NOVENA FOR THE FEAST OF ST. TERESA OF JESUS

(To be recited every day during the Novena)

I.

     O most amiable Lord, Jesus Christ, we thank Thee for the great gift of Faith and of devotion to the Holy Sacrament, which Thou didst grant to Thy beloved Teresa.  We pray Thee, by Thy merits, and by those of Thy faithful spouse, to grant us the gift of a lively Faith and of a fervent devotion towards the most Holy Sacrament of the altar where Thou, O infinite Majesty, hast obliged Thyself to abide with us even to the end of the world, and wherein Thou dost so lovingly give Thy whole self to us.  Our Father, Hail Mary, and Glory, etc.

O Jesus, Who didst pierce with love
Teresa’s beauteous heart,
Of her sweet love upon my soul
Let fall a flaming dart.

II.

     O most merciful Lord, Jesus Christ, we thank Thee for the great gift of Hope which Thou didst grant to Thy beloved Teresa.  We pray Thee, by Thy merits, and by those of Thy holy spouse, to give us a great confidence in Thy goodness, by reason of Thy Precious Blood, that Thou hast shed to its last drop for our salvation.  Our Father, Hail Mary, and Glory, etc.

O Jesus, Who didst pierce with love . . .

III.

      O most loving Lord, Jesus Christ, we thank Thee for the great gift of Love which Thou didst grant to Thy beloved Teresa.  We pray Thee, by Thy merits, and by those of Thy most loving spouse, to give us the great, the crowning gift of Thy perfect Charity.  Our Father, Hail Mary, and Glory, etc.

O Jesus, Who didst pierce with love . . .

IV.

      O most sweet Lord, Jesus Christ, we thank Thee for the gift of great desire and resolution which Thou didst grant to Thy beloved Teresa.  We pray Thee, by Thy merits, and by those of Thy most generous spouse, to give us a true desire and a true resolution of pleasing Thee to the utmost of our power.  Our Father, Hail Mary, and Glory, etc.

O Jesus, Who didst pierce with love . . .

V.

     O most kind Lord, Jesus Christ, we thank Thee for the great gift of humility that Thou didst grant to Thy beloved Teresa.  We pray Thee, by Thy merits, and by those of Thy most humble spouse, to grant us the grace of a true humility, which may make us ever find our joy in humiliations, and prefer contempt to every honour.  Our Father, Hail Mary, and Glory, etc.

O Jesus, Who didst pierce with love . . .

VI.

    O most bountiful Lord, Jesus Christ, we thank Thee for the gift of devotion towards Thy sweet Mother, Mary, and her holy spouse, Joseph, which Thou didst grant to Thy beloved Teresa.  We pray Thee, by Thy merits, and by those of Thy most dear spouse, to give us the grace of a special and tender devotion towards Thy most holy Mother, Mary, and towards Thy beloved foster-father, Joseph.  Our Father, Hail Mary, and Glory, etc.

O Jesus, Who didst pierce with love . . .

VII.

     O most loving Lord, Jesus Christ, we thank Thee for the wonderful gift of the wound in the heart that Thou didst grant to Thy beloved Teresa.  We pray Thee, by Thy merits, and by those of Thy seraphic spouse, to grant us also a like wound of love, that, henceforth, we may love Thee, and give our mind to the love of nothing but Thee.  Our Father, Hail Mary, and Glory, etc.

O Jesus, Who didst pierce with love . . .

VIII.

     O most beloved Lord, Jesus Christ, we thank Thee for the eminent gift of the desire for death that Thou didst grant to Thy beloved Teresa.  We pray Thee, by Thy merits, and by those of Thy most constant spouse, to grant us the grace of desiring death, in order to go and possess Thee eternally in the country of the Blessed.  Our Father, Hail Mary, and Glory, etc.

O Jesus, Who didst pierce with love . . .

IX.

      Lastly, O dearest Lord, Jesus Christ, we thank Thee for the gift of the precious death which Thou didst grant to Thy beloved Teresa.  We pray Thee, by Thy merits, and by those of Thy most affectionate spouse, to grant us a good death; and that if we do not die of love, we may, at least, die burning with love for Thee, that so dying, we may be able to go and love Thee evermore with a perfect love in Heaven.  Our Father, Hail Mary, and Glory, etc.

O Jesus, Who didst pierce with love . . .

Let us pray

     Graciously hear us, O God of our salvation, and grant that as we do rejoice for the Feast-Day of Thy blessed handmaiden Teresa, so we may feed to our ghostly health upon her heavenly teaching, and better ourselves by the example of her godly conversation.  Through Our Lord Jesus Christ.  Amen.

THE GREAT FAITH OF ST. TERESA AND HER DEVOTION TOWARDS THE BLESSED SACRAMENT 

Meditação I:
     St. Teresa received from God the gift of Faith in so full of measure that she has written in her Life: “The devil never had power to tempt me in any way against the Faith.  It even seemed to me that the more impossible, naturally speaking, a truth of Faith was, the more firmly did I believe it, and the more difficult of belief, the more did it inspire me with devotion.”
     One day she was told she might be denounced to the Holy Office as a heretic.  “This made me smile,” she writes, “knowing so well that for the things of holy Faith, or for the least of the ceremonies of the Church, I would give my life a thousand times.”
     This love for the Faith gave her the fortitude, when but seven years of age, to set out from her father’s house with her little brother, to go amongst the Moors, in order that she might sacrifice her life for the Faith.  Later on in life, such was her conviction of the truth of our Faith, that she felt as if she could convince all the Lutherans and bring them to an acknowledgment of their errors.
     In a word, the satisfaction she experienced at seeing herself among the number of the children of the Church was such, that at the hour of her death she could not often enough repeat to herself these words: “After all, I am a child of the Holy Church!  After all, I am a child of the Holy Church!”
     Let the fruit of this consideration be that of continual thanksgiving, in union with the Saint, to the Lord, for having bestowed upon us the great gift of the Faith, in making us children of the Holy Church, from which so many millions of souls, perhaps less guilty than ourselves, in the sight of Divine justice, remain separated.
     My most loving Jesus, Who, although thou didst foresee my ingratitude, hast never ceased to bestow upon me an abundance of graces, above all, the grace of the Faith – ah, of Thy mercy enkindle such a flame within my heart, that my daily life may be always conformable to my Faith.  O Divine, true and only Lover of my soul, when will the day at length arrive on which I shall begin to love Thee with my whole heart?  Oh, would to God that to-day were this day of happiness for me, the day on which I have, in the present Novena, begun to honour Thy dear spouse and my tender advocate, Teresa! Ah! my Redeemer, by the merits of Thy Blood; by the merits of Mary, Thy most holy Mother and by those of Thy beloved Teresa, grant me, I pray Thee, so burning a love for Thee as may make me continually deplore the sins I have committed, and may urge me, henceforth, to study nothing but Thy good pleasure, in order that I may please Thee only, as Thou dost deserve.  Amen.

Meditação II:
     From the wonderful gift of Faith which the Saint possessed arose the great love she bore towards the Most Holy Sacrament, which is pre-eminently the Mystery of Faith.  She used to say that God has conferred upon us a greater grace in giving us the Holy Eucharist than in becoming man; and so, one of the principal virtues the Saint possessed was her special affection towards Jesus in the Blessed Sacrament, as she herself revealed after her death.  When the Saint heard someone say he wished he lived at the time Jesus was upon earth, she would smile and say: “And what more do we want, having Jesus in the Most Holy Sacrament?  Surely, if it was enough, while He was upon earth, to touch His raiment, in order to be healed of infirmities, what will He not do for us now when He is within us in Holy Communion?”  “Oh, how sweet it is,” she wrote, “to see the Shepherd become a Lamb.  He is a Shepherd, because He gives food.  He is a Lamb, because He is Himself the food.  He is a Shepherd, because He nourishes.  He is a Lamb, because He is the nourishment.  When, therefore, we pray to Him for our daily bread, we are asking that He, the Shepherd, may be our food and sustenance.”
     The Divine Lover responded to the love with which this cherished spouse of His desired Him, and with which she disposed herself to receive Him under the sacramental species.  As darkness disappears before the sun, so at the moment of Communion the obscurities and troubles of the Saint used to vanish.  It then seemed to her that her soul lost all its affections and all its desires, being perfectly united with God and absorbed in Him.  Although she was usually pale in consequence of her penances and infirmities, her biographer says, that no sooner had she communicated than her countenance became shining as crystal, ruddy, extremely beautiful, and with such an air of majesty about it, that it was easy to recognize what a Divine Guest she had received into her heart.  At those times her virginal body seemed ready to quit the earth, raising itself in the air in the presence of the Sisters.
     O Seraphic Saint, who by thy purity and ardent love, were upon earth the delight of thy God – thou whom He loved so much as one day to tell thee that as Magdalen was His beloved one when He was on earth, so thou wert in the same degree His beloved one now that He is in Heaven – oh thou dear Saint, whom He treated with such tenderness whether He admonished thee as a Father, or conversed with thee as a Spouse communicating Himself to thee so frequently in Holy Communion and with such abundant outpourings of grace – O Teresa, plead with thy God for me who, alas! am not the object of His delights but the cause of His sufferings by my evil life.  Pray to Jesus to pardon me and to give me a new heart, a heart pure and full of Divine love like unto thine own.  Amen.

Spiritual Reading:  TERESA’S LOVE FOR JESUS IN THE EUCHARIST

     The holy mother Teresa never ceased to deplore the injurious treatment that Jesus received in the Sacrament of His love at the hands of heretics.  She would complain to God: “Now how, O my Creator, can such tender love as Thine endure that what was instituted with such ardent affection by Thy Son, and the more to please Thee, should be so undervalued that at this day these heretics despise the Most Holy Sacrament?  For they rob it of its home by demolishing the Churches.  Was it not enough, O my Father, that whilst Jesus lived on earth He had no place to lay His head, without now taking from Him the holy places where He deigns to abide, and whereunto He invites His friends, knowing, as He does, their need of such food for their comfort?”
     For twenty-three years she communicated every day, and every time with such fervour and desire, that in order to receive Communion, she would, as she said, willingly have made her way against the spears of a whole army.
     One Palm Sunday as she was considering that among all those who at Jerusalem had proclaimed Jesus Christ as the Messias, there was not one to receive Him into his house, she invited Him to come and enter her poor heart, and with this pious thought she went to receive Communion.  The affectionate invitation of His beloved was so agreeable to the Divine Spouse, that when she received the Sacred Host it seemed to her that her mouth was filled with warm blood, accompanied with a heavenly sweetness.  Then she heard the voice of Jesus saying: “My daughter, it is My will that My Blood should be for your profit: I have shed it in great suffering, and you enjoy it, as you see, with great delights.”
     With regard, therefore, to this greatest of all gifts that Jesus has bequeathed to us in the Sacrament of the Altar, in leaving Himself, whole and entire, to be our Food, our Companion and our Shepherd, let us practise the excellent instruction that the holy mother once revealed from Heaven to a certain soul: “The inhabitants of Heaven and those of earth should be one and the same in purity and in love: we, in a state of joy; you, in that of suffering.  And, what we do in Heaven with the Divine Essence, you ought to do on earth with the Most Holy Sacrament.  You will mention this to all my children.”  Treating of the love and tender devotion that are due to Jesus in the Holy Sacrament, she has again left us in her works the following directions: “Let us act so as not to be at a distance from our Shepherd, nor lose sight of him, because the sheep that keep near their shepherd are always more caressed and better taken care of than others, and because he is always giving them some morsels of his own food.  If it happens that the shepherd sleeps, the faithful sheep keeps close beside him until he awakes, or it will arouse him, and then he lavishes upon it his caresses anew.”
     St. Philip Neri, that other seraph of love, on seeing Jesus entering his room to be his Viaticum, could not refrain from crying out in a holy transport: “Behold my Love!  Behold my Love!”  So let us, when we see the King and Spouse of our souls coming to meet us in Holy Communion, cry out and say: Behold my Love!  Behold my Love!  And we know that God wishes us to give Him this appellation.  God is love. — (1 John iv. 16).  He does not wish to be merely called a Lover, but to be Love itself, to make us understand that, as there is no love that does not love, so He, the Divine Goodness, is of His own nature so loving, that He cannot live without loving His creatures.

