly refreshment.

He consoled St. Paul, whom for the sake of consolation, He snatched up to the third heaven, unto Paradise itself, in an ineffable manner with the vision of celestial glory.

Now in like manner He consoled St. John in many ways.  Often, with Heaven unbolted, He showed him, just as He had done to St. Stephen, the glory of Paradise, the glory of Christ, the glory of God.

Often He rendered him glad with the vision and locution of the Angels, and steeped him in great joy.

Often from the sublimity of the heavens, the most sweet Savior appeared to him.

Often he was deigned even with the vision of the glory of the Father.

O happy St. John, thrice and four times blessed, with the gift of divine charity!

Because Jesus loved him.

Lawrence of Brindisi (1559-1619): On the Vision of St. John, the Evangelist, 1.

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Bonaventure: The Lord’s Prayer and the Gifts of the Spirit Tuesday, Jul 19 2011

The gifts of the Holy Spirit are touched upon in the Lord’s Prayer.

Those gifts are not had except from the Father of lights. For that reason Christ, wanting to teach us in what manner we can obtain them, teaches us to ask for them in the Lord’s Prayer.

In the first part the gift of fear is asked for, when He says: Our Father, who art in Heaven, hallowed be Thy Name.

Secondly piety is asked for, when He says: May Thy Kingdom come.

Third the gift of knowledge is asked for, when He says: Thy will be done on earth as it is in Heaven.

Fourth the gift of fortitude is asked for, when He says: Give us this day our daily bread. Bread strengthens the heart of a man.

Fifth the gift of counsel is asked for, when He says: And forgive us our debts, as we also forgive our debtors.

Sixth the gift of understanding is asked for, when He says: And put us not to the test.

Seventh the gift of wisdom is asked for, when He says: But free us from evil. Amen.

In the first our sanctification is asked for, and this through the gift of fear, when He says, Our Father, who art in Heaven; hallowed be Thy Name.

Isaiah says: Hallow the Lord of Hosts, He is both thy trembling and they fear.

In the second the consummation of human salvation is asked for, which is not had except through the gift of piety; let there be judgment without mercy for him who has not worked mercy.

That gift is touched upon, when He says: Thy Kingdom come.

In the third part the fulfillment of the divine law is asked for through the gift of knowledge, because it teaches how to ask well and avoid evils.

This gift is touched upon, when He says: Thy will be done etc..

In the fourth part the reheating of eternal virtue is asked for, and through this the gift of virtue or of fortitude, when He says: Give us this day our daily bread. For Bread strengthens the heart of a man.

In the fifth the remission of sins is asked for through the gift of counsel, when He says: And forgive us our debts, as etc..

In the sixth petition the warding off of hostile deceit is asked for through the gift of understanding, when He says: And put us not to the test.

In the seventh petition the subjugation of carnal concupiscence is asked for through the gift of wisdom, when He says: But free us from evil. Amen.

It is impossible, that the soul tame its flesh, unless it be filled full with the gift of wisdom.

Bonaventure of Bagnorea (1221-1274): Conferences on the Seven Gifts of the Holy Spirit, Cap. 2,3-4.

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Bonaventure: The Grace of God, Healing for the Human Race, Descends to Us Through Mary Wednesday, Jun 1 2011

The Blessed Virgin Mary is the Mother of the great King by reason of a noble kind of conception, according to the message given her by the Angel.

[...] Because she conceived him on whose thigh was written, King of kings and Lord of lords, was Queen not only of earth but also of heaven as soon as she conceived the Son of God.

This is indicated in the Apocalypse where it says: A great sign appeared in haven: a woman clothed with the sun, and the moon was under her feet, and upon her head a crown of twelve stars.

Mary the Queen outshines all others in glory, as the Prophet clearly shows in the Psalm which particularly concerns Christ and the Virgin Mary.

It first says of Christ: Thy throne, O God, stands forever and ever, and shortly thereafter of the Virgin: The Queen takes her place at thy right hand, that is, in the position of highest blessedness, for it refers to glory of soul.

It continues: In garments of gold, by which is meant the clothing of glorious immortality which was proper to the Virgin in her Assumption.

For it could not be that the garment which clothed Christ, the garment completely sanctified on earth by the incarnate Word, should be the food of worms.

As it was fitting for Christ to grant the fullness of grace to his Mother at her Conception, so was it fitting that he grant her the fullness of glory at her Assumption.

And so we are to hold that the Virgin, glorious in soul and body, is enthroned next to her Son.

Mary the Queen is also the distributrix of grace. This is indicated in the book of Esther, where it is said: The little spring which grew into a river and was turned into a light and into the sun.

The Virgin Mary, under the type of Esther, is compared to the outpouring of a spring and of light, because of the diffusion of grace for two uses, that is, for action and for contemplation.

