In following the footsteps of St. Thérèse, we ask her help in rediscovering the value and the gift of our vocation to love. This is the Year of Mercy and St.Thérèse is a very special soul, a very exceptional saint to help us rediscover the merciful face of our Father. The goal of this Year of Mercy is rediscovering the Merciful Face of our Heavenly Father. Thérèse knew this so well. In a sense, she had an advantage because her biological father was a wonderful reflection of God the Father in her life.   That made it easy for her to grasp how good our Heavenly Father is.

Thérèse also had a wonderful mother, and both her parents were recently canonized. But between the age of 4 and 5, Thérèse experienced the wound of losing her mother to cancer. However, the mother that she did know gave Thérèse a foretaste and was a reflection of our spiritual mother, Our Mother in Heaven.  Consequently, Thérèse’s sister, Pauline, became like a mother to her until she went into the convent, opening again in Thérèse that abandonment wound of having lost her mother. The result of this emotional wound was a terrible physical sickness in the life of Thérèse. This setback was actually a setup for God to bring about a tremendous blessing in Thérèse’s life.

But before Thérèse could experience this tremendous blessing, this grace of Jesus’s resurrection shining through the face of Mary, His mother, she experienced a terrible crisis. The crisis and the experience of this cross in her life prepared the way for the experience and breakthrough of Jesus’ blessing by the power of His victory of love.   This victory of God’s love, of Jesus’ love, was communicated to Thérèse through the face of Mary Mother of Mercy, Our Lady of Victory. She was about ten years old when this happened and her life changed very drastically after the loss of her mother. She talks about that in The Story of Her Soul, her autobiography.

St Thérèse and St Teresa were both asked to write their autobiographies under obedience and both wanted their autobiographies to be Magnificats; that is, testimonies of their soul magnifying the Lord’s Mercy, recognizing that everything they had experienced was all part of God’s plan of Mercy. Everything – the good, the bad, the ugly. Every aspect of their lives, God was using to orchestrate for their sanctity, and to bring them closer to His holy love for them. That is in fact, what the Lord did for them.

By faith and through the consolation of the Holy Spirit, Thérèse was able to see God’s hand in every part and stage of her life. With the consolation of the Holy Spirit, she was able to see in faith how God’s providence had planned out everything so perfectly. While she was going through the pain of her emotional wounds, she may not have seen God’s hand that clearly, but after she had passed from it, she was put on a certain plateau of peace to be able to see the presence of God in every aspect of her life. It is with this kind of faith that Thérèse is writing her autobiography, the story of her soul, her personal history. She writes her autobiography as if her whole life was completely stamped with God’s Mercy.

The wisdom from Ecclesiastics poetically explains that ‘there is a time to gather stones and a time to scatter, a time to embrace and a time to be far from embraces. There is a time for love and a time to hate; there is a time for peace and a time for war.’   And the book says, God has put the timeless in the person’s heart. It is as if the author of Ecclesiastics is seeing the providence of God; there is a reason and a season for everything.   Everything takes place according to God’s perfect timing, not our calendar. In the situations and circumstances of life, while we’re going through it, oftentimes how the pieces of the puzzle fall into place doesn’t make sense. But after we’ve passed through it and we have persevered, God can put us in a position where we can see His presence providing a provision for every problem.

In Romans 8:28 God makes a promise that He ‘makes all things work for the good of those who love him.’   God makes all things work for good – not some of the things some of the times. But in God’s plan, with His power, He makes all of the things, all of the time, eventually work for the good of those who love Him. In other words, there’s no crystal ball, there’s no magic wand, there’s no cookie-cutter answer or quick fix for every problem. But when we are trying our hardest and best to be faithful even though we do not get the telegram from heaven telling us clearly what we are to do – by faith day in and day out, carrying our cross, being loyal to the Lord – somehow, someway God will bring good out of everything. He only allows the difficulties, and sometimes even evils to enter into our lives in so far as He can see something greater coming out.

It takes great faith to be able to claim the victory of God’s love in advance and to know that God has a plan for our problems. Problems pass away and are temporal – they’re temporary. Here today and gone tomorrow.   It takes great faith to not allow myself to be swallowed up, to be consumed, to be utterly decimated or defeated by problems.

‘My struggles will not have the last word over my life. The Lord who spoke the first Word will have the last Word. This problem is not going to prevail. It will not prosper. God’s plans will prosper, and His plan is to bring good out of it.’ It takes faith to claim that and to truly believe it.  It takes great faith to receive it into our hearts and to be able to declare that God is with me, in the moment, which is the hardest part.

‘I might not feel it and He might seem to be far off, but God is with me. He promised and His Word is gold. He is more real than this situation.   God is with me and his light will prevail over this darkness.   I do not know how, I do not need to know how, but He will win in the end.   It is a winnable war and the victory belongs to the Lord and because it belongs to the Lord, it belongs to me because I am His and He is mine.’ The victory is ours in advance.   We need to claim that and to reinforce it.

St Thérèse teaches us how to do this because like Mary this is Thérèse’s greatness: her faith. As St. John says, “It is faith that gives us the victory over the world,” over the false promises of what is passing away. Anything that the world offers that would separate us from God’s love and his purpose for our lives will pass away. It is faith that gives us victory to be able to see beyond what’s on the surface, beyond the appearances, beyond the situation and the circumstance. God provides a greater provision and He is greater than every problem.