THE GIFT OF HOPE WITH WHICH ST. TERESA WAS ENDOWED

Meditação I:
     The mercies of the Lord are in proportion to the confidence a soul places in Him; so that when the Lord wishes to enrich a soul with graces, He first enriches it with confidence.
     So great was the confidence with which the holy mother Teresa was gifted by God, that by it she gained the accomplishment of all that she undertook for the glory of her Spouse, so that she was commonly styled the Omnipotent Teresa.
     Ever bearing in mind that God is faithful, as the Apostle says, and that He cannot fall short of His word, she drew from this reflection the great courage that fortified her in every storm.  “Oh, my Lord,” she used to exclaim, “who shall sufficiently declare how faithful Thou are to Thy friends?  May everything fail me provided Thou dost not abandon me; me, who have found by experience how great is the gain of those who trust only in Thee.”
     With this strong anchor to support her she undertook the great work of reforming the Religious of both sexes in the Carmelite Order, and of founding a vast number of Religious houses, in spite of innumerable obstacle raised by men and devils, without aid, without money, having nothing to support her except her confidence in God.  She was accustomed to say, that in order to found a monastery, nothing more was requisite that to hire a house and set up a bell.
     Whenever the strength of the opposition increased, her courage would increase also, and she would say that this was a sign that the seed sown would produce the more abundant fruit; and so all turned out successfully.  She write: “The true way of escaping a fall is to attach oneself to the Cross, and to confide in Him Who has been suspended thereon.  I find Him alone a true friend; so overpowered am I with a sense of this, that it seems to me that, with the grace of God, I could withstand the whole universe contending against me.”  Hence her great dislike in having to deal with persons who relied on human judgments and resources.
     My holy advocate, Teresa, thou givest me to understand that thy Spouse has promised thee to grant everything thou askest of Him, and that a great number of souls have received help through thy prayers.  Make me, too, one of the number.  Recommend me to Jesus, and change me entirely as thou hast changed so many others through thy prayers.

Meditação II:
     One day when Teresa was pleading for a special grace from God and feared His refusal on account of her unworthiness, Jesus appeared to her.  Showing the Wound in His left hand, “He told me, “ she says, “that I ought not to doubt that He Who had suffered so much for me would most willingly grant me all that I would ask of Him; that He had promised to grant me all I would ask of Him; that I ought to remember that even at the time when I served Him not, I had never asked Him for anything without receiving it, and more than I had known how to ask for, and that with much greater reason now when He knew my love for him, would He hear me, and finally that I ought not to doubt His word.”
     She then goes on to assure us that, by virtue of His promise, she had ever obtained from God more than she could have asked of Him in a lifetime.  For the consolation of those devoted to her, she has left upon record the following words: “I should be wearisome to myself and to my readers if I were to recount all the graces God has conferred upon me; if I were to say how many souls have been extricated from sin by my prayers, and how many others have been advanced to higher degrees of perfection.”  One night, while the saint was returning thanks to God for a grace she had received, He lovingly made her this answer: “And what can you ask of me, my daughter, that I would not grant you?”  Another day He said to her: “You are aware of the espousals contracted between you and Me: it is for this reason that I make over to you all the sufferings I have undergone.  You can offer these sufferings to My Father as your own, and ask in exchange all that you desire.”
     The Saint has written for our instruction: “Oh! How small is the confidence that we repose in Thee, O Lord God!  And yet what greater riches, what more beautiful treasures couldst Thou have handed over to us?  Thou hast given us three-and-thirty years of Thy Son’s hard toil, and then His most painful death.  Knowing beforehand how ungrateful we would be, Thou hast even confided to us the priceless treasure of that same Son in the Most Holy Sacrament, that there might be nothing in Thee of which we might not, through Him, gain possession, O merciful Father!  O ye souls of the Blessed, who have so well known how, at this price, to purchase to yourselves so precious and so permanent an inheritance, declare to us how it was that you made use of so infinite a good?  Succour us now that you are standing so near its source, and draw water thence for us who are here dying of thirst.”

Spiritual Reading:  “THE LORD IS CAREFUL FOR ME”

     When the holy mother was at Toledo, a priest told her that the accomplishment of the Reform was a hopeless undertaking; but Teresa with dauntless courage, consoled every one, and confiding in God, replied, that in spite of opposition, all would prosper for the best.  When, on her journeys, she came to any dangerous part of the road, she would be the first to pass over it, encouraging the rest by her example.  Full of confidence in her Lord, she was not afraid even of hell itself; she used to say, she no more feared the demons that the flies.  She was never known to grieve or to rejoice at any occurrence, whether favourable or unfavourable, but was ever calm and equable, in the midst of a profound peace; ever constant in her sweet hope, persuaded that God cannot fail one that serves Him, and puts his confidence in Him.  It was, then, upon this hope that Teresa rested all the prayers she addressed to God.  And as she did not know how to ask Him for anything but what might contribute to the good pleasure of her Lord, the prayers of this His holy spouse were so acceptable to God, that He even went so far as to promise to grant her everything she would ask of Him.
     Learn, O devout soul, how God listens to the prayer that is offered with confidence.  Ask, then, with confidence and you shall receive whatever you desire Heaven and earth may fail you, but the Word of God Who has said: Everyone that asketh, receiveth — (Matt. vii. 8), cannot fail.  He that asks, obtains, even when he does not at all deserve to obtain what he asks, as St. Thomas says.  On the other hand, he who does not ask, does not obtain.  Behold then, on what our victory, in time of temptation, depends: Praising I will call upon the Lord and I shall be saved from my enemies. — (Ps. xvii. 4).  Let us have recourse to God and we shall be conquerors.  Behold, on what all our good depends: Ask, and you shall receive. — (John xvi. 24).  Let us ask, and it will be given us.  Our Saint used to say: “For gaining Divine graces, prayer is the only gate: shut this, and I know not how God shall bestow them.  Let us observe that our Father and God not only takes care of us, but that He is ever full of anxiety for our good, as He gives us to understand in the Holy Scriptures.”  Let us pray, then with confidence; let us pray to God in the Name of Jesus Christ, His Son, Who has made us this promise: If you ask the Father anything in my name, He will give it to you. — (John xvi. 23).  God always takes care of us.  The Lord is careful for me. — (Ps. xxxix. 18).  And the Prophet says it is easier for a mother to forget her child than for God to forget us.  It will be enough to show God our miseries and say to Him with the leper in the Gospel: Lord, if Thou wilt, Thou canst make me clean. — (Matt. viii. 2); or with the Sister of Lazarus: He whom thou lovest is sick. — (John xi. 3); but we ought always to pray and not to faint. — (Luke xviii. 1).  The day we leave off prayer, we shall fall.

ST. TERESA’S GREAT LOVE FOR GOD

Meditação I:
     The heart of this seraph was so on fire with the love of God, that all her thoughts and all her sighs were nothing but love, and had reference only to the good pleasure of God.  Her confessor used to say that when speaking to her, he seemed to have before him a seraph of love.  The sacred flame of the love of God burned within her soul ever since the moment when, only seven years of age, she had the courage to leave her native country, her father and mother, in order to go amongst the infidels, that she might sacrifice her life for Jesus Christ, as it is stated in the Bull of her canonization.
     Her love increased as she advanced in age, and although it grew somewhat cool for some years, yet when God, by a fresh illumination, called her to a love of greater perfection, her correspondence to His grace was such as to merit to hear from the very lips of her Spouse, that if He had not already created Paradise, He would have created it expressly and entirely for her.  And on another occasion, He even told her that He was all hers, because she was all His: “Now I am all thine, and thou art all Mine” – (Bull of Canon).
     In short, so completely was she given up to God, that, inebriated with the Divine love, she knew not how to speak of anything save of her Beloved.  She knew not how to think of anything save of her Beloved.  She could not even hold converse with any one save of her Beloved.  For, accustomed as she was to hold sweet converse with her God, she could not lend herself to hold intercourse with creatures, excepting with those who were wounded, as she expressed herself, with the same love.
     So strongly was she drawn to God by love, that she declared herself to be incompetent for the management of worldly affairs.  So that, one day, she said: “If the Lord keeps me in my present state, I shall render but a bad account of the affairs that He has entrusted to my charge; for it seems that I am continually being drawn towards God, as if by chains.”  Everything that tended to interrupt her continual union with God was a burden to her, even the taking of her meals: “It is often a very great punishment on me,” she writes, “to be obliged to eat.  It makes me weep, and give utterance to complaints, almost without being aware of what I say.”
     But let us listen to the beautiful sentiments that she has recorded for us in reference to her love for God, and let us warm our hearts with the blessed flame that burned in the heart of our seraphic Saint.
     She writes: “Behold what I am always saying, and, as it seems to me, with all my heart: O Lord, I do not think of myself, I wish for nothing but for Thee alone!”

