Meditation "Mercy in everyday life" by Father Marko Rupnik SI, in the presence of Pope Francis

The Elective Chapter of the Carmelite Monastery of Barcelona, Spain, was held 3 and14 February 2016. The following were elected:

• Prioress:  Sr. M. Pilar Simón, O.Carm.
• 1st Councilor:   Sr. M. Carmen Izquierdo, O.Carm.
• 2nd Councilor:  Sr. M. Jacinta Mutio, O.Carm.
• Treasurers:  Sr. M. Jacinta Mutio, O.Carm.
• Treasurers:  Sr. M. Carmen Izquierdo, O.Carm.
• Sacristan:  Sr. M. Roser Ferrer, O.Carm.

The Elective Chapter of the Carmelite Monastery of Vetralla, Italy, was held 11 February 2016. The following were elected:

• Prioress:  Sr. M. Benedetta Succu, O.Carm.
• 1st Councilor:   Sr. M. Rita Gugliara, O.Carm.
• 2nd Councilor:  Sr. M. Giuseppina Sotgiu, O.Carm.
• 3rd Councilor:   Sr. Marianna Caprio, O.Carm.
• 4th Couniclor:   Sr. Luigia Ducci, O.Carm.
• Director of Novices:  Sr. Marianna Caprio, O.Carm.
• Treasurer:  Sr. M. Giuseppina Sotgiu, O.Carm.
• Sacristan:  Sr. M. Teresa Nguyen , O.Carm.

Catherine Allen

Reflection

We live in a world that largely promotes hard data and evidence as being prerequisite to understanding, belief and action. This foundation for decision-making and direction can push aside faith, hope and love as essential elements. These intangibles do not present the quantifiable substance to influence decision­making. Without them, however, we can tend towards a life which imitates the pursuit and demonstration of possessions rather than reflection and imitation of actions; Jesus' actions. If we strip away the 'things' of life, what is it we see that we truly need to live? Faith, hope, love, acceptance, forgiveness and mercy within and across community. This would be a spiritual awakening.

Like Jesus did with Peter, John and James, we need to rise above our physical world to gain perspective and really see. We too might then see a glimpse of glory. We might allow ourselves to be enthralled, captivated, hopeful. Ideally we would not then shrink and hide from this as did the three. What is to be gained? Lent is the perfect time for this reflection. We might stop and consider our endeavours and lived purpose. We might allow our­selves clarity in our assessment of our impact on our world; our relationships, our work, our seemingly incidental interactions with others and on the environment. We may honestly repent and redirect, even if in doing so pain is, necessarily, involved.

All life includes pain and pain can invite learning, clarification and growth. We can learn a lot about ourselves when we are confronted with and tackle painful situations and circumstances. We can also exercise healthy and necessary humility. We might authentically see our need for God. Rather than give up faith and hope, take up our challenges. Sometimes God is working with, for and through us in mysterious ways. Our plan may not reach fruition but is it our plan which needs fulfilment, or God's? In God's plan we are an integral, precious member of a commu­nity, with obligations and responsibilities to live optimally for the good of all. In this year of Mercy especially, we might confront the bewildering, overwhelming or frightening and be lead to be the bigger person, sustained by the Holy Spirit. We might fight against fear, judgement and condemnation and, instead, seek to understand and embrace all with love. The love, courage and fortitude thus lived will lead us to Easter and its gift of everlast­ing life and entry to the heavenly community. This Lent may we actively pursue right judgement.

Catherine Allen, Parishioner of Our Lady of Mt. Carmel Parish, Australia,

For Lent I am happy to present Susan Ehlert's film of the Stations of the Cross behind the Basilica of Saint Therese at Lisieux.  This six-minute film blends the photos of the Stations with music and with images and texts of Therese.  As we accompany Jesus in His dying and His rising, may God grant us to understand the meaning of His death and His resurrection and to let it be reflected in our lives.

from New Advent

Mercy as it is here contemplated is said to be a virtue influencing one's will to have compassion for, and, if possible, to alleviate another's misfortune. It is the teaching of St. Thomas Aquinas that although mercy is as it were the spontaneous product of charity, yet it is to be reckoned a special virtue adequately distinguishable from this latter. In fact the Scholastics in cataloguing it consider it to be referable to the quality of justice mainly because, like justice, it controls relations between distinct persons. It is as they say ad alterum. Its motive is the misery which one discerns in another, particularly in so far as this condition is deemed to be, in some sense at least, involuntary. Obviously the necessity which is to be succoured can be either of body or soul. Hence it is customary to enumerate both corporal and spiritual works of mercy. The traditional enumeration of the corporal works of mercy is as follows:

• To feed the hungry;
• To give drink to the thirsty;
• To clothe the naked;
• To harbour the harbourless;
• To visit the sick;
• To ransom the captive;
• To bury the dead.

The spiritual works of mercy are:

• To instruct the ignorant;
• To counsel the doubtful;
• To admonish sinners;
• To bear wrongs patiently;
• To forgive offences willingly;
• To comfort the afflicted;
• To pray for the living and the dead.