St Thérèse suffered from the problem of her illness as a ten-year-old. What provoked the illness? She lost her mother and that’s a significant trauma for a child. Her sister Pauline filled the gap, but when Pauline leaves for the convent, it opens up that ancient core wound in Thérèse’s life. What happened? She becomes physically ill because of an emotional wound. Then the enemy started making it worse and entered into the wound. He exploited the weakness and aggravated the symptoms and suffering. Thérèse acknowledged that.

An inner mixture of different causes and factors come together.  In Thérèse’s own testimony, she says, “The sickness that overtook me certainly came from the demon.   Infuriated by your entrance, Pauline, into Carmel, he wanted to take revenge on me for the wrong our family was to do in the future.” She has good insight and a spirit of discernment in knowing there is a spiritual war trying to interfere with her well-being. She continues, “The sweet Queen of Heaven was preparing to stop the storm the moment her flower was to break without any hope of recovery.”

God rescued Thérèse through Mary at the very moment she felt she could not go on any longer. The Lord allowed this trial to peak, to reach an apex where she felt like, ‘This is it, there is no turning back from here, there’s no recovery, game over.’ The breakthrough came only at the point, the last point where it felt like there was no more hope.

Have you ever felt that in your life – when you were pushed to your limit and felt you could go no more? Then things started to change and to shift? But the breakthrough didn’t come until you were broken?  I’ve been there.

St. Thérèse continues with the details of her symptoms. “I began to have a constant headache. I was seized with a strange trembling. Nothing was able to stop my shaking, it lasted almost all night long.   The doctor thought that I had a very serious illness and one which had never before attacked a child as young as I. Everybody was puzzled. Nobody knew what it was.”

In the midst of this she went to visit Pauline in the convent.  The symptoms seemed to go away, the storm ceased, she felt consolation, and she thought she had been cured. She thought it was all over. It was a moment of respite but the worse was still to come.

She goes home, tells her family that she is fine and to leave her alone. But “The next day I had another attack similar to the first and the sickness became so grave and according to all human calculations I wasn’t to recover from it. I can’t describe this strange sickness but I am now convinced it was the work of the devil.   I appeared to be almost delirious, saying things that had no meaning. I often appeared to be in a faint, not making the slightest movement. And then I would have permitted anyone to do anything he wished, even to kill me, and yet I heard everything that was said around me and can still remember everything. Once it happened that for a long time I was without the power to open my eyes… I believe the devil had received an external power over me but was not allowed to approach my soul nor my mind except to inspire me with great fears of certain things. I was absolutely terrified by everything. The little flower alone was languishing and seemed forever withered. People thought, as my father thought, that I had lost my mind and that I was going to die.”

This is serious human suffering. It doesn’t sound very pious, but it’s her real human experience. Yet God brought good out of this seemingly unredeemable illness. We might think, ‘This is too messy for God to use for the sake of our sanctity,’ but He does.

 “Then came the miraculous statue of the Blessed Virgin which had already spoken to mama twice.”  In other words, the family had already received graces from God through this statue. At that time, her father had made a Novena of Masses in honor of Our Lady of Victory, which was the image in their house, so that Our Lady could cure Thérèse. A miracle was necessary and Our Lady of Victory worked it on one Sunday, Pentecost Sunday

Thérèse writes,  “I was suffering very much from this force and inexplicable struggle. Finding no help on earth, poor little Thérèse  also turned toward the Mother of Heaven and prayed with all her heart that she take pity on her. All of a sudden, the Blessed Virgin appeared beautiful to me, so beautiful that never had I seen anything so attractive. Her face was suffused with an ineffable benevolence and tenderness. But what penetrated to the very depths of my soul was the ravishing smile of the Blessed Virgin.”

And instantly,at seeing the smile of the Virgin Mary imparted upon her soul, at that very moment, she was cured.  Everyone cried out ‘Thérèse is cured’ and she writes that the “The luminous ray that had warmed her again was not to stop its favors. The healing did not act all at once but sweetly and gently it raised the little flower and strengthened her gradually to such a point that in five years she herself would enter that Carmel.”

We see that the healing power of God is ever present where there is faith and that God is in fact is able to bring the victory of His love no matter how messy the situation may seem to be, provided that we continue to cling to his great Mercy. As Dante says through St Bernard in the Divine Comedy: “Mary is the perfect reflection of the face of Christ.”

God who is Mercy is most magnified in Mary and her beauty. And in this Year of Mercy all of us are called to experience the healing of God’s merciful heart that we may rediscover the face of our Father who is merciful and that we ourselves may learn new lessons of mercy and how to share that gift with others as the Lord puts it in our lives.

Let us ask the Lord to help us to be merciful as He is merciful. That we may grow regularly in the grace that sets us free.

May the Lord bless us, protect us from all evil, and bring us to everlasting life. St. Thérèse and all our Carmelite saints, pray for us.