Meditação II:
     Although she was exceedingly humble, she does not shrink from saying: “I am nothing but imperfection, excepting in desire and in love; I think that I do love my Lord well, buy my works make me sad.”
     So ardently did she desire to advance, as far as she possibly could, in the love of God, that she expresses herself elsewhere in the following terms: “If I were to have my choice of undergoing all the sufferings of the world even to the end of time, and of obtaining afterwards a small additional degree of glory, or without afflictions of any kind, to settle down in a degree of glory less exalted, I would willingly prefer to bear all the sufferings for the smallest possible additional knowledge of the greatness of God; because I see that they who know God best love Him most.”  On seeing that she loved God so much, and that she was so much beloved by Him, she wrote in holy transport: “Oh! What a beautiful exchange it is to give our love to God, and to receive from Him His own.”
     We are also aware what consolations she found in the loving petition she was so frequently addressing to God: Lord, either to suffer or to die!  It seemed to her that the desire of suffering for God was so sweet to her loving heart, that she could gain no merit by it.  And she goes on to say, that the only reason why we should love the present life is for the opportunity it affords us of suffering for God: “Since the desire of sufferings brings me no merit, and life seems to me to be worthless without sufferings, I pray to God for them most fervently.  I say, then, to Him with all my heart: Lord, either to suffer or to die: I ask Thee for nothing more.”
     It was by this that she merited to be united to Jesus Christ, Who, on presenting her with a nail, declared her to be His spouse of love and of the cross.  The Lord, stretching His right hand towards her, as we read in the appendix to her Life, proceeded to say to her: “Behold this nail: it is a token that henceforth you shall be my spouse; you have not merited this until now.  For the future you shall not look upon My honour merely as that of your Creator, of your King, and of your God, but since you are now My true spouse, My honour is yours, and your honour is Mine.”
     She said, one day, in a transport of love, that it would give her real joy to see others in Paradise rejoicing in a higher degree of glory than her own; but that she did not know whether she could rejoice at seeing a soul have a greater love for God than she had.
     In conclusion, her whole employment consisted in whatever could procure glory for God; but her great love for Him caused her to regard all that she did as nothing.  “O Lord!” she said, “I fear that I am not serving Thee; I cannot discover anything that can be sufficient to pay Thee the smallest part of what I owe Thee.”  “The only thing that contented her in this life, and the prayer that she continually offered up to God, was this: “Ah, my Lord, enable us all to become worthy of loving Thee; since live we must, let us live for Thee, ever leaving our own selfish interests out of sight.  What greater gain can we have than that which consists in being pleasing in Thy sight.  O my Joy, my God, what can I do to please Thee?”
     O seraphic Teresa, beloved spouse of Jesus crucified, thou who wast all on fire while upon earth with so burning a love for thy God and mine, who art now burning with a still purer and brighter flame in Heaven, obtain for me, I entreat thee, one spark of this heavenly flame, which may enable me to forget the world, its creatures, and even myself, in order to devote all my thoughts, all my desires, and all my affections to the accomplishment, whether in joy or pain, of the will of this Sovereign Good Who deserves to be obeyed and loved.  Do this, O my dear Saint, for thou art able to do it.  Make me burn wholly and entirely, like thyself, with Divine love.

Spiritual Reading:  “MERIT CONSISTS IN SUFFERING AND IN LOVING”

     The whole life of Teresa was one continual exercise of the love of God, and a constant study of what might best please her Beloved.  Her very life was terminated through the violence of her love, consumed as indeed her heart was in a furnace of Divine Charity.  But we are to remember what our Lord said one day to our Saint, in order to give her to understand that true love of God in this life does not consist in any sensible sweetnesses, but in the accomplishment of the will of God, and in the undergoing of sufferings with calmness: “Thinkest thou, My daughter,” He said to her, “that such gratifications constitute merit?  No; merit consists in doing, in suffering, and in loving.  Consider My life, altogether filled up, as it was, with sufferings: when thou lookest at My Mother holding Me in her arms, do not suppose that she enjoys this satisfaction without suffering the cruel torment that St. Simeon had predicted to her, when he said to her: ‘A sword shall pierce thing own soul’; My Father having from that time enlightened her in order that she might understand all that I was to suffer.”
     “Believe me, My daughter,” He added, “that he who is most beloved of My Father is also he on whom He lays the heaviest crosses, and that love on the one side corresponds to the sufferings on the other.  How could I testify this love, save in desiring for thee what I have desired for Myself?  Behold these Wounds!  No pains of thine will ever be so great.  Thou wilt thus participate in My lamentations for the loss that men of the world sustain, whose desires are bent on the acquisition of precisely the contrary.  To suppose that My Father admits any one to His friendship without sufferings, is folly; for those for whom He entertains a great love He leads on by the way of sufferings, and the sufferings He sends are the greater in proportion to the greatness of His love.”
     If, then, it is our wish to love our dearest Lord with a genuine love, and to study how to give satisfaction to His Heart, rather than to gratify our own, we must put in practice the excellent instruction that our Saint used to give to others and to observe herself: “Ever march forward with the desire of suffering everything, on every occasion, for the love of Jesus.”  Everyone should at least seek to conform himself perfectly to the will of God in all adversities.  This is what St. Teresa one day came down from Heaven to say to a devout soul: “Endeavour to have the fervent desire for the accomplishment of the Divine will that I had for death as long as I lived.”  To practice, therefore, what the Saint suggests, one should offer oneself wholly to God fifty times every day, with great fervour and the desire of Him.  By acting in this manner, we shall be very pleasing in the sight of God, and shall not feel the crosses He sends us, for, as the Saint used to say, “the weight of the Cross is felt by him who drags it along, but not by him who embraces it.”  Just as a miser, instead of being fatigued, feels joy as he carries his load of gold, and rejoices the more in proportion to the greatness of its weight; so does a loving soul rejoice the more she has to suffer for God, because she perceives that in offering up her sufferings to her Beloved, she becomes exceedingly dear to Him.

THE GREAT PERFECTION ATTAINED BY ST. TERESA

Meditação I:
     An ardent desire for sanctity is a great means towards becoming a saint; for, on the one hand, God does not bestow the abundance of His graces except on those souls that hunger for them, as the most Holy Mary says, in her subline canticle: He has filled the hungry with good things. — (Luke, i. 53).  And, on the other hand, this desire is necessary as regards ourselves, to the end that we may have the power of persevering under the hardships that we must endure if we would gain the great treasure of perfection.  For, that which is but little desired, there is no toil, however arduous, that they do not find easy and sweet.  On this account it is that God gives the appellation of “blessed” to those that have not the desire merely, but a hunger, that is, an ardent desire for sanctity: Blessed are they that hunger and thirst after justice. — (Matt. v. 6). 
     Teresa, whom we may compare to an eagle of heaven, and to whom the desire of fulfilling the perfect will of God gave wings wherewith to fly rapidly forward to perfection, has left us on record the following words: “Let us entertain great thoughts, for from them proceeds our good.”  And she says elsewhere: “We must not limit our desires, but we must hope that in relying on God we shall be able, through the efforts we make, gradually to reach the heights that many of the Saints by His grace have reached.”  She used to say that the Divine Majesty loves generous souls, provided only that they put no trust in themselves; and she testified, speaking from experience, that she had never known a faint-hearted soul to make as much progress even in several years as generous souls make within the space of a few days: “For,” said she, “the Lord is as pleased with desires as with their effects.”
     Oh! how great, in truth, was her desire of pleasing her Lord!  She does not shrink from the avowal, that, full of imperfections as she was, her desires were, nevertheless, great and perfect.  She writes: “The desire of serving God comes to me attended with transports I am unable to express.  It seems to me that no suffering, not even death, or Martyrdom itself, would be difficult for me to endure.”  Indeed, there was nothing, however difficult, she did not undertake and carry to a successful termination, when once she knew that it was pleasing to God.  And she testified this of herself: “There is nothing, however painful, that I am not ready to bear as soon as it comes.”  Thus the saint, having learned by her own experience, used to say: “I am astonished at what can be done by encouraging oneself to undertake great things, though we may not have the strength for them at once.  The soul takes a flight upwards and ascends very high.”  And here she adds a lesson of much importance – namely, that there is no humility in not wishing to become a saint.  Humility is necessary, she says; but we must understand that the devil strives to make us think it is pride to have great desires, and a wish to imitate the Saints.

Meditação II:
     In order to acquire perfection, it is not enough merely to desire it; we must also have the firm resolution of attaining it; for the desire without the resolution will be of no avail.  This is what happens to such a number of souls who are always desiring, and perpetually multiplying their desires, but never come to a determination of setting themselves to the work in good earnest, and so remain ever in their tepidity, without making any progress.  Our Saint writes: “I would rather have a short prayer producing great results, than a prayer lasting several years, during which the soul never resolves on performing anything of any real value for God.”
     St. Bernard says that many fail to become saints because they lack the courage.  And it was the subject of our Saint’s lamentation when she said: “Many remain down at the foot of the mountain who could scale its summit.”  On the other hand, she gives the assurance, that when a soul, in order to please God, undertakes anything with resolution, she easily accomplishes her purpose.  “It is quite true, O Lord,” she writes: “as is said by Thy Prophet, Thou dost feign there is labour in the observance of Thy law; yet I can perceive none; and I know not why the way that leads to Thee should be called narrow.  I have experienced in a variety of circumstances,” she adds, “that when any one from the outset resolves courageously on the accomplishment of anything whatever may be its difficulties, if he does it in order to please God, he has nothing to fear.  The devil, has great fear of resolute souls, seeing that every plot he contrives for their hurt turns to their profit.”
     O glorious Saint, I rejoice with thee, now that I behold thee in Heaven, where thou art loving thy God with a love that fully contents that heart of thine, which on earth so much desired to love Him.  But since, in Heaven thy love for God has increased, assist O holy mother, this miserable soul of mine that desires to burn, like thyself, with holy love for this Infinite God, Who deserves the love of an infinity of hearts.  Say for me to Jesus what thou once didst say to Him in this life for one of His servants: “Lord, let us take him to be our friend.”  Ask Jesus to inspire me with the resolution of consecrating my whole will, once for all, to Him and of studying in everything that alone which is most pleasing in His sight and which may best promote His glory.

Spiritual Reading:  RESOLUTION TO GIVE ONESELF WHOLLY TO GOD

     St. Teresa herself practiced earnestly what she taught to others.  When she was called to give herself wholly to God, she gave herself to Him without reserve, and with so strong a resolution, that to oblige herself to search out whatever might give the most pleasure to her Beloved, she went so far as to bind herself by that sublime vow, at which the Saints have been filled with astonishment, and which is styled by the sacred tribunal of the Rota, “a very difficult vow,” always to do what she understood to be the most perfect.  Herein Teresa exhibits to us the courage and the resolution with which she aimed at the highest perfection to which a soul upon earth can attain, in order that she might please God the utmost of her power.
     Let our resolution, then, be to aim with sincere desire at the highest sanctity, as our Saint did, and to resolve to give ourselves wholly to God, studying to advance every day farther and farther towards perfection.
     A great servant of God, Father Hyppolito Durazzo, of the Society of Jesus, used with good reason to say, as we read in his Life, that men of the world never think that they have enough of the good things of this world, and are always endeavouring to possess more; but with respect to the next they say: “The smallest corner of Paradise will do.”  Whereas, on the contrary, he who truly loves God and not the world, will be contented with the least corner of the earth; but for the good things of Heaven he will always to be striving more and more without ever resting.  This good Father used also to say that “to become a saint one needs nothing but what is to be obtained through the sole desire of pleasing God.”
     After the desire is formed, one must then most firmly resolve to give oneself to God without reserve.  God has already given us this desire.  This desire is His voice distinctly speaking to us and calling us to His love.  He has already called us very many times, and why are we hesitating?  Do we wish to wait until He ceases to call us, and He abandons us?  Now is the time for putting an end, once for all, to our hesitations, and for renouncing everything that is not for God.  It is not a time for prolonging our resistance to the love of that Lord Who alone deserves to be loved.  We must, then, break every earthly attachment that hinders us from belonging entirely to God.  Resolution!  Resolution!  God!  God alone!  And nothing else!
     And Thou, O my Lord, tell me what it is that Thou dost look for from me in bestowing upon me so many graces!  Ah!  I understand Thee – I understand Thee, my Treasure, my All, my true Lover!  Since Thou lovest me greatly, Thou dost wish me to love Thee greatly, and to become all Thine.  Thou dost wish that my heart may be no longer divided, but that its whole attention may be devoted to loving Thee alone.  Yes, Thee alone.  But, in truth, if Thou art the only one that deserves to be loved, it is no more than just that Thou only be loved by me and by all mankind.  Since, then, O my Beloved, Thou dost inspire me with this desire of loving Thee, so overrule me that I may put it in practice, and may love Thee as much as Thou desirest.  If Thou wilt have my heart, behold, here it is.  I take it from the love of creatures to give it wholly to Thee.  If Thou dost wish me to desire and to ask for Thy love, yea, my God, I ask it of Thee, and I desire to love Thee more than even the Seraphim do.  Hearken to my prayer.  I ask this of Thee, not in order to become distinguished amongst the Saints, nor to gain a high degree of glory in Paradise, but only in order to be pleasing in Thy sight.  Provided that I may love Thee the more, I even offer myself to suffer pain of every description, and for all eternity, if such be Thy good pleasure.  Hearken to me my Lord, for the love of Jesus Christ, and for the love of St. Teresa.
     O blessed and holy Virgin Mary, thou art my hope; I hope for all good things through thee.

