At 11:15am local time (4:15am EDT) this morning, the Holy Father, Pope Francis arrived at the Monastery of the Discalced Carmelites in Antananarivo (Madagascar) for the recitation of Nones (Mid-day Prayer).
Upon his arrival, the Pope was welcomed by the Prioress of the Monastery, Sister Maria Maddalena of the Annunciation, OCD, who was waiting at the foot of the stairs that lead to the Monastery Chapel. Inside the Chapel, approximately 100 contemplative Sisters from various monasteries located throughout the country were gathered. There were also 70 novices in attendance outside the chapel.
Following a word of greeting offered by the Prioress of the Monastery, there followed the recitation of mid-day prayer. At the conclusion of the reading from scripture, having presented the written text of his prepared homily to those in attendance, the Pope offered a few unscripted words to the Sisters who were participating in their meeting.
Before leaving the Monastery of the Discalced Carmelites, the Pope blessed the altar of the Cathedral of Morondava, which had been placed in the adjacent Choir. The Bishop and the Bishop Emeritus of Morondava, the Vicar General, a priest and a family were present. Then the Holy Father returned by car to the Apostolic Nunciature.
Dear Mother Madeleine of the Annunciation,
Dearest Sisters,
Thank you, Mother, for your warm welcome and your kind words, which echo the sentiments of the contemplative nuns of all the different monasteries of this country. I thank every one of you, dear Sisters, for leaving the cloister for a moment in order to show your communion with me and with the life and mission of the entire Church, particularly the Church in Madagascar.
I am grateful for your presence, for your fidelity and for the radiant witness to Jesus Christ that you offer to the community. In this country, there may be poverty, but there is also great richness! For here we find a great treasure of natural, human and spiritual beauty. You too, dear Sisters, share in this beauty of Madagascar, its people and its Church, for it is the beauty of Christ that lights up your faces and your lives. Indeed, thanks to you, the Church in Madagascar is all the more beautiful in the Lord’s eyes and in the eyes of the whole world as well.
The three Psalms of today’s liturgy express the anguish of the Psalmist in a moment of trial and danger. Allow me to reflect on the first of them, taken from Psalm 119, the lengthiest of the Psalter, since it devotes eight verses to each letter of the Hebrew alphabet. No doubt, its author was a contemplative, someone familiar with prolonged and beautiful experiences of prayer. In today’s passage, the word “consume” appears several times and, significantly, in two senses.
The one who prays is “consumed” by the desire to encounter God. You yourselves are a living testimony to this insatiable desire present in the heart of all men and women. Amid the many proposals that claim to satisfy the human heart, but prove incapable of doing so, the contemplative life is the torch that leads to the one eternal fire, “the living flame of love that wounds tenderly” (Saint John of the Cross). You are a visible sign of “the goal toward which the entire ecclesial community journeys. For the Church ‘advances down the paths of time with her eyes fixed on the future restoration of all things in Christ’, thus announcing in advance the glory of heaven” (Vultum Dei Quaerere, 2).
We are constantly tempted to satisfy our desire for eternity with fleeting things. We find ourselves adrift on surging seas that only end up overwhelming our lives and our spirit. For this reason, “the world needs you every bit as much as a sailor on the high seas needs a beacon to guide him to a safe haven. Be beacons to those near to you and, above all, to those far away. Be torches to guide men and women along their journey through the dark night of time. Be sentinels of the morning (cf. Is 21:11-12), heralding the dawn (cf. Lk 1:78). By your transfigured life, and with simple words pondered in silence, show us the One who is the way, and the truth and the life (cf. Jn 14:6), the Lord who alone brings us fulfilment and bestows life in abundance (cf. Jn 10:10). Cry out to us, as Andrew did to Simon: ‘We have found the Lord’ (cf. Jn 1:40). Like Mary Magdalene on Easter morning, announce to us: ‘I have seen the Lord!’ (Jn 20:18)” (ibid., 6).