(SOURCE: San Rafael Novena, September 2016)  Thérèse 2- transcribed by Linda Dorian

Copyright 2016, Fr. Robert Barcelos. All Rights Reserved

‘Arm yourselves with the armor of faith and the sword of truth.  Pray for the grace to forgive and to ask for forgiveness – and for the healing of wounded bodies and souls.’

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Editor’s Note: Today, the Solemnity of All Saints, Pope Francis is in Sweden, marking the 500th Anniversary of the Protestant Reformation and to work toward unity in the Church. In a National Catholic Register article, the pope marks out a path for Christians toward holiness and to spread God’s Mercy, the  Six New Beatitudes for the Modern Era. Also, the Sisters of Mercy have put together an Election Day Novena prayer for unity and healing in our divided nation and to Make Mercy Real.

The artist Fray Juan de la Miseria captures one of the main expressions of Our Holy Mother, Saint Teresa’s spirituality, on the scroll of her most famous portrait: Forever I will sing the mercies of the Lord from Psalm 89. That is ultimately what she called the story of her life, her autobiography, which she originally titled, Sing the Mercies of the Lord.

There can be no mysticism without Divine Mercy on two levels.

One: What is mysticism? Mysticism is not the alternative spirituality of secularism because secularism is very superstitious; it is pre-pagan and pre-Christian. It’s made up of all kinds of pseudo-forms of mysticism or counterfeit spirituality by people who are so taken by the ghost chasers, the supernatural, the different shows about the supernatural, the witch-hunt trials, movies about occult themes or horror movies that glamorize evil; such films make it exciting and adventurous. For example, films like The Matrix has lot of depth, but ultimately, the movie comes from New Age perspectives and ideas, yet it has often been interpreted with Christian overtones. A lot of people want mysticism, but true mysticism is based on nothing less than God’s Divine Mercy.

Two: What is mysticism for us as Christians? It is not some kind of esoteric psychic adventure or escape from reality or self-realization; it’s not any of those things. For Christians, mysticism is an immersion in the Merciful Love of God, in the Merciful Love of the Lord.

The foundational piece of mysticism for Christians is to recognize that we are sinners. The majority of secular society does not believe that. The great venerable Archbishop Fulton Sheen would say, “Many in our culture today think that we are immaculately conceived, that there is no such thing as sin.” As one of the Popes of the past century mentioned, “the greatest sin of all is the denial of the existence of sin because then we can open the doors to practically anything and excuse it, justify it and tolerate it, in the name of being part of the intellectual elite, the progressive, and the open minded. We don’t know what doors we are opening.”

Spiritual maturity starts with conversion and having the humility to recognize our sins; we all know that we can be baptized and go to Holy Communion regularly, and not be changed. We can be as rude as ever, as grumpy, grouchy, and gossipy as ever because the Sacraments are not magic. Secularism can be fascinated by magic, but God doesn’t operate on those terms -the devil does, but God doesn’t. The sacraments are always respectful of a person’s free will and of the reciprocity of that person’s response; there is never an imposing of power or an imparting of knowledge, unless there is a surrender of faith. This is the big difference between Eve and Mary.

Eve sought after knowledge and power for her sake. Mary says, “I believe…be it done unto me according to Your Word.” Mary didn’t need to understand. She said, ‘I don’t know how this is going to happen, I don’t need to know, and I don’t even need to be the one to do it,’ but “I am the handmaid of the Lord, be it done undo me according to Your Word.” She was not seeking knowledge and power for her own sake but to be the instrument of God’s knowledge and power in the world.

The difference between humility and pride boils down to the spiritual battle and conversion.  Conversion is necessary for Christ to work in us. For the Sacraments to have the effect in us, for us to be able to grow up, we need conversion. Conversion opens up new capacities within us that were previously untapped. Conversion taps into something supernatural inside each of us, giving us an ability and an openness for experiencing a richer quality of life on another level.

The Psalms say, “Taste and see how good is the Lord.” In Adoration we say, “You have given them bread from Heaven containing all sweetness within it, all that is delicious.” The Eucharist contains all that is delicious about Divine Love in Christ, and we’re part of that love relationship. The meaning of who we are, the dignity of the human person is all wrapped up in discovering and tasting the beauty and purpose of our very existence from the inside out.

Conversion brings us to a new awareness of what it means to be made in God’s image, in a way that can take on life altering meaning. Coming to know the relevance of God’s truth for our lives brings about conversion. This knowledge brings about a metanoia…a metamorphosis…a transformation.

This metanoia, this being transformed, as St. Paul says, ‘by the renewal of our mind,’ is so deep and profound. Our goal in life is to be transformed by the renewal of our mind so that we may know what is God’s will. God’s will is what is good, pleasing, and perfect. God’s will is what is true, good, and beautiful, and not that which is conformed to this culture and age.

Metanoia is a deep and all embracing change of mind and heart at the root of our understanding, at the root of our desiring; how we relate to what is most important and what is essential about life; how we relate to the ultimate things of what is the good to be sought after, and the evil to be avoided.

Scripture talks about this revolution as a new birth. Jesus says, “Unless you are born again of the spirit, you shall not enter into the kingdom of heaven.” When we are born again of the spirit, the true self, which is a gift of the spirit, begins to emerge. This gift of the Spirit enables us to attain mature spiritual adulthood “to the extent of the full stature of Christ,” as Saint Paul writes. By the gift of the Spirit, we are given a new birth that enables us to develop to the point of attaining full spiritual adulthood; we are no longer infants.