THE HUMILITY OF ST. TERESA

Meditação I:
     Humble hearts are the targets at which the arrows of Divine love are aimed; and so, as St. Mary Magdalen de Pazzi used to say, the practice suitable for us, in order to obtain Divine love, is that of self-humiliation.  It was because God found the heart of Teresa most humble that it pleased Him to bestow upon her such a multitude of graces.  The Saint, in speaking of herself, declares that the most precious graces with which the Lord enriched her were those that she received at the very time when she was humbling herself most before Him.
     Our Saint was in reality so humble that, although the Lord treated her as His beloved spouse, as we have already observed, she nevertheless treated with her Lord only in the character of an ungrateful and faithless one.  For this reason it was that however many might be the favours heaped upon her by Jesus Christ, and how great soever the commendations she received from men, she could never be persuaded to think well of herself.  Although God Himself had conveyed to her an assurance that her visions were not illusions, but gifts of His love, so that in receiving them it was impossible for her to doubt that they came from God, nevertheless the opinion that she entertained of herself was so mean that she was perpetually fearing lest she might be mistaken, being unable to believe that God would grant such favours to a soul so unworthy as she believed herself to be.
     One day, as the Saint was on her way to Burgos to found a convent, a Religious mentioned to her the reputation for sanctity she enjoyed.  In reply, she said: “Three things have been said of me: that when I was a little child I had a good disposition; that I was discreet; and now there are some persons who say of me that am a saint.  In times gone by I believed the two former of these, and I have accused myself in Confession of having yielded to this vanity; but I have never practiced upon myself so great a deception as to give credence to the third.”
     In the account of her life that she addressed to her confessor she says, when speaking of the graces the Lord bestowed upon her: “Formerly it seemed to me I felt confusion that they were known, but it now seems to me that so far from being better I am much worse on their account; for with so many graces I do so little.  For this reason it seems to me that from every point of view there is not in the whole world a creature worse than myself.”  Elsewhere she says: “I do nothing but receive graces without profiting by them, as if I were the most useless thing in the world.  All others bear fruit; it is I only that am good for nothing.”
     A certain person, on seeing how many favours she received from God, and how great her reputation for sanctity was in the world, said to her: “My mother, be on your guard against vainglory.”  Teresa, all astonishment, replied: “Vainglory?  On what account I know not.  Seeing what I am, I shall have much to do to keep myself from falling into despair.”

Meditação II:
     The light God gave Teresa to see the greatness of His Majesty and the love He bore her made her regard as grave faults the little defects into which she used to fall – defects that others like ourselves would not consider defects at all.  In consequence, she used continually to exclaim, full of confusion: “Lord, consider what Thou art doing!  How is it that Thou hast so quickly forgotten my ingratitude?”
     In writing the account of her life for her confessor, she prays him in one place to publish her sins everywhere, “in order that,” she said, “I may no longer impose upon people who think that there is some good in me.”  And when those to whom she made a manifestation of her bad life would not share the opinion that she entertained of herself before she betook herself to her Spouse and laid her complaint before Him, saying: “Lord, why is it that these people do not believe me?  Do Thou look to it.  For my part, I know not what more I can do.”
     On the other hand, when she thought that others might have a knowledge of the graces that God bestowed upon her, this thought alone cause her so much affliction that as she says in her Life, she would have wished to be buried alive, so as not to be seen any longer in the world.  Wherefore it was that the Lord, in order to tranquilize her in this affliction, one day said to her: “Teresa, of what art thou afraid?  If men were to know the graces I bestow upon thee, one of two things would happen: they would either give glory to Me, or speak ill of thee.”  The Saint tells us that these words restored tranquillity to her.
     O my holy Advocate, Teresa, who didst wound the Heart of Thy God by thy beautiful humility, I beg thee by the love thou bearest towards thy dear Mother Mary, and thy beloved Spouse Jesus, to obtain for me holy humility, in order that being transformed like thee into the likeness of my Jesus in His state of humiliation upon earth, I may one day be able to see and to love Him with thee in Paradise.

Leitura espiritual:  ALL WISH TO BE “HUMBLE,” BUT FEW TO BE “HUMBLED”

     The humility of St. Teresa was not the sort that some possess, who, although entertaining, in some instances, a lowly opinion of themselves, and expressing it also before others, yet cannot bear that others should publish their defects and subject them to contempt.  No.  The Saint, like all souls that are really humble, regarded herself, and wished to be regarded and treated by others as a vile creature.  She even went so far as to say that there was no music more pleasing to her ears than the reproaches addressed to her in regard to her defects.  She was frequently the object of contempt and of opprobrious treatment; and on such occasions her soul, truly humble as it was, took greater delight in seeing herself despised than if she had been praised and honoured.  How often, in establishing those monasteries, whereby she procured so much glory to God, how often were insults heaped upon her as a hypocrite, a liar, a proud woman, and one filled with illusions!  And this, too, as it once happened, from the pulpit, and in her own presence.  The Pope’s Nuncio, in a fit of anger, went so far as to enjoin upon her to retire into a monastery, and not to go out of it any more, telling her that she was a restless and vagabond woman.  She shut herself up, as she was bidden, without making any defence, satisfied in having met with contempt and confusion.
     On another occasion an accusation was brought before the Inquisition against her as a sorceress and a witch.  Having also heard a certain Religious laying many evils to her charge, she answered: “If this Father had known me, he might have said much more against me.”  On her entrance into Seville, she was at first an object of contempt and displeasure, whereupon she said: “Blessed be God!  Here they know me to be what I am.”  Elsewhere she writes: “So far am I from wishing ill to any of those that spoke evil of me, it seems to me as if I entertained for them even a greater love that I did before.”
     While the Saint was arranging about the foundation at Burgos, she was one day passing along a narrow footpath, on which there happened to be a certain woman.  She asked her permission to pass by; but this woman, seeing her clad in raiment that bespoke the greatest poverty, said to her, “Go along, you hypocrite”; and then, with a rough push, caused her to fall into the muddy channel.  The Saint’s companions wished to rebuke the woman, but she took her part, saying: “My daughters, hold your peace.  Do you not perceive that this woman has acted very rightly?”  On another occasion she was in a church, and certain persons wishing to pass by, she did not take heed to rise sufficiently soon from the place where she was kneeling, whereupon they kicked against her, and so made her move to another part of the church.  Another woman who had lost one of her shoes, fancying that Teresa had stolen it from her, had the impudence to strike her on the face with the other shoe.  All this the Saint tranquilly received, better contented with these insults than a man of the world would be at receiving the greatest honours.  The tribunal of the Rota has even attested that the greater the offences she received from others, the more they drew her love upon themselves.  So much so, indeed, was this the case that it was a common saying that, in order to be loved by Teresa, it was necessary to treat her in a humiliating and injurious manner.
     All wish to be humble, but there are few who wish to be humbled.  St. Ignatius of Loyola was sent from heaven by the Most Holy Virgin, to give the following counsel to St. Mary Magdalen de Pazzi: “Humility is the joy that we feel at everything that leads us to despise ourselves.”  This is what is meant by being humble of heart, as Jesus Christ teaches us to be – namely, to regard ourselves as what we really are, and to wish that others may look upon us and treat us in the same way.
     Behold, then, for the practice of humility, the following most important maxims, which are borrowed from the Saint herself:
     1.  To avoid every occupation and every conversation that can in any way have to do with self-love, unless some notable utility oblige us to enter upon it.  The Saint enjoins, nevertheless, that we that we should never put ourselves forward, excepting under obedience, or from motives of charity.
     2.  Never to manifest our interior devotion, unless through some great necessity; and never to affect outwardly a devotion that is not in the heart.
     3.  To rejoice on beholding ourselves the object of complaints, of insults and of mockeries, without seeking to justify ourselves, unless this be necessary for some greater good; “and when we are reproved,” says the Saint, “let us receive the reproof with interior as well as exterior humility, offering up a prayer to God for him by whom we are reprimanded.
     4.  To ask unceasingly of God what St. John of the Cross prayed for – to be despised for His love.
     5.  Finally, not to expect that the sense and the inferior part of the soul should find satisfaction in this; but to act according to reason, contenting ourselves with pleasing God; and for this it is especially useful to exercise ourselves during prayer in preparing ourselves for contempt of every description; and to earnestly to Jesus and Mary to grant us the fulfilment of our good resolutions on the occasions that may present themselves.

THE WOUND OF LOVE WHEREWITH GOD PIERCED THE HEART OF ST. TERESA

Meditação I:
     Ever since the time Jesus lovingly declared Teresa to be His Spouse, she remained so wrapt up in her Beloved, that she could think of nothing but of pleasing Him.  Perceiving herself to be so highly favoured by her Divine Lover, and at the same time so destitute of the means of corresponding to so many graces, she cried out in the tenderness of her soul, with the spouse in the Canticles: Stay me up with flowers; compass me about with fruits, for I languish with love. — (Cant. ii. 5).  She animated herself then, sometimes by the desire of suffering that she might please God the more, and at other times by ardently longing for death that she might love Him more perfectly: such were her flowers.  But besides this, she made it her study to fortify her languishing heart with the fruits of love, such as good works, penances, humiliations, and, more particularly, the labours she undertook in the great work of the reform of her Order.  She founded thirty-two convents, although she was poor, destitute of all human aid, and opposed even by the great ones of this world, as the Church commemorates in the Lessons for her Office.
     All this, however, was too small to satisfy her fervent desires of pleasing her heavenly Spouse, and she protested to her Beloved that she could not endure to see herself so much enriched by the gifts she received, and so niggardly in the return she made.  Consequently, enveloped as she was in the holy flames of Divine love, and altogether detached from herself, she was frequently all on fire and languishing in the tenderness of her soul.  Oh! what a beautiful sight for the blessed spirits that assisted her was this generous spouse of the Crucified, who in her languishings cried out: I adjure you, O daughters of Jerusalem, if you find my Beloved, that you tell Him that I languish with love. — (Cant. v. 8).  The effect of this holy languishing, as explained by the Doctors of the Church, is that the soul forgets itself and all its concerns, so as to have no love for anything but for its Beloved, and to have no thoughts but how to please Him.  Such is the love of a spouse, as is observed by St. Bernard in the following words, in which he represents a soul raised to this happiness, as thus speaking: “The servant fears; the son honours; the mercenary hopes; and I, because I am a spouse, I love to love, I love to be beloved, and I love love itself.”  Precisely such was our seraphic Saint: languishing in her happiness; forgetting everything that had not a reference to Divine love; loving and being beloved, she made God’s pleasure her only study; the only recompense that she desired was to add to her love for Him.