It will be seen from these divisions that the works of mercy practically coincide with the various forms of almsgiving. It is thus that St. Thomas regards them. The word alms of course is a corruption of the Greek eleemosyne (mercy). The doing of works of mercy is not merely a matter of exalted counsel; there is as well a strict precept imposed both by the natural and the positive Divine law enjoining their performance. That the natural law enjoins works of mercy is based upon the principle that we are to do to others as we would have them do to us.

The Divine command is set forth in the most stringent terms by Christ, and the failure to comply with it is visited with the supreme penalty of eternal damnation (Matthew 25:41): "Then he shall say to them also that shall be on his left hand: Depart from me, you cursed, in everlasting fire which was prepared for the devil and his angels. For I was hungry, and you gave me not to eat; I was thirsty, and you gave me not to drink. I was a stranger, and you took me not in; naked, and you covered me not; sick and in prison, and you did not visit me", etc. Here it is true there is mention directly and explicitly of only the corporal works of mercy. As, however, the spiritual works of mercy deal with a distress whose relief is even more imperative as well as more effective for the grand purpose of man's creation, the injunction must be supposed to extend to them also. Besides there are the plain references of Christ to such works as fraternal correction (Matthew 18:15) as well as the forgiveness of injuries (Matthew 6:14). It has to be remembered however that the precept is an affirmative one, that is, it is of the sort which is always binding but not always operative, for lack of matter or occasion or fitting circumstances. It obliges, as the theologians say, semper sed non pro semper. Thus in general it may be said that the determination of its actual obligatory force in a given case depends largely on the degree of distress to be aided, and the capacity or condition of the one whose duty in the matter is in question. There are easily recognizable limitations which the precept undergoes in practice so far as the performance of the corporal works of mercy are concerned. These are treated in the article on Alms and Almsgiving. Likewise the law imposing spiritual works of mercy is subject in individual instances to important reservations. For example, it may easily happen that an altogether special measure of tact and prudence, or, at any rate, some definite superiority is required for the discharge of the oftentimes difficult task of fraternal correction. Similarly to instruct the ignorant, counsel the doubtful, and console the sorrowing is not always within the competency of every one. To bear wrongs patiently, to forgive offences willingly, and to pray for the living and the dead are things from which on due occasion no one may dispense himself on the pleas that he has not some special array of gifts required for their observance. They are evidently within the reach of all. It must not be forgotten that the works of mercy demand more than a humanitarian basis if they are to serve as instruments in bringing about our eternal salvation. The proper motive is indispensable and this must be one drawn from the supernatural order.

Finally it is interesting to note that for the exercise of the sixth among the corporal works of mercy two religious orders have at different times in the history of the Church been instituted. In the year 1198 the Trinitarians were founded by St. John of Matha and St. Felix of Valois, and just twenty years later St. Peter Nolasco and St. Raymond of Pennafort established the Order of Our Lady of Ransom. Both of these communities had as their chief scope the recovery of Christians who were held captive by the infidels. In the religious body which owes its origin to St. Peter Nolasco, the members took a fourth vow to surrender their own persons in place of those whom they were not otherwise able to redeem from slavery.

Before an Image of Jesus Crucified

Dear Lord, when looking up at Thee, I see Thy loving eyes on me; Love overflows my humble heart, Knowing what a faithful friend Thou are.

A cup of sorrow I foresee, Which I accept for love of Thee, Thy painful way I wish to go;The only way to God I know.

My soul is full of peace and light;Although in pain, this light shines bright. For here Thou keepest to Thy breast.

My longing heart to find there rest. Leave me here freely all alone, In cell where never sunlight shone. Should no one ever speak to me,

This golden silence makes me free! For though alone, I have no fear; Never wert Thou, O Lord, so near. Sweet Jesus, please, abide with me!

My deepest peace I find in Thee

The Stations of the Cross

First Station: Jesus is condemned and taken away

O God, it is thus that I must contemplate You.  What has happened during this night; what have You done to Your people that they mistreat You in this way?  Not only mistreated, but betrayed to be crucified.  Certainly, You did foretell that during the night the shepherd would be struck and the sheep would be scattered.   can still hear Your warning: “Watch and pray that you not fall into temptation.”

But I’ve already fallen asleep.  At that moment You became unrecognizable for me.  I feel icy cold as I ask myself whether, for You, O Christ, this Passion was a duty or a free choice.  Besides, You pronounced the words: “During this night all of you will be scandalized in me.”  Unfortunately it’s true, all of us are scandalized in You; we don’t even have the courage to contemplate the Passion.  And we caused it!  While You cry out: “Look and see if there is a sorrow equal to mine,” we think we are not capable of looking at it.  Our soul rebels when it sees You unclothed, beaten and bruised, broken into bits to the extent that there is nothing in Your body that might be called “healthy.”

As on a threshing-floor the flail of sin winnowed out the Sacred Wheat, and broke the straw.  Your Blood flowed in torrents and is still issuing from Your wounds.  We’ve not yet reached the last drop.  Your body already reveals the pallor of death, but in Your eyes I still note the ardor of the flame of love, which burns like a fever and which consumes You until all is fulfilled.  On this night, that gaze led Peter to repentance.  I read there is a silent reproof, insofar as I do not wish to recognize You.  …Your powerlessness irritates me; I am ashamed of Your humiliation.  You willed that they treat You like the worst of criminals, while I would like to see You like a king, who triumphantly places the cross on Calvary.