For the grace of God, which is a healing for the human race, descends to us through her as if through an aqueduct, since the dispensing of grace is attributed to the Virgin not as to its beginning, but because of her position through merit.

By position the Virgin Mary is a most excellent Queen towards her people: she obtains forgiveness, overcomes strife, distributes grace, and thereby she leads them to glory.

Bonaventure of Bagnorea (1221-1274): Homily, from Mattins of the Feast of the Blessed Virgin Mary, Queen, in the Old Breviary @ http://lzkiss.net/cgi-bin/horas/brevi.pl.

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Catherine of Genoa: He Requires Nothing of Us but that We Should Love Him with that Same Love with which He Has Loved Us Sunday, Apr 3 2011

When God wills to purify a soul from self-love, he first sends her his divine light, that by it she may discern a spark of that pure love wherewith he loves her, and how much he has done and still does by means of this love.

[...] He also reveals to her that our sins can never excite his anger so far that he ceases to do us good while we are in this world.

Rather does it seem that the more our sins remove us from him, so much the more does he seek to draw us toward himself by many incentives and inspirations, in order that his continued love and his benefits may keep us still in his love.

The better to effect this, he uses countless ways and means, so that every soul, beholding what he has done for her, may exclaim, full of admiration:

“What am I that God seems truly to have no care for anyone but me?”

And, among other things, he reveals to her that pure love with which he created us;

and how he requires nothing of us but that we should love him with that same love wherewith he has loved us;

and that we should remain ever with him, expecting no return except that he may unite himself to us.

[...] God, moreover, made known to this soul that he had created man for the highest good, namely, that with soul and body he might enter into his heavenly home.

He also showed her how great an evil is sin, into which she had herself fallen, and for which there was no remedy but another manifestation of his love….

And he further instructed her in that ardent love for us of which our Lord Jesus Christ gave such proof on the earth.

[...] He allowed her to see the great patience with which he had waited for her, and borne with so many of her sins, in which, if she had died, she would have been lost forever.

[...] He also reminded her of the many inspirations he had given her to save her from sin.

Although she had not only disregarded, but even gone contrary to his will, yet in his goodness, he did not cease to send them, now in one way, now in another.

He allured her free-will in such a way that he had, as it were, forced her to do that which in his goodness he required.

And this, too, he did so gently and patiently, that no example of human love was ever known on earth, which could compare with it.

Catherine of Genoa (1447-1510): Spiritual Dialogues 1,8.

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Catherine of Genoa: He Drives Forth Our Enemies One after Another, and Restores to the Soul its Baptismal Robe of Innocence Friday, Jan 21 2011

God in his goodness had left the Soul to wander for awhile among the things of this world until she became disgusted.

(For she soon found by experience that such things could never satisfy her; but that, on the contrary, they became daily more distasteful.)

Then this merciful God sent a light which penetrated her intellect, and showed her all the errors and dangers into which she had fallen, and from which God alone could deliver her.

She saw just where she was, and what path she was pursuing, and that the death of the body was on one side, and the death of the soul on the other.

She found herself in the midst of so many enemies whom she allowed to lead her like a beast to the shambles, and even seemed to go joyfully on her way.

Then terror seized upon her and with a deep and piteous sigh she turned to God, and cried to him as best she could.

Her soul spoke thus: “O wretched creature that I am! Who will deliver me from all this misery? God alone is able: Domine, fac ut videam lumen – Lord, grant that I may see light, that I may escape these snares”.

No sooner had she directed her thoughts to God, and implored his help, without which she saw she had no power to move, but could only go from bad to worse, than suddenly her confidence in him became firm.

She left him to do his own will in what manner, and so far as it pleased him, and she added:

Her soul said: “From henceforth all that befalls me I will receive as from the benign hand of God, excepting my sins, for they are all my own.

“Committing them is always contrary to the divine will, and therefore they are our own property; nothing is ours but voluntary sin.”

This firm resolution, made by the Soul before God, was secret and in her own spirit alone, without any outward demonstration.

Now, when God sees that man distrusts himself, and places his whole confidence in Providence, he immediately stretches forth his holy hand to help him.

He stands ever at our side, he knocks, and, if we open to him, he enters; he drives forth our enemies one after another, and restores to the Soul its baptismal robe of innocence.

And all this God does in different modes and ways, operating according to the state in which he finds his creature.

For the present we will speak of his dealings with Self-Love, and how he purifies the soul from it.

Catherine of Genoa (1447-1510): Spiritual Dialogues 1,7.

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Benedict XVI on Angela of Foligno (4): The More You Pray, the More You will be Illumined Thursday, Oct 14 2010

Continued from previous post

In Angela’s spiritual itinerary the passage from conversion to mystical experience, from what can be expressed to the inexpressible, happens through the crucifix.

And the “suffering God-man,” who becomes her “teacher of perfection.”

