The one whom we seek, the living God, has a face and a personhood. Jesus of Nazareth is not simply a godly man but God made man. Not simply someone who is so good, but the author of All Good. He is not just one great figure or hero of history, but He is the One who is the center of the cosmos, the source, the summit, the beginning, and the end of everything.
And yet, He entered into our human experience in everything, except of course, for that which would compromise our destiny. He didn’t embrace sin. But He embraced everything else. He embraced our weaknesses, our vulnerability. He embraced all of our limitations and fought against them. He fought against temptations.
He had to really fight to do what was right. It wasn’t always easy for Him. During the Agony, He said, ‘Father, please, please let this pass from me!’ That was His sacred humanity, but also, His perfect faith. Theologians describe it so profoundly – in His spirit, He knew not to allow the weakness of the humanity that He had temporarily assumed. In that moment of time, He didn’t allow human weakness to have the last word. His faith in the Father’s will had the last word.
There are times when we’re wrestling inside of ourselves; we can experience a conflict, a combat, a warfare within. We experience a warfare for our own welfare between the flesh and the spirit, between fulfilling our destiny in the Lord, and all the spiritual forces and wickedness that would want to interfere with that fulfillment in our life.
There are times when our human nature will resist, our human nature will be intimidated, will want to run away, will want to make excuses, and that resistance might always be there. That’s okay.
But the point is that our faith always prevails. Our faith allows our prayer to tap into the living God, to give us a supernatural grace that doesn’t come from ourselves; our faith allows us to tap into ourselves within the deepest part of our person, that we may find a potential of God’s power to prevail over the problems, and to overcome them in such a way that what was once over our head – can be placed beneath our feet.
What tried to defeat us becomes the source of new victory for us because of Him who is on our side and who fights the battles on our behalf. All He asks is that we have the faith to continue to say yes, to pick up our cross and to keep moving forward and not turn back. He does the rest. That means He ends us doing more in us, with us and through us, more than we were ever thought we were capable of, more than we ever thought was possible for our lives.
He ends up doing more in us, with us and through us, more than we were ever knew we could do because the power and strength is no longer ours. It’s Him doing the work. He can take over right when you least expect it. Right when you thought you have nothing left to give, He takes over. We’re not left to ourselves to do it all on our own. He is Emmanuel.
Let us immerse ourselves in the presence of Emmanuel through the holiness of God present in the Mass, which is the mission of Jesus brought back to life in the world, the mission of His mercy to embrace everything in Himself; His life, His death, His resurrection re-presented, presented again, brought back to life – that His life may become new and operative in each of us. May the Lord prepare us to celebrate the sacred mysteries of who God is and what God is doing in me, and in you, right here and right now, in Jesus’s name, Amen.
SOURCE: Danville Retreat, 2014. Copyright 2017, Fr. Robert Barcelos. All Rights Reserved
The call of Christ to freedom and wholeness is a call from where we are now. It’s a call to become more of Him in us, which will bring about more of us, than we are today. In other words, we’re being opened to an inflowing, an outpouring of God’s presence in such a way that everything God’s presence touches, changes where it moves. Like fire and water, whatever God touches no longer remains the same, despite the pain. Or rather, not despite the pain, but especially because of the pain, something has changed. I am no longer the same and what remains is better than what was before.
But we need faith to get to the other side, to see the fruit and the effect. We need faith to get to the other side, to allow God to fulfill His promise amidst the problems; we need faith to allow a dawn to scatter our darkness without giving up on the way there. It takes faith to get there. Sometimes, that act of faith, that yes will take everything that you’ve got.
As a result, you’ll receive God in a way you’ve never known Him before. As big as the battle was to get there, the beauty of Christ, newly experienced, eclipses the darkness. We will easily forget about the blood, the sweat, and the tears when you experience the new birth that was meant to serve.
Scripture, of course, expresses this through the image of a mother giving birth to her child. In the Gospel of John, the apostle talks about when a woman is in labor, the labor pangs are ferocious, excruciating. Maybe for some women the third, the fourth, the fifth child, it got a little bit easier, but the labor pains with the first one is never that easy.
The labor pangs of childbearing is what scripture refers to as analogous to the spiritual purifications that we have to pass through in walking by faith and not by sight; it is the faith that transforms in the fire of love.
I was there when my mother was giving birth to my awesome brother. It looked like she wasn’t going to make it. She was 38 years old at the time and it didn’t look like she was going to make it. In the middle of labor, she was ready to give up. It was scary.
