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Guest
The following is taken from a talk by Fr. Edward Leahy, OCD, at a Congress for Secular Discalced Carmelites. Fr. Edward was a great Carmelite priest, dedicated to fostering the spiritual growth of Secular Carmelites and with whom he came in contact in his priestly ministry. Father was ordained in 1939; he died on Dec. 29, 1995, at the Carmelite House of Prayer in Oakville, California, a faithful servant of his Master and of His Mother. He is greatly missed, but we expect great graces through his intercession before the Throne of Grace.
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It is a law of the action of God in our lives that he frequently illumines for a person such and such a mystery of faith. But the Spirit assures to every one of us a particular gift. To one it is an understanding of the Passion of Christ, to another the Church or one of the divine attributes. St. Therese is said to have received mercy as her portion. On her deathbed St. Teresa rejoiced to call herself a daughter of the Church. This special heritage is a precious gift. It is constituted by a distinct perception which contains a characteristic attitude of a soul towards a special devotion. Among contemplatives there are some like St. John who receive Mary as their portion. Like the beloved disciple they enjoy her presence. This presence is a special favor. It exacts the complete gift of oneself to Mary. Life with Mary, in Mary and through Mary becomes a living program for these people. The discovery of Mary has led them to a complete Marian life. In Carmel these souls are many at all times. It is an honor for Carmel to have in its literature (unhappily too little known) writings that have defined the characteristic traits of this profoundly Marian life, well before Grignon de Montfort made it known to the mass of Christian people.
All Carmel, we are told, belongs to Mary. She is the mother whose welcoming embrace enfolded us all when we took our first timorous steps across the threshold of the venerable house and into that great family of so many saints we know and so many more we do not. And as the years go on, Mary continues to walk with us. Her presence to us is as unobtrusive as the air we breathe, yet as necessary for our spiritual growth as is the air for our continued physical existence. We should train ourselves to live in her company and meet her constantly along the road of life. At every turn, life likes us Carmelites to go to Mary. We think of her in the past, at Nazareth, at the stable in Bethlehem. This is not sentimentality. One cannot grasp the meaning of her Son without thinking carefully about His birth. In thinking and praying about His birth and about His mother we come to know them best as those we can approach. We should also think about Mary in the present, considering what there is about her life that could give meaning to our own. Above all we can take some scene of Mary in prayer in our efforts towards revitalizing our own life of prayer. The thought of Mary in meditation, or pondering in her heart, can create an atmosphere of stillness and peace in which prayer becomes easy as well as fruitful. We live in an activist Church with emphasis on commitment, social change, on brand new ways of spreading the Gospel. Instinctively we link this work with talking to, influencing, preaching to people. It seems a paradox to define it in terms of silence, the silence of learning and listening, or what someone called ‘the silence of deep interest.’ This is central to prayer and has profound implications in our mission of teaching it. People need to listen to each other, to let each other be, to give each other space to live in. Only a contemplative silence can make us open and ready to receive the word of God and communicate it to others. Indeed, the deepest communication is often enough achieved without any words.
It is a Christian duty to be attentive to the signs of the times so that noting certain characteristics of modern culture we may be able to serve the cause of good. One of those signs of authentic renewal is a reawakened interest in prayer. Many people, disillusioned by the tinsel and superficiality of modern culture, are turning to prayer. It is true that the more you read the Gospels in silence and prayer the more you find yourself alienated from what goes on around you. You are living in a different world. There is a flourishing movement, indeed many of them, in which prayer is the center and vital force. People are hungering for prayer. So many Americans are beginning to feel, for the first time, a need for the inner life. They have an overwhelming need for God, which is the basis of all true prayer.
continued. . .
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It is a law of the action of God in our lives that he frequently illumines for a person such and such a mystery of faith. But the Spirit assures to every one of us a particular gift. To one it is an understanding of the Passion of Christ, to another the Church or one of the divine attributes. St. Therese is said to have received mercy as her portion. On her deathbed St. Teresa rejoiced to call herself a daughter of the Church. This special heritage is a precious gift. It is constituted by a distinct perception which contains a characteristic attitude of a soul towards a special devotion. Among contemplatives there are some like St. John who receive Mary as their portion. Like the beloved disciple they enjoy her presence. This presence is a special favor. It exacts the complete gift of oneself to Mary. Life with Mary, in Mary and through Mary becomes a living program for these people. The discovery of Mary has led them to a complete Marian life. In Carmel these souls are many at all times. It is an honor for Carmel to have in its literature (unhappily too little known) writings that have defined the characteristic traits of this profoundly Marian life, well before Grignon de Montfort made it known to the mass of Christian people.
All Carmel, we are told, belongs to Mary. She is the mother whose welcoming embrace enfolded us all when we took our first timorous steps across the threshold of the venerable house and into that great family of so many saints we know and so many more we do not. And as the years go on, Mary continues to walk with us. Her presence to us is as unobtrusive as the air we breathe, yet as necessary for our spiritual growth as is the air for our continued physical existence. We should train ourselves to live in her company and meet her constantly along the road of life. At every turn, life likes us Carmelites to go to Mary. We think of her in the past, at Nazareth, at the stable in Bethlehem. This is not sentimentality. One cannot grasp the meaning of her Son without thinking carefully about His birth. In thinking and praying about His birth and about His mother we come to know them best as those we can approach. We should also think about Mary in the present, considering what there is about her life that could give meaning to our own. Above all we can take some scene of Mary in prayer in our efforts towards revitalizing our own life of prayer. The thought of Mary in meditation, or pondering in her heart, can create an atmosphere of stillness and peace in which prayer becomes easy as well as fruitful. We live in an activist Church with emphasis on commitment, social change, on brand new ways of spreading the Gospel. Instinctively we link this work with talking to, influencing, preaching to people. It seems a paradox to define it in terms of silence, the silence of learning and listening, or what someone called ‘the silence of deep interest.’ This is central to prayer and has profound implications in our mission of teaching it. People need to listen to each other, to let each other be, to give each other space to live in. Only a contemplative silence can make us open and ready to receive the word of God and communicate it to others. Indeed, the deepest communication is often enough achieved without any words.
It is a Christian duty to be attentive to the signs of the times so that noting certain characteristics of modern culture we may be able to serve the cause of good. One of those signs of authentic renewal is a reawakened interest in prayer. Many people, disillusioned by the tinsel and superficiality of modern culture, are turning to prayer. It is true that the more you read the Gospels in silence and prayer the more you find yourself alienated from what goes on around you. You are living in a different world. There is a flourishing movement, indeed many of them, in which prayer is the center and vital force. People are hungering for prayer. So many Americans are beginning to feel, for the first time, a need for the inner life. They have an overwhelming need for God, which is the basis of all true prayer.
continued. . .
How blessed we are in Christ to have such a mother.