Hence, all her mystical experience tends to a perfect “likeness” with him, through ever more profound and radical purifications and transformations.

In such a stupendous enterprise Angela puts her whole self, soul and body, without sparing herself penances and tribulations from the beginning to the end, desiring to die with all the pains suffered by the God-man crucified to be transformed totally in him.

“O children of God,” she recommended, “transform yourselves totally in the suffering God-man, who so loves you that he deigned to die for you the most ignominious and all together ineffably painful death and in the most painful and bitter way. This only for love of you, O man!”.

This identification also means to live what Jesus lived: poverty, contempt, sorrow because, as she affirmed:

“Through temporal poverty the soul will find eternal riches; through contempt and shame it will obtain supreme honor and very great glory; through a little penance, made with pain and sorrow, it will possess with infinite sweetness and consolation of the Supreme God, God eternal”.
From conversion to mystical union with Christ crucified, to the inexpressible. A very lofty way, whose secret is constant prayer:

“The more you pray,” she affirms, “the more you will be illumined; the more you are illumined, the more profoundly and intensely you will see the Supreme Good, the supremely good Being.

“The more profoundly and intensely you see him, the more you will love him; the more you love him, the more he will delight you.

“And the more he delights you, the more you will understand him and become capable of understanding him.

“You will arrive successively to the fullness of light, because you will understand that you cannot understand”.

Benedict XVI (b. 1927): On Medieval Mystic Blessed Angela of Foligno (translation by Zenit).

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Benedict XVI on Angela of Foligno (3): The More We See the God and Man Jesus Christ, the More we are Transformed in Him through Love Thursday, Oct 14 2010

Continued from previous post

Understand that, in her mystical journey, Angela understood profoundly the central reality:

What would save her from her “unworthiness” and from “deserving hell” will not be her “union with God” and her possessing the “truth,” but Jesus crucified, “his crucifixion for me,” his love.

In the eighth step, she says: “However I did not yet understand if my deliverance from sin and hell and conversion to penance was a greater good, or his crucifixion for me”.

And the unstable balance between love and sorrow, perceived in all her difficult journey toward perfection.

Precisely because of this she contemplated by preference the crucified Christ, because in this vision she saw realized the perfect balance:

On the Cross is the man-God, in a supreme act of suffering, which is a supreme act of love.

In the third Instruction the blessed insists on this contemplation and affirms: “The more perfectly and purely we see, the more perfectly and purely we love.

“That is why the more we see the God and man Jesus Christ, the more we are transformed in him through love.”

“What I have said of love…I say also of sorrow: The more the soul contemplates the ineffable sorrow of the God and man Jesus Christ, the more it sorrows and is transformed in sorrow”.

To be immersed, to be transformed in love and in the sufferings of Christ crucified, is to be identified with him.

Angela’s conversion, begun with that confession of 1285, came to maturity only when God’s forgiveness appeared to her soul as the free gift of love of the Father, source of love:

“There is no one who can give excuses,” she affirms, “because each one can love God, ad He does not ask the soul other than that He wills it good, because He loves it and is its love”.

Benedict XVI (b. 1927): On Medieval Mystic Blessed Angela of Foligno (translation byZenit)

 

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Benedict XVI on Angela of Foligno (2): Whoever Wants to Preserve Grace must not Take the Eyes of his Soul off the Cross Thursday, Oct 14 2010

Continued from previous post

We will now consider only some “steps” of the rich spiritual path of our blessed.

The first, in reality, is an introduction: “It was the knowledge of sin,” as she specifies, “following which the soul has great fear of being damned; in this step she wept bitterly”.

This “fear” of hell responds to the type of faith that Angela had at the time of her “conversion”; a faith still poor in charity, namely, of love of God.

Repentance, fear of hell, and penance opened up to Angela the prospect of the sorrowful “way of the cross” that, from the eighth to the 15th step, would then lead her on the “way of love.”

The friar confessor recounts: “The faithful one now said to me: I had this divine revelation:

“‘After the things that you have written, now write that whoever wants to preserve grace must not take the eyes of his soul off the Cross, whether in joy or in sadness, which I grant him and permit’”.

However, in this phase Angela still “does not feel love”; she affirms: “The soul feels shame and bitterness and does not yet experience love, but sorrow”, and is dissatisfied.

Angela feels she must give God something in reparation for her sins, but understands slowly that she has nothing to give him, in fact, of her “being nothing” before him.

She understands that it will not be her will that will give her love of God, because it can only give her “nothingness,” “non-love.”

As she will say: only “true and pure love, which comes from God, is in the soul and makes one recognizes one’s defects and divine goodness.

“[...] Such love bears the soul in Christ and she understands with certainty that no deceit can be verified or exercised. Together with this love nothing can be mixed that is of the world”.