The Psalm also speaks of another way of being “consumed”. It speaks of the malicious, who seek to ruin the just. They persecute them, set traps for them, try to bring them down. A monastery is always a space where people consumed by the pain and sorrows of this world can come and find a hearing. May your monasteries, faithful to your charism of contemplation and your constitutions, also be places of welcome and listening, especially for those in greatest need. With us today are two mothers who have lost their children and who embody all the hurt and pain felt by our brothers and sisters on this island. Please be attentive to the pleas and the grief of those in your midst who, consumed by the experience of suffering, exploitation and discouragement, turn to you. Do not be like those who listen only to pass the time, to satisfy curiosity or to have something else to talk about.
You have a fundamental mission in this regard. The cloister sets you in the heart of God; his heart is thus always present in your midst. Your sensitivity to the heart of the Lord will enable you to hear him speaking in your brothers and sisters. The persons around you are often very poor, weak, troubled and hurting in a thousand ways; yet they are full of faith. In you, they instinctively recognize witnesses of God’s presence and invaluable sources of encouragement on the way to encountering him and receiving his help. However great the pain that consumes them, robbing them of joy and hope, and making them feel isolated and alone, you can be a pathway to that rock evoked in another passage from the Psalms: “Hear my cry, O God, listen to my prayer; from the end of the earth I call to you, when my heart is faint. Lead me to the rock that is higher than I” (Ps 61:1-2).
Faith is the greatest treasure of the poor! How important it is that the faith be proclaimed to them, strengthened within them, and help them to live in hope. May the contemplation of God’s mysteries, which finds expression in your liturgy and your times of prayer, enable you better to discover his active presence in each human situation, even the most troubling, and to be thankful that, in contemplation, God gives you the gift of intercession. Thanks to your prayer, you are like mothers, taking your children upon your shoulders and carrying them towards the promised land. Indeed, “our prayer will be all the more pleasing to God and more effective for our growth in holiness if, through intercession, we attempt to practise the twofold commandment that Jesus left us. Intercessory prayer is an expression of our fraternal concern for others, since we are able to embrace their lives, their deepest troubles and their loftiest dreams. Of those who commit themselves generously to intercessory prayer we can apply the words of Scripture: ‘This is a man who loves the brethren and prays much for the people’ (2 Mac 15:14)” (Gaudete et Exsultate, 154).
Dear contemplative Sisters, what would the Church and those who live on the human peripheries of Madagascar be like without you? What would happen to all those who work in the forefront of evangelization, especially here, in very precarious, difficult and often dangerous conditions? They rely on your prayers and on the ever-renewed gift of your lives, an inestimable gift in the sight of God, one that makes you share in the mystery of the redemption of this land and of the beloved persons who dwell in it.
“For I have become like a wineskin in the smoke”, says the Psalm (119:83), reminding us of how time passes when we experience this two-fold way of being consumed: by God and by the difficulties of the world. At times, almost imperceptibly, we can fall into “listlessness, mere routine, lack of enthusiasm and paralyzing lethargy” (Vultum Dei Quaerere, 11). It makes no difference how old you are, or how difficult it is to walk or to arrive on time for prayers… We are not wineskins drying next to the smoke, but logs burning until they are consumed in the fire which is Jesus. For he never fails us, he covers our every debt.
Thank you for this time we have spent together. I entrust myself to your prayers. To you I entrust all the intentions I carry in my heart during this visit to Madagascar. Let us pray together that the spirit of the Gospel may spring up in the hearts of all your people.
Testo originale nella lingua italiana
Texto original em português
Texte en français
They will give you in writing what I have prepared, so you can read it, ponder it quietly. Now I would like to tell you something from my heart.
