I Confide to You a Secret

Someone once wondered why my earliest writings on The Cloistered Heart did not mention saints who'd had ideas somewhat similar to my own. Actually, I'd had no clue that anyone else ever thought such things... at least things with specifically 'cloistered' imagery.

Imagine my surprise, then, when I first read this from Elizabeth of the Trinity: 

'May the God Who is all love be your unchanging dwelling place, your cell, and your cloister in the midst of the world.'

Oh my goodness.  

She also had these things to say: 

'May nothing distract me from You, neither noise nor diversions. Oh my Master, I would so love to live with You in silence. But what I love above all is to do Your will, and since You want me still to remain in the world, I submit with all my heart for love of You. I offer You the cell of my heart; may it be Your little Bethany. Come rest there.' (St. Elizabeth of the Trinity)
 
'I confide to you a secret which has made my life on earth an anticipated Heaven: the belief that a Being Whose name is Love is dwelling within us at every moment of the day and night, and that He asks us to live in his company.' (St. Elizabeth of the Trinity)

'Make my soul... Your cherished dwelling place, Your home of rest. Let me never leave You there alone, but keep me there all absorbed in You, in living faith, adoring You.' (St. Elizabeth of the Trinity)

'What a joyous mystery is Your presence within me, in that intimate sanctuary of my soul where I can always find You, even when I do not feel Your presence. Of what importance is feeling? Perhaps You are all the closer when I feel You less.' (St. Elizabeth of the Trinity)

'It seems to me that I have found my heaven on earth, because my heaven is You, my God, and You are in my soul. You in me, and I in You - may this be my motto.' (St. Elizabeth of the Trinity)

'I think that in heaven my mission will be to draw souls by helping them to go out of themselves in order to cling to God by a wholly simple and loving movement, and to keep them in this great silence within.' (St. Elizabeth of the Trinity)
 

St. Elizabeth of the Trinity, on this day of your canonization, please pray for us. May we each be given grace to love and adore the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. May we provide a refuge of love for God always, in the Bethanys of our hearts.

For more information about our new saint, click here

From the Heart of St. Faustina

Over the next few days, I'd like to look at several 'cloistered hearts' who have gone before us.  While these holy ones may never have thought of their hearts as 'cloistered,' indeed that was the reality.

I will be looking primarily at men and women determined by the Church to be saints, or at least ones recognized as on the steady path to sainthood.

After all, look at where their paths have led.

'I find pleasure, not in large buildings and magnificent structures,' said Jesus to St. Faustina Kowalska, 'but in a pure and humble heart.'  (Diary #532)

'In the dwelling of my heart is that wilderness to which no creature has access.  There, You alone are King.'  (St. Faustina, Diary #725)

'My heart is a permanent dwelling place for Jesus.  No one but Jesus has access to it.' (St. Faustina, Diary #193)

'Nothing terrifies me, even if the whole world should turn against me.  All adversaries touch only the surface, but they have no entry to the depths, because God, who strengthens me, who fills me, dwells there.'  (St. Faustina, Diary #480)

'Nothing disturbs my union with the Lord, neither conversation with others nor any duties; even if I am to go about settling very important matters, this does not disturb me.  My spirit is with God, and my interior being is filled with God, so I do not look for Him outside myself.  He, the Lord, penetrates my soul just as a ray from the sun penetrates clear glass.  When I was enclosed in my mother's womb, I was not so closely united with her as I am with my God.  There, it was an unawareness; but here it is the fullness of reality and the consciousness of union.'  (St. Faustina, Diary #883)

'My daughter, I want to repose in your heart, because many souls have thrown Me out of their hearts today.'  (Jesus to St. Faustina, #866 )

All quotes above are from Diary: Divine Mercy in My Soul by St. Faustina Kowalska, Marians of the Immaculate Conception, Stockbridge, 1996.  Click this link for more information. 

Painting: Adolf Kaufmann, 1904, detail, in US public domain 
Photo of St. Faustina in public domain

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