And yet, after getting to a point of acute suffering, there is a breakthrough and the childbirth takes place. Our faith life is similar. Right at the place when it feels like we can take no more, something breaks loose. After the breakthrough, finally you’re able to take a breath and to recollect yourself and the pieces fall into place. And you have the child that’s put in your lap and in your arms. How easy it is to forget, to forget the pain and the cost of the sacrifice because a child is so worth it.
So too in our lives, Saint Therese says, suffering is required to save souls. If we want to save souls, we can’t expect to be exempt from the cross.
Ouch, I know it hurts. It hurts for all of us, but it’s the truth. It’s the reality. Yeah, it’s painful. Sometimes, you can feel the nails in your hands and in your feet, can’t you? You’re walking around with pierced hands and feet. Nobody sees it but you and God. It’s all part of seeking communion in an immaculate way with God Almighty in His perfect love. It’s all part of it.
But how can we be renewed when we’ve been wiped out by it? You know, when you’re just tired and sometimes, maybe even bored, not by God but by the other things that can misrepresent God or get in His way.
We’re called to reach out to Him anew, to seek His face, not so much in the marvelous, the extraordinary, or even the charismatic, but rather, in the presence of God that burns within us, who gives and reveals divine life, the life of the Trinity. We must allow ourselves to be caught up in that embrace (to be continued).
SOURCE: Danville Retreat, 2014. Copyright 2017, Fr. Robert Barcelos. All Rights Reserved
Matthew 11:25-29 – 25 At that time Jesus said in reply, “I give praise to you, Father, Lord of heaven and earth, for although you have hidden these things from the wise and the learned you have revealed them to the childlike. 26Yes, Father, such has been your gracious will. 27All things have been handed over to me by my Father. No one knows the Son except the Father, and no one knows the Father except the Son and anyone to whom the Son wishes to reveal him.”
We are called to come to rediscover the face of God. The true God revealed in Christ as a lover, our savior is essentially that – a warrior who is a lover, a lover who desires to bring about a beautiful revolution in our lives. We are called to come to rediscover the revelation of our wondrous God of Love who is looking for space in our hearts. He is looking for a place to pitch his tent in our souls, to be made flesh again in our lives.
This wondrous God calls us to be open to new growth and no one is exempt from this invitation to love. No one is excluded. No one is written of. No one is counted as not good enough. No one is counted as incapable of receiving what God wants to give. All are invited to this banquet of love because that’s who God is, and also, because that’s who we are. We are made in His image and likeness, which means we are made in the image and likeness of love; we re made for love, and it’s love that satisfies our hearts in this life, and it’s love alone that will last forever in the next.
This invitation, this call to love is ever ancient and ever new. It never gets old. It’s forever vital, and it’s what gives us vitality, not the call itself, but Him who calls. This is especially relevant to people who feel unable to change, to people who may feel stuck, who despite their best efforts, don’t see any difference.
In this talk, “Immaculate Communion: the light of Carmel, divine life in Christ,” I am going to communicate what that means gradually. My primary sources in expressing the gospel through this theme is sacred scripture and experience, first and foremost, and secondly, Saint John of the Cross’s Living Flame of Love, especially as it is captured by Ian Matthew in the Impact of God. I will be spring boarding and drawing from this text as a primary source, and seasoning with my own words. In the background, of course will be the Catechism of the Catholic Church because all the mystical theology, the grandeur of God’s love and how we’re called to experience that in Jesus Christ in a personal life-changing way, is all contained in the Catechism.
The Catechism is the sacred doctrine behind the liberating truths of God’s grace through the gospel of who Christ is, manifested in so many ways. In addition to the Catechism, to make it more fresh, and to give it that pulse of the Spirit, which I find so prominent in Pope Francis, I will be drawing from the first part of the Joy of Gospel.
We seek God because in some sense, we’ve already been sought out by Him. We’ve already been found by Him, and that’s why we have the thirst to look for Him, and to drive the extra mile to find Him. When the Lord says, ‘Seek and you will find,’ the word seek isn’t meant to be a wimpy expression. It’s not just, ‘Give it a shot. Try it out. If it doesn’t work, then let it go.’ Seek means hunt it down. Really go after it, and don’t let anything get in your way in finding it because it belongs to you. You have a birthright to have it. To get it, to find it, sometimes, you really have to fight for it. Sometimes, you have to be willing to take a beating to get it, but you will get it if you look for it with all your heart.