The reading from the First Book of Kings (2.2b-3), addressed to Joshua, began with an appeal for courage: Take courage, be a man! Courage. And to follow the Lord we need courage, always, a little courage. It is true that He does the heaviest work, but it takes courage to let him do it. And an image comes to mind, which helped me so much in my life as a priest. One late evening, two nuns, one very young and the other an old woman, walked from the choir, where the Vespers had prayed, to the refectory. The old woman had difficulty walking, she was almost paralyzed, and the young woman tried to help her, but the old woman got nervous, she said: "Don't touch me! Don't do this or I will fall! ". And, God knows, but her disease seemed to have made the old woman a bit neurotic. But the young woman still accompanied her with a smile. Eventually they arrived at the refectory, the young woman tried to help her sit down, and the old woman said: No, no, it hurts me, it hurts here ..., but in the end she sat down. A young woman, faced with this, surely would have liked to send the older woman for a walk! But that young woman smiled, took bread, buttered it and gave it to her. This is not a fable, it is a true story: the old woman was called Sister Saint Peter, and the young one, Sister Teresa of the Child Jesus.
This is a true story, which reflects a bit of community life, which shows the spirit with which one can live a community life. Charity in small and big things. That young woman might have thought, Yes, but tomorrow I will go to the prior and say that she should send a stronger nun to help this old woman because I can't do it. I do not think so. She believed in obedience: Obedience has given me this job and I will do it. With the power of obedience she did this work with exquisite charity. I know that all of you, cloistered nuns, have come to be close to the Lord, to seek the way of perfection; but the way of perfection lies in these small steps on the path of obedience. Small steps of charity and love. Small steps that look like nothing, but they are small steps that attract, that enslave God, little threads that imprison God. This was what the young woman thought: of the wires with which she imprisoned God, of the ropes, of the strings of love, which are the small acts of charity, small, very small, because our little souls cannot do great things.
Be brave! Have the courage to take small steps, the courage to believe that, through my littleness, God is happy, and fulfills the salvation of the world. "No, but I think that religious life has to change, it has to be more perfect, we must be closer to God, and for this I want to become a Prioress, capitulate, change things! ...". I'm not saying that any of you think this ... But the devil creeps into these thoughts. If you want to change not only the monastery, not only religious life - to change and save with Jesus - saving the world begins with these small acts of love, of self-renunciation, which imprison God and bring him among us.
Let's go back to the story of the young nun and the old one. One of those nights, before dinner, while they were going from the choir to the refectory - they left the choir ten minutes earlier to go to the refectory, step by step - Teresa heard music, from outside ...: there was party music, dancing ... And she thought of a party where young men and women danced, honestly, a nice family party ... maybe a wedding, a birthday ... She thought about music, celebration ... And she felt something inside; perhaps she heard the words: It would be nice to be there, I don't know ... And immediately, decisively, she said to the Lord that never, would she ever exchange even one of her gestures with the older sister for that worldly party. These made her happier than all the dances in the world.
Surely, to you, worldliness will come in many hidden forms. Know how to discern, with the prioress, with the community in chapter, discern the voices of worldliness, so that they do not enter your enclosure. Worldliness is not a cloistered nun, on the contrary, it is a goat that wanders through our streets, leads us out of the enclosure ... When thoughts of worldliness come to you, close the door and think of small acts of love: these save the world. Teresa preferred to keep the old woman and move on.