O God, free me from my scandal.  I know.  Your answer is, “Watch and pray.”  While the two executioners drag You away in a rough, unfeeling way, in order to crucify You, I again hear: “Watch and pray that you not fall into temptation.”  God, I will pray.  I wish to see Your Passion, I wish to study the depths of Your love, as I gaze at the depths of Your humiliation.

Second Station: Jesus takes up His cross

My God, that heavy cross, to which they wish to nail You, You have to carry it?  My God, You cannot.  You’ve already suffered too much.  The terrible loss of blood has already drained You of Your remaining strength.  Still, Your executioners believe that You will succeed and will reach the top still alive.  Still, it will be terrifying.  That cross which You embrace will later bear Your tormented body, pinned there by nails.  Just the thought of it should make You tremble before that cross, and even if Your strength allowed You to do so, that thought would prevent You from carrying it to Calvary.  Couldn’t they grant You a moment of rest before they started on a new series of tortures?  Wouldn’t they spare You at least the cruel torture of carrying it alone to the spot of execution?  You, who already are drained of strength to make Your way even without the cross!  Sin knows no rest.  Desire of sin is never satisfied.  Without pause the force of the executioner pushes the victim on.  Like a lamb You let Yourself be led to slaughter.  No complaint is heard on Your lips.

No, while Your body gives in and is not equal to the heavy load of the cross, Your eyes shine with a holy flame, as they gaze on the throne of the King, which is not of this world and from which they wish to remove You with four clumsy nails.  For an instant it seems that You regain Your strength, as You embrace the tree of the cross.  They thought they would have to force You, yet You carry the weight until the bitter end, even though it becomes even heavier because of our sins, which we do not wish to bear.  There is no one to help You.  Your eyes look for someone disposed to carry the cross, but there is no one.  The winepress which squeezes out the last drop of blood from Your body, You must leave it to do its job.  O cross, O sacred wood, in the hands of my God; certainly it is heavy, but carried by Him with His last remaining strength, I would like to take it on myself now that I see that my Jesus goes before me and thus makes it easy on my shoulders.  O God, I will not only follow the Way of the Cross.  I take up the cross with You, my cross which You pass on to me.  Bearing my cross I shall accompany You to the holy mount.

Third Station: Jesus falls for the first time

The Omnipotent in a state of powerlessness.  Our strong God is not up to what is asked of Him, He is not up to His confrontation with His executioners.  He has run out of strength.  My Savior continues, wavering, and suddenly He stumbles and falls.  Look at You, O God.  Couldn’t they crucify You here?  Their aim is Your death.  They don’t see that You cannot continue.  You must continue, this is the will of Your executioners, for whom Your powerlessness represents a new irritation.  For them Your strength has not run out.  They leave You alone for an instant, then they have You lifted up and prod You on to continue.  They think they can stimulate Your remaining strength by kicking and beating You.  They do not realize that You wish to carry the cross with a ready heart and that You wish to show us that this demanded Your remaining strength.  O holy Exemplar, I now see that when we sink beneath the cross and can go no further, our powerlessness finds comfort in Your fall.  Our cross, when compared to Yours, is light, so long as we are not threatened with sinking beneath it.  Knowing, O my God, that my sins made Your Cross so heavy that You had to sink beneath it, this makes me even more convinced that I must carry my cross together with You and that I should not shy away from it, even if I should sink beneath its weight.  In Your weakness You overcame the world.  Let me be weak with You and be bent low beneath the weight of life.  Let me appear insignificant and trifling in the eyes of the world, as I get up with You, ready to take on new sufferings, until death represents the crown of my sacrifice.

Allow me to fix my gaze on You, as You fall under the cross like a worm on which one tramples, while You accept kicks and blows from those to whom You wish to give a blessing.  Don’t let me always think of You as strong and mighty, carrying the trunk of the cross with pride, head held high.  Christ who was bent over, who had to fall, who had to sink beneath the cross, thus entering His glory.  His sacred humanity had to be destroyed.  So cruelly was He mistreated that no human form would be left.  Here already we see that His strength has abandoned Him.  My God, let me often reflect on Your humiliation at the hands of Your heartless executioners, and through that let me learn to suffer, so that people don’t think me capable of doing what I wish to do.

Please note:   Fourth -Sixth Stations were not finished by Fr. Titus.

Seventh Station: Jesus falls under His cross the second time (composed in the prison of Scheveningen)

O Jesus, You did not think it enough to succumb under Your cross just once, so that Your enemies could gloat over Your powerlessness.  Once again, while You are being helped to carry the cross, we see You collapse to show us that, notwithstanding the assistance, the burden on Your shoulders was still so heavy, that You allowed it to overcome You.

O Mary, what grief about the insufficient help given to Your dear Son; you must have looked around if someone would not completely take the heavy load off His shoulders, and you must have begged Simon to take over the full load of the cross.

O St. Boniface, the example of Jesus who fell under His cross for the second time must have strengthened you anew in moments when you shrank away from the suffering inflicted upon you.  May that example constantly encourage us also in moments of weakness and flight from suffering.