Meditação II:
     As the hunter, to obtain possession of his prey, endeavours to make sure of it by inflicting upon it numerous wounds, so does the Divine Archer seem to have acted in like manner towards Teresa, sending to her on several occasions a Seraph to wound that heart of hers which He willed to be wholly His.  Let us listen to the Saint herself in the description that she gives us of this grace: “Our Lord was pleased I should have at times a vision of this kind – I saw an Angel close by me on my left side in bodily form.  He was not large, but small of stature, and most beautiful – his face burning, as if he were one of the highest Angels, who seem to be all of fire. . . . I saw in his hand a long golden spear, the point of which seemed to be tipped with fire.  He appeared to me to be thrusting it at times into my heart and to pierce my very vitals, a part of which he drew forth, and to leave me all on fire with a great love of God.  The pain was so great that it caused me to utter plaintive cries, and yet so surpassing was the sweetness of this excessive pain, that I could not wish to be rid of it.  The soul is then satisfied with nothing less than God. . . . It is a caressing of love so sweet which now takes place between the soul and God, that I pray God of His Goodness to make him experience it who may think I do not speak the truth.”
     O lovely wound! must we, then, exclaim, O sweet pain!  O desirable fire!  Wound that makes Him loved by Whom it is inflicted; Sweet art thou, because thy sweetness excels all the pleasures of the world!  O fire, more to be desired than all the kingdoms of the earth!  Thou art the most precious gift the Divine Lover can bestow upon His faithful and beloved spouses, a gift directly proceeding from the loving Heart of God; a gift whose effect, as the Saint said, is to make the soul dissatisfied with everything short of God.
     He whose heart is greatly wounded cannot be prevented from thinking of Him by Whom the wound was made; and if he wished to forget Him, the pain he experienced would recall Him to his remembrance.  The soul that is wounded with the love of Jesus cannot exist without loving Jesus, and without thinking of Him.  Should it happen that the world or creatures have attracted her attention, the wound in her heart sweetly constrains her to return and to languish in love for Him Who has wounded her.
     But, O my God, who is there that would not accept this pain, if that can be called pain which is occasioned by this delicious fire of love, the very fire of love which constitutes the happiness of the Saints in Heaven, and which will fill them with joy for all eternity!  To prepare the heart, however, for the reception of this fire and of these wounds, it is necessary to resolve, once for all, to banish far away everything that is not God, and generously to say farewell to all creatures, addressing them thus:
     World, honours, riches, creatures, what would you have of me?  I utterly renounce you!  I take my leave of you!  Farewell!  My God has set me on fire with love; He has wounded me; by His love He has, at last, gained my whole heart; He has made me know He will not be content unless He has entire possession of it.  Depart, then, far from me, ye creatures.  You cannot satisfy me, and I no longer desire such gratification as you bestow.  Go and content him that seeks you, for I no longer wish for you.  I wish for God alone!  With God I rest content.  God alone!  Yes, God alone is enough for me.  Too long, alas, have I loved Creatures.  The time I have still to spend upon earth, whatever its duration may be, I wish to employ wholly and solely in loving that God, Who was first to love me, and Who deserves and demands of me all my love.
     O my seraphic virgin, St. Teresa of Jesus, thou in whom thy Spouse so affectionately enkindled His fire, and wounded with His love, pray, pray for me, that, wounded by my God, and henceforth burning for Him, Who alone deserves to be loved, I may so forget all creatures as to love my Creator alone.

Spiritual Reading:  “DETACH YOUR HEART FROM ALL THINGS; SEEK GOD AND YOU WILL FIND HIM”

     We are apt to complain that, seeking God, we do not find Him.  “Detach your heart from all things,” St. Teresa used to say, “Seek God, and you will find Him.”  Otherwise, the things we love will be continually drawing us off, and will prevent us from finding God.  The Lord one day said to our Saint: “Oh! how much would I willingly say to a great number of souls!  But the world makes a great noise around their hearts, and in their ears so that My voice cannot be heard!  Oh! if they would but separate themselves a little from the world!”
     There are many souls given to prayer, in whom Divine love finds little, if any, place, because they go to prayer with a heart filled with earthly affections.  For this reason it is that St. Ignatius of Loyola says that a soul that is detached will profit more in a quarter of an hour’s prayer than a soul that is not detached will in several hours.  No sooner has the bird escaped from the net, than it flies away; so, in like manner, no sooner is the soul set free from earthly affections, than it flies quickly to God.  The masters of the spiritual life teach that defects do not prevent us from advancing to perfection, provided the soul endeavours to rise with humility and peace, as soon as it has fallen; but the smallest attachment, were it only a fine thread, does prevent us.
     The Roman Senate, as St. Augustine relates, sanctioned the payment of Divine honours to thirty thousand deities, that is, to all that were recognized as such in the world; but it refused to decree Divine worship to the God of the Christians, Whom it styled a jealous God, since He desired to be adored exclusively.  And the Roman Senate had good reason for what they thus alleged; not because God is proud, but because He is the true God.  The thief is satisfied if he obtains a share, but the owner is not satisfied without the whole.  God desires then, to be the sole possessor of our heart; and, therefore, He enjoins upon each of us this command: Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with thy whole heart. — (Matt. xxii. 37).  “Let us act in such a way,” said St. Teresa to a certain Superior, “as to detach souls from everything created, in order that they may become the spouses of a King, Who is so jealous that He would have them forget everything, and even themselves.”  Let us, then, set to work to detach our heart from riches by the love of holy poverty; from pleasures, by mortification; from honours, by humility; from relatives, by detachment; and, lastly, from self-will by obedience to superiors; frequently offering up to God that excellent prayer: Create a clean heart in me, O God! — (Ps. l. 12).  Give me, O God, a heart that is empty and detached, that it may be filled with Thy holy love.

ST. TERESA’S DEVOTION TO THE BLESSED VIRGIN AND THE GLORIOUS ST. JOSEPH

Meditação I:
     It was given to St. Mary Magdalen de Pazzi to behold Divine love under the form of a sweet liquid in a precious vessel, being dispensed by the hands of the most Holy Mary.  As all God’s graces come to men through the hands of Mary, it is also through her that the gift of gifts, Divine love, is bestowed on the faithful.
     Our Saint (Teresa) well knew that she had received all her graces, and above all, the gift of love, which made her beautiful soul so rich, through the hands of this most sweet Mother.  And so, in order to testify her thankfulness to her most holy Mother, she thought she could never do enough for her love and honour.  From her early childhood, while still an inmate of her parental home, she would go in quest of secluded spots to honour Mary by saying the Rosary and other pious prayers.  On the death of her mother, she hastened to offer herself to her heavenly Queen with confidence and love to be her daughter, and protesting that from that moment she should be her only and her dearest Mother.  In truth, in all her tribulations and in all her needs, the Saint ever had recourse to Mary, as to her most loving Mother.  It was with the special object of seeing her honoured everywhere that she undertook the work of reforming the Carmelite Order, whose glory it is to fight under the banner and the especial protection of the Queen of Heaven.
     Mary, on her part, who cannot do otherwise than love those that love her, or rather in the words of St. Ignatius the Martyr, “is always more loving towards them than they towards her, not wishing to be outdone by her children in this combat of love,” this august Queen well knew how to return and to exceed the love that her dearest daughter bore towards her, by obtaining for her a great abundance of graces.  On the day on which she condescended to come down so lovingly from Heaven, and with her own hands to decorate our Saint with a precious mystical necklace, she made her clearly understand how much satisfaction she felt at seeing her become, through her mediation, the most cherished spouse her Jesus had.  It appears still more evident from the circumstances attending her death, how greatly she was loved by this affectionate Mother, for Mary then appeared standing beside her beloved daughter, to fortify her for her departure, and to receive into her arms her blessed soul.
     O my Saint, address thyself to that Divine Mother whose power is universal: and because it is her glory to be the refuge of sinners, tell her that I am a sinner and the most wretched of them all.  Entreat her henceforth to look with compassion upon me, commended to her as I am by thee, to succour me in my temptations, and to come to my assistance at the hour of my death.  Tell her that I hope for eternal salvation through her hands.  Tell her this, my Saint, and she will certainly listen to what thou sayest; for, loving thee so tenderly while thou wast upon earth, how much greater is her love for thee now in Heaven where thou dost honour and love her more than ever.  As Mary is my advocate with Jesus mayest thou, O Teresa, be my advocate with Mary.

Meditação II:
     Our Saint had also a great devotion to the glorious spouse of Mary, St. Joseph.  It may even be said, that the glory of kindling in the world devotion towards that great Saint was hers.  She had felt, from her early childhood, an extreme affection for St. Joseph.  She never took any affair in hand without commending it to St. Joseph, her father and her lord – styling him thus on account of the affection and reverence she bore him.  All the convents she founded she consecrated under his invocation; and when she herself came to be honoured by the Church as a Saint, and some of her Religious substituted the title of St. Teresa for that of St. Joseph at Avila, she appeared to Sister Isabella of St. Dominic and enjoined upon her to restore the title of St. Joseph, as speedily as possible, bearing her testimony from Heaven itself that the glory of her beloved Saint was an object of greater concern to her than her own.
     “How glad should I be if I could prevail upon all men,” she says in her Life, “to cultivate a devotion towards this glorious Saint, by the results of my own experience of the great favours that he obtains from God.  I have never known any persons that had this devotion who did not make uninterrupted progress in virtue.  I only ask, for the love of God, that he that does not give credence to what I say would be at the pains of giving it a trial.”
     I rejoice, O Teresa, at thy being in Heaven in company with thy holy father St. Joseph, who loved thee so tenderly and conferred so many favours on thee upon earth.  Now that thou art returning him thanks and enjoying the contemplation of that great glory wherewith Jesus has enriched him, commend me to the care of this powerful intercessor.  Pray to him to take me also, miserable as I am, under his protection.

