"St. Thomas Aquinas wrote that 'the first thing that is necessary for every Christian is faith, without which no one is truly called a faithful Christian. Faith brings about four good effects. The first is that through faith the soul is united to God, and by it there is between the soul and God a union akin to marriage. 'I will espouse thee in faith.''

In other words, that Therese Martin should become St. Therese, a bride of Christ, should only appear logical to us in light of St. Thomas' doctrine. If espousal with God is the fruit of the act of faith, then this must also be a universal vocation and not something exclusive to consecrated souls. God's courtship of the soul begins in baptism. Certainly, the nature of love is that it must be freely offered and the response must also be given in freedom, but often God's proposal is left unrequited - hence, the scandal of sin. But when his offer is accepted whole-heartedly and with the radical response demanded of an authentic act of faith, then the soul enters into a marital covenant with God and takes upon itself all the dignity and privileges accorded to this state.

This faithful matrimonial love implies total participation in the life of one's spouse, experiencing in one's own soul the spouse's interior and exterior trials. Naturally, St. Therese of Lisieux, faithful spouse to Christ, could do no less than offer herself together with her divine Spouse as an expiatory victim for the salvation of sinners.

Her formal relationship with Christ and her new insertion into his life began fittingly on Christmas. Also fittingly, her relationship with him on earth would end on Calvary.

Between Bethlehem and Calvary, St. Therese of Lisieux would share in her Spouse's joys, sorrows, trials and always his peace. Further, like her Spouse, she could not remain indifferent to his rejection by so many souls. Her relationship with these souls began under the auspices of maternal love and intercession. It would transform with time into fraternal love and solidarity - and the vicarious suffering to which both loves expose themselves."

-- St. Therese of Lisieux: Spouse and Victim by Cliff Ermatinger

We must have faith in Jesus Christ but we must act upon that faith

"If we do not have faith in God, yet we just go through the motions, what good is it? Let us say that there is a kid who does not like to go to church and does not believe in God but his mom forces him to go to church. He sits in the back pew with his arms folded and his bottom lip sticking out being a little snot, and at the same time he says, “Well, I went to church, didn’t I? I should be able to go to heaven now because I did such a great job and I went to church every Sunday.” There was no faith. He did not want to be there, he kicked and screamed and made a scene, but all of a sudden he is going to try to justify himself because he was actually there. Well, if there is not faith there is no justification.

It begins with faith in Jesus Christ, Who died for our sins so that we could be forgiven, but then it is to go to the next step. This, again, is where there is the difference between a Catholic and a non-Catholic. For the non-Catholics, they say that you are justified by faith alone. Nowhere does Scripture say that. In the eighth chapter of Saint Paul’s Letter to the Romans, which we will hear in a few days, Martin Luther put the word “alone” in there when he translated Scripture. It is not there. It is not there in any Protestant translation today; they have taken it out. But that was his justification for saying that you are saved by faith alone. He put the word “alone” in! It is not part of Scripture. In fact, the only place in the entire Bible where the words “faith alone” are mentioned is in Saint James 2:24 where it says explicitly: You are not saved by faith alone. So if we are going to look at Scripture to see what it says, it is very clear: We must have faith–there is no salvation without faith–but we must also act upon that faith. That is the point we have to understand.

If we believe that Jesus Christ died for our sins then we need to do what must be done in order for our sins to be forgiven. We need to go to Confession and then we need to change our lives to live according to the way of Christ. Otherwise, what is happening are two things. Just like the scholars of the Jewish law, according to Jesus they locked the door to heaven; they did not get in and neither did anyone else. It is the same basic principle. If all we are doing is saying, “Well, you have to have a generic faith that Jesus died for your sins, and you get to go to heaven,” it does not work that way. Remember, Jesus Himself told us the way that leads to perdition is wide and smooth. It is a pretty easy road, isn’t it? “Just believe in Jesus. You can do anything you want and you can still go to heaven.” It does not work. It never has and it never will. We must have faith in Jesus Christ–there is no salvation apart from it–but we must act upon that faith.