O Jesus, gentle,

Eighth Station: Jesus consoles the weeping women

O Jesus, You spoke to the women who sympathized with You along Your way of the cross and through them You told me too: “Do not weep for Me; but for your selves and your children, for if the green wood is treated thus, what then is to happen to the dead wood?”  I remember Your other words: “Not they who cry Lord, Lord, will enter into the Kingdom of Heaven, but whoever does the will of My Father, who is in heaven.”  It is not enough, that I show pity with Your holy suffering, but I must shape my will along Yours and with a generous heart accept out of Your hand the grief and trials You send me and bear them united with You.  You are the vine, we are the branches which, if they don’t remain joined to You, wither and are thrown away.

O Mary, you did not only show compassion but you went the way of the cross with your Son; take me along with you.

St. Boniface, you stopped along the way of the cross, but united with your Savior and Model, you accepted from His hand suffering and death.  Make me strong by your example.

O Jesus, gentle, etc.

Ninth Station: Jesus falls the third time under the cross

O Jesus, You wanted to expiate the threefold denial of Your apostle who considered himself so strong and our repeated falling into sin by Your threefold fall under the cross, and You wished to show us that You expended Your last energies in order to reach the top of the hill of suffering.  You teach us in the cross and suffering which You send us, to use all our strength in order to carry out the task laid upon our shoulders by Your Providence and to look to Your falls under the cross, when we lose heart and feel weak, for the strength that we need.

O Mary, you witnessed your Son’s final exertion of His energy with admiration and motherly compassion; help me to remember this with you when the carrying out of my task becomes too heavy for me.

O St. Boniface, in the threefold fall of your divine Model lay for you the strength to remain steadfast until the end, to overcome all fear and hesitation before death and to meet your attackers.  May your example help us to accept and carry out our task in life steadfastly.

O Jesus, gentle, etc.

Tenth Station: Jesus is stripped of His garments and given gall and vinegar to drink

O Jesus, You wanted to drink the cup of suffering to the bottom by allowing Yourself to be nailed to the hard wood of the cross naked and unshielded and by refusing the narcotic drink they tried to give You to ease Your pains.

O Mary, your heart must have been filled with new power of compassion when you saw your Son, stripped of all that covered Him, refuse to drink which was meant to ease His sensitivity to the pain and His example fortified you to be strong with Him in His trials.

O St. Boniface, the example of your Jesus, stripped and refusing any alleviation, must have strengthened you to willingly have everything taken away from you and, proudly and without fear to meet your enemies with no other cover than the Holy Bible, which even at that was pieced by their swords.  Teach me to be courageous in accepting suffering sent to me by God.

O Jesus, gentle, etc.

Eleventh Station: Jesus is nailed to the cross

O Jesus, how terrible it must have been for You to be nailed to the two cross bars by coarse nails and hanging from those wounds, to die slowly from pain and exhaustion.

O Mary, the sword of sorrows foretold by Simeon must have pierced your heart especially when you heard the cruel hammer blows with which the executioners pierced the hands and feet of your divine Son and nailed Him to the cross.

O St. Boniface, you must, from the memory of the crucifixion of your divine Example, have drawn the strength to persevere, with courage and readiness for sacrifice, when the Frisian pagans pierced your companions with swords and spears and finally drove their weapons also into your body, mortally wounding you.  Obtain for me that I receive and bear the trials God sends me with equal courage and readiness for sacrifice.

O Jesus, gentle, etc.

Twelfth Station: Jesus dies on the cross

O Jesus, it is for us an incomprehensible mystery how You finally did want to die for us, did wish to enter the realm of death as if Your whole mission had failed, as if all Your life had been useless: an apparent victory for Your enemies.

O Mary, it must have been terrible for you to see this end to your divine Son’s mission, to see Him die before your eyes the most cruel and shameful death, even though your faith told you that precisely thus, He wanted to return life to us.

O St. Boniface, your death resembled that of your divine Model; your third and last effort to convert Frisia and bring her to God seemed to have failed when they made you and your companions undergo the cruelest death and destroyed all your work.  Teach us to mirror ourselves with you in our divine Model, mindful how only suffering leads to victory.

O Jesus, gentle, etc.

Thirteenth Station: The Body of Jesus is laid in the lap of His mother

O Jesus, what an example You gave Your holy mother after Your death by allowing Your dead body to be laid in her lap.  It did increase her sorrows and caused her even more intensely to identify with Your pains and sufferings but at the same time You must have filled her with Your strength in order, in this way, to crown her as Queen of Martyrs.

O Mary, Mother of Sorrows, the Church, when contemplating you with Jesus’ Body in your lap, puts these words in your mouth: “O you, who pass by here, see if there is any sorrow like unto mine?’”  Teach me to contemplate with you the Body of your divine Son in order to bear all suffering with you.

O St. Boniface, how often you must have contemplated with Mary the wounds of your dead Savior and during the sacrifice of the Mass have pondered the memory of Jesus’ death on the cross, in order to be strong in suffering and in death.

O Jesus, gentle, etc.

Fourteenth Station: Jesus is laid in a new sepulchre

(Left unfinished; he was writing in prison, and he was taken to be executed before finishing)

Emily Stimpson

God’s mercy, of course, is ever-present and ever-abundant. A Year of Mercy doesn’t make God more merciful or more inclined to forgive. God can’t change. But we can ... and must. As Pope Francis explained in Misericordiae Vultus (“The Face of Mercy”), the bull of indiction that announced the Year of Mercy, “At times we are called to gaze even more attentively on mercy so that we may become a more effective sign of the Father’s action in our lives” (No. 3).