In Ephesians, Saint Paul explains that to be a spiritual infant “…is to be tossed by waves and swept away by winds of every teaching arising from human trickery, and from their cunning and deceitful scheming. Living the truth in love, we should grow in every way into Him, to the full stature of Christ.” What we see in Jesus as Risen Lord, what we see before that in his Transfiguration is speaking something about us…about our ultimate purpose and destiny. We’re going to have resurrected bodies if we persevere in faith, through the grace of God.   Everything we see about Christ, the supernatural destiny is going to be given to us…we’re going to share in it.

St. Paul says that we, as the imago Dei, the image of God, the human person is the imago Dei, and we are predestined to be filled with all the utter fullness of God. That is straight from St. Paul in Colossians; we are predestined to be filled with all the utter fullness of God. That’s just not pious hyperbole, it’s not just emotionalism or exaggeration, this is a reality…that the saints in a special way embody for us. They show what’s possible for all of us, and even if we don’t finish the course in this life,  God will fill us with the utter fullness of Himself in the next life if we persevere in faith and in grace.

A lot of times, we don’t notice the growth.  Sometimes we wonder if we have even grown! We might say, “I’m confessing the same stuff! Have I even grown in anyway?” It feels like we’re going in circles like the Israelites in the desert; they kept on going in circles, and only the younger generation found the Promised Land. Sometimes we can feel that way. We wonder…is there growth? Growth is an imperceptible process often times, but with conversion and the Merciful Love of God, it will happen.

Saint Teresa, pray for us.

(SOURCE: Cristo Rey Retreat, SF, October 2015) Teresa 4- transcribed by Sandra Larragoiti

Copyright 2016, Fr. Robert Barcelos. All Rights Reserved

‘Arm yourselves with the armor of faith and the sword of truth.  Pray for the grace to forgive and to ask for forgiveness – and for the healing of wounded bodies and souls.’

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Where do we get our image of God the Father from?  Our natural father.  Our natural father could have been very militant, a disciplinarian, heavy-handed, short-tempered, or had strong faults.  He could have been verbally abusive without really meaning to do us harm because that was the way he grew up.

But there’s a total correlation between our ability to understand and believe in God as our Father, with our relationship with our own fathers. If our natural father didn’t have a sense of compassion and give affirmation, if he wasn’t attentive to our needs, or wasn’t present to important events – all of this can have a huge capacity and impact on our beliefs about God as our Father.

A significant part of what it means to seek holiness, is to hunger for God so that we can allow His holiness to make us whole. God must undo any damage that was done in our pasts  by giving us a new experience of love, so that we learn what it means to be loved by God the Father.

We have to seek that holiness as the saints, understanding  them as human beings, and not simply as superstars. They were people with real life challenges, just like you and me. Human nature is the same everywhere; it changes very little. Society, culture, technology, the works of our hands – all of that will change. However, we are made of the same substance and human nature of the saints. They are not angels in another form who had special privileges that we don’t have access to. We have access to the same grace of God. We are made up of the same thoughts, the same feelings, and the same types of relationships and potentials as the saints.

Some older hagiographies put the saints on pedestals and make it look like they were able to sail through life with special graces, without really knowing about human suffering and the complexities of what it means to live by faith and not by sight. Yet when we look closely at the lives of the saints through good biographies, we see real life problems and conversions. We must tap into that reality in order for us to know the saints us brothers and sisters in Christ, as companions.

The saints stir us to wonder and bring us back to the one thing that is necessary, and that is, the absolute primacy of God’s love. We are made for this divine love, and this divine love is larger than life. This love enlarges our heart, our mind, our soul, and our strength. God’s love leads us into an endless enlargement of our capacity for His greatness. His love enlarges our lives. St. Paul says that this enlargement, this going from one degree of glory to another, this growth process of becoming more and more united to God, makes us more united to His greatness. We are all made for that greatness and enlargement. We are all meant to live life large, in the love of God.

Saint John Paul the II says, ‘Not all are called to be artists in the specific sense of the term, but as we see in Genesis, all men and women are tasked with crafting their own lives. They are to make of it a work of art, a masterpiece.’   God wants to sanctify you through the Holy Spirit. He wants to make of your life a masterpiece.

Becoming a masterpiece doesn’t mean perfectionism. In other words, to seek the way of perfection does not mean that we must become perfectionists. Perfectionism is a psychological condition that has to do with insecurity because we’re not comfortable with ourselves and are unable to accept ourselves until everything is perfectly ordered. ‘Until everything is right where it has to be, I can’t be at rest. Only when everything is perfect, then I’ll be content and I’ll be able to breathe and accept myself.’ That is dysfunctional and self-defeating.

The way of perfection, as we see in the lives of the apostles and the saints, will inevitably involve falling, and getting back up again. Falling, and getting back up again. This way of perfection involves seeing how God brings good out of everything, and light out of darkness. The end result of the constant struggle and healing, will be a masterpiece. All that is required is the faith and perseverance to let God be God. He is the one who brings about the masterpiece. We just have to be faithful.