Saint James tells us, Show me your faith without works, and I will show the faith that underlies my works. Not empty works of the law, not just showing up and sitting with a bad attitude and saying, “Well, I went to church, didn’t I?” but to truly be there with a heart filled with love. If we truly believe what we profess and if we really, truly believe what we know to be true, that Jesus is present in the Blessed Sacrament and that the Mass is the sacrifice of Christ, then how could we ever possibly sit there distant and with a bad attitude? But having that faith, then we have to act in love because He is God, truly present among us. It must change the way that we live, the way that we act, the way that we are so that through faith in Jesus Christ we will put that faith into practice and we will truly be righteous in the sight of God."

-- From a homily by Fr Robert Altier, ocds (13 October 2005)

Memorial St Augustine

"It becomes you, therefore, out of love to this true life, to account yourself desolate in this world, however great the prosperity of your lot may be. For as that is the true life, in comparison with which the present life, which is much loved, is not worthy to be called life, however happy and prolonged it be, so is it also the true consolation promised by the Lord in the words of Isaiah, I will give him the true consolation, peace upon peace, without which consolation men find themselves, in the midst of every mere earthly solace, rather desolate than comforted. For as for riches and high rank, and all other things in which men who are strangers to true felicity imagine that happiness exists, what comfort do they bring, seeing that it is better to be independent of such things than to enjoy abundance of them, because, when possessed, they occasion, through our fear of losing them, more vexation than was caused by the strength of desire with which their possession was coveted? Men are not made good by possessing these so-called good things, but, if men have become good otherwise, they make these things to be really good by using them well. Therefore true comfort is to be found not in them, but rather in those things in which true life is found. For a man can be made blessed only by the same power by which he is made good.

It is true, indeed, that good men are seen to be the sources of no small comfort to others in this world. For if we be harassed by poverty, or saddened by bereavement, or disquieted by bodily pain, or pining in exile, or vexed by any kind of calamity, let good men visit us, men who can not only rejoice with them that rejoice, but also weep with them that weep, and who know how to give profitable counsel, and win us to express our feelings in conversation: the effect is, that rough things become smooth, heavy burdens are lightened, and difficulties vanquished most wonderfully. But this is done in and through them by Him who has made them good by His Spirit. On the other hand, although riches may abound, and no bereavement befall us, and health of body be enjoyed, and we live in our own country in peace and safety, if, at the same time, we have as our neighbours wicked men, among whom there is not one who can be trusted, not one from whom we do not apprehend and experience treachery, deceit, outbursts of anger, dissensions, and snares, in such a case are not all these other things made bitter and vexatious, so that nothing sweet or pleasant is left in them? Whatever, therefore, be our circumstances in this world, there is nothing truly enjoyable without a friend. But how rarely is one found in this life about whose spirit and behaviour as a true friend there may be perfect confidence! For no one is known to another so intimately as he is known to himself, and yet no one is so well known even to himself that he can be sure as to his own conduct on the morrow; wherefore, although many are known by their fruits, and some gladden their neighhours by their good lives, while others grieve their neighbours by their evil lives, yet the minds of men are so unknown and so unstable, that there is the highest wisdom in the exhortation of the apostle:Judge nothing before the time until the Lord come, who both will bring to light the hidden things of darkness, and will make manifest the counsels of the hearts; and then shall every man have praise of God.

