[Salvation]

Vultus Christi

O mon Dieu, Trinité que j'adore . . .

By

Father Mark

 on November 8, 2012 7:44 PM | 

Blessed Elizabeth of the Trinity
+ 9 November 1906

Blessed Elizabeth's Elevation to the Most Holy Trinity, written by the young Carmelite on 21 November 1904, has touched thousands of souls. For many it is has opened the door of an interior life of adoration and of love.

O my God, Trinity whom I adore; help me to forget myself entirely that I may be established in You as still and as peaceful as if my soul were already in eternity. May nothing trouble my peace or make me leave You, O my Unchanging One, but may each minute carry me further into the depths of Your mystery. Give peace to my soul; make it Your heaven, Your beloved dwelling and Your resting place. May I never leave You there alone but be wholly present, my faith wholly vigilant, wholly adoring, and wholly surrendered to Your creative Action.

O my beloved Christ, crucified by love, I wish to be a bride for Your Heart; I wish to cover You with glory; I wish to love You...even unto death! But I feel my weakness, and I ask You to "clothe me with Yourself," to identify my soul with all the movements of Your Soul, to overwhelm me, to possess me, to substitute yourself for me that my life may be but a radiance of Your Life. Come into me as Adorer, as Restorer, as Savior.

O Eternal Word, Word of my God, I want to spend my life in listening to You, to become wholly teachable that I may learn all from You. Then, through all nights, all voids, all helplessness, I want to gaze on You always and remain in Your great light. O my beloved Star, so fascinate me that I may not withdraw from Your radiance.

O consuming Fire, Spirit of Love, "come upon me," and create in my soul a kind of incarnation of the Word: that I may be another humanity for Him in which He can renew His whole Mystery.

And You, O Father, bend lovingly over Your poor little creature; "cover her with Your shadow," seeing in her only the "Beloved in whom You are well pleased."

O my Three, my All, my Beatitude, infinite Solitude, Immensity in which I lose myself, I surrender myself to You as Your prey. Bury Yourself in me that I may bury myself in You until I depart to contemplate in Your light the abyss of Your greatness.

[Salvation]

Vultus Christi

Haec est domus Domini

By

Father Mark

 on November 8, 2012 8:11 PM |

 

The Dedication of the Lateran Basilica

Cross the threshold of the Lateran Basilica, enter the nave, stand in the midst of it and, with eyes wide open to things visible, contemplate the invisible: the mystery of the Church, Bride of Christ and Mother of His faithful. To do this, one need not take oneself off to Rome. It is enough, and more than enough, to enter into the wealth of antiphons, responsories, readings, hymns, and prayers that make up the splendour of today's liturgy.

God is in His Holy Place

The liturgy summons us to make a pilgrimage of the heart. It is full of mysterious archetypes: thresholds and doors, stones and ladders, pillars and gates, fires and storms, trumpet blasts and mountains, water and blood. All of these resonate to the great central affirmation of the liturgy of the Dedication of a Church: "God is in his holy place" (Ps 67:6).

When we cross the threshold of a dedicated church, we pass into a mystic enclosure containing the uncontainable. We pass over into the space and time of God: a space filled by Him whom the heavens themselves cannot encompass, a time transcending the mean measurements of clocks and calendars.

House of God and Gate of Heaven

Our God, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob, the God of David and of Solomon, the God of Jesus Christ is not the distant God of a remote "there and then"; He is the God of "here and now." This is the wondrous realization that, dawning upon Jacob, caused him to cry out, "How awesome is this place! This is none other than the house of God, and this is the gate of heaven" (Gen 28:17).

The Temple of His Body

Today the Church professes the abiding and objective presence of God in the new and indestructible Temple, which is the Body of our Lord Jesus Christ. Our Lord challenges his critics, saying: "Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up"; Saint John, ever the theologian, takes great care to add for our sakes, "But he spoke of the temple of his body" (Jn 2:19-21).

The Body of Christ is our Temple. To be in the Temple is to be in Christ. There we are certain of finding the Father; there we are certain of being overshadowed by the Holy Spirit. There are we surrounded by "innumerable angels in festal gathering" and by "the assembly of the first-born who are enrolled in heaven" (Heb 12:22-23). To dwell in the Temple is to share in the mystery of Our Lord's priesthood, a priesthood which, like the Temple of his risen and ascended Body, endures forever. Baptized into Christ, we have crossed the threshold of the Temple. Even more, we are that Temple.

Divine Hospitality

The Temple of Christ's Body is not the stage of great spectacle. It is the home of the little and of the poor. There, beggar and priest, harlot and levite, mingle and touch, held in the embrace of the Divine Hospitality. The sound that fills the living Temple is the immense symphony of the poor, the maimed, the lame, and the blind (Lk 14:13), all clothed in their wedding garments -- garments royal and priestly -- woven by the Holy Spirit to adorn the Body of Christ in the presence of the Father. Here, the sacred is familiar, and the familiar, sacred. "Even the sparrow finds a home, and the swallow a nest for herself, where she may lay her young, at thy altars, O Lord of hosts" (Ps 84:3-4).

The Gate of Heaven Upon Earth

Listen to Robert Hugh Benson (1871-1914), a son of the Archbishop of Canterbury and celebrated convert to Catholic Church. He describes the Church I love: the Church he came to love:

Her arms are as open to those who would serve God in silence and seclusion, as to those who dance before him with all their might. . . . There is nothing to fear for those who stand where we stand; there are no precipices to be climbed any more and no torrents to be crossed; God has made all easy for those He has admitted through the Gate of Heaven that he has built upon the earth; the very River of Death itself is no more than a dwindled stream, bridged and protected on every side; the shadow of death is little more than twilight for those who look on it in the light of the Lamb.