This is what I will tell you now, I will say this not to frighten you, but it is a reality, Jesus said it, and I dare to say so too. Each of you, to enter the convent, had to fight, did so many good things and won, won: you won the victory over the worldly spirit, conquered sin, triumphed over the devil. Perhaps, the day you entered the convent, the devil stayed at the door, sad, saying: "I lost a soul", and he left. But then he went to ask another clever devil for advice, an old devil, who surely told him: Have patience, wait ... This is the devil's usual way of proceeding. Jesus says it. When the devil leaves a soul free, he leaves; then, after a while, he wants to come back, and he sees that beautiful, well placed, so beautiful soul, and he wants to enter. And what does Jesus tell us? That devil goes, looks for seven worse ones than he is and comes back with those seven, and they want to get into that settled house. But they cannot enter by making noise, as if they were thieves, they must enter politely. And so the educated devils ring the bell: I would like to enter ..., I am looking for this one to help, that other one, that one too ... And they let him in. They are polite devils, they come into the house, they fix you up and then, Jesus says, the end of that man or that woman is worse than the beginning. But didn't you notice that this was a bad spirit? No, he was so polite, so good! And now, I'm going home because I can't tolerate this ... It's too late now, you let the devil enter your heart too much. Didn't you notice, didn't you talk to the prioress, didn't you talk to the chapter, with some sister of the community? The tempter does not want to be discovered, this is why he is disguised as a noble, educated person, sometimes as a spiritual father, sometimes ... Please, sister, when you feel something strange, speak immediately! Speak immediately! Bring it to light. If Eve had spoken in time, if she had gone to the Lord to tell him: This snake tells me these things, what do you think? If she had spoken in time! But Eve did not speak, and disaster came. This advice I give you: speak immediately, speak in time, when there is something that takes away your tranquility; I do not say peace, but first of all tranquility, then peace. This is the help, this is the defence you have in the community: one helps the other to make a united front, to defend holiness, to defend the glory of God, to defend love, to defend the monastery. But we defend ourselves well from spiritual worldliness, we defend ourselves well from the devil because we have a double grate, and in the middle, there is also a curtain!. The double grille and the curtain are not enough. You could have a hundred curtains! It takes charity, prayer. The charity to ask for advice in time, to listen to the sisters, to listen to the prioress. And prayer with the Lord, prayer: Lord, is it true what I am feeling, this is what the snake tells me, is it true? That young Teresa, as soon as she heard something inside, talked about it with the prioress ..., who didn't want her, she didn't love her prioress! But how can I go to the priory if she sees my teeth every time she sees me! Yes, but the prioress is Jesus. But, father, the prioress is not good, she is bad. Let the Lord say so, for you, Jesus is your prioress. But the prioress is a bit old, things don't work well ... Let me decide on the chapter; you, if you want to say this, say it in chapter, but you go to the prioress, because she is Jesus. Always the transparency of the heart! If you are always talking, you win.
And this Teresa, who knew she was terrible toward the Prioress, went to her. It is true, we must recognize that not all Prioresses are the Nobel prize of sympathy! But they are Jesus. The obedient way is the one that subjects you in love, makes us subject to love.
Then, this Teresa got sick. She became ill and, little by little, she seemed to have lost her faith. This poor girl, who during her life had known how to send away the educated devils, at the time of her death did not know how to cope with the demon who was circling her. She said: I see him: he turns, turns ... It is the darkness of the last days, of the last months of life. From the temptation, the spiritual struggle, the exercise of charity, one does not retire: you will have to fight until the end. Until the end. Even in the dark. She thought she had lost her faith! And she called the nuns to throw holy water on her bed and asked them to bring blessed candles ... The fight in the monastery is to the end. But it is beautiful, because in this struggle - cruel but beautiful - when it is true, peace is not lost.
This Pope - you say - is a bit folkloric, because instead of talking about theological things, he spoke to us like little girls. Maybe you were all girls in spirit, maybe! With that dimension of childhood that the Lord loves so much.
I would like to finish Teresa's story with the old lady. This Teresa now accompanies an old man. And I want to give testimony of this, I want to give witness because she has accompanied me, in every step she accompanies me. She taught me to take the steps. Sometimes I am a little neurotic and I send her away, like Mother Saint Peter. Sometimes listening; sometimes pain stops me from listening well ... But she is a faithful friend. This is why I didn't want to talk to you about theories, I wanted to talk to you about my experience with a Saint, and I wanted to tell you what a saint can do and to point out the way for us to become saints.
Keep up the good work, and be courageous.