The Year of Mercy is meant to be one of those times — a season for Christians to become “stronger and more effective” witnesses to the Faith we proclaim, changed both by contemplating the depths of God’s mercy and by imitating Christ in the world today (Misericordiae Vultus, No. 3).

To help make that possible, the Holy Father used Misericordiae Vultus not only to reflect on God’s mercy but also to outline a course of action. In it, he offered a series of practical suggestions for how Catholics should celebrate the Year of Mercy ahead.

Go to confession

The Sacrament of Reconciliation is the sacrament of mercy. In the confessional, God freely offers his forgiveness to all who ask for it with a sincere heart and a genuine purpose of amendment. He requires no payment and no sacrifice; he took care of that himself long ago on Calvary. Instead, all God asks is that we show up. If we do our part, he does his.

During the Year of Mercy, Pope Francis has granted extraordinary powers to all priests to forgive sins that, in some places, are still reserved to the bishop, such as abortion. He also has called for a special time of repentance during Lent. The initiative, 24 Hours for the Lord, will place special emphasis on the Sacrament of Reconciliation in dioceses around the world.

But the confessional isn’t just for those who’ve been involved with an abortion. The confessional is for every person who has broken faith with God in some way — who has yelled at their spouse, gossiped about a neighbor, skipped Mass on Sunday or wasted time at work. Which is to say, the confessional is for all of us.

We don’t need to wait until Lent to pay it a visit. Every week, in almost every parish across America, priests sit in those confessionals, waiting for us to come and tell God that we’re sorry. They know that when we do, we will, in the words of Pope Francis, “touch the grandeur of God’s mercy with [our] own hands” and experience “true interior peace” (Misericordiae Vultus, No. 17).

Read conversion stories

In the late third century, St. Augustine penned the first known spiritual autobiography, “Confessions.” The book told of the recently ordained Bishop of Hippo’s journey from unbelief to belief, from lust to chastity, and from love of self to love of God. The tale captivated readers then, just as it captivates readers now. It also set the mold for all similar stories of conversion that would follow.

Through the centuries, conversion stories have challenged, comforted and encouraged millions of men and women on their journey to God. They offer enduring and concrete examples of God’s mercy in the lives of individual believers. They remind us that no one is beyond the reach of God’s mercy, and they help us better understand our personal journey to holiness.

Above all, conversion stories witness to the fact that we all are called to conversion. Whether we were born and raised Catholic or not, every person must reject the world and give their heart to the Lord. Without choosing Christ once and then repeatedly thereafter — there can be no discipleship. There can be no living faith.

For those reasons and more, conversion stories are central to the forthcoming 24 Hours for the Lord initiative. During that time, and throughout the Year of Mercy, the Church wants the faithful to revisit famous converts of days past as well as familiarize themselves with more recent converts. Their testimonies of grace offer us guidance in how to give our own testimony of grace. They also, offer us, as Pope Francis wrote, “a new chance to look at [ourselves], convert, and believe” (Misericordiae Vultus, No. 21).

Perform works of mercy

God call us to be “doers of the word and not hearers only” (Jas 1:22). This year and always, being a “doer” entails performing works of mercy, both corporal and spiritual.

The corporal works of mercy involve caring for the bodies and material needs of others: feeding the hungry, giving drink to the thirsty, clothing the naked, welcoming the stranger, healing the sick, visiting the imprisoned and burying the dead.

The spiritual works of mercy involve caring for souls and the spiritual welfare of our fellow man: counseling the doubtful, instructing the ignorant, admonishing sinners, comforting the afflicted, forgiving offences, bearing wrongs patiently and praying for the living and the dead.

Jesus, Pope Francis explained, “introduces us to these works of mercy in his preaching, so that we can know whether or not we are living as his disciples” (Misericordiae Vultus, No. 15).

He also tells us that we will be judged on how we cared for the least of our brothers and sisters (Mt 25:34-46).

But performing works of mercy doesn’t only offer us an escape plan from “eternal punishment”; it also helps us understand mercy from the inside. It reawakens our conscience, “too often grown dull,” and helps us learn to see our own spiritual poverty in the faces of the materially and spiritually poor (Misericordiae Vultus, No. 15).

Accordingly, throughout this Year of Mercy, the Holy Father asks us to heed Christ’s words and reach out to those in need. Practically speaking, that means we can donate food to a food pantry and clothes to the Society of St. Vincent de Paul. We can invite a new family in town to supper and donate our spare change to a nonprofit that provides children in Africa with clean water. We can also have Masses said for departed friends and loved ones, visit the sick and the dying in nursing homes or hospitals, offer up Rosaries for the conversion of family members who have lost the Faith, and just hold our tongues (and tempers) the next time someone cuts us off in traffic.

