MORE ABOUT ST. TERESA MARGARET

“Habitual examination of conscience”

“I propose to have no other purpose in all my activities, either interior or ex­terior, than the motive of love alone, by constantly asking myself: ‘Now what am I doing in this action? Do I love God?’ If I should notice any obstacle to pure love, I shall take myself in hand and recall that I must seek to return my love for His love.”

“Since nature resists good, even though the spirit may be willing, I resolve to enter upon a continual warfare against self. The arms with which I shall do battle are prayer, the presence of God, silence; yet I am aware how little I am able to use these weapons. Nevertheless I shall arm myself with complete confidence in you, patience, humility and conformity with your divine will ... but who shall help me to fight a continual battle against enemies such as those which make war on me? You, my God, have declared yourself my captain; you have raised the standard of the Cross, saying: ‘Take up the cross and follow in my footsteps.’ To correspond with this invitation, I promise to resist your love no longer; rather, I will follow you to Calvary without hesitation.” 

On the Hidden Life

St. Teresa Margaret can almost be named "the saint of the hidden life," so thoroughly did she absorb its meaning and mystery. The life of Jesus and Mary at Nazareth is indeed the model par excellence for all religious, but this silent and self-effacing saint penetrated deeply into it, and gave its application such wide horizons that she can really be said to have proposed something essentially original.

It is a commonplace to use the life at Nazareth as a type of the Hidden Life, because the enclosed religious is completely withdrawn from the world. But in this sense Jesus, Mary, and Joseph were not "hidden," at least not from their neighbors and the inhabitants of Nazareth and its environs. Probably, like small country towns the world over, everybody knew and discussed the least event around the village well, and anything that happened in Joseph's house would be common knowledge, as with everybody else. But where one can claim that their hiddenness was absolute was that while all their exterior activities were watched, and every visitor noted, so well was their interior life concealed from all eyes, that they passed for the most ordinary and unremarkable among a community that was in itself insignificant. The revelation of miraculous powers in Jesus was received with shocked disbelief. They had known him since childhood and could vouch for his likeableness, kindness, generosity, no doubt - but not sanctity, let alone divinity! This was Teresa Margaret's method of practicing the "hidden life." Everyone in the community saw all she did, talked with her, worked with her, and were warm in their praise of her goodness and charity. But the real depths of her interior life were completely hidden and were one day to prove a revelation and surprise to these intimate daily companions. She passed every minute under their very noses, so to speak, but managed to remain unnoticed, keeping her soul's secret for God alone. 

“Obedience,” said St. Gregory the Great, “is rightly placed before all other sacrifices, for in offering a victim as sacrifice, one offers a life that is not one’s own; but when one obeys one is immolating one’s own will.”... One may leave home, family, friends, renounce social position and material possessions, detach oneself from every created thing, but unless he dispossesses himself of his own will, the sacrifice is worthless … [and Teresa Margaret] developed what one biographer described as “the art of never doing her own will.” ... She had a strong character and a warm, ardent nature, and she seemed to sense that the conflict between her own rebellious temperament and her desire for sanctity would be resolved by the perfection of her submission. 

“At the foot of the Cross,” wrote Father Gabriel of St. Mary Magdalene, O.C.D., “suffering becomes more a proof of love than a punish­ment. Teresa Margaret became a saint not through multiplying penitential exercise, but by having effected an uninterrupted adhesion of her will to the crucified Redeemer.” 

Lest the fact that sympathy might provide some consolation - for it is well-known that a trial shared loses much of its cutting edge - she endeavored to conceal from those around her any pain or sorrow she endured, or the discomfort of fatigue, the weather, minor indispositions, or the small misunderstandings and inevitable frictions of community life. She continued to practice the incessant mortification of consistently presenting a smiling and serene exterior no matter how harassed she might be by interior sufferings or trials. 

Quotes from and about Saint Teresa Margaret

                         “Lord,I shall be yours, whatever the cost, despite all repugnance.”

Preparing to enter Carmel

... the Prioress suggested that, for one intending to enter Carmel, she could think of no better practice than “to accustom herself to mortify her own will in all things, however trifling, and to yield willingly her own rights in order to convenience others, pleasantly agreeing with their opinions, treating all with a genuine kindness, thus making a continual and entire sacrifice of the self to God.” ... Anna Maria (St. Teresa Margaret) had now, from an authoritative source, the secret of the essential spirit of Carmel: the holocaust of one’s will, rather than the rigid adherence to exterior acts and mortifications.

 Rather than continually dwelling on her misery and worthlessness, she merely let all thought of self fall away before the infinite majesty of God; and truly the most profitable and genuine way of despising self is to forget oneself altogether.