Finally, to summarize, spirituality is simply an art of the heart, the art of becoming fully human. Jesus said, “I came that you might have life and have it more abundantly.” St. Teresa of Jesus is one of many, but a very important icon of the beauty that we are called to be transformed by. She is a shining example, inviting us to divine intimacy with God through the sacred humanity of Jesus.

The great St. Paul in his magnificent letter to the Ephesians says, “How rich God is in mercy. With what an excess of love He loved us.” We are His design, His work of art. God has created us in Christ Jesus, pledged to such good actions as He has prepared beforehand. May these good actions and becoming His work of art be the employment of our lives. May we become all that we were each made to be — to truly be love’s canvas. END

May the Lord bless us, protect us from all evil and bring us to everlasting life.

(SOURCE: Denver Retreat, October 2015)

Copyright 2016, Fr. Robert Barcelos. All Rights Reserved

‘Arm yourselves with the armor of faith and the sword of truth.  Pray for the grace to forgive and to ask for forgiveness – and for the healing of wounded bodies and souls.’

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Cardinal Ratzinger writes, ‘It’s when we have known Him, from the inside out, not only because we have heard others speak about Him, then we will have known the beauty of truth, of the truth that redeems.’ Nothing can bring us into close contact with the beauty of Christ Himself, other than the world of beauty, by faith and light that shines out from the faces of the saints, through whom His own light becomes visible.

Jesus is not only the perfect icon, the window, of God; Jesus is God’s self-portrait. Not only does He fully reveal to us who He is, but He is also a mirror reflecting for us, who we are capable of becoming as beloved in Him. When we’re called to see Him, to contemplate Him, to look into the eyes of God, to behold Him, to behold His beauty, that face is a mirror of who we are called to be–not in the physical, visible way, but in the beauty of who He is as our beloved. In His Sacred Humanity, God wants to bring in each of us the fullness of life in Him, according to who we are, our background, and where we’re at in our life’s journey.

As the wisdom of St. Thérèse expresses, there’s no amount of sin, pain, failure, shame, weakness or littleness in someone’s past, that can disqualify a person from the work of His love. The wisdom of St. Thérèse says that the more weak I am, the more I see myself as imperfect, the more little I am, the more I am suited to the works, the designs of God’s merciful love.

St. Paul writes, ‘When I am weak, I am strong. When I am weak, Christ’s grace comes to be in abundant measure. Therefore, if I am most strong when I am weak, when Christ is closest to me, then I will boast in my weaknesses. I will see my weaknesses as a treasure and blessing, and not as a curse.’ This became a platform for St. Thérèse’s confidence. She says, ‘Lord, You came for sinners, and you’ve allowed me to become aware of my littleness and weakness. I lift myself up into your arms, knowing that everything that You have expressed about who You are and Your mission through the public ministry of Jesus, shows that You came for the weak, the broken, and those who recognize their need for You. I recognize my need for You. Therefore, I have rights to Your heart. Here I am to take You by the heart.’

The saints are God’s work of art in our world… even more than the beauty of all nature, and nature is magnificently beautiful. It is marvelous, how God has designed creation, from the simplest insect, to the workings of our body, to the stars in the cosmos, to the multiplicity of galaxies; creation is amazing. The earth, among all the planets in our solar system, is spectacular! And yet, as St. Teresa says, none of that can be compared to a single immortal soul, made in His image. St. John of the Cross explains that God cares more for that one soul than all the works of His natural creation. He would be willing to give up all of the natural beauty of creation that He has made to save a single soul. That is how important each human being is to Him.

Yet, the paradoxical beauty is that God, in His love, respects our freedom. Love cannot impose itself on anybody. Love cannot be possessive and controlling. Love is respectful of the other person. God is not a tyrant or dictator; He doesn’t want to dominate our lives. He invites us into a relationship of mutual trust. He is not an abusive father; he is tenderly compassionate, understanding, and patient (to be continued).

May the Lord bless us, protect us from all evil and bring us to everlasting life.

(SOURCE: Denver Retreat, October 2015)

Copyright 2016, Fr. Robert Barcelos. All Rights Reserved

‘Arm yourselves with the armor of faith and the sword of truth. Pray for the grace to forgive and to ask for forgiveness – and for the healing of wounded bodies and souls.’

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If you liked this post, share it by clicking on one of the social media icons. And if you were inspired or have a prayer request, share that too under the ‘comment’ section!

Sometimes, it takes a leap of faith to be able to believe that our life is important to God, that we are sacred in His eyes, that we are part of the redeeming beauty of Christ, and that God looks upon each of us as his Beloved. Where there is love in you, Jesus sees that love as beautiful to Him. ‘Who we are in Christ’s eyes, is who we are alone,’ as St. Francis says. I don’t have to be preoccupied about what people think about me because if I know that I am right with Him, then that is all that matters. I can divest myself from useless concerns that waste precious time and energy.