But what we’re looking for is not an it or a something, it’s Somebody. It’s not simply a treasure, or far less, a reward for the good that I do. The only reward that we’re after is Him. That’s it. He’s our only reward. He’s our only merit. He’s everything. He is our hope. Our trust is not in our work, it’s in His work. Our faith is not in my love for God, but God’s love for me. It’s that focus of faith that transforms, when the focus is on Him, and not on myself, on the relationship that He offers and not on the religion that I practice.
The two aren’t mutually exclusive; the relationship isn’t at odds with the religion. But the structure, the rubrics, the institutions behind the religion, and all the customs, and the doctrines, are all at the service of this transforming union. Every aspect of the Church that Jesus Christ established and founded on the rock of Saint Peter’s confession of faith comes through the seven sacraments. The Church continues from generation to generation, in a very specific way, in a manifold manner of grace and truth.
The grace that comes thorough the sacraments, through the infallible Word of God, the infallible interpreter of the Word, the pillar and bulwark of the Church – this whole encompassing universal reality of love that Christ established in His is one, holy, Catholic, and apostolic Church, are all at the service of the transforming union of love, the enrichment of what Jesus means when He said, ‘I came that you might have life, and ever more abundantly.’
This is a call to freedom, to full-fledged freedom! To be fully human, fully alive, set free; to be the perfect fulfillment of your dreams, to get the most out of life possible. This is what Jesus came to offer. This is what Jesus came to provide by the sacrifice of His life in exchange for ours. The primary thing He needs to bring about this agreement, this covenant, this contract, this exchange, the primary requirement is faith. And faith isn’t always easy. Faith isn’t always easy. Our faith will be purified on so many levels, so many times, in so many ways that we never expected when we first said yes! And it’s when we say yes, even when it’s so hard to do so- that’s the faith that transforms. That’s the faith that allows God to perform miracles (to be continued).
SOURCE: Danville Retreat, 2014. Copyright 2017, Fr. Robert Barcelos. All Rights Reserved
In my heart,
Dwells my King,
Along with His court of angels, saints, and principalities.
It is a sacred inner dwelling place,
Attacked a thousand times a day,
By arrows of pride, anxiety, and unforgiveness
Arrows that are meant to be an attack
On the God of Peace.
With prayer,
The mercy of God the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit,
And a thousand acts of the will,
The fortress of my soul is built and strengthened,
That I may be alone with my All,
Free to gaze into His loving eyes,
To touch the wounds on His hands, His side, and His feet,
With total abandonment.
SOURCE: St. Teresa’s 5th Centenary Spain Pilgrimage. Avila, 2015
As a Catholic trying to live faithfully in the secular world, I could not let this election pass like any other. During my evening class, I asked my students to respond to the prompt, “I am hopeful/concerned about the results of the election.” The students in this class are representative of the diversity of our nation. They range in age from eighteen to over fifty years old. Three served in the wars in the Middle East. They are both immigrants and native-born Americans. They are multi-racial and cross socio-economic lines.
I shared with them that personally, I was hopeful because the process was making everyone in individual, institutional, and even in systemic levels question themselves in ways that were not so obvious before. Those who are reeling are asking, “What was it that we did not see? What blinded us? Why were we blinded?” Those questions are starting points for developing humility and healing.
Then my students shared their responses. Some students were hopeful because they believed that America could become great again, for they had seen too many family members lose jobs and homes.
Other students were fearful. One of my Latino students admitted that the lives of the people he loved would most likely be up-ended by deportations in the coming months. Another student said that the previous night, a group taunted her and her older brother to go back to “where they came from” and threw rocks at them. Though she knew the suffering of war and poverty first-hand, she could barely hold back her tears of humiliation; it didn’t matter at all to the young men demanding that she leave the country, that she was a veteran who had recently returned home from defending our nation’s freedoms.
I am a Filipina and in the last two months, I too have been yelled and leered at on three separate occasions for taking too much space on the sidewalk, at the parking lot, and in a restaurant. That has never happened before.
The hidden biases that lay dormant for decades have risen to the surface, and our national woundedness is being revealed. The Catholic Bishops have recently gathered to show support for refugees and immigrants. Yet despite the rampant acts against human dignity and the multitude of opportunities to stand up against it, very, very few voices of national leadership have taken a strong moral position against the rising acceptance of hate as a new norm.
As Secular Carmelites and a people who believe in the death and resurrection of Christ, we cannot be complacent or allow ourselves to participate and feed on these divisions.
As a Catholic I am greatly relieved and thrilled that the tides are turning and that the value of the life of the unborn will be recognized more than it has been in the past decades, for the Church teaches that abortion is a ‘grave evil.’ However, the Catechism of the Catholic Church also states that “sin committed through malice, by deliberate choice of evil, is the greatest” (1860 CCC). Jesus says, “from the heart come evil thoughts, murder, adultery, unchastity, theft, false witness, blasphemy” (Matthew 15:19).
