our Lady of Mount Carmel

Thy Kingdom Come

Eternal Wisdom ! Between you and your Father this was quite sufficient. This is how you made your request of him in the garden of Gethsemane. You showed him what you wished for and what you feared, but left it all in his hands. But you know us, my Lord, and you know that we have not given ourselves up to the will of your Father as completely as you did.

Now the good Jesus bids us say these words, in which we pray that the Kingdom may come in us: Hallowed be thy name, thy Kingdom come. See how great our Master’s wisdom is!

Now, then. The greatest joy in the kingdom of heaven (the greatest among many) seems to me to be that we will no longer be tied up with earthly concerns but will have rest and glory within us – rejoicing that gives joy to everyone, peace that lasts for ever – satisfaction in ourselves, a satisfaction that comes from seeing how everyone is praising the Lord and blessing and hallowing his name.

“Truth suffers, but never dies.”

“Accustom yourself continually to make many acts of love
for they enkindle and melt the soul.”

“Trust God that you are exactly where you are meant to be.”

St Teresa of Avila

Solemnity of Saint Benedict of Nursia

Along with listening to God’s Word there is the commitment to prayer. The Benedictine monastery is above all a place of prayer, in the sense that everything in it is organized to make the monks attentive and responsive to the voice of the Spirit. This is why the complete celebration of the Divine Office, whose center is the Eucharist and which structures the monastic day, is the “opus Dei” in which “dum cantamus iter facimus ut ad nostrum cor veniat et sui nos amoris gratia accendat”.

The Word of Sacred Scripture inspires the Benedictine monk’s dialogue with God; in this he is helped by the austere beauty of the Roman liturgy in which this Word, proclaimed with solemnity or sung in plainchant .. The primacy of the Word is thus affirmed in life .. Once it has been accepted, the Word searches and discerns, imposes clear choices and thus brings the monk, through obedience, into the historia Salutis summed up in the Passover of Christ, who was obedient to the Father (cf. Heb 5:7-10)

It is this prayer, memoria Dei, which makes unity of life possible in practice, despite multiple activities: as Cassian teaches, these are not demeaned but are continually brought back to their centre. By extending liturgical prayer to the whole day through the free and silent personal prayer of the brothers, an atmosphere of recollection is created in the monastery in which the actual times of celebration find their full truth. In this way the monastery becomes a “school of prayer”, that is, a place where the community, by deeply encountering God in the liturgy and at various moments of the day, introduces those who seek the face of the living God to the wonders of Trinitarian life.

Pope St John Paul II

the Holy Eucharist

Spiritual Communion Prayer

I wish O Lord to receive You
with the purity, humility and devotion
with which Your most Holy Mother
received You, in the spirit and fervor
of all the saints. Amen

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Gaze upon him, consider him, contemplate him
as you desire to imitate him.

– St Clare of Assisi

We must visit Jesus in the Blessed Sacrament
a hundred thousand times a day.

– St Francis de Sales

When you look at the crucifix, you understand how much Jesus
loved you then. When you look at the Sacred Host, you understand
how much Jesus loves you now.

– St Teresa of Calcutta

In the Eucharist, “unlike any other sacrament, the mystery (of communion) is so perfect that it brings us to the heights of every good thing: Here is the ultimate goal of every human desire, because here we attain God and God joins himself to us in the most perfect union.” Precisely for this reason it is good to cultivate in our hearts a constant desire for the sacrament of the Eucharist. This was the origin of the practice of “spiritual communion,” which has happily been established in the Church for centuries and recommended by saints who were masters of the spiritual life. St. Teresa of Jesus wrote: “When you do not receive communion and you do not attend Mass, you can make a spiritual communion, which is a most beneficial practice; by it the love of God will be greatly impressed on you”

– Pope John Paul II in his encyclical, Ecclesia de Eucharistia

Saint Maria Goretti

On her feast day in 2003, Pope John Paul II spoke about St. Maria Goretti at his Sunday Angelus, noting that her life provides an exemplary witness of what it means to be “pure of heart.”

“What does this fragile but christianly mature girl say to today’s young people, through her life and above all through her heroic death?” asked the Pope.

“Marietta, as she was lovingly called, reminds the youth of the third millennium that true happiness demands courage and a spirit of sacrifice, refusing every compromise with evil and having the disposition to pay personally, even with death, faithful to God and his commandments.”

CNA . News Website

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From a homily at the canonization of Saint Maria Goretti by Pope Pius XII

From Maria’s story carefree children and young people with their zest for life can learn not to be led astray by attractive pleasures which are not only ephemeral and empty but also sinful. Instead they can fix their sights on achieving Christian moral perfection, however difficult and hazardous that course may prove. With determination and God’s help all of us can attain that goal by persistent effort and prayer.

So let us all, with God’s grace, strive to reach the goal that the example of the virgin martyr, Saint Maria Goretti, sets before us. Through her prayers to the Redeemer may all of us, each in his own way, joyfully try to follow the inspiring example of Maria Goretti who now enjoys eternal happiness in heaven.

Trust in God, be faithful, and trust in God!

My God, you are the source of innocence, of purity, and you have given young Maria Goretti the grace of martyrdom; please give us, thanks to her intercession, the courage for respecting your commandments like that girl who received the right reward to have defended her virginity till the death.

Pious XII – Rome, June 24, 1950