Spiritual Reading:  THE PROTECTION OF HOLY MARY AND ST. JOSEPH

     St. Francis de Sales used to say that next after the merits of Jesus Christ, the protection of the Blessed Virgin is so powerful and so beneficial to the soul that he looked upon it as the firmest support we can have with God.  Father Suarez asserts that according to the received opinion of the Church, the protection of Mary is profitable and necessary, because God has determined to bestow all graces through her.  Let us, then, love Mary, and ever have recourse to her protection if we wish to save and sanctify our souls.  Let us with St. Bernard address her as the “whole foundation of our hope”; with St. Bonaventure, as “the salvation of who calls upon her”; with St. Germanus, as “the life of Christians”; with St. Augustine, as “the only refuge of sinners”; and let us crown all by saluting her with the whole Church militant as “our life, our sweetness and our hope.”
     St. Teresa used, moreover, to say she could not understand how it was possible to have devotion to the Queen of Angels without having, at the same time, an especial affection for her spouse St. Joseph, who was so assiduous on earth in the service of holy Mary and her dear Son, Jesus.
     In spite of Teresa’s humility, and her great reserve in regard to any manifestation of the graces she received from Heaven, she did not hesitate to make known the extraordinary favours she had obtained through St. Joseph as their channel – and all for the purpose of glorifying her beloved Saint.  In the history of her life she writes as follows: “I took for my patron and lord the glorious St. Joseph and recommended myself earnestly to him . . . and he has rendered me greater services than I knew how to ask for.  I cannot call to mind that I have ever asked him at any time for anything which he has not granted; and I am filled with amazement when I consider the great favours God has given me through this blessed Saint – the dangers from which he has delivered me, both of body and of soul.  To other Saints, Our Lord seems to have given grace to succour men in some special necessity; but to this glorious Saint, I know by experience, God gives the power to help us in all.  Our Lord would have us understand that, as He was Himself subject to Joseph on earth . . . so now in Heaven He grants all his requests.  I have asked others to recommend themselves to St. Joseph and they, too, know this by experience. . . . Would that I could persuade all men to be devout to this glorious Saint, for I know by long experience what blessings he can obtain for us from God.  I have never known anyone who was really devout to him, and who honoured him by particular services, who did not visibly grow more and more in virtue. . . . I only ask, for the love of God, that he who does not believe me will make the trial for himself –  when he will see by experience the great advantages that will come to him from commending himself to this glorious Patriarch, and being devout to him.  He who cannot find anyone to teach him how to pray, let him take this glorious Saint for his Master.” — (Life, ch. vi.)  Let us go, then, to our Saint herself the great Teresa, and ask her to obtain for us devotion to most holy Mary and St. Joseph.

ST. TERESA’S DESIRE FOR DEATH

Meditação I:
     If the worldly-minded have a fear of losing their goods, fleeting and miserable as they are, much greater is the fear the Saints have of losing God, Who is a Good infinite and eternal, and Who promises to bestow Himself in Heaven as a recompense upon him who has loved Him on earth, admitting him to the enjoyment of His beauty and of His own happiness.  Hence as their whole fear during life has been simply the fear of sinning, and thus losing the friendship of that Lord Whom they have loved so well, so their whole desire has been to die in the grace of God, and by death to gain the assurance of loving and possessing Him forever.
     Death, then – that object of the greatest terror to souls attached to this world – is what those that love God especially desire: for, says St. Bernard, it is for these happy souls both the termination of their labours and the gate of life.  Hence we see that among the Saints, one would call this life a prison and pray the Lord to deliver him out of it: Deliver my soul from this prison. — (Ps. cxli. 8).  Another, like St. Paul, would call it a real death: Who shall deliver me from the body of this death? — (Rom. vii. 24).
     But how are we to express the grief and the extreme anguish that our Saint experienced through her desire for death, more especially after the time when the Lord called her to His perfect love?  She protests, in her Life, written in obedience to her confessor, that the desire that she had of dying, in order to see God, was so great, that it did not even afford her the leisure to think of her sins.  This humble spouse of Jesus crucified spoke in this manner because she was continually bewailing those imperfections in her love of her Spouse into which she had formerly fallen – imperfections she pronounced to be monstrous and deserving of hell, but in reality, as her biographers declare, her failings never amounted to a mortal sin.
     The Saint, in thinking, moreover, of the danger she was in, as long as life should last, of offending God and losing Him, used to say that a single day, and even a single hour, seemed to her too long to have to live.  Hence she would exclaim: “Alas! Lord, as long as we remain in this miserable life, life eternal is ever in jeopardy.  O life! enemy of my welfare, who will be able to bring thee to an end?  I endure thee, because God endures thee.  I preserve thee, because thou dost appertain to Him; may I never prove treacherous or ungrateful.  Oh! when will that day of benediction arrive on which I shall behold thee, O life, swallowed up in the boundless ocean of the sovereign truth, when thou wilt no longer possess the liberty to sin?”
     O beautiful fatherland!  O blessed fatherland of God­ loving souls! where they love Him without fear of losing Him; without tepidity, and for ever!  I greet thee from afar, from this valley of tears, and I sigh for thee, because I hope that in thee I shall love my God with all my powers for evermore.

Meditação II:
     To our Saint’s fear of the possibility of offending God in this life was joined the great desire that this loving soul entertained of seeing face to face the only object of her love, that she might thus gain the power of loving Him more perfectly, and of altogether uniting herself to Him.  For this reason she could not endure to see herself at such a distance from the country of the Blessed; with abundance of tears, she would thus utter her complaint before her Spouse: “Alas! Alas! Lord, this banishment is long indeed!  What shall a soul confined in this prison do?  Oh! Jesus, the life of man is long indeed!  It is short, when considered as a means of gaining the life that is the true one; but it is long for that soul that desires to behold herself in the presence of her God.”  At other times, blending with her loving pains her distrust in her own merits and her hope in God, she would occupy herself in the composition of the following beautiful harmony of ejaculations so pleasing to her Beloved: “O life!” she would say, “O life! How canst thou keep thyself apart from thy Life?  O death!  O death!  I know not who can fear thee, because in thee is life!  Yet who shall not fear thee after having spent a part of this life without the love of his God?  O my soul! Serve thy God, and hope that in His mercy He will heal thy miseries.”
     But in order to understand the extent of the burning desire our Saint had for death, it is necessary that we should have a knowledge of the pain she experienced in continuing in life.  She related to her confessor that this was such that it seemed already to destroy and bring her life to an end.  Under its influence, too, she would even fall into an ecstasy.  To give vent to her affections, she drew up on this subject those burning words of which that celebrated hymn of hers in composed, which thus begins:

“I live, from myself am far away:
And hope to reach a life so high,
That I’m for ever dying because I do not die!”

     Elsewhere she says: “When will it be, O my God, that I shall at last see my whole soul perfectly united to Thee, so that all its faculties may have complete fruition of Thee?”
     In a word, the only relief and consolation she found in this life was in thinking of her death.  So she used to comfort herself, while on earth, with words like these: “Then, then, O my soul, you will have entered into your rest, when you shall be holding converse with that sovereign Good and shall know what He knows; when you shall love what He loves, and enjoy all that constitutes His blessedness; for then you will be rid of your own wretched will.”  Thus, it may be said, that the life of our Saint was sustained by the hope of that life eternal, for which she had sacrificed all the goods of this world; “I had rather live and die,” she tells us, “hoping for the life eternal, than have all the goods of the earth in my possession.  Do not Thou abandon me, O Lord, for I hope in Thee.  If only I may serve Thee without intermission, do with me whatsoever Thou pleasest.”
     O my holy advocate, Teresa, I rejoice with thee that thou hast reached the haven, the termination of thy sighs!  Now thou dost no longer believe, thou beholdest the beauty of God!  Thou no longer hopest, thou art possessed of the Sovereign Good!  Thou art now rejoicing in the clear vision of the God Whom thou hast so long desired and loved!  Thy love is now satiated!  There is nothing for thy loving heart to long for more!  O my Saint, have compassion on me who am still in the midst of the storm.  Pray for me that I may obtain salvation and go to join thee in loving that God Whom thou so greatly desirest to see loved.

Spiritual Reading:  “PARADISE!  PARADISE!”

     When the dignity of Cardinal was offered to St. Philip Neri, he cast his biretta into the air, and, looking up to Heaven, replied: “Paradise! Paradise!”  The Blessed Giles would fall into an ecstasy, when the children, out of frolic, said to him: “Brother Giles, Paradise! Paradise!”
     It is an opinion among theologians, that in Purgatory there is a peculiar pain called the pain of languor, which is inflicted upon those who had but little desire for Paradise during life on earth, and reasonably so, for we have but little love for God if we desire but little to enjoy His infinite beauty unveiled before our eyes, and the more so as it is impossible for us here in life not to be continually offending Him, at least in venial matters.  Even if we do love Him here below, our love is, nevertheless, so imperfect, that we scarcely know that we love Him at all.
     Let us, then, yearn for Paradise, where we shall offend God no more, and where we shall ever love Him with all our powers.  When the troubles of this life press heavily upon us, let us animate ourselves by the hope of Paradise in order to bear them with tranquility.  When the world or the devil presents for our acceptance fruits that are forbidden, let us with good courage turn our back upon them, and lift up our eyes to Paradise.  If the dread of God’s judgments alarms us, let us nerve ourselves by hoping in the goodness of our God, Who to make us understand how ardently He desires to give Paradise to us, has commanded us, under pain of damnation, to hope for it through His mercy.  He even willed to purchase it at the cost of His Blood, and His Death, that so He might obtain that great blessedness for us; and to assure us of it the more, He has been pleased to give us a pledge of it in the gift of Himself to us in the Most Holy Sacrament of the altar.
     If our weakness terrifies us, let us fortify our hope by the same goodness of our Lord, Who, after having given us His merits to entitle us to Paradise, will likewise give us the strength to persevere in His grace even to our life’s end, if we have recourse to His mercy, and pray to Him for that strength and perseverance.
     The holy Mother Teresa used to say: “Let your desire be to see God; your fear, to lose Him; your joy, whatever can bring you to Him.”
     Burning with the desire of seeing God, the Saint composed her famous “Canticle,” “I die because I cannot die!” and on this text she wrote many beautiful stanzas, of which the following are two:

Ah, Lord, my Light, and living Breath!
Take me, Oh, take me from this death,
And burst the bars that sever me
     From my true Life above
Think how I die, Thy face to see,
And cannot live away from Thee,
     O my eternal Love!
And ever, ever weep and sigh,
Dying because I cannot die.

I weary of this endless strife;
I weary of this dying life –
This living death – this heavy chain;
     This torment of delay,
In which her sins my soul detain;
Ah, when shall it be mine?  Ah, when,
With my last breath to say –
“No more I weep – no more I sigh!
I’m dying of the desire to die.”

 HYMN IN HONOUR OF ST. TERESA
By St. Alphonsus

Ye Angels most inflamed
     With fires of heavenly love,
Bright Seraphim, descend
     From your high thrones above;
To this most chosen soul
     Your loving succour bring –
To her, the spouse belov’d
     Of Christ your God and King.

Jesus, your Love, your Life,
     Who loves the pure of heart,
Has pierced Teresa’s soul
     With love’s own flaming dart;
And lo! she pines away,
     She languishes, she sighs;
For Him Who gave the wound,
     Of very love she dies

*          *          *          *

To see her loving Spouse
     So fierce is her desire
That evermore she burns,
     Consuming in its fire.
That sweet and longing wish
     Into His arms to fly,
Is but a living death,
     Because she cannot die.

No angels come to aid;
     Come Thou, Who in this breast
Hast kindled flames so dear,
     Come Thou, and give her rest;
Sick is her soul with love,
     And wounded is her heart;
Thou didst inflict the wound,
     Then, Jesus, cure its smart.