In the darkness, then, of this world, in which we are pilgrims absent from the Lord as long as we walk by faith and not by sight, the Christian soul ought to feel itself desolate, and continue in prayer, and learn to fix the eye of faith on the word of the divine sacred Scriptures, as on a light shining in a dark place, until the day dawn, and the day-star arise in our hearts. For the ineffable source from which this lamp borrows its light is the Light which shines in darkness, but the darkness comprehends it not— the Light, in order to seeing which our hearts must be purified by faith; for blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God; and we know that when He shall appear, we shall be like Him, for we shall see Him as He is. Then after death shall come the true life, and after desolation the true consolation, that life shall deliver our souls from death that consolation shall deliver our eyes from tears, and, as follows in the psalm, our feet shall be delivered from falling; for there shall be no temptation there. Moreover, if there be no temptation, there will be no prayer; for there we shall not be waiting for promised blessings, but contemplating the blessings actually bestowed; wherefore he adds, Iwill walk before the Lord in the land of the living, where we shall then be— not in the wilderness of the dead, where we now are: For you are dead, says the apostle, and your life is hid with Christ in God; when Christ, who is our life, shall appear, then shall you also appear with Him in glory. For that is the true life on which the rich are exhorted to lay hold by being rich in good works; and in it is the true consolation, for want of which, meanwhile, a widow is desolate indeed, even though she has sons and grandchildren, and conducts her household piously, entreating all dear to her to put their hope in God: and in the midst of all this, she says in her prayer, My soul thirsts for You; my flesh longs in a dry and thirsty land, where no water is; and this dying life is nothing else than such a land, however numerous our mortal comforts, however pleasant our companions in the pilgrimage, and however great the abundance of our possessions. You know how uncertain all these things are; and even if they were not uncertain, what would they be in comparison with the felicity which is promised in the life to come!"

-- From a letter of St Augustine to Proba

The one true thing: that we may contemplate the joy of the Lord for ever

"Perhaps you may still ask why the apostle said, We know not what to pray for as we ought, for it is wholly incredible that either he or those to whom he wrote were ignorant of the Lord's Prayer. He could not say this either rashly or falsely; what, then, do we suppose to be his reason for the statement? Is it not that vexations and troubles in this world are for the most part profitable either to heal the swelling of pride, or to prove and exercise patience, for which, after such probation and discipline, a greater reward is reserved, or to punish and eradicate some sins; but we, not knowing what beneficial purpose these may serve, desire to be freed from all tribulation? To this ignorance the apostle showed that even he himself was not a stranger (unless, perhaps, he did it notwithstanding his knowing what to pray for as he ought), when, lest he should be exalted above measure by the greatness of the revelations, there was given unto him a thorn in the flesh, a messenger of Satan to buffet him; for which thing, not knowing surely what he ought to pray for, he besought the Lord thrice that it might depart from him. At length he received the answer of God, declaring why that which so great a man prayed for was denied, and why it was expedient that it should not be done: My grace is sufficient for you; my strength is made perfect in weakness.

Accordingly, we know not what to pray for as we ought in regard to tribulations, which may do us good or harm; and yet, because they are hard and painful, and against the natural feelings of our weak nature, we pray, with a desire which is common to mankind, that they may be removed from us. But we ought to exercise such submission to the will of the Lord our God, that if He does not remove those vexations, we do not suppose ourselves to be neglected by Him, but rather, in patient endurance of evil, hope to be made partakers of greater good, for so His strength is perfected in our weakness. God has sometimes in anger granted the request of impatient petitioners, as in mercy He denied it to the apostle. For we read what the Israelites asked, and in what manner they asked and obtained their request; but while their desire was granted, their impatience was severely corrected. Again, He gave them, in answer to their request, a king according to their heart, as it is written, not according to His own heart. He granted also what the devil asked, namely, that His servant, who was to be proved, might be tempted. He granted also the request of unclean spirits, when they besought Him that their legion might be sent into the great herd of swine. These things are written to prevent any one from thinking too highly of himself if he has received an answer when he was urgently asking anything which it would be more advantageous for him not to receive, or to prevent him from being cast down and despairing of the divine compassion towards himself if he be not heard, when, perchance, he is asking something by the obtaining of which he might be more grievously afflicted, or might be by the corrupting influences of prosperity wholly destroyed. In regard to such things, therefore, we know not what to pray for as we ought. Accordingly, if anything is ordered in a way contrary to our prayer, we ought, patiently bearing the disappointment, and in everything giving thanks to God, to entertain no doubt whatever that it was right that the will of God and not our will should be done. For of this the Mediator has given us an example, inasmuch as, after He had said, Father, if it be possible, let this cup pass from me, transforming the human will which was in Him through His incarnation, He immediately added, Nevertheless, O Father, not as I will but as You will. Wherefore, not without reason are many made righteous by the obedience of One.