Cardinal Ratzinger says, ‘We must learn to see Him.’ To go further, we must learn to see Him in ourselves. That is not meant to be self-centered navel gazing, but in our spiritual life, we must have a deepening knowledge of ourselves. St. Teresa says that knowledge of self is the foundation for the spiritual life. If we never go through this journey of inner healing, there will be a serious insufficiency and handicap as we continue in our life of piety and prayer. And we won’t know what is holding us back, much of it in the emotional, psychological, and relational level. The focus can’t be just spiritual, for our spiritual lives are inter-combined with everything else about who we are.

We must learn to see Him, including learn to see Him in ourselves. Whatever is in us, whatever message, whatever we’ve assumed, and have been conditioned to think, about our past, our present, our future; whatever we’ve adopted, whatever stinking thinking about who we are that we have adopted as truth about our possibilities and potentials – that isn’t coherent, consistent, and in harmony with His gospel, His vision, and with what He says about our lives and who we are – must be thrown out. The lies must be renounced and cast out of our lives because they will hold you back from being free.

Truth sets us free, but lies and ignorance enslave us to a lesser self, a false God. We must have no false Gods before us. We must learn to see Him. Ratzinger continues, ‘If we know Him, not only in words, but if we are struck by the arrow of His paradoxical beauty, then we will truly know Him and know Him not only because we have heard others speak about Him.’

What does he mean by paradoxical beauty? Very simply, the cross.

Only the eyes of faith, someone who knows Jesus inside and out, can see beauty in the cross. Those for whom Jesus has not come to birth in their hearts will ask, ‘How can you find beauty in the cross?’ It seems like a total contradiction to have a symbol of torture that is also a symbol of religion. It makes absolutely no sense to the natural human mind – unless, of course, it has been blessed and enlightened by faith. Paradoxical beauty. What may seem as total failure to someone else, can be seen as the fullness of love and self-giving to another person with faith. That’s beauty.

To lay down your life for your friends is beautiful. But especially so, when God does it for humanity, for sinners. Oftentimes, what brings out what’s most beautiful in us, happens after we’ve passed through some experience of the cross. From the most ugly, most painful experiences, from the ashes, can arise a fire of a new beauty in our lives. This is the redemption of Christ Jesus alive in the world, at work in each of us, bringing about and renewing in all who have faith, the death and resurrection of Christ, the Paschal mystery. That is paradoxical beauty (to be continued).

May the Lord bless us, protect us from all evil and bring us to everlasting life.

(SOURCE: Denver Retreat, October 2015)

Copyright 2016, Fr. Robert Barcelos. All Rights Reserved

‘Arm yourselves with the armor of faith and the sword of truth.  Pray for the grace to forgive and to ask for forgiveness – and for the healing of wounded bodies and souls.’

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The whole mission of Jesus’s life, His incarnation, and the work of the Church is to enable us to attain to the likeness of God, to become who we are, as being made in the image of God. That process of becoming the best version of ourselves, means that we must become the canvas of God. Let the divine artist paint the beauty of His image in you. That beauty of His image in you is irrepeatable and irreplaceable; there will never be another copy of it again. There are no clones in the economy of God’s salvation. There is only one unique you.

As Matthew Kelly says, ‘Be perfectly yourself.’ That is not meant to be self-centered psychology, or a recipe for self-realization. It is thoroughly Christian, in the sense of knowing who we are as beloved children of God. Because how can we love one another as we love ourselves, if we don’t love ourselves in a healthy way?

One of Dostoevsky’s famous expressions is, ‘Beauty will save the world,’ which is quoted by many people who are not necessarily religious. In his contemplation of beauty, Cardinal Ratzinger explains that people usually forget that Dostoevsky was referring to the redeeming beauty of Christ.

How can we love others if we can’t love ourselves? One of the biggest realizations in my growth as a Christian and as a human being, in my healing and becoming more united to Christ was my realization that I didn’t love myself. Even though I believed in God’s love, there came a point of truth when God helped me to know myself, and to learn that I really didn’t love myself. It took a long time to realize this truth, but it was always subconsciously at work in me. I didn’t really accept myself as I was, and there were very human, natural reasons for that.

My parents divorced before I was two years old. My mother had a very traumatic experience, and it was really challenging for her.  She bore this difficulty while she carried me in her womb, and by the time I was two years old, they separated. (And I don’t blame her for that). Any child of divorce will admit that they subconsciously blame themselves. Likewise, I thought that the divorce was my fault. I wasn’t even two years old, but the belief was ingrained in me. Without my consciously thinking about it, my self-identity was shaped by my belief that I was the one who caused the separation. I was the one to blame. Thoughts like, ‘Had I been good enough, this wouldn’t have happened. Had I been better, my parents would’ve stayed together’ were subconsciously buried in me, but would only come out in certain occasions.

However, these thoughts were a driving force to my broken self-identity. They didn’t keep me from living a happy life, but there was definitely something I was unaware of, that needed to be healed. As a result of this false interpretation of a painful experience, of assuming the blame for my father’s abandonment, I didn’t fully accept myself for who I was.

Human nature is very complicated. As far as I was concerned, there were no issues or problems brought on by my parents’ divorce. However, it all came to light when I realized that I never accepted who I was, because I always thought of who I should be. I didn’t accept the real me. I accepted the ideal me. As a result, because I couldn’t accept myself with all my imperfections and faults, I had a very hard time accepting others with their imperfections and faults. Because I didn’t love myself in the way God loved me, it was a lot harder for me to love my neighbor as God loves them. This lack of reconciliation with myself led to an inability to love others with a greater power of love. For me, knowing this truth, was a very significant part of answering God’s call to holiness.