Go on pilgrimage

Mercy isn’t free. We always pay for it. Not with money, but with effort. Mercy, wrote Pope Francis, requires “dedication and sacrifice”; it requires that we reject sin, selfishness and destructive desires (Misericordiae Vultus, No. 14). In effect, it requires doing things God’s way, not our way. Thanks to our fallen natures, that’s rarely easy. But, since the most ancient of times, the Church has recommended that those seeking mercy go on pilgrimage, both to better understand what mercy requires and as a means of developing the discipline necessary to walk in God’s ways.

As the pope explained, when we travel to a sacred place, we remember “Life itself is a pilgrimage, and the human being is a viator, a pilgrim traveling along the road, making his way to the desired destination.” We also come to see mercy not as a cheap handout but rather as a priceless gift, which cost Christ his life, and is a “goal to reach” (Misericordiae Vultus, No. 14).

For innumerable men and women throughout the ages, this experience of pilgrimage — to Rome and Jerusalem, Fatima and Lourdes, national basilicas and local shrines — has been an occasion of conversion and grace. It has offered them an opportunity to atone for sins, ask for forgiveness and draw closer to the Lord.

For this reason, during the Year of Mercy, the Church invites all believers to make a pilgrimage, whether to a nearby cathedral or to far away sacred ground, so that, while on pilgrimage, we might “find the strength to embrace God’s mercy and dedicate ourselves to being merciful with others as the Father has been with us” (Misericordiae Vultus, No. 14).

Walk through a Holy Door

For at least 500 hundred years, Holy Doors and Jubilees have gone hand in hand.

During this Jubilee of Mercy, however, Holy Doors will take on an unprecedented significance. Not only will the Holy Doors in Rome open for pilgrims, but Pope Francis also has asked that every cathedral and basilica around the world set up a similar door, a Door of Mercy.

The tradition of Holy Doors dates back to the early 15th century, when Pope Martin V declared that one of the doors in the Basilica of St. John Lateran could only be opened during a jubilee year.

By the end of the century, all the major basilicas in Rome had similar Holy Doors, set aside for jubilee years.

The doors themselves symbolize Christ, who called himself “the gate” to eternal life (Jn 10:9). For pilgrims, to walk through the Holy Doors is to walk, in spirit, from sin to grace and from death to life, acknowledging Christ as the only way to the Father.

During this Year of Mercy, all the Holy Doors in Rome and across Europe will be flung open. Everyone who walks through them will have the opportunity to obtain a plenary indulgence for themselves or a departed loved one. For those who can’t travel across an ocean, the same graces will be available in any local cathedral or shrine with a “Door of Mercy,” where, Pope Francis said, “anyone who enters will experience the love of God who consoles, pardons, and instills hope” (Misericordiae Vultus, No. 3).  

Obtain indulgences

When most people hear the word “indulgences,” they think of Martin Luther, the Protestant Reformation and the few bad apples who, in the late Middle Ages, promised people a quick escape from purgatory in exchange for generous charitable donations.

But indulgences are so much more than their checkered medieval history suggests. They are an ongoing manifestation of God’s mercy in the world, freeing us “from every residue left by the consequences of sin,” and enabling us to “act with charity” and “grow in love” (Misericordiae Vultus, No. 22).

As the Church understands it, through the centuries, by God’s grace, holy men and women have done good works. They’ve prayed, suffered, sacrificed and served. And the more they’ve done that — the more they’ve responded to God’s grace with faithful, loving obedience — the more grace God has poured out upon them.

Through this loving, fruitful exchange of grace and good works, something like an excess of merit and grace builds up. We call this excess “The Treasury of the Saints.” It is, in a sense, like a bank account of graced merit, which the rest of us can draw upon in order to escape temporal punishment for our sins.

Or, as Pope Francis put it, “[the saints’] holiness comes to the aid of our weakness in a way that enables the Church, with her maternal prayers and her way of life, to fortify the weakness of some with the strength of others” (Misericordiae Vultus, No. 22).

That aid can be plenary (meaning full remission from temporal punishment for sin), or just partial, and we can obtain it for both departed loved ones and for ourselves. As for how we go about obtaining it, there are many ways: walking through the Holy Doors, going on pilgrimages, even praying the Rosary and reading Sacred Scripture.

In every case, however, the conditions for obtaining an indulgence remain the same: complete detachment from sin, reception of the Eucharist, making a good confession that day or on a proximate day, praying for the intentions of the pope and being in a state of grace by the time the work for the indulgence is complete.

Contemplate God’s mercy in Scripture

Sacred Scripture is both the word of God and the story of God in time. It traces the history of God’s dealings with men, recalling his merciful provisions for humanity, from Eden to Calvary and beyond. God’s mercy cannot be understood apart from the Bible. Which is why Pope Francis has called upon the faithful to ponder its pages more closely this coming year, especially during the Lenten season.

“How many pages of Sacred Scripture are appropriate for meditation during the weeks of Lent to help us rediscover the merciful face of the Father!” the Holy Father asked (Misericordiae Vultus, No. 17). In Misericoriae Vultus, Francis pointed specifically to the prophets Micah and Isaiah as starting points for that meditation. But the psalms, which are ancient Israel’s songs of prayer, praise and thanksgiving, also offer almost endless insights into God’s mercy, as does the entire history of ancient Israel, from Genesis through Maccabees.