But whoever desires from the Lord that one thing, and seeks after it, asks in certainty and in confidence, and has no fear lest when obtained it be injurious to him, seeing that, without it, anything else which he may have obtained by asking in a right way is of no advantage to him. The thing referred to is the one true and only happy life, in which, immortal and incorruptible in body and spirit, we may contemplate the joy of the Lord for ever. All other things are desired, and are without impropriety prayed for, with a view to this one thing. For whosoever has it shall have all that he wishes, and cannot possibly wish to have anything along with it which would be unbecoming. For in it is the fountain of life, which we must now thirst for in prayer so long as we live in hope, not yet seeing that which we hope for, trusting under the shadow of His wings before whom are all our desires, that we may be abundantly satisfied with the fatness of His house, and made to drink of the river of His pleasures; because with Him is the fountain of life, and in His light we shall see light, when our desire shall be satisfied with good things, and when there shall be nothing beyond to be sought after with groaning, but all things shall be possessed by us with rejoicing. At the same time, because this blessing is nothing else than the peace which passes all understanding, even when we are asking it in our prayers, we know not what to pray for as we ought. For inasmuch as we cannot present it to ourminds as it really is, we do not know it, but whatever image of it may be presented to our minds we reject, disown, and condemn; we know it is not what we are seeking, although we do not yet know enough to be able to define what we seek."

-- From a letter of St Augustine to Proba

Memorial of St Cyril of Jerusalem

Saint Cyril (c. 315-386) was born in Jerusalem around 315 probably of Christian parents. He was raised and educated in Jerusalem and was ordained a priest by St Maximus. He taught catechumens for several years and about 349 became bishop of Jerusalem. Cyril died in 386 and was declared a Doctor of the Church in 1882 by Pope Leo XIII.  


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"The one word faith can have two meanings. One kind of faith concerns doctrines. It involves the soul's ascent to and acceptance of some particular matter. It also concerns the soul's good, according to the words of the Lord: Whoever hears my voice and believes in him who sent me has eternal life, and will not come to be judged. And again: He who believes in the Son is not condemned, but has passed from death to life.
   How great is God's love for men! Some good men have been found pleasing to God because of years of work. What they achieved by working for many hours at a task pleasing to God is freely given to you by Jesus in one short hour. For if you believe that Jesus Christ is Lord and that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved and taken up to paradise by him, just as he brought the thief there. Do not doubt that this is possible. After all, he saved the thief on the holy hiss of Golgotha because of one hour's faith; will he not save you too since you have believed?
   The other kind of faith is given by Christ by means of a special grace. To one wise sayings are given through the Spirit, to another perceptive comments by the same Spirit, to another faith by the same Spirit, to another gifts of healing. Now this kind of faith, given by the Spirit as a special favor, is not confined to doctrinal matters, for it produces effects beyond any human capability. If a man who has this faith says to this mountain move from here to there, it will move. For when anybody says this in faith, believing it will happen and having no doubt in his heart, he then receives that grace.
   It is of this kind of faith, moreover, that it is said: If you have faith like a grain of mustard seed. The mustard seed is small in size but it holds an explosive force; although it is sown in a small hole, it produces great branches, and when it is grown birds can nest there. In the same way faith produces great effects in the soul instantaneously. Enlightened by faith, the soul pictures God and sees him as clearly as any soul can. It circles the earth; even before the end of this world it sees the judgment and the conferring of promised rewards. So may you have the faith which depends on you and is directed to God, that you may receive from him that faith too which transcends man's capacity."


-- Biography from the Liturgy of the Hours. Meditation from the writings of St Cyril of Jerusalem

Only love can overcome and draw good out of evil

“No circumstance in the world can ever prevent us from believing in God, from placing all our trust in him, from loving him with our whole heart, or from loving our neighbor. Faith, hope, and charity are absolutely free because if they are rooted in us deeply enough, they are able to draw strength from whatever opposes them! If someone sought to prevent us from believing by persecuting us, we always would retain the option of forgiving our enemies and transforming the situation of oppression into one of greater love. If someone tried to silence our faith by killing us, our deaths would be the best possible proclamation of our faith! Love, and only love, can overcome evil by good and draw good out of evil.”