If we are going to answer God’s call to holiness, He will not only work in our spiritual lives of piety and prayer. No. We are called to be whole, in spirit, soul, and body, and that means the integration and inner unity of our whole humanity – emotionally, physically, psychologically, relationally, and sexually. Our whole identity is to be embraced in God’s redemptive love. Everything about who we is to be redeemed, filled, and encountered by the light of Christ (to be continued).

May the Lord bless us, protect us from all evil and bring us to everlasting life.

(SOURCE: Denver Retreat, October 2015)

Copyright 2016, Fr. Robert Barcelos. All Rights Reserved

‘Arm yourselves with the armor of faith and the sword of truth.  Pray for the grace to forgive and to ask for forgiveness – and for the healing of wounded bodies and souls.’

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If you liked this post, share it by clicking on one of the social media icons. And if you were inspired or have a prayer request, share that too under the ‘comment’ section!

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The only thing Jesus required from Peter’s mission of love – was humility, but Peter learns the hard way. Shortly after receiving his new identity, Peter tells Christ, ‘I will never leave you. I will always be there by your side, no matter what happens.’ Peter placed his trust on himself. He did not acknowledge his weakness. However, Jesus responds, ‘Three times, you will deny me.’ Jesus knew, even before Peter fell, that he would fall, but He chose him anyway because He knew that He would bring goodness out of that fall. What was the good? Humility.

Eventually, after betraying Christ three times, Peter comes to know himself at rock bottom; he learns that he is nothing without Christ, and that the gifts he has, do not come from himself, but from Jesus. Left alone, and without Jesus sustaining him, Peter sees clearly how easily everything had slipped through his fingers. Yet Jesus restores him to himself and gives him the opportunity to heal and make reparation for that part of himself that had been hurt by his denial of Christ. When Peter reaffirms his love for Jesus, He elevates him to a new level of love, in his capacity to be Christ for others, that would not have been possible had he not suffered in this way. Only after learning true humility was Peter ready for the mission of mercy. True compassion is not possible without going through the Passion.

According to Saint Teresa, humility is truth; it is knowing who we are in God’s eyes. That truth sets us free to be who we’re truly meant to be, and with God’s help and the Holy Spirit, to be that to the full. As Matthew Kelly says, we have to become the best version of ourselves. To do so, we must go through a great deal of conversion. To become the best version of ourselves, we must go through conversion.

‘It is this crucified and risen Lord who fully reveals man to himself and makes his supreme calling clear’ writes Saint John Paul II in Evangelii Gaudiuum, (The Joy of the Gospel). This was his favorite quote from the Vatican Council, which he was a part of. It is Jesus who fully reveals man to us and makes clear to us our supreme calling.

(to be continued).

May the Lord bless us, protect us from all evil and bring us to everlasting life.

(SOURCE: Denver Retreat, October 2015)

Copyright 2016, Fr. Robert Barcelos. All Rights Reserved

‘Arm yourselves with the armor of faith and the sword of truth. Pray for the grace to forgive and to ask for forgiveness – and for the healing of wounded bodies and souls.’

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If you liked this post, share it by clicking on one of the social media icons. And if you were inspired or have a prayer request, share that too under the ‘comment’ section!

note from the editor: the image above is the one that inspired Dali (previous post).  The canvas that Saint John of the Cross chose for his depiction of Christ was actually no more than 4X4 inches. This relic is housed in La Encarnación in Avila, Spain. Saint Teresa started her vocation there and eventually became a prioress in the Carmelite order.  Later she moved on to reform the order, founding the Discalced Carmelites. Her first foundation, Saint Joseph’s Monastery, is walking distance from the La Encarnación.

Many of the photos on this blog that are attributed to thespeakroom.com come from Spain and will offer you a rare glimpse of original relics and paintings. The saints would love for you to share these images with others, but if you do so, please do your part in the work of the Holy Spirit, and link back to this blog. Thank you!

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We must become the canvas of God. Ultimately, that comes in understanding that God is the only One who is supremely beautiful, and we encounter that beauty by the revelation of His love; it is love that is beautiful. God is the fullness of love and therefore, He is beauty itself. It is God’s love that makes us truly beautiful. We have to acknowledge and see that; we have to receive and nurture that. Wherever there is love in the soul, God sees beauty. If there is love in your heart, God will look upon you and your beauty as His beloved.

In scripture, Our Lord often says, ‘You are sacred in my eyes and precious, and I love you… I have chosen you…Fear not, I am with you, and you are mine.’ This language of covenant expressed in scripture is nuptial language. It is spousal language. It is the same language used by the mystics, especially St. John of the Cross and St. Teresa of Avila. Ultimately, our faith life is a love affair with the love of loves. El amor de los amores.