During Lent, or throughout the year, heeding the Holy Father’s advice to contemplate God’s mercy in Scripture is as simple as reading a chapter from the Bible each morning, praying the Divine Office with the Church or praying an abbreviated form of it with the Magnificat. Bible studies, like the St. Paul Center’s Journey Through Scripture and Ascension Press’s Bible Timeline, or books like Father Mitch Pacwa’s “Mercy: A Bible Study Guide for Catholics” (OSV, $9.95), also offer insights into God’s mercy through familiarizing people with the story of salvation history, while Pope Benedict XVI’s trilogy on Jesus of Nazareth can serve as a guide to seeing God’s mercy incarnated in the face of Christ.

Ernest E. Larkin, O.Carm.

 “We need no wings to go in search of God, but have only to find a place where we can be alone and look upon Him present within us.” These words were written by St. Teresa of Avila in her book The Way of Perfection.

St. Teresa of Avila learned as a small child that one had to die in order to see God. Little Teresa wanted to see God. Practical and courageous by temperament she devised a scheme. She and her brother, Rodrigo, would go to the land of the Moors. There they would surely be martyred and Heaven would receive them. Very early one morning the two children stole away from their home and crossed the bridge leading out of Avila. But the plan soon ran into trouble. An uncle who happened to be entering Avila at the time, met the children, heard their fantastic plan and unceremoniously returned them to their parental dwelling.

Later on in life St. Teresa realized that one does not have to die to see God. “We need no wings to go in search of Him,” she wrote, “but have only to find a place where we can be alone and look upon Him present within us.”

These words of the saint contain three essential steps for fruitful mental prayer.

First, we must be searching for God; second, we must be willing to be alone with Him, and third, we need but look upon Our Lord Who is present within us.

At first sight, this advice might seem too general or too obvious to be of practical help in mental prayer, but the three steps go to the heart of the matter. St. Teresa is the antidote for those who can’t see the forest for the trees. With a woman’s intuition she cuts through the accidental and points out the essential conditions for mental prayer. Let us look at each of these principles in some detail.

First, we must be searching for God.

If God is just a name, if His love for us is an abstract truth which we believe but do not realize, we will hardly search for Him.

Mental prayer is too difficult for that. It will lack appeal. If, on the other hand, we are convinced that God is in Teresa’s words “a better prize than any earthly love,” if we realize that we actually have within us something incomparably more precious than anything we see outside, then we will desire to enter within ourselves and to seek God. When we are convinced that He cares for us and waits for us, we will have the security and the courage to love Him in return.

Mental prayer makes no sense to the loveless soul. Other prayers, for example, petitions or thanksgiving, even liturgical worship, can be said with little or no conscious love of God. Not so mental prayer. It is by definition in Teresa’s view nothing but friendly conversation with Him Who we know loves us. “The important thing in mental prayer,” she says, “is not to think much but to love much.” Mental prayer becomes passable when we realize the gift of God dwelling within our soul. Referring to her earlier years in religious life, St. Teresa wrote these regretful words, “I think that if I had understood then as I do now that this great King really dwells within a little palace of my soul, I should not have left Him alone so often and never allowed his dwelling place to get so dirty.” Mental prayer, you see, is nothing but our side of friendship with God—our “yes” to God’s call and invitation

This leads us to the second principle of St. Teresa’s advice. The willingness to spend time alone with God. For this saint, prayer is the way of perfection, the door to God’s great favors. “Once this door is closed,” she writes, “I do not see how He will bestow His favors

for though He may wish to take His delight in the soul and give the soul delight, there is no way for Him to do so since He must have it alone and pure and desirous of receiving His favors.” Teresa herself closed this door for one year of her life, during the long 18-year period of mediocrity which she describes as a struggle to reconcile these two contradictory things: the life of the spirit and the pleasures of the senses.

Teresa wanted God, but at the same time she was unwilling to give up certain little selfish habits, petty attachments that were displeasing to God. Giving up mental prayer was not the answer to this problem. It was almost a fatal mistake because this way is the only way to victory over ourselves and surrender to God. At the time she excused herself from prayer on the plea of ill health, but in her heart she knew the dishonesty of this reason. “One needs no bodily strength for mental prayer,” she wrote later, “but only love and the formation of a habit.”

Love, as we have seen, is the root. But let us be sure we know what this love is. Too many confuse being loved with love itself. Love is outgoing, unselfish, active. It means giving rather than self-seeking. It strives to please rather than be pleased. Listen again to St. Teresa: “Perhaps we do not know what love is. It would not surprise me, for love consists not in the extent of our own happiness, but in the firmness of our determination to please God in everything.” This kind of love moves us to spend time alone with God, not for what we get out of it, but for what we can put into it. We don’t go to mental prayer to feel good or enjoy a spiritual experience. These are secondary aspects at best. We go to protest our desire to accept God’s love, to allow Him to take over in our lives.

It is accidental whether we are delighted with consolation or tortured by dryness and desolation, whether holy thoughts and affections pour out of our hearts, or our minds are dull, sterile and unproductive.

Some of the best prayers are said when we don’t feel like praying, when we are tired and sluggish or burdened with self-pity and depression. When we are heavy, so opaque, so closed in on ourselves that only a heroic effort of our will keeps us kneeling at our prayer. It is this will to be alone with God and to talk with Him that distinguishes true prayer from delusion, because this will is the love of God.