Therefore, the willful choice of hate with malice from the heart is among the greatest evil. In Uganda, the location of one Carmelite mission, evil is defined as anything that doesn’t preserve life, which I would posit, includes acts that diminish an individual’s personhood. People are certainly experiencing deliberate malice against their personhood in their daily lives, at work, through social media, and in their schools.
Thus, though I value the life of the unborn, I cannot overlook the suffering and the trampled human dignity of the living. When asked about his thoughts on the results of the election, Pope Francis replied, “I do not give judgments on people or politicians, I simply want to understand what are the sufferings that their approach causes to the poor and the excluded.”
In Matthew 25, Our Lord separates his own sheep from the goats based on actions that illuminated the true character of His followers and their attitudes toward the vulnerable: “I was a stranger and you welcomed me, naked and you clothed me, ill and you cared for me, in prison and you visited me.” We must be compassionate, empathize and pray for America’s urban poor, the displaced homeless, the immigrants, and the marginalized. We must be wary and alert, not only of the rise of hateful attitudes against the vulnerable, but our own tendencies to keep the reality of those wounds invisible to ourselves.
God can only work if we are aware of both our own woundedness and the woundedness around us so that we can bring these before Him in prayer and healing. “To receive His mercy, we must admit our fault.” For grace to abound it must “uncover sin” and “probe the wound before treating it” (CCC 1848). We must keep our hearts open and avoid any support of a mentality that destroys, wounds, or offends charity and love and turns us away from God (CCC 1855).
According to the Catechism of the Catholic Church, “It is precisely in the Passion, when the mercy of Christ is about to vanquish it, that sin most clearly manifests its violence and its many forms: unbelief, murderous hatred, shunning and mocking…at the very hour of darkness, the hour of the prince of this world, the sacrifice, Christ secretly becomes the source from which forgiveness of our sins will pour forth inexhaustibly” (CCC 1851). All year the faithful have been walking through Doors of Mercy throughout the world. Today, Jesus is knocking at the other side of that door, waiting for us to respond to Him so that He can reveal His Mercy.
We are living in a new era. Our daily lives and choices is a walk with Jesus among the crowds in His Passion. Will we stay and walk with Him, or will we run away and cower? Remaining faithful in love and prayer against “murderous hatred” toward the poor and marginalized, Christ incarnate in this world, in this “hour of darkness” can open inexhaustible graces. This is especially true as the Extraordinary Jubilee Year of Divine Mercy draws to a close. God’s graces are waiting to be poured out on mankind a thousand times more generously than when Mary Magdalene poured perfumed spikenard over the foot of Christ.
But to close our eyes to the reality of Christ incarnate, to encourage any form of division in Christ’s One Body, One Church “makes men accomplices of one another and causes …violence and injustice to reign among them…They lead their victims to do evil in their turn. In an analogous sense, they constitute a ‘social sin’” (CCC 1869). Immigrants and refugees do not leave the land of their ancestors on a whim. Children living in violent neighborhoods and difficult family situations do not aspire to be homeless, drug addicts, gang members, or prostitutes.
When we come before Christ, will He address us as He did the Church of Ephesus in Revelations? –“I know your works, your labor, and your endurance, and that you cannot tolerate the wicked…Yet you have lost the love you had at first” (Revelations 2:2-4). Or will we share in the Mystical love in Song of Solomon when the Lover pours fragrant oils and spices upon His beloved and proclaims, “There is no blemish in you…Your head rises upon you like Carmel… How beautiful you are, how fair, my love, daughter of delights!” (Song of Solomon 7:6-7)
As Secular Carmelites and Christians, let us be like Our Lady, who never turned her eye away from Jesus in His Passion. Let us be mindful and prayerful of our apostolic call to love, unity, and holiness.
May the Lord bless us, protect us from all evil and bring us to everlasting life. All our Carmelite Saints, pray for us.
Copyright 2016. Teresa Linda @thespeakroom.org. All rights reserved.
NOTE: I am reposting this talk with much better audio, so you can learn more about Jacinta’s beautiful soul. Big thanks to Jackie Johnson OCDS of St Therese, Alhambra for providing this recording for us!
AUDIO: To listen, click on the triangle on the left.
SOURCE: Homily by Father Robert Barcelos, OCD. Fatima Pilgrimage, June 2017. All Rights Reserved
(Fatima Pilgrimage organized by sweet and spirit-filled Caroline of Syversen Touring.)