Speaking to artists, Saint John Paul the II says, ‘Beauty is the key to the mystery of life and a call to transcendence.’ To seek transcendence means to pursue that which is beyond what we see with our senses. It is an invitation to savor life and dream of the future. When we see beauty, especially the beauty of creation – of mountains, landscapes, of broad, wide horizons, the sunset or sunrise, the ocean – there is something that touches deep down within our spirits that brings about this longing for something great. We long for something greater than the limitations and brokenness of this life.

The beauty of created things cannot satisfy. It stirs up a hidden nostalgia for God, which a lover of beauty like Saint Augustine can express in comparable terms. ‘Late have I loved you, oh Lord. Beauty so old, and so new. Late have I loved you.’

During the Middle Ages, there was an era of study of the faith when Aristotle was being translated into Christian terms, and Christian philosophy was being refined as a catalyst for theology and an understanding of God. St. Thomas Aquinas is the beacon of that era, the Scholastic Period. For the Scholastics, the definition of beauty was ‘the splendor of truth.’ … That takes my breath away. I hope that just hearing that phrase awakens in us a longing to contemplate, a longing to let that resonate inside. Let that longing open up and rest in you.

Fyodor Dostoevsky, a great Russian Orthodox writer of the nineteenth century, said that in the world, there is only one figure of absolute beauty – Christ. That infinitely lovely figure is an infinite marvel (to be continued).

May the Lord bless us, protect us from all evil and bring us to everlasting life.

(SOURCE: Denver Retreat, October 2015)

Copyright 2016, Fr. Robert Barcelos. All Rights Reserved

‘Arm yourselves with the armor of faith and the sword of truth. Pray for the grace to forgive and to ask for forgiveness – and for the healing of wounded bodies and souls.’

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If you liked this post, share it by clicking on one of the social media icons.  And if you were inspired or have a prayer request, share that too under the ‘comment’ section!

Christ of Saint John of the Cross, by Salvador Dali (1951)

John 14: 1-7

“Let not your hearts be troubled; believe in God, believe also in me. ² In my Father’s house are many rooms; if it were not so, would I have told you that I go to prepare a place for you? ³ And when I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and will take you to myself, that where I am you may be also. ⁴ And you know the way where I am going.”⁵ Thomas said to him, “Lord, we do not know where you are going; how can we know the way?” ⁶ Jesus said to him, “I am the way, and the truth, and the life; no one comes to the Father, but by me. ⁷ If you had known me, you would have known my Father also; henceforth you know him and have seen him.”

In our spiritual walk, we must strive to seek the face of Christ, to seek, in the words of Father General Saverio Cannistra, a ‘charismatic refueling.’ Don’t categorize ‘charismatic’ in terms of what you might know of charismatic groups in your local parish, and whether or not you like them. Charisma – the essence of this word means to be filled with the Holy Spirit. The dazzling, dynamic gift of the Holy Spirit, is a creative, life-giving, and transforming gift. A charismatic refueling requires that we seek the face of Christ’s eternal youthfulness as risen Lord.

Remember that Jesus died at the age of 33. His life and mission in his sacred humanity was completed by that young age, and his public ministry lasted for only three years. It doesn’t take long for God to do what He needs to do, as we see in our Lord’s life, and the life of saints like Saint Therése. God can accomplish much in a short amount of time.

In God’s divine providence, pre-planned and destined, the fullness of Christ’s mission, the whole work of His embracing all the cosmos -all of creation, and all of humanity who would believe in Him – was consummated in His sacred humanity and completed in only three years.For three hours, the author of life, the creator of the cosmos, hung on the cross, and was crucified; for just three days He was in the earth of his own creation.

In the outburst of the resurrection, of the new creation, Jesus roamed the world for fifty days in His risen body. This expresses and captures the reality that out of every agony, God’s glory is far surpassing. His love conquers, overwhelmingly, over every suffering and trial, transforming trials into triumphs. He makes the triumphs surpassingly greater than the suffering. When sin increases, grace increases all the more.

This eternal youthfulness of Jesus as risen Lord expresses something primordial and essential about us. Jesus says, ‘unless you become like a little child, you shall not enter the kingdom of heaven.’ Therefore, in order to truly grow and mature spiritually, we have to become small, little, young again. As the Psalms and Isaiah say, God’s love ‘renews our youth like the eagles.’ God renews our experience and sense of freedom, that our hearts may sore like an eagle, with the freedom of knowing what it means to be loved. Many saints and mystics have noted that in heaven, everyone is young, and that the expression of our personhood is at our prime.

In this life, even if we are well into our retirement age, our hearts can experience the eternal newness of Jesus’s life in us. That experience of what it means to be alive and to be loved in Christ can happen at any age. Our external age is accidental in comparison to our soul’s age in relationship to God. A spiritual new birth can happen in someone’s life in their eighties. Conversion, this becoming like a child, renewed, this discovering of our deepest, truest self in Christ, is an ongoing discovery, an ongoing exodus, an ongoing romance and adventure with our Lord (to be continued).

May the Lord bless us, protect us from all evil and bring us to everlasting life. 

(SOURCE: Denver Retreat, October 2015)

Copyright 2016, Fr. Robert Barcelos. All Rights Reserved

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If you liked this post, share it by clicking on one of the social media icons. And if you were inspired or have a prayer request, share that too under the ‘comment’ section!