To open oneself only and totally to the love of God, which has its highest expression in Christ:

“O my God,” she prays, “make me worthy of knowing the most high mystery of your most holy incarnation for us. “[...] O incomprehensible love! Above this love, that made my God become man to make me God, there is no greater love”.

However, Angela’s heart always bore the wound of sin; even after a well made confession, she found herself forgiven and still prostrated by sin, free and conditioned by the past, absolved but in need of penance.

And even the thought of hell accompanied her because the more the soul progresses on the way of Christian perfection, all the more it will be convinced not only of being “unworthy” but of deserving hell.

Benedict XVI (b. 1927): On Medieval Mystic Blessed Angela of Foligno (translation by Zenit).

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Benedict XVI on Angela of Foligno (1): Jesus Lives in the Heart of Every Believer and Desires to Take Total Possession of It Thursday, Oct 14 2010

The Book of Blessed Angela of Foligno, which gathers the documentation on our Blessed, recounts this conversion; it indicates the necessary means: penance, humility and tribulations; and narrates in passages, the succession of experiences of Angela, begun in 1285.

Recalling them, after having lived them, she sought to recount them through her friar confessor, who transcribed them faithfully, trying afterward to systematize them in stages, which he called “steps or changes,” but without succeeding in ordering them fully.

This is because the experience of union of Blessed Angela was a total involvement of the spiritual and corporal senses, and of what she “understands” during her ecstasies remained, so to speak, only a “shadow” in her mind.

“I really heard these words,” she confesses after a mystical rapture, “but what I saw and understood, and that he [God] showed me, in no way do I know or am I able to say, though I will willingly reveal what I understood with the words that I heard, but it was an absolutely ineffable abyss.”

Angela of Foligno presents her mystical “experience” without elaborating them with her mind, because they are divine illuminations that are communicated to her soul in an improvised and unexpected way.

The friar confessor himself had difficulty in reporting such events, “also because of her great and admirable reserve regarding the divine gifts”.

To Angela’s difficulty in expressing her mystical experience is added also the difficulty for her listeners to understand her – a situation that indicates clearly how the only and true Teacher, Jesus, lives in the heart of every believer and desires to take total possession of it.

Thus in Angela, who wrote to one of her spiritual sons: “My son, if you saw my heart, you would be absolutely constrained to do everything that God wills, because my heart is that of God, and God’s heart is mine.”

The words of St. Paul resound here: “It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me” (Galatians 2:20).

Benedict XVI (b. 1927): On Medieval Mystic Blessed Angela of Foligno (translation by Zenit).

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Bonaventure: Grace is Flowed into Us Thursday, Jul 15 2010

Grace descends over rational minds through the Incarnate Word, through the Crucified Word, and through the Inspired Word. Thus it is said in the Epistle of James that He has voluntarily begotten us in the Word of truth, so that we be a certain beginning of His creation….

After man fell through sin, the Divine Wisdom provided a manner of condescension through the Incarnate Word, through which man was to be adapted to grace.

And because that was done in the womb of the glorious Virgin, for that reason it was said to Her: Hail, full of grace, the Lord is with Thee…. Thus is clear the first origination of grace in us, which happens through the Incarnate Word….

Second, grace descends into us through the Crucified Word. We were not only incapable of taking up grace on account both of our ignorance of the divine precepts and of our infirmity and impotence and concupiscence for earthly things.

To heal our languors, God descended into us through the Crucified Word. St Paul says to the Ephesians: God, who is rich in mercy, on account of His exceeding charity, with which He has loved us; when we had died with sins, vivified us together with Christ, by whose grace we have been saved.

We have been vivified by Christ through Christ, because Christ has triumphed from death; whence death could not absorb Him, rather the Fount of life absorbed death, according to that which is written: I will be thy death, O Death! Otherwise we could not be healed and saved….

Christ has died, to resuscitate the dead for the taking up of life and grace; therefore grace is flowed into us through the Incarnate Word and through the Crucified Word.

And the Blessed Virgin took up that Word (that is) full of grace; and the stream of graces has come forth from the side of Him, who has the efficacy to heal us.

Third, grace rises in us through the Inspired Word. However much God has sent His Son into flesh, unless you believe that He was crucified, you will not have grace.

St Paul says to Titus: Not out of the works of justice, which we have done, but according to His mercy has He saved us through the laver of regeneration and the renovation of the Holy Spirit, whom He poured forth abundantly into us through Jesus Christ, Our Savior….

It is the Holy Spirit, who is the giver of graces and the Love proceeding from the Father and the Son.

Whatever therefore the Father does and the Son suffers, it is nothing without the Holy Spirit. For He joins us to the Father and the Son.

Bonaventure of Bagnorea (1221-1274): Conferences on the Seven Gifts of the Holy Spirit, Cap. 1,5-7.

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