However, self-knowledge unlike self-love does not depress with the sight of one’s imperfections. “I can do all things in Him who gives me strength,” she repeated with St. Paul, refusing to be downcast. God could and would supply all she lacked, and Father Ildefonse testified: “The effect of self-knowledge did not discourage her, but rather forced her to throw herself on the goodness and mercy of God. She said to me once, ‘From myself, nothing; from God, everything ... the smaller and weak­er I am in myself, the richer and stronger I shall be in Him ... He shall be the more glorious in His mercy as I am more despicable in my sins and nothingness.’’

On her practice of poverty and detachment, Teresa Margaret framed the following counsel: “Always receive with equal contentment from God’s hand either consolations or sufferings, peace or distress, health or illness. Ask nothing, refuse nothing, but always be ready to do and to suffer anything that comes from His Providence.”

She who does not know how to conform her will to that of others will never be perfect.

Let the nuns take great care not to excuse themselves for their faults except when absolutely necessary. By acting in this way they will make great progress in humility.

“Knowing that a bride cannot be pleasing to her spouse unless she endeavors to become what he wishes her to be ... I will always think of my neighbors as beings made in your likeness, produced by your divine love, redeemed at the price of your precious Blood, looking upon them with true Christian charity, which you command. I will sympathize with their troubles, excuse their faults, always speak well of them, and never willingly fail in charity towards them in thought, word, or deed.”

I am resolved to give complete obedience in everything without exception, not only to my superiors, but also to my equals and inferiors, so as to learn from you, my God, who made yourself obedient in far more difficult circumstances than those in which I find myself.”

HOLY WEEK

Christ has no body now on earth but yours,

no hands, no feet but yours.

Yours are the eyes with which  

Christ looks out His compassion to the world. Yours are the feet with which 

He is to go about doing good. 

Yours are the handswith which 

He is to bless us now.

St. Teresa of Avila.

ELIJAH - FATHER OF CARMELITES.

" Lord teach me to seek Thee, and reveal Thyself to me when I seek Thee. For I cannot seek Thee unless Thou teach me, nor find Thee except Thou reveal Thyself. Let me seek Thee in longing, let me long for Thee in seeking, let me find Thee in love, and love Thee in finding."

                                                                                                                            St. Ambrose.

Elijah as we know was a great prophet in the northern kingdom of Israel in the 9th century B.C. during the reign of  king Ahab. The name Elijah means THE LORD IS MY GOD.The desert Fathers who took a radical decision to follow Jesus in silence and solitude in the third century, took Elijah as their model and inspiration. The hermits who lived on Mount Carmel naturally took him as their model and 'first monk' and Founder.

Carmelites understand contemplation as seeking the Face of God by standing before Him with an open heart. What does this imply? Elijah did everything at God's command. He was a man burning with zeal, - "With zeal I have been zealous  for the Lord God of Hosts." (1 King, 19:10) Elijah stands for a passionate love for God and a Carmelite is called to be aflame with the "Sword of the Spirit, the Word of God." (Rule of St. Albert.)

The Bible places before us a series of dramatic events in little snapshots. In fighting the cause of Yahweh, Elijah called a drought to befall the nation, called down fire, rebelled against authorities and ran away like a coward at Queen Jezebel's retribution, he was down in utter desolation and wished that might die... He will finally be awakened to fulness of life as the gentle breeze sweeps over his soul. He was a man capable of both extremes.

In the final analysis Yahweh-Elijah encounter is a great love story. A contemplative is the one who fights it all out with God. Elijah encourages us to take up our journey with confidence. The God of Elijah is not some one up above. He is the One with Whom we can identify. God of Elijah is One Who will feed him and chide him, talk to him and walk with him, put him to sleep and wake him up and finally will carry him in His bosom and fly away to the Fatherland.

EDITH STEIN

            “Whoever seeks the truth is seeking God, whether consciously or unconsciously.” These words of St Teresa Benedicta of the Cross best describe her: a true seeker of the TRUTH. 

            St. Teresa Benedicta of the Cross was born in a Jewish family on 12^th October 1891,which happened to be the feast of Yom Kippur (Day of Atonement) that year and was named Edith Stein. From her early years, Edith showed a superior intellectual acumen and pursued a career in Philosophy, eventually earning a doctoral degree in Phenomenology.  Her intellectual pursuits, however, were not concentrated on acquiring prestigious academic positions but on a genuine search for ultimate truth.

            Around the age of 13 she not only gave upthe practice of her Jewish faith but also renounced her belief in the existence of God. Years later she would attest, “What did not lie in my plans, lay in God’s plans.” Living through a series of contradictory and mystifying experiences as well as the dark era of the First and Second World Wars, Edith kept on her pursuit for truth and ultimately found it on reading the Autobiography of St. Teresa of Avila. She realized that truth is found in a great love and friendship with God. She would say, “Do not accept anything as the truth if it lacks love. And do not accept anything as love, which lacks truth.”

