A Powerful Prayer

Painting: Gari Melchers, Joan of_Arc

Beyond Whims and Fancies

'We must have a real living determination to reach holiness. 

I will be a saint means I will despoil myself of all that is not God; 

I will strip my heart of all created things; 

I will live in poverty and detachment; 

I will renounce my will, my inclinations, my whims and fancies, 

and make myself a willing slave to the will of God.'

St. Teresa of Calcutta

Painting: Ferdinand du Puigaudeau, The Wayside Cross at Rochefort-en-Terre

Are You Crazy?

Painting: Giovanni Antonio Galli, Three Martyrs

God's Invitation

'God's invitation to become saints is for all, not just a few. Sanctity therefore must be accessible to all. In what does it consist? In a lot of activity? No. In doing extraordinary things? No, this could not be for everybody and at all times. Therefore sanctity consists in doing good, and in doing this good in whatever condition and place God has placed us. Nothing more, nothing outside of this.' 

Blessed Louis Tezza

Painting at top: Duccio di Buoninsegna, Maestà
Painting at bottom: Gari Melchers, Young Mother

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

Be Wholly

A Simple Way

"I shall put life and energy into my work by infusing therein a true supernatural spirit. I shall never lose sight of the fact that labour is a penance and that, accepted and offered to God as such, it becomes a wonderful means of atonement for my sins. Prayer will go hand-in-hand with my work, whatever its nature may be. Before each separate duty, I shall beg God's blessing. From time to time during its progress, I shall lift my heart to God... This will not impede my work, rather it will add to its efficiency, for the more I bring God into my work, the better will it be accomplished... Yes, it is true, that if we offer all the common, ordinary things of life in love, to give pleasure to Jesus, we shall attain to sainthood. For God does not look so much at the greatness of our acts as at the love with which we do them. It is a simple way." (The Living Pyx of Jesus, Pelligrini, 1941, pp. 263-266)