Thy spouse was ever true,
     To please Thy Heart Divine,
All earth could give she left,
     All she could give is Thine;
And now, she loves Thee well,
     And sighs to come to Thee;
She longs to take her flight,
     Ah! set her spirit free.

ST. TERESA’S PRECIOUS DEATH

Meditação I:
     The holy Mother Teresa, on leaving Burgos, was desirous of going to her dear convent of Avila, that she might rest awhile in that her first and favourite abode, where she began her reform; but her heavenly Spouse summoned her to go to another home, and to eternal repose.  The Lord wished to have her in the land of the Blessed; therefore He permitted that, as she was on her way, her Provincial should send her an order to repair to the convent of Alba.  There God was awaiting her, to deliver her from the prison of this life, and to conduct her to the everlasting nuptials.
     Come, O my Saint!  Come! Your Spouse deems that your labours have now been sufficient; and His Heart is touched with compassion by your sighs.  Come to the repose that you desire; come to the haven after having encountered the storm.  Come to begin that new life of love which you will enter by a death of love, which the Lord is preparing for you in this favoured spot.
     The Saint obeyed, and reached Alba on St. Matthew’s Day, at six o’clock in the evening, in the year 1582.  Her daughters welcomed her with great reverence and great affection, perhaps not without some presentiment that they should lose her before long.  They received her benediction and kissed her hand, whilst the Saint was tenderly and affectionately speaking with them.
     When she arrived she was fatigued from her journey, and unwell from an attack of fever; so that she retired immediately to her bed at the entreaty of her children with these words: “Oh! May God assist me, my dear daughters, as I feel quite overpowered!  It is now more than twenty years since I retired to rest at so early an hour.  Blessed be the Lord that my sickness has fallen upon me while I am amongst you.”
     During the eight subsequent days her illness continued, but she never allowed it to prevent her from rising to receive her Jesus in Holy Communion, Who was to her the only Life of her life.
     But, on St. Michael’s Day, still suffering from the sickness that was to bring her to her grave, she took to her bed in the infirmary, never more to leave it.  There she remained for a day and a night in an ecstasy of prayer, and having learned then through a revelation, the hour and the moment of her decease, she told the Venerable Sister Ann of St. Bartholomew, her beloved companion in all her travels, that the hour of her departure had come.  Three days before her death, when Father Anthony of Jesus had come to hear her confession, he told her to pray to God to preserve her life for the good of the Reform; but the Saint replied that there was no longer any need to think of this, because her death was a certainty, and her presence upon earth was no longer necessary.  The doctors ordered her to be bled, and to this she willingly submitted, not our of any desire for recovery, but from the fervent wish she had to suffer, and to close her life in the midst of sufferings, as she had ever desired, for the love of her dearest Spouse, Whose will it had been to expire amidst so many torments on the Cross.
     On the eve of the Feast of St. Francis, she asked for the Most Holy Viaticum, and whilst they were bringing It, all her Religious being assembled in her chamber, she burst into tears, and clasping her hands together, said to them: “My daughters and my mothers, pardon me for the bad example I have set you, and do not imitate me who am the greatest sinner in the world, and who have observed my Rule less than all others.  For the love of God, my children, I pray you to observe that Rule perfectly, and to be obedient to your Superiors.”  She who had been so great a lover of obedience, recommended nothing but this virtue when at the point of death, knowing, as she did, that the perfection of Religious depends on the perfection of their obedience.

Meditação II:
     The Holy Viaticum having been brought, she had the courage, at the coming of her Spouse, to raise herself into a sitting posture, although her feebleness was such that she could scarcely stir.  The ardour with which her love inspired her was so great that she appeared ready to throw herself from her bed to go to meet the only Beloved of her soul, and receive Him.  Her countenance became so inflamed and radiant that they could not gaze upon her.  She clasped her hands together, burning, like the phoenix, with the liveliest ardour the nearer she approached the end of her life, and the more she lovingly conversed with her Spouse, so that she drew tears from all present.  Amongst other things, she said: “O my Lord and my Spouse, the hour so earnestly longed for has at last arrived!  It is time now that we should see each other, O Lord!  The day has dawned at last when I am to leave my place of exile to go to share with Thee in that joy which I have so ardently desired.”
     What gave her most consolation in that hour, and chiefly called forth her thankfulness towards God, was the fact of her being a child of the Holy Church.  She could not refrain from saying over and over again: After all, O Lord, I am a daughter of the Church.  She also frequently repeated the versicle of David: A contrite and humbled heart, O God, thou wilt not despise. — (Ps. l. 19).  On the following day, after receiving Extreme Unction, she held the Crucifix tight in her embrace, and remained fourteen hours in an ecstasy, with a countenance shining like fire, and immovable, beginning from that time to experience a foretaste of the great glory God had prepared for her in Heaven, where her Spouse was summoning her in these words: Arise, make haste, my love… and come — (Cant. ii. 10).  Then it was that, before the Saint expired, Sister Ann, her companion, saw her Spouse Jesus, and a multitude of angels, come and take up their position at the foot of her bed, awaiting the moment when they should conduct her to Heaven.  Beside Teresa’s bed was her sweet Mother Mary and St. Joseph, her beloved Father.  Lastly, she saw a multitude of persons, clothed in white and all shining with light, entering with great joy into the cell of the dying Saint.  It is supposed that these were the Ten Thousand Martyrs[1] who had promised her that they would accompany her to Paradise.  They drew near at the moment when Teresa, her beautiful life being consumed in a furnace of love, expired sweetly through the force of that love.  Her blessed soul issued forth from its prison and flew away like a dove to its Beloved in Paradise.  Indeed, at the very moment they saw her soul, as a white dove, flying to Heaven.  At the same time she appeared in glory to Sister Catharine of Jesus, and told her that her life had been terminated through the vehemence of her love, and that she had gone to rejoice in God.  Her virgin body forthwith exhaled a delightful fragrance, which diffused itself throughout the whole convent.
     Behold what a blessed reward the labours of the Saints receive at the hour of death!  While sinners experience at death sadness, confusion, remorse, despair – the foretaste of their damnation – the Saints, on the contrary, are filled with confidence, peace, light and joy – a foretaste of Paradise.  Come, ye senseless ones, come and see in this poor cell of Teresa, how contentedly those die, and leave this earth, who have already abandoned the world to give themselves wholly to God.
     Oh, devout soul, fail not to keep your eyes on the closing scenes that will take place at the hour of your own death.  Do now what you will wish to have done, but will not have the power to do then, and you will become a saint, and your death will be a happy one.
     Behold, then, O Teresa, thy sighs are heard, thy desires are fulfilled, thy love satisfied!  Thou art now released from banishment and hast reached thy place of rest.  Thou are now rejoicing with that Good Who was the object of thy love, loving that God Whom thou didst sigh after.  But amidst thy splendours, do not be unmindful of us, wretched as we are.  Have compassion on us who go on our way weeping as travellers in this valley of tears, and ever in danger of losing God.  For pity sake, address thy Jesus in our behalf that He may pardon the many sins we have committed.  Pray to Him to deliver us from every attachment to the things of this world which would hinder us from going to join thee in loving God in Paradise.

[1] Of whom mention is made in the Martyrology on June22.

Spiritual Reading:  LITTLE CHAPLET IN HONOUR OF ST. TERESA

(To be recited every day during the Novena)

I.

     O most amiable Lord, Jesus Christ, we thank Thee for the great gift of Faith and of devotion to the Holy Sacrament, which Thou didst grant to Thy beloved Teresa.  We pray Thee, by Thy merits, and by those of Thy faithful spouse, to grant us the gift of a lively Faith and of a fervent devotion towards the most Holy Sacrament of the altar where Thou, O infinite Majesty, hast obliged Thyself to abide with us even to the end of the world, and wherein Thou dost so lovingly give Thy whole self to us.  Our Father, Hail Mary, and Glory, etc.

O Jesus, Who didst pierce with love
Teresa’s beauteous heart,
Of her sweet love upon my soul
Let fall a flaming dart.

II.

     O most merciful Lord, Jesus Christ, we thank Thee for the great gift of Hope which Thou didst grant to Thy beloved Teresa.  We pray Thee, by Thy merits, and by those of Thy holy spouse, to give us a great confidence in Thy goodness, by reason of Thy Precious Blood, that Thou hast shed to its last drop for our salvation.  Our Father, Hail Mary, and Glory, etc.

O Jesus, Who didst pierce with love . . .

III.

      O most loving Lord, Jesus Christ, we thank Thee for the great gift of Love which Thou didst grant to Thy beloved Teresa.  We pray Thee, by Thy merits, and by those of Thy most loving spouse, to give us the great, the crowning gift of Thy perfect Charity.  Our Father, Hail Mary, and Glory, etc.

O Jesus, Who didst pierce with love . . .

IV.

      O most sweet Lord, Jesus Christ, we thank Thee for the gift of great desire and resolution which Thou didst grant to Thy beloved Teresa.  We pray Thee, by Thy merits, and by those of Thy most generous spouse, to give us a true desire and a true resolution of pleasing Thee to the utmost of our power.  Our Father, Hail Mary, and Glory, etc.

O Jesus, Who didst pierce with love . . .

V.

     O most kind Lord, Jesus Christ, we thank Thee for the great gift of humility that Thou didst grant to Thy beloved Teresa.  We pray Thee, by Thy merits, and by those of Thy most humble spouse, to grant us the grace of a true humility, which may make us ever find our joy in humiliations, and prefer contempt to every honour.  Our Father, Hail Mary, and Glory, etc.

O Jesus, Who didst pierce with love . . .

VI.

    O most bountiful Lord, Jesus Christ, we thank Thee for the gift of devotion towards Thy sweet Mother, Mary, and her holy spouse, Joseph, which Thou didst grant to Thy beloved Teresa.  We pray Thee, by Thy merits, and by those of Thy most dear spouse, to give us the grace of a special and tender devotion towards Thy most holy Mother, Mary, and towards Thy beloved foster-father, Joseph.  Our Father, Hail Mary, and Glory, etc.

O Jesus, Who didst pierce with love . . .

VII.

     O most loving Lord, Jesus Christ, we thank Thee for the wonderful gift of the wound in the heart that Thou didst grant to Thy beloved Teresa.  We pray Thee, by Thy merits, and by those of Thy seraphic spouse, to grant us also a like wound of love, that, henceforth, we may love Thee, and give our mind to the love of nothing but Thee.  Our Father, Hail Mary, and Glory, etc.

O Jesus, Who didst pierce with love . . .

VIII.

     O most beloved Lord, Jesus Christ, we thank Thee for the eminent gift of the desire for death that Thou didst grant to Thy beloved Teresa.  We pray Thee, by Thy merits, and by those of Thy most constant spouse, to grant us the grace of desiring death, in order to go and possess Thee eternally in the country of the Blessed.  Our Father, Hail Mary, and Glory, etc.

O Jesus, Who didst pierce with love . . .

IX.

      Lastly, O dearest Lord, Jesus Christ, we thank Thee for the gift of the precious death which Thou didst grant to Thy beloved Teresa.  We pray Thee, by Thy merits, and by those of Thy most affectionate spouse, to grant us a good death; and that if we do not die of love, we may, at least, die burning with love for Thee, that so dying, we may be able to go and love Thee evermore with a perfect love in Heaven.  Our Father, Hail Mary, and Glory, etc.