Such love forms the habit of prayer. It makes us faithful to mental prayer day in and day out, in times of fervor as in times of coldness. It makes us choose God rather than ourselves outside prayer as well as in prayer, a choice that will be evident in our acts of fraternal charity, generosity, humility. This attachment to God and detachment from ourselves will measure the perfection of our prayer. As our life goes, so goes our prayer, and as our prayers, our life. We pray as well as we live and we live as well as we pray.

If we would improve then, where do we begin? Where shall we start? St. Teresa gives us the answer. It is the same answer that Our Lord gave in the Gospels: Perseverance, faithfulness, the formation of a habit. She would heartily endorse, I am sure, this thought of Dom Chapman: “If you want to pray well, then pray much. If you don’t pray much at least pray regularly and you will pray well.”

But one practical question remains. How? How shall I go about making mental prayer?

St. Teresa’s third principle is the answer. Simply look upon God present within your soul. The saint repeats this suggestion in many different ways. We are to fix our mind on the person of God, cultivate the sense of His Presence, have the realization of Whom we are addressing. This is her secret. You will find no new method of mental prayer in St. Teresa, no structuring of preludes and points. She is silent on these matters not because she is against them, but because she

reduces mental prayer to its simplest terms.

To certain nuns of her convent who objected that mental prayer was beyond their ability she wrote: “I am not asking you now to think of Him or to form numerous conceptions of Him, or to make long and subtle meditations with your understanding. I am asking only to look at Him.” It is as simple as that.

“Beginners,” she says, “do well to form an appealing image of Christ in His Sacred Humanity. They should picture Him within themselves in some mystery of His life, for example, the Christ of the agony or the Risen Savior in His glorified Body. Once they are conscious of Our Lord’s presence within their souls they need only look upon Him and conversation will follow. This friendly conversation will not be much thinking but much loving, not a torrent of words, much less a strained prepared speech, but rather a relaxed conversation with moments of silence as there must be between friends.”

This is the way St. Teresa prayed from the beginning. She simply gave her full attention to the Divine Guest within her soul and let her thoughts and sentiments take their course. At times she would console Our Lord for His suffering. At other times rejoice with Him in His Resurrection Sometimes her prayer would be affective, that is, made up of numerous acts of faith and hope and charity, humility and the other virtues. Other times it was contemplative. It was a simple lingering look of love that had the very feminine quality of blissful admiration.

But perhaps this way of prayer does not appeal to you. Such prayer, you may say, is all well and good for contemplatives, but I need a more active prayer, a more busy prayer. I must think through a mystery of Faith, make certain definite acts of my mind, work up concrete resolutions. I must follow a methodical meditation or I am doomed at prayer. To this I say well and good. Each one of us must pray the way God gives him to pray, but does not this simplified method of

St. Teresa meet the real needs of many? Are there not many among you who cannot meditate but who can pray?

In any case, St. Teresa’s teaching reminds all of us of what is truly essential in prayer, especially that it is a person-to-person contact between intimate loving friends. St. Teresa did in fact envy those who could meditate. She saw the value of extended reflections and dynamic dramatization on events of Our Lord’s life. She well knew that thoughts and images rouse up the will and incite lively sentiments of the virtues, but at the same time she knew that the essence of mental prayer lies on a deeper level than our own reflections and thinking, that real prayer exists when one strives to make contact with God whatever success is had, and that the measure of prayer’s perfection is the love that inspires it. And so St. Teresa prayed the only way she could, suffering the increased difficulties that were bound to come from the fact that the imagination, the memory and the intellect were not given a methodical plan of action.

She would use supports wherever she could find them. In books, for example, or in the beauties of nature, even in holy cards. Books were her standby. She never began mental prayer without some reading to collect her thoughts and put herself in the atmosphere of prayer. She returned to the book as often as needed in the course of the prayer. Daily spiritual reading assumed special importance because of the relative lack of reflection at prayer itself. Vocal prayers, like the Our Father, said slowly and with an effort to “taste” each phrase were also employed to express her love of God. But the starting point and the way to her whole system lay simply in looking at the Lord present in her soul.

In the beginning His Presence would be recognized by an act of faith expressed and made graphic in the dress of a picture of Our Lord. With growth in the spiritual life, in faithand hope and charity, and hence in prayer itself, the sense of His Presence would become more profound, more realized, more experiential. At all times this loving union with the Indwelling God was the immediate goal of her prayer. It should be your goal at prayer, and you will more quickly~ and more surely attain this union with God if you take to heart the discovery of St. Teresa of Avila:

“We need no wings to go in search of Him, but have only to find a place where we can be alone and look upon Him present within us.”

The Elective Chapter of the Carmelite Monastery of Sutri, Italy, was held 11 February 2016. The following were elected:

• Prioress:  Sr. M. Daniela Solustri, O.Carm.
• 1st Councilor:   Sr. M. Martina Simeone, O.Carm.
• 2nd Councilor:  Sr. M. Francesca Romana Gargano, O.Carm.
• Director of Novices:  Sr. M. Daniela Solustri, O.Carm.
• Treasurer:  Sr. M. Martina Simeone, O.Carm.
• Sacristan:  Sr. M. Elisabetta De Bellis, O.Carm.