Upon his arrival, the Pope was welcomed by the Prioress of the Monastery, Sister Maria Maddalena of the Annunciation, OCD, who was waiting at the foot of the stairs that lead to the Monastery Chapel. Inside the Chapel, approximately 100 contemplative Sisters from various monasteries located throughout the country were gathered. There were also 70 novices in attendance outside the chapel.
Following a word of greeting offered by the Prioress of the Monastery, there followed the recitation of mid-day prayer. At the conclusion of the reading from scripture, having presented the written text of his prepared homily to those in attendance, the Pope offered a few unscripted words to the Sisters who were participating in their meeting.
Before leaving the Monastery of the Discalced Carmelites, the Pope blessed the altar of the Cathedral of Morondava, which had been placed in the adjacent Choir. The Bishop and the Bishop Emeritus of Morondava, the Vicar General, a priest and a family were present. Then the Holy Father returned by car to the Apostolic Nunciature.
Prepared Homily of the Holy Father, Pope Francis
for mid-day prayer with the Discalced Carmelite Sisters
Dear Mother Madeleine of the Annunciation,
Dearest Sisters,
Thank you, Mother, for your warm welcome and your kind words, which echo the sentiments of the contemplative nuns of all the different monasteries of this country. I thank every one of you, dear Sisters, for leaving the cloister for a moment in order to show your communion with me and with the life and mission of the entire Church, particularly the Church in Madagascar.
I am grateful for your presence, for your fidelity and for the radiant witness to Jesus Christ that you offer to the community. In this country, there may be poverty, but there is also great richness! For here we find a great treasure of natural, human and spiritual beauty. You too, dear Sisters, share in this beauty of Madagascar, its people and its Church, for it is the beauty of Christ that lights up your faces and your lives. Indeed, thanks to you, the Church in Madagascar is all the more beautiful in the Lord’s eyes and in the eyes of the whole world as well.
The three Psalms of today’s liturgy express the anguish of the Psalmist in a moment of trial and danger. Allow me to reflect on the first of them, taken from Psalm 119, the lengthiest of the Psalter, since it devotes eight verses to each letter of the Hebrew alphabet. No doubt, its author was a contemplative, someone familiar with prolonged and beautiful experiences of prayer. In today’s passage, the word “consume” appears several times and, significantly, in two senses.
The one who prays is “consumed” by the desire to encounter God. You yourselves are a living testimony to this insatiable desire present in the heart of all men and women. Amid the many proposals that claim to satisfy the human heart, but prove incapable of doing so, the contemplative life is the torch that leads to the one eternal fire, “the living flame of love that wounds tenderly” (Saint John of the Cross). You are a visible sign of “the goal toward which the entire ecclesial community journeys. For the Church ‘advances down the paths of time with her eyes fixed on the future restoration of all things in Christ’, thus announcing in advance the glory of heaven” (Vultum Dei Quaerere, 2).
We are constantly tempted to satisfy our desire for eternity with fleeting things. We find ourselves adrift on surging seas that only end up overwhelming our lives and our spirit. For this reason, “the world needs you every bit as much as a sailor on the high seas needs a beacon to guide him to a safe haven. Be beacons to those near to you and, above all, to those far away. Be torches to guide men and women along their journey through the dark night of time. Be sentinels of the morning (cf. Is 21:11-12), heralding the dawn (cf. Lk 1:78). By your transfigured life, and with simple words pondered in silence, show us the One who is the way, and the truth and the life (cf. Jn 14:6), the Lord who alone brings us fulfilment and bestows life in abundance (cf. Jn 10:10). Cry out to us, as Andrew did to Simon: ‘We have found the Lord’ (cf. Jn 1:40). Like Mary Magdalene on Easter morning, announce to us: ‘I have seen the Lord!’ (Jn 20:18)” (ibid., 6).
