Author: regan.ocd

LIFE OF BLESSED ANGELO PAOLI

(1642-1720)

Angelus was born on September 1, 1642, at Argigliano, then a section of the commune of Fivizzano, now ofCasolà in Lunigiana (Massa, Italy); at Baptism he received the name Francis. In 1660 he received the tonsure and the first two minor orders. After some months spent with his family, he took the habit of the Carmelites at Fivizzano and was sent to Siena for his novitiate. There he pronounced his vows on Dec. 18, 1661. He studied philosophy and theology at Pisa and Florence; and here, on Jan. 7, 1667, he celebrated his first Mass.

His life can be divided into two periods: the years spent in his religious province of Tuscany, and those spent in Rome. The first period is characterized by frequent transfers: in 1674 to Argigliano and to Pistoia; in 1675, again to Florence, as master of novices; after eighteen months, to Carniola as pastor; and after another ten months, in 1677, he was transferred to Siena. Then, in 1680, he was sent to Montecatini, where, two years later, he was charged with teaching grammar to his young confreres. But in the same year he was transferred to Pisa and, after a few months, to Fivizzano, to act as organist and sacristan. In 1687 the general of the Order called him to Rome, where, in the convent of St. Martin of the Mountains, he spent the thirty-two years of life that remained to him, first, as novice-master, then as bursar, sacristan and organist, and also as director of the conservatory for girls founded by Livia Viperaschi.

Wherever he had worked during the first period of his religious life, he had given a fine impression as a religious steeped in silence, prayer and mortification, but, above all, given to the works of charity, both spiritual and corporal, in favor of the sick and the poor — so much so that at Siena they gave him the name of “Father Charity”. He never belied this name wherever he happened to be, and merited it especially in Rome, where he had the care of the two hospitals (for men and for women) of St. John and established the hospice for the convalescent poor on the street that led from the Colosseum to the basilica of St. John Lateran. His motto was: “Whoever loves God must go to find Him among the poor”. He also knew how to inspire many persons to imitate him in helping the needy. This was especially apparent in times of public calamity, like those of the earthquakes and floods that afflicted Rome in the years 1702-03, at a time when the pomp of a few contrasted with the misery of the many.

In him the wealthy found a generous counselor. They esteemed him, followed his advice and made him the intermediary of their charity. He taught the poor to be grateful and to find in their concrete circumstances incentives for moral perfection. He was the counselor and guest of princes and of other important people of Rome. Cardinals and high prelates held him in high esteem. He refused the cardinalate offered to him by Innocent XII and Clement XI, because — as he said — «it would have been hurtful to the poor, whom I would not have been able to help».

He had an outstanding trust in divine providence, which he used to call his pantry where nothing is ever wanting. It was a trust not rarely rewarded by humanly inexplicable events like the multiplication of simple things destined to be the food of the poor. In his practice of charity he took care not to infringe upon justice: he was an example in giving just retribution to his workers, and he knew how to obtain the same response from those who had forgotten it. His deep union with God was sought out in solitary prayer whether in a cave, as when he was a child at Argigliano, or in the unlimited spaces of the Alps of St. Pellegrino, in a basement of the convent of Florence or in the Roman catacombs, in his cell or in the small choir of the church of St. Martin; here the night passed like a flash for him while he reposed, like St. John — as he loved to say — «on the breast of Christ in prayer». Outstanding too was his love of the cross, which he strove to place even materially wherever he could: between Argigliano and Minucciano, in the Alps of St. Pellegrino, near Corniola; in Rome, three in the Testaccio section and three within the Colosseum. At times the Lord granted him knowledge of distant events (like the death of Louis XIV and the victory of Prince Eugene of Savoy at Petrovaradin) or of future ones (like the time of his own death and that of others). Several persons attributed signal graces to him while he was still alive. He died on Jan. 20, 1720, and was buried in the church of St. Martin of the Mountains, where he still lies in the left nave. Three years after his death the informative diocesan process was begun at Florence, Pescia and Rome; the apostolic process was carried on from 1740 till 1753. The heroicity of his virtues was recognized by Pope Pius VI in 1781. Angelo Paoli was beatified at the basilica of St. John Lateran, Rome on 25th April 2010.

