christianity

THE PROFOUND SPIRITUAL EXPERIENCE SAINT THERESE UNDERWENT AFTER MAKING HER OBLATION TO THE DIVINE MERCY

“I’m going to be doing only one thing: I shall begin to sing what I must sing eternally: ‘The Mercies of the Lord’ ” (St. Therese of Lisieux)

What I specifically intend to focus in on in this note is what happened to St. Therese AFTER she made her Act of Oblation to Merciful Love, the facts of which are less known and which highlight important aspects or elements of Therese’s mystical life and spiritual progress towards union with God.

Saint Therese wrote her famous Act of Oblation to Merciful Love on June 9, 1895 (link to the full text at the end of this note) in which she offered herself as a “Victim of Holocaust to God’s Merciful Love.” As she explains in her autobiography she received a special grace that day to make her offering to God’s Divine Mercy:

“This year June 9, [1895] the feast of the Most Holy Trinity, I received the grace to understand more than ever before how much Jesus desires to be loved.

I was thinking about the souls who offer themselves as victims of God’s Justice in order to turn away the punishments reserved to sinners, drawing them upon themselves. This offering seemed great and very generous to me, but I was far from feeling attracted to making it. From the depths of my heart, I cried out:

‘O my God! Will Your Justice alone find souls willing to immolate themselves as victims? Does not Your Merciful Love need them too? On every side this love is unknown, rejected; those hearts upon whom You would lavish it turn to creatures, seeking happiness from them with their miserable affection; they do this instead of throwing themselves into Your arms and of accepting Your infinite Love. O my God! Is Your disdained Love going to remain closed up within Your Heart? It seems to me that if You were to find souls offering themselves as victims of holocaust to Your Love, You would consume them rapidly; it seems to me, too, that You would be happy not to hold back the waves of infinite tenderness within You. If Your Justice loves to release itself, this Justice which extends only over the earth, how much more does Your Merciful Love desire to set souls on fire, since Your Mercy reaches to the heavens. O my Jesus, let me be this happy victim; consume Your holocaust with the fire of Your Divine Love.’”

You permitted me, dear Mother, to offer myself in this way to God, and you know the rivers or rather the oceans of graces that flooded my soul. Ah! since the happy day, it seems to me that Love penetrates and surrounds me, that at each moment this Merciful Love renews me, purifying my soul and leaving no trace of sin within it….” ((Story of a Soul, ICS Publications, 3rd Ed., pp. 181).

So we come now to the profound mystical experience Therese subsequently underwent, which might be called in mystical terminology “the spiritual wounding of the heart,” or transverberation. In the quote below Therese explains how her heart was mystically wounded by a dart of love a