The Psalm also speaks of another way of being “consumed”. It speaks of the malicious, who seek to ruin the just. They persecute them, set traps for them, try to bring them down. A monastery is always a space where people consumed by the pain and sorrows of this world can come and find a hearing. May your monasteries, faithful to your charism of contemplation and your constitutions, also be places of welcome and listening, especially for those in greatest need. With us today are two mothers who have lost their children and who embody all the hurt and pain felt by our brothers and sisters on this island. Please be attentive to the pleas and the grief of those in your midst who, consumed by the experience of suffering, exploitation and discouragement, turn to you. Do not be like those who listen only to pass the time, to satisfy curiosity or to have something else to talk about.
You have a fundamental mission in this regard. The cloister sets you in the heart of God; his heart is thus always present in your midst. Your sensitivity to the heart of the Lord will enable you to hear him speaking in your brothers and sisters. The persons around you are often very poor, weak, troubled and hurting in a thousand ways; yet they are full of faith. In you, they instinctively recognize witnesses of God’s presence and invaluable sources of encouragement on the way to encountering him and receiving his help. However great the pain that consumes them, robbing them of joy and hope, and making them feel isolated and alone, you can be a pathway to that rock evoked in another passage from the Psalms: “Hear my cry, O God, listen to my prayer; from the end of the earth I call to you, when my heart is faint. Lead me to the rock that is higher than I” (Ps 61:1-2).
Faith is the greatest treasure of the poor! How important it is that the faith be proclaimed to them, strengthened within them, and help them to live in hope. May the contemplation of God’s mysteries, which finds expression in your liturgy and your times of prayer, enable you better to discover his active presence in each human situation, even the most troubling, and to be thankful that, in contemplation, God gives you the gift of intercession. Thanks to your prayer, you are like mothers, taking your children upon your shoulders and carrying them towards the promised land. Indeed, “our prayer will be all the more pleasing to God and more effective for our growth in holiness if, through intercession, we attempt to practise the twofold commandment that Jesus left us. Intercessory prayer is an expression of our fraternal concern for others, since we are able to embrace their lives, their deepest troubles and their loftiest dreams. Of those who commit themselves generously to intercessory prayer we can apply the words of Scripture: ‘This is a man who loves the brethren and prays much for the people’ (2 Mac 15:14)” (Gaudete et Exsultate, 154).
Dear contemplative Sisters, what would the Church and those who live on the human peripheries of Madagascar be like without you? What would happen to all those who work in the forefront of evangelization, especially here, in very precarious, difficult and often dangerous conditions? They rely on your prayers and on the ever-renewed gift of your lives, an inestimable gift in the sight of God, one that makes you share in the mystery of the redemption of this land and of the beloved persons who dwell in it.
“For I have become like a wineskin in the smoke”, says the Psalm (119:83), reminding us of how time passes when we experience this two-fold way of being consumed: by God and by the difficulties of the world. At times, almost imperceptibly, we can fall into “listlessness, mere routine, lack of enthusiasm and paralyzing lethargy” (Vultum Dei Quaerere, 11). It makes no difference how old you are, or how difficult it is to walk or to arrive on time for prayers… We are not wineskins drying next to the smoke, but logs burning until they are consumed in the fire which is Jesus. For he never fails us, he covers our every debt.
Thank you for this time we have spent together. I entrust myself to your prayers. To you I entrust all the intentions I carry in my heart during this visit to Madagascar. Let us pray together that the spirit of the Gospel may spring up in the hearts of all your people.
Testo originale nella lingua italiana
Texto original em português
Texte en français
Un-scripted Meditation of the Holy Father, Pope Francis
shared during the celebration of mid-day prayer
They will give you in writing what I have prepared, so you can read it, ponder it quietly. Now I would like to tell you something from my heart.