-- Interior Freedom by Fr Jacques Philippe

A serious spiritual life becomes a continuous effort - with a glance enlightened by supernatural faith

"Good sense and sound judgment, by which are meant the practical use of our thinking faculties, bring us to see things as they really are, as they exist in the world around us. It goes without saying that there can be no perfection of the soul without them. They are, so to speak, the groundwork of perfection, matters of the first importance.

St Teresa, whose views in this matter are universally acknowledged to be right, had no wish to have people in her convents who were too limited in these areas, and for this reason: with them there is little hope of any spiritual progress being made. 'If a person is going to reform himself' she says, 'and to advance in virtue, then he must first of all be a person of intelligence, of sound judgment.'

St John of the Cross takes the same view. 'Enter into accound with thy reason,' he writes in his Maxims. 'He that acs according to reason is like one that eats of substantial food.'

In one way or another all Carmelite spiritual writers give evidence of this same fundamental confidence in reason which joins the life of devotion to natural realities in the same way that a healthy vine-stock is rooted in the soul which nourishes and feeds it. And in this attitude they take toward reason we already have the rough sketch of their whole philosophy of the spiritual life.

Nevertheless, above and beyond the light of reason, there is the more brilliant sun of faith.

In the light of faith, another Reality - An Infinite Reality - is indissolubly linked with the realities we already know by reason. This is the Reality of God - 'He Who is.' This is that 'sea of glass, like unto crystal' (Apocalypse 4:6) which stretches farther than the eye can see before the throne of God.

Through faith and reason joined to one another in this way, the Christian has a kind of supernatural good sense which  leads him to see things as they are actually seen by God, to see them as they truly are. A spiritual life which is at all serious thus becomes a continuous effort to be true, to see all circumstances in proportion and perspective - with an eye made clear by purity of intention, with a glance enlightened by supernatural faith."

-- The Simple Steps to God by Fr François of St Mary, ocd

The efficacy of the word of God in us depends on our faith

"The Carmelite tradition is sometimes contrasted with that of the Benedictines and even set in opposition to it: as if Benedictine piety were liturgical and objective and Carmelite spirituality individualistic and subjective. On the basis of this oversimplified distinction, partisans can line up in opposing factions and argue with one another about the relative merits of the two 'schools.' It is inevitable that such divisions should spring into existence but we must regret them, for they diminish the horizons of the Christian spirit. In actual fact, both the Carmelites and the Benedictines of our day can and should appeal to a common monastic tradition with its roots in the Oriental Desert spirituality. If the Benedictines have maintained the emphasis on community and liturgy, the Carmelites are no less traditional in their emphasis on solitude and contemplative prayer. These two trends, far from being opposed to one another, actually complement one another. Without both these emphases the monastic spiritual tradition is incomplete.
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One who seeks God seeks the supreme, though invisible Reality. He therefore exposes his whole life to anguish and to risk. He seeks supreme security in what seems to the world supremely insecure. How can he ever be 'sure' that he is seeking God, and much more, how can he ever be sure that he has 'found' Him?

Christ prayed at the Last Supper that His Apostles might be 'santified in truth.' The word of God is truth, the highest reality, planted in the depths of our being by our Creator and Redeemer. This word must grow in us like a seed. It must awaken to life, to knowledge, to love, to experience. Our whole interior life is centered on the spiritual 'activity' and 'dynamism' of this word which St Paul calls 'living and efficacious.' The efficacy of the word of God in us depends on faith, and out faith is itself a gift of God. The 'living and efficacious' word of God, received by faith, fully embraced by loving acceptance in the depths of our being, flowers into an experience of God as present to us. We come, in this experience of presence, to an inexplicable, yet utterly real, personal awareness of the Almighty Who loves us and dwells in our inmost heart.