METHODS OF MENTAL PRAYER (III)

Fr Walter Lobo, Ocd

Carmel always has a great job to do. Thus, here are the methods of mental prayer mentioned in the writings of St. Teresa of Avila:I. Prayer of Recollection in The Book of Her Life

1. Prayer of Recollection in The Book of Her Life

The best way of prayer is to represent Christ to oneself. This is the prayer of recollection. It consists of presenting Christ to oneself: “I tried as hard as I could to keep Jesus Christ, God and our Lord, present within me”. We need to keep the loving presence of God ever in our mind and heart. Even in reflecting on the passion of Jesus, one represents Him interiorly. Representing the humanity of Christ does not mean to picture Him. “The soul is left as though without support or exercise, and the solitude and dryness are very troublesome”. A more effective way is to be aware of Him in love. He is the object of our love. Prayer is an act of the will and one should learn to control thoughts, even spiritual ones, and the work of the imagination. If one perseveres in trying not to depend on thinking, one reaches contemplation more quickly along this way (4: 7c). One should note that this method demands greater purity of conscience than those who can work with the intellect because in this method there is no element of resolutions and deciding to practice virtues, without which one cannot really pray. The time after receiving communion is a special time for prayer (4: 9). “Since I could not reflect discursively with the intellect, I strove to picture Christ within me, and it did me greater good…” (L 9: 4). This method is “without discursive reflection on the part of the intellect” (9: 5). This method of praying with great recollection and attention is not easy for most people unless they are really committed to their call to union with God.

2. Discursive Method in the Book of Her Life

For those who have not turned back fully from sinfulness or imperfections, she would present the second way and it consists of reflections on elements of faith. She had no access to the bible in the vernacular and so she does not speak of Lectio Divina, as some like to insist. She gives perhaps a more traditional way of her times. In this method we reflect discursively

• on what the world is,
• what one owes God,
• how much God suffered,
• on how little one serves Him, and
• what God gives to anyone who loves Him.

From this we deduce doctrine to free ourselves from thought, occasions, and dangers. This “discursive reflection is an extremely difficult thing to practice” (4: 8; also 8:7; 10: 2). Some don’t have the talent for discursive thought or for profitable use of the imagination. If all these activities are done out of love, the soul is gladdened, and there flow tears of devotion – or are they tears of joy or sorrow or repentance (10: 2; 1: 13). It is the act of the imagination and intellect.

(To be continued….)

METHODS OF MENTAL PRAYER (PART II)

Fr Walter Lobo, Ocd

‘Today many persons do not know how to pray’ – Pope Francis.

Prayer is an equivocal term. It has different meanings and stages. The Catholic Christians are more at home with certain rituals and formulas and are very much disturbed when they see that they cannot do those acts. At the same, there is a great difficulty in understanding what various teachers are exposing. Here we give a few methods from different people for which you require only the desire to seek God and a strong commitment to reaching the goal of a conscious closeness and intimacy with God. We pray not to seek favors but to get God, to be united with Him or be absorbed in the mystery.

The methods that we give here are a repetition to show how prayer teachers of different times taught the same way of praying. They are more or less similar. We need a readiness to change our idea that prayer is asking favors from God and saints, or rattling out certain formulas, singing some hymns, fulfilling certain rituals. The most fundamental thing is to live in faith with God and to keep our hearts and mind fixed on God.

St Teresa of Jesus and the Methods of Prayer
St. Teresa is a great teacher of the interior life. She has many books to her credit, but not all of them say something new. Right from her childhood, we can say, that she had a sense that prayer is not what most of us do, just saying some formulas. Though she followed the routine of the Carmelite community, still she felt that it was not the real prayer. The goal of her prayer is to come to a sense of being possessed by God, or what is called contemplation. “Mental prayer [or ‘personal prayer’] in my opinion, is nothing but sharing between friends, it is taking time frequently to be with him who we know loves us”. Prayer is being in intimacy with God, an exercise of love. She had the sense that prayer is something interior, but for long she did not get a guide to help her to accompany her in her struggle.  “I did not know how to proceed in prayer and how to be recollected”, she commented on reading the book: The Third Spiritual Alphabet of Fray Francisco de Osuna, a Franciscan friar.