Reading 1 – 2 Cor 3:4-11 Brothers and sisters: Such confidence we have through Christ toward God. Not that of ourselves we are qualified to take credit for anything as coming from us; rather, our qualification comes from God, who has indeed qualified us as ministers of a new covenant, not of letter but of spirit; for the letter brings death, but the Spirit gives life.
Now if the ministry of death, carved in letters on stone, was so glorious that the children of Israel could not look intently at the face of Moses because of its glory that was going to fade, how much more will the ministry of the Spirit be glorious? For if the ministry of condemnation was glorious, the ministry of righteousness will abound much more in glory. Indeed, what was endowed with glory has come to have no glory in this respect because of the glory that surpasses it. For if what was going to fade was glorious, how much more will what endures be glorious.
Photo credit: thespeakroom.org. Blessed Alexandrina, Balasar Portugal 2017
Here is a short video with Father Robert standing in front of Blessed Alexandrina’s house. He explains how she hurt her spine, the paralyzing injury that she offered as a sacrifice in reparation for souls in need of God’s mercy. Thank you, Jackie Johnson, OCDS (Alhambra Community) for this video clip.
Click on the links below for more information on Blessed Alexandrina:
Carmelite House of Prayer, Oakville – 39th Annual Benefit Dinner & Auction
WHEN: Sunday September 10, 2017, 2-6 pm
WHAT: $50 Individual Ticket – Buffet Style Dinner (BBQ Tri-tip & Chicken, Side Dishes & Wine Cakes, Napa Valley Wines)
RSVP: by September 1 to Carmelite Benefit, PO Box 347 Oakville CA 94562
This summer, during my recent trip to the Philadelphia, I was fortunate enough to attend a Solemn Extraordinary Mass welcoming Carmelite nuns into the Philadelphia Monastery (click on the link above for the write-up).
Very few people know that the Philadelphia Carmel was largely responsible for spreading the devotion to Saint Therese throughout the world. For more online scholarship on the Philadelphia Carmel and St Therese, visit Maureen’ O’Riordan’s blog.
Intercessory Prayer Hour Conference Call:
Please join Respect Life for this prayer hour for all matters pro-life.
WHEN: Wednesday, August 9th at 9 AM (Pacific time)
CALL: (515) 739-1515
ACCESS CODE: 908105#
The hour consists of prayer, devotion, petitions, and a rosary. Simply dial in at the date and time. Feel free to invite family and friends. If you have petitions that you want included during the hour, submit the petitions to achrisoulis@DSJ.org by Tuesday, August 8th.
Christ’s Appearance to Mary Magdalene, Alexander Ivanov (1835)
Mary Magdalene, with her eyes of love and faith, was the first to be called by Christ to share the good news of His resurrection. Mary Magdalene, with her utmost confidence in Jesus, was the first to testify and bear witness to His glorified body, despite opposition and ridicule from the apostles. She was the first evangelizer. When the men who were closest to Jesus had given up hope, she called them back to Him, and they responded. St. Mary Magdalene, pray for us.
We, like Mary Magdalene, are called to share and live in the joy of Christ’s resurrected body, though some are called to a consecrated life. Do you know anyone who might have this particular call? …
The Call: Discalced Carmelite Friars – Western Province
http://discalcedcarmelitefriars.com. “As Teresian Carmelites we strive to live a zealous life of allegiance to Jesus for the salvation of souls, in the contemplative and missionary spirit of St. Teresa of Jesus and St. John of the Cross.”
“These are Movie Clips compiled to reach out to the modern viewers about the Carmelite Vocation, Carmelite Saints, and Carmelite Spirituality. Featuring Carmelite entrance, investiture, solemn vows. I wanted to depict Contemplative life as a powerhouse of prayer and sacrifice, love of God and the world, and interior joy. The Video Clips are taken from the movies of the following carmelite saints: St. Teresa De los Andes, St. Teresa of Avila, St. Therese of Lisieux, and Edith Stein.
There are several movies that the clips are showing. You can buy these movies at any Catholic Bookstore or Amazon online: (1) Thérèse with actress Catherine Mouchet (2) Edith Stein: The Seventh Chamber (3) St. Teresa of the Andes Miniseries (4) The Passion of the Christ (5) Therese with actress Lindsay Younce. Also recommended Carmelite movies: Saint Teresa of Avila with actress Concha Velasco” (MaryVeronica JMJ).
OUR MISSION is to build a Carmelite foundation for souls to bring unity, peace, beauty, and the divine mercy of the Word to the world for the healing of humanity.