The reading from the First Book of Kings (2.2b-3), addressed to Joshua, began with an appeal for courage: Take courage, be a man! Courage. And to follow the Lord we need courage, always, a little courage. It is true that He does the heaviest work, but it takes courage to let him do it. And an image comes to mind, which helped me so much in my life as a priest. One late evening, two nuns, one very young and the other an old woman, walked from the choir, where the Vespers had prayed, to the refectory. The old woman had difficulty walking, she was almost paralyzed, and the young woman tried to help her, but the old woman got nervous, she said: "Don't touch me! Don't do this or I will fall! ". And, God knows, but her disease seemed to have made the old woman a bit neurotic. But the young woman still accompanied her with a smile. Eventually they arrived at the refectory, the young woman tried to help her sit down, and the old woman said: No, no, it hurts me, it hurts here ..., but in the end she sat down. A young woman, faced with this, surely would have liked to send the older woman for a walk! But that young woman smiled, took bread, buttered it and gave it to her. This is not a fable, it is a true story: the old woman was called Sister Saint Peter, and the young one, Sister Teresa of the Child Jesus.
This is a true story, which reflects a bit of community life, which shows the spirit with which one can live a community life. Charity in small and big things. That young woman might have thought, Yes, but tomorrow I will go to the prior and say that she should send a stronger nun to help this old woman because I can't do it. I do not think so. She believed in obedience: Obedience has given me this job and I will do it. With the power of obedience she did this work with exquisite charity. I know that all of you, cloistered nuns, have come to be close to the Lord, to seek the way of perfection; but the way of perfection lies in these small steps on the path of obedience. Small steps of charity and love. Small steps that look like nothing, but they are small steps that attract, that enslave God, little threads that imprison God. This was what the young woman thought: of the wires with which she imprisoned God, of the ropes, of the strings of love, which are the small acts of charity, small, very small, because our little souls cannot do great things.
Be brave! Have the courage to take small steps, the courage to believe that, through my littleness, God is happy, and fulfills the salvation of the world. "No, but I think that religious life has to change, it has to be more perfect, we must be closer to God, and for this I want to become a Prioress, capitulate, change things! ...". I'm not saying that any of you think this ... But the devil creeps into these thoughts. If you want to change not only the monastery, not only religious life - to change and save with Jesus - saving the world begins with these small acts of love, of self-renunciation, which imprison God and bring him among us.
Let's go back to the story of the young nun and the old one. One of those nights, before dinner, while they were going from the choir to the refectory - they left the choir ten minutes earlier to go to the refectory, step by step - Teresa heard music, from outside ...: there was party music, dancing ... And she thought of a party where young men and women danced, honestly, a nice family party ... maybe a wedding, a birthday ... She thought about music, celebration ... And she felt something inside; perhaps she heard the words: It would be nice to be there, I don't know ... And immediately, decisively, she said to the Lord that never, would she ever exchange even one of her gestures with the older sister for that worldly party. These made her happier than all the dances in the world.
Surely, to you, worldliness will come in many hidden forms. Know how to discern, with the prioress, with the community in chapter, discern the voices of worldliness, so that they do not enter your enclosure. Worldliness is not a cloistered nun, on the contrary, it is a goat that wanders through our streets, leads us out of the enclosure ... When thoughts of worldliness come to you, close the door and think of small acts of love: these save the world. Teresa preferred to keep the old woman and move on.