To reach this spiritual awareness of God, this 'knowledge' of God in the obscurity of faith, we must first of all awaken to a knowledge of our true selves. And so we must pray, as did Saint Augustine: 'Lord, let me know myself and let me know Thee' If we do not know ourselves, we cannot know God either. But we must know ourselves rightly, as images of God. And so we must avoid a twofold danger. On one hand we tend to indulge in unhealthy instropection, analyzing ourselves without end. On the other, ignoring the reality both of ourselves and God, we tend to take God for granted and to assume that He is simply what we want Him to be. Instead of knowing ourselves as images of God, we contemplate a god who is the image of ourselves. That means our 'god' is an idol - the justification of our own illusion about ourselves. Under such conditions, the interior life is anything but real.
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The combination of austerity and kindness, detachment and good humor, mysticism and common sense, is one of the characteristics of Carmel."

-- Fr Mary Louis, ocso, (Thomas Merton) in his introduction to The Simple Steps to God by Fr François of St Mary, ocd

Obedience will make you a saint

"It is one thing to trust God and Jesus as the Son of God as faithful guides on the way to eternal life, but it is something else entirely to trust the people who exercise authority in God's name. There is no way around the dilemma, because Gods plan of redemption is incarnation, that is, salvation mediated through human beings, beginning with Jesus Christ. Authentic Christianity requires obeying the human authorities duly appointed. How do we know that we can trust these weak human beings to lead us faithfully to God?
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Obedience to the legitimate religious authority is obedience to God no matter who holds the office, saint or sinner. But in the other hand, the bad example of the superior is no excuse for the disciple.
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[T]he sinfulness and errors of those in authority do not invalidate the authority. Jesus does not say we have to trust the one in authority whom we obey. Hopefully the leader will earn our trust by faithfulness and good example, and that improves the experience of obedience dramatically. But it is not necessary to trust the religious authority in order to obey and to receive the blessings of obedience.

Problems arise when people fail to make the distinction between trust in and obedience to religious authorities. Since 2002, the media has carried many stories of Catholics who have left the church because of the failure of some bishops to respond honestly and appropriately to the clergy abuse scandal. We know that through history monks have left monasteries and sometimes solely because of the poor leadership or sinful conduct of abbots. Laity have left the church because of pastors.

But we are not required to trust our religious leaders unless they earn our trust by their conduct. The requirement for salvation is faith, which means trust in God. Applied to the church and religious life, this means we are called to trust in God to carry out the divine plan and purpose for the church and its members through whatever human leaders God happens to have placed in charge.

Saint Benedict foresaw that some abbots might be saints and others might be scoundrels, and that bad abbots could create anxiety among their subjects. But he is reassuring: if you obey those God has placed in authority you will be obeying God, and God will sanctify you. In other words, he presents God as saying: You don't have to trust anyone but me - not the abbot, not the bishops, not even the pope. You need to obey them in the legitimate exercise of their office, and to trust them when you can. The obedience will make you a saint, no matter what they do. I can work out my plans, whoever is in charge on earth. It may not be pretty, but it will be effective. Trust me."

-- Don't Trust the Abbot: Musings from the Monastery by Abbot Jerome Kodell

Faith and reason

"Although we can come to know God through the exercise of our reason, it is above all by faith that we can enter into contact with Him. It is faith alone which reveals to us the mystery of the Trinity of persons in the one divine Nature and discloses to us the mysteries of Christ. It is faith which teaches us that we are the children of God, born of Him by grace, and that we must try to reproduce the divine life within ourselves, if we wish to share in the happiness of God in Heaven.

Hence, the Carmelite ideal asks the soul to keep itself habitually in the presence of God with its gaze fixed upon Him, to live in Him, who is present everywhere, but present especially in Heaven and in the soul. Again, the soul keeps itself united with Christ who lives in it, by making efforts to live as He lived, to remain as He does in sinu Patris (in the bosom of the Father). Living according to the Carmelite ideal, the soul judges everything in the light of faith, although it does not neglect to reason on that account. St John of the Cross himself invites us to to take counsel from reason in order to fulfill what it dictates to us regarding the way to God. But faith must rise above reason and change reason's natural mode of being to take on a divine form."

-- The Spirit and Prayer of Carmel by Fr François Jamart, ocd