O Jesus, Who didst pierce with love . . .

Meditação I:
     Let us consider the burning love which this seraphic Saint entertained for God.
     To her it seemed impossible that there could be in the world a single person who did not love God; and she would say: “My God, art not Thou exceedingly lovable on account of Thine infinite perfections, and of the infinite love Thou bearest towards us?  How, then, can there be any one that does not love Thee?”  Most humble though she was, yet in speaking of love she did not shrink from saying: “I am all imperfection, excepting in desires and in love.”  The Saint has left us on record the following excellent instruction: “Detach your heart from everything: seek God and you will find Him.”  On the other hand, she used to say, that it is easy for those who love God to detach themselves from the earth: Ah! my God, we only need to love Thee truly, for Thee to make everything easy to us.”  Again, she writes: “Since live we must, let us live for Thee, so that our selfish interests may at last disappear.  What greater advantage can any one gain than that which is to be found in pleasing Thee!  O my delight and my God, what shall I do in order to please Thee?”  She even went so far as to say that she would not be made sorry at seeing others in Heaven more happy than herself; but that she could not make up her mind to see any one love God more than she should love Him.
     What makes this Saint an object of our admiration, is the steadfastness of soul with which she strove to accomplish everything she knew to be acceptable to God.  She used to say: “There is nothing, however painful, that I am not prepared courageously to undertake, if it were set before me to do.”  Hence she gave it as her instruction, that “Divine love is to be acquired by a determination to act and to suffer for God.”  “For,” said she in another place, “the devil has no fear of irresolute souls.”  To please God, she even went so far, as is well known, as to make a vow of performing whatever was the most perfect.  And since sufferings endured for God are the strongest proofs of love, she desired to live for nothing but to suffer.  Therefore she wrote: “It seems to me that there is no reason to live, except it be to suffer; and this it is for which I most fervently pray to God.  To Him I say with my whole heart: Lord, either to suffer or to die!  I ask of Thee for this, and nothing more.”  Her love became so ardent, that Jesus Christ one day appeared to her and said: “Teresa, you are all Mine, and I am all yours.”

Meditação II:
     So dear did Teresa become to her Spouse Jesus, that He sent one of the Seraphim to wound her heart with a dart of fire.  At length she died as she had lived, all inflamed with love.  When the end of her life was drawing near, all her sighs were for death, that she might go to unite herself to her God: “O death!” she said, “I know not who can dread thee, for in thee is life.  Serve thy God, O my soul, and hope that He will bring thee a remedy for thy pains.”  For this reason she composed the affectionate Canticle of love that opens with the following words:—

“I live, but from myself am far away:
 And hope to reach a life so high,
 That I’m forever dying because I cannot die.”

     When the Holy Viaticum was brought to her, she exclaimed: “O my Saviour, the longed-for moment is at last come!  Now begins the time when we shall see each other face to face.”  Then she died of love, as she herself revealed after her death.
     O my seraphic Saint, thou art now rejoicing in thy God, Whom thou didst love so much during thy lifetime, when in constant danger of losing Him.  Obtain for us, by thy prayers, the grace that we may go to love our God in Paradise with thee for evermore.  Amen.

ACT OF CONSECRATION TO ST. TERESA

     O seraphic virgin, well-beloved spouse of the Divine Word, St. Teresa of Jesus!  I, (N.N.) though very unworthy to be thy servant, yet encouraged by thy great goodness and by the desire I have to serve thee, in the presence of the Most Holy Trinity, of my Guardian Angel, and of the whole heavenly court, choose thee to-day, after Mary, for my mother, my mistress, and my special patroness, and I take the firm resolution always to serve thee, and to do all I possibly can that others may serve thee.  Therefore, O my seraphic Saint, I supplicate thee, by the Blood thy Divine Spouse shed for me, to receive me among the number of thy devoted servants.  Assist me in my necessities, and obtain for me the grace to imitate thy virtues by walking in the true road of Christian perfection.  Aid me particularly in prayer, and ask God to give me this glorious gift that thou didst receive in so eminent a degree, in order that, contemplating and loving the sovereign Good, I may avoid, in my thoughts, words, and deeds, all that might offend, or be even in the least displeasing to thee and to my God.  Accept this little offering as a mark of my engagement to thy service, and assist me during my life, and above all at the hour of my death.  Amen.

Spiritual Reading:  THE TEACHING OF ST. TERESA ON THE LOVE OF GOD AND OUR NEIGHBOUR

     I.—We must love God perfectly; that is:

     We must love Him above all things, so as to be willing to die rather than commit the least wilful sin.  St. Teresa says: “May God deliver you from deliberately committing even the most trivial sin!”  “For,” she adds, “the devil, by means of the smallest things, opens a way through which greater things may enter.”  Again, she has this admonition: “True devotion consists in not offending God and in being resolved to do nothing but what is good and holy.”
     We must love God with our whole heart, ever desiring to arrive at a higher degree of perfection in order to please Him.  St. Teresa observes: “God will not suffer any good desire to go unrewarded even in this life.”  And she also says that our Lord, ordinarily, does not confer many signal favours, “except upon those who have greatly desired to love Him.”  But to desires we must add actions, by overcoming with fortitude human respect, our own repugnances, and all worldly interests.
     We must love God continually, and on all occasions; and for this end we must direct and offer all to Him, even our indifferent actions, such as our eating, diversions, walking, working, every breath we breathe, uniting all with the actions of Jesus Christ and of the Blessed Virgin when on earth.  Moreover we must cheerfully suffer all adverse and painful things, conforming ourselves and uniting ourselves to the will of God in whatever He is pleased to do in us and for us.  Upon this St. Teresa has left the following excellent sentiments: “And what more can we wish to gain than the testimony of doing what is pleasing to God?”  And she explains what this testimony is: “Whilst we live, our gain does not consist in endeavouring to enjoy God, but in doing His will.  Great is the fruit of this giving of our will to God, for it induces God to unite Himself to our lowliness.  True union is the union of our will with the will of God.”
     To promote this and keep alive the flame of Divine love, we must make frequent acts of love during the course of the day, but particularly when we approach holy Communion, and during the time of Meditation, saying to God: My most beloved and only Treasure, my God, my All, I love Thee with my whole heart.  I give my whole self to Thee without reserve, and I consecrate to Thee all my thoughts, desires, and affections.  I desire, I sigh, I seek for nothing but Thee alone, my only life.  To please Thee is my only delight.  Do in me and with me whatever Thou pleasest.  My God and only good, grant me but to love Thee, and I ask for nothing more.

     II.—In order to maintain the union of the soul with God, we must exercise charity towards our neighbour.

     As regards the interior, it consists in wishing the neighbour the same good that we wish ourselves; in not wishing him the evil we do not wish ourselves; in rejoicing in his good, and regretting the evil which befalls him, although we may naturally experience some repugnance in so doing.
     As regards the exterior:
     1.  We must not murmur against the neighbour, deride or laugh at him, but speak always well of him, and defend, or at least excuse his intention.
     2.  We must console him under afflictions.
     3.  We must succour him in his necessities of soul and body, particularly in sickness.
     4.  We must condescend to the neighbour, as Saint Teresa expresses it, in all that is not sin.
     5.  We must not give our neighbour bad counsel or bad example.
     6.  We must occasionally reprove him, but mildly and seasonably, but not when we are agitated with passion.
     We must above all endeavour to render good for evil, at least to speak well of those who injure us, treat them with meekness, and recommend them to God, turning away our thoughts from the annoyances, harshness, and provocations which we consider we have received from them.

_____________

     As a conclusion to this short practice we must note, amongst others, the following maxims on perfection which St. Teresa has left us in various parts of her works:
     “All our efforts produce little result, if we do not get rid of self-confidence, so as to place our confidence wholly in God.
     “Because we do not interiorly give all our affection to God, so neither does God give us all the treasures of His love.
     “May God deliver us from ostentatious devotion.
     “I have often found that there is nothing more efficacious than holy water for driving away the devils.
     “All that we can do is but nothing compared with a single drop of the Blood which the Saviour shed for us.
     “If we do not put an obstacle, God will not hesitate to grant us the assistance necessary in order to become saints.
     “God does not leave without reward a single glance towards Heaven accompanied by the remembrance of Him.
     “The Lord wishes for nothing from us but a resolute will, in order to go on to accomplish all that remains to be done on His part.
     “God never sends a pain which He does not afterwards repay by some favour.
     “If the soul does not keep itself apart from the pleasures of the world, it will soon become careless in the way of the Lord.
     “Do not mention your temptations to imperfect souls, for you will do an injury both to them and to yourself.  Communicate them only to the perfect.
     “Let your desire be to see God; your fear be to lose God; your joy be whatever can conduct you to God.”
     Live Jesus, Mary, Joseph, and Teresa, now and forever.  Amém.

BY ST. ALPHONSUS

Ye Angels most inflamed
     With fires of heavenly love,
Bright Seraphim, descend
     From your high thrones above;
To this most chosen soul
     Your loving succour bring –
To her, the spouse belov’d
     Of Christ your God and King.

Jesus, your Love, your Life,
     Who loves the pure of heart,
Has pierced Teresa’s soul
     With love’s own flaming dart;
And lo! she pines away,
     She languishes, she sighs;
For Him Who gave the wound,
     Of very love she dies

*          *          *          *

To see her loving Spouse
     So fierce is her desire
That evermore she burns,
     Consuming in its fire.
That sweet and longing wish
     Into His arms to fly,
Is but a living death,
     Because she cannot die.

No angels come to aid;
     Come Thou, Who in this breast
Hast kindled flames so dear,
     Come Thou, and give her rest;
Sick is her soul with love,
     And wounded is her heart;
Thou didst inflict the wound,
     Then, Jesus, cure its smart.

Thy spouse was ever true,
     To please Thy Heart Divine,
All earth could give she left,
     All she could give is Thine;
And now, she loves Thee well,
     And sighs to come to Thee;
She longs to take her flight,
     Ah! set her spirit free.

     O seraphic virgin, well-beloved spouse of the Divine Word, St. Teresa of Jesus!  I, (N.N.) though very unworthy to be thy servant, yet encouraged by thy great goodness and by the desire I have to serve thee, in the presence of the Most Holy Trinity, of my Guardian Angel, and of the whole heavenly court, choose thee to-day, after Mary, for my mother, my mistress, and my special patroness, and I take the firm resolution always to serve thee, and to do all I possibly can that others may serve thee.  Therefore, O my seraphic Saint, I supplicate thee, by the Blood thy Divine Spouse shed for me, to receive me among the number of thy devoted servants.  Assist me in my necessities, and obtain for me the grace to imitate thy virtues by walking in the true road of Christian perfection.  Aid me particularly in prayer, and ask God to give me this glorious gift that thou didst receive in so eminent a degree, in order that, contemplating and loving the sovereign Good, I may avoid, in my thoughts, words, and deeds, all that might offend, or be even in the least displeasing to thee and to my God.  Accept this little offering as a mark of my engagement to thy service, and assist me during my life, and above all at the hour of my death.  Amen.