The one true friend of our hearts

"Jesus Christ is the only and true friend of our hearts, that have been created just for Him; that is why they cannot find happiness, rest or fulfillment except in Him."


-- St Margaret Mary Alacoque
translated by ocdsister

Works of expiation bind one closer to Christ

"[W]hen someone desires to suffer, it is not merely a pious reminder of the suffering of the Lord. Voluntary expiatory suffering is what truly and really unites one to the Lord intimately. When it arises, it comes from an already existing relationship with Christ. For, by nature, a person flees from suffering. And the mania for suffering caused by a perverse lust for pain differs completely from the desire to suffer in expiation. Such lust is not a spiritual striving, but a sensory longing, no better than other sensory desires, in fact worse, because it is contrary to nature. Only someone whose spiritual eyes have been opened to the supernatural correlations of worldly events can desire suffering in expiation, and this is only possible for people in whom the spirit of Christ dwells, who as members are given life by the Head, receive his power, his meaning, and his direction. Conversely, works of expiation bind one closer to Christ, as every community that works together on one task becomes more and more closely knit and as the limbs of a body, working together organically, continually become more strongly one.

But because being one with Christ is our sanctity, and progressively becoming one with him our happiness on earth, the love of the cross in no way contradicts being a joyful child of God. Helping Christ carry his cross fills one with a strong and pure joy, and those who may and can do so, the builders of God's kingdom, are the most authentic children of God. And so those who have a predilection for the way of the cross by no means deny that Good Friday is past and that the work of salvation has been accomplished. Only those who are saved, only children of grace, can in fact be bearers of Christ's cross. Only in union with the divine Head does human suffering take on expiatory power. To suffer and to be happy although suffering, to have one's feet on the earth, to walk on the dirty and rough paths of this earth and yet to be enthroned with Christ at the Father's right hand, to laugh and cry with the children of this world and ceaselessly to sing the praises of God with the choirs of angels this is the life of the Christian until the morning of eternity breaks forth."

-- The Hidden Life by St Teresa Benedicta of the Cross

Heaven is a never-ending Communion

"I want to tell you about my happiness.  Yes, I want you to feel for just a moment, the happiness of belonging entirely to God, but there's no human language that can express the divine feelings in which my soul finds itself submerged.  I've given Him everything, it's true, but I've also come to posses the One who is Everything.  If your love and sacrifices make you love Him more, what can I tell you, when in God love knows no limit and His immolation of self can never be greater since His Wisdom has exhausted every possibility. Oh, though I want to love Him in an infinite degree; I feel more and more my inability and my flaws.  I wish I could exhaust myself and die very quickly in order to love Him.  But the sight of the sinful world, of the glacial coldness surrounding the altar keeps me back.  Seeing it I would rather "suffer and not die."  Yes, to suffer and not die that I may weep with the Divine Prisoner and console Him in His exile.  I wish I could help people understand that the Eucharist is a heaven.  Given that "heaven is only a tabernacle without doors, a Eucharist without veils,"  heaven is a never-ending Communion."

-- From a letter of St Teresa of the Andes, ocd

Forbid suffering entrance to your soul

"We must not be slaves either of time or health; we cannot dispose of either as we will! If we thought of acting only when all the conditions were favourable, we would pass our lives doing nothing; or at least we would get out of life very little of what it can give us.

Go ahead! That is a phrase I like so much. Even if everything is far from perfect, we must learn to say it. And things will go ahead, since joy does not come from without or from circumstances. Its principal source is withing us.

That is why faith is such a sure source of happiness, even now. The faithful who keep themselves in a state of grace, or who see that they return to it without delay whenever necessary, possess in their souls God who is infinite Goodness. And it is his presence that keeps them in peace. Troubles and disturbing events will always cause suffering; it is a law of life, and we cannot alter it.

We shall never banish suffering in our life, but we can forbid it entrance to our soul, or at any rate to the higher part of the soul. We are there, as it were, on a mountain, and we regard our troubles as the dweller upon the mountain contemplates the storm sweeping over the plain.

But we do not reach that height all at once; we have to arrive at it by stages. The thousand and one petty annoyances that each day brings are our training. We must calmly watch them come and go. To want to avoid them all is impossible; to allow them to upset us is a weakness. There will always be some cloud on the horizon of our lives. But do not let any of these things stop you, or even affect you. In short: Go ahead!"

-- Where Silence is Praise by A Carthusian