(To be continued….)

METHODS OF MENTAL PRAYER (PART I)

Fr Walter Lobo, Ocd

‘Today many persons do not know how to pray’ – Pope Francis.

We are at a very peculiar time in history – Covid 19. The bishops and priests celebrate online masses. In such as well as in all circumstances we need to know how to pray. A few years ago, Pope Francis addressed the Cloistered nuns an apostolic constitution Vultum Dei Querere – Seeking the Face of God. In it, he expressed his concern: “Today many persons do not know how to pray”  (n. 16). Earlier Pope St. John Paul II wrote: “We well know that prayer cannot be taken for granted. We have to learn to pray. (In prayer) ‘the heart truly “falls in love”’. He also said: “It would be wrong to think that ordinary Christians can be content with a shallow prayer that is unable to fill their whole life…How helpful it would be if, not only in religious communities but also in parishes, more were done to ensure an all-pervading climate of prayer. Other religions, which are now widely present in ancient Christian lands, offer their own responses to this need, and sometimes they do so in appealing ways. But we who have received the grace of believing in Christ, the revealer of the Father and the Saviour of the world, have a duty to show to what depths the relationship with Christ can lead. There are many methods of prayer” (Novo Millennio Ineunte).

Life of most is filled with a relationship with God which primarily means raising our hearts and minds to God and fixing our whole attention on God alone. Saint Cyprian though has much insistence on asking favors and blessings from God, tells us that it is very important to keep our attention to God in prayer. “There is a variety of ways to proceed in prayer,” writes St. Teresa (Med. 2: 4). But we listen to Sr. Ruth Burrows: “Our methods, the scaffolding we use to support ourselves, must never be confused with prayer itself or given much importance. That this is a common error hardly needs saying. It lies behind all our confusions and anxieties regarding prayer, our earning for reassurance, for someone to teach us how to get it right. It lies behind the complaints: ‘I cannot pray’, ‘My prayer is hopeless’ (Living in Mystery, p. 100).

Prayer is an equivocal term. It has different meanings and stages. The Catholic Christians are more at home with certain rituals and formulas and are very much disturbed when they see that they cannot do those acts. At the same time, there is a great difficulty in understanding what various teachers are exposing. Here we give a few methods from different people for which you require only a desire to seek God and a strong commitment to reaching the goal of a conscious closeness and intimacy with God. We pray not to seek favors but to get God, to be united with Him, or be absorbed in the mystery.

(To be Continued….)

MENTAL PRAYER (PART V)

Ernest Larkin, OCarm

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.”

(Article Concluded)

MENTAL PRAYER (PART IV)

Ernest Larkin, OCarm

“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.”

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?

(…to be continued)

MENTAL PRAYER (PART III)

Ernest Larkin, OCarm

“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.”

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.”

(…to be continued)

MENTAL PRAYER (PART II)

Ernest Larkin, OCarm

“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.”

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

(…to be continued)

MENTAL PRAYER (PART I)

Ernest Larkin, OCarm

“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.

(…to be continued)

(P.S: There will be a series of posts on Mental Prayer from today)

LOVE ATTRACTS LOVE

Saint Therese of Lisieux – “The Story of a Soul”

You know, God, I’ve never desired anything else than to love You. My ambition is for no other glory. Your love informed me beginning in my childhood. It grew with me, and now it’s a chasm the depth of which I cannot fathom. Love attracts love, so, my Jesus, mine shoots up toward You. It would like to fill up the chasm that draws it, but alas! It’s not even a drop of dew lost in the ocean!

To love You as You love me, I have to borrow Your own love; only then do I find rest. Oh, my Jesus, it’s perhaps an illusion, but it seems to me that You can’t fill a soul with more love than You’ve filled mine. It’s because of that, that I dare to ask You to love those whom You have given me as You have loved me. One day, in heaven, if I discover that You love them more than me, I’ll rejoice at that, since I recognize even now that those souls merit Your love much more than I do. But here below I cannot conceive of a greater immensity of love than the one that it has pleased You to pour out so lavishly on me, without any merit on my part.