This is what I will tell you now, I will say this not to frighten you, but it is a reality, Jesus said it, and I dare to say so too. Each of you, to enter the convent, had to fight, did so many good things and won, won: you won the victory over the worldly spirit, conquered sin, triumphed over the devil. Perhaps, the day you entered the convent, the devil stayed at the door, sad, saying: "I lost a soul", and he left. But then he went to ask another clever devil for advice, an old devil, who surely told him: Have patience, wait ... This is the devil's usual way of proceeding. Jesus says it. When the devil leaves a soul free, he leaves; then, after a while, he wants to come back, and he sees that beautiful, well placed, so beautiful soul, and he wants to enter. And what does Jesus tell us? That devil goes, looks for seven worse ones than he is and comes back with those seven, and they want to get into that settled house. But they cannot enter by making noise, as if they were thieves, they must enter politely. And so the educated devils ring the bell: I would like to enter ..., I am looking for this one to help, that other one, that one too ... And they let him in. They are polite devils, they come into the house, they fix you up and then, Jesus says, the end of that man or that woman is worse than the beginning. But didn't you notice that this was a bad spirit? No, he was so polite, so good! And now, I'm going home because I can't tolerate this ... It's too late now, you let the devil enter your heart too much. Didn't you notice, didn't you talk to the prioress, didn't you talk to the chapter, with some sister of the community? The tempter does not want to be discovered, this is why he is disguised as a noble, educated person, sometimes as a spiritual father, sometimes ... Please, sister, when you feel something strange, speak immediately! Speak immediately! Bring it to light. If Eve had spoken in time, if she had gone to the Lord to tell him: This snake tells me these things, what do you think? If she had spoken in time! But Eve did not speak, and disaster came. This advice I give you: speak immediately, speak in time, when there is something that takes away your tranquility; I do not say peace, but first of all tranquility, then peace. This is the help, this is the defence you have in the community: one helps the other to make a united front, to defend holiness, to defend the glory of God, to defend love, to defend the monastery. But we defend ourselves well from spiritual worldliness, we defend ourselves well from the devil because we have a double grate, and in the middle, there is also a curtain!. The double grille and the curtain are not enough. You could have a hundred curtains! It takes charity, prayer. The charity to ask for advice in time, to listen to the sisters, to listen to the prioress. And prayer with the Lord, prayer: Lord, is it true what I am feeling, this is what the snake tells me, is it true? That young Teresa, as soon as she heard something inside, talked about it with the prioress ..., who didn't want her, she didn't love her prioress! But how can I go to the priory if she sees my teeth every time she sees me! Yes, but the prioress is Jesus. But, father, the prioress is not good, she is bad. Let the Lord say so, for you, Jesus is your prioress. But the prioress is a bit old, things don't work well ... Let me decide on the chapter; you, if you want to say this, say it in chapter, but you go to the prioress, because she is Jesus. Always the transparency of the heart! If you are always talking, you win.
And this Teresa, who knew she was terrible toward the Prioress, went to her. It is true, we must recognize that not all Prioresses are the Nobel prize of sympathy! But they are Jesus. The obedient way is the one that subjects you in love, makes us subject to love.
Then, this Teresa got sick. She became ill and, little by little, she seemed to have lost her faith. This poor girl, who during her life had known how to send away the educated devils, at the time of her death did not know how to cope with the demon who was circling her. She said: I see him: he turns, turns ... It is the darkness of the last days, of the last months of life. From the temptation, the spiritual struggle, the exercise of charity, one does not retire: you will have to fight until the end. Until the end. Even in the dark. She thought she had lost her faith! And she called the nuns to throw holy water on her bed and asked them to bring blessed candles ... The fight in the monastery is to the end. But it is beautiful, because in this struggle - cruel but beautiful - when it is true, peace is not lost.
This Pope - you say - is a bit folkloric, because instead of talking about theological things, he spoke to us like little girls. Maybe you were all girls in spirit, maybe! With that dimension of childhood that the Lord loves so much.
I would like to finish Teresa's story with the old lady. This Teresa now accompanies an old man. And I want to give testimony of this, I want to give witness because she has accompanied me, in every step she accompanies me. She taught me to take the steps. Sometimes I am a little neurotic and I send her away, like Mother Saint Peter. Sometimes listening; sometimes pain stops me from listening well ... But she is a faithful friend. This is why I didn't want to talk to you about theories, I wanted to talk to you about my experience with a Saint, and I wanted to tell you what a saint can do and to point out the way for us to become saints.
Keep up the good work, and be courageous.
No comments:
Post a Comment