            On the 1^st of January 1922, which was then celebrated as the Feast of the Circumcision of Jesus signifying the entrance into the Jewish Covenantal relationship with God, she was baptised and entered into the New Covenant with the Triune God. She eventually became a Discalced Carmelite Nun taking the name Teresa Benedicta of the Cross after the Mystical giants St Teresa of Avila and St. John of the Cross.

            Her life was spent, thereafter, in deeply living out the “Science of the Cross”. She believed that there are no coincidences, only the hand of God at work in the world. Her birth on the feast of the Atonement was,thus, no coincidence. She was chosen, like her spouse, as atonement for her Jewish people. Their destiny became her own. Having been an active Women’s rights advocate, while in the world, she was belligerently sought after by the Gestapo and sent to the Auschwitz concentration camp. She died in the gas chamber, on 9^th August 1942, along with her sister Rosa (who also embraced Catholicism and became a Carmelite Nun).

            

Another flower has bloomed in the Garden of Pune Carmel… and this one is none other than a beautiful ROSE.

Miss Lyan Rodrigues was born and grew up in Mumbai. She completed her Graduate and Post Graduate studies in Human Development from Nirmala Niketan College of Home Science, Mumbai. Apart from that she has specialized in Intellectual disabilities by acquiring an M. Ed degree in Special Education- Mental Retardation from SNDT University, Mumbai. She is also the Grand-Niece of Br. Baptist Rodrigues, OCD of Mangalore Monastery.

Lyan has aspired to be a Carmelite since childhood. She came for a come and see experience to Pune Carmel in April 2016 for a period of one month. There she felt that Carmel was her home and God was calling her to live a life in deep union with Him. She returned home after the come and see experience and joined Carmel after a month as a Postulant, having said her good-byes to everybody; never to return back to the world.

Lyan was vested on the eve of 17^th of January 2017 and has been given the religious name Sr. Rose of Infant Jesus.

ST. THERESE OF THE CHILD JESUS. (DOCTOR OF THE CHURCH)

When we look for one word to sum up Therese of Lisieux, the word LOVE comes to mind. Love was her spirituality, love was her life. She spent most of her time plumbing its meaning, savoring its beauty and searching out its implications. Eventually she saw love as her total vocation, the gifted way to fulfill all her desires, to be everything and to do everything for God, in the Body of Christ. She would be the heart of that body; she would be love. In this way she would be associated with every activity of Christ's body, since the heart animates every organ and participates in every action.

Therese dealt in absolutes. Everything and nothing, God and Therese, Merciful Love and her littleness; these are the two poles of her spirituality. The force that got her going between her poverty and God's love, was confidence, casting herself into the arms of God. The formula came to be described as her LITTLE WAY. Her discovery came out of a life time of experience. She lived the ' Little Way ' before she put it into words.
Therese learnt well the lesson of St. John of the Cross about emptiness and fullness. She would go to God with 'empty hands', with nothing of herself and everything from her Spouse Jesus. 'Merit does not consist in doing or in giving much, but rather in receiving, in loving much.' 'Jesus does not ask for great actions, but only abandonment and gratitude. The reason is simple: pleasing God is God's work in us, and this work thrives in poverty and littleness.' Therese wrote to her sister Marie: ' Let us love our littleness, let us love to feel nothing, then we shall be poor in spirit, then Jesus will come to look for us...and transform us into flames of love.'

Therese knew she was not a great soul. She was too little for anything but ' little actions and desires'. Little nothings, the strewing of flowers cast at the Lord's feet to soften His passage, were her way of showing her immense love. This had been her practice since childhood. Were these little acts sufficient? Was the Good God content with these fervent acts and aspirations as He was with the heroic accomplishments of the Saints?... All God asks is that we live in the truth, recognizing our indebtedness and God's loving kindness; the rest is simply acting out this new life as God leads. 
Therese learnt that great love can be delivered in small packages. Her vocation was precisely love, to be the heart of the Mystical Body, a vocation that was lived out precisely in the humble, unpretentious, matter of fact doing God's Will, moment to moment in her daily life. This was the work of God, the law of God's love discovered by Therese.
St Therese writes, "Yes my Beloved this is how my life will be consumed. I have no other means of proving my love for you other than that of strewing flowers, that is, not allowing one little sacrifice to escape, not one look, one word, profiting by all the smallest things and doing them through love. I desire to suffer for love and even to rejoice through love; and in this way I shall strew flowers before your throne. I shall not come upon one without unpetalling it for you. Her poem "Strewing Flowers" identifies the flowers as "my slightest sighs, my greatest sufferings, my sorrows and my joys, my little sacrifices." A later poem describes how the petals are to be tossed with abandon, "blown away" in the total gift of self. 
She wrote to Celine that "Jesus was teaching her to do all through love, to refuse Him nothing, to be content when he gives me a chance of proving to Him that I love Him. But this is done in peace and abandonment, it is Jesus Who is doing all in me and I am doing nothing". Her life was simply response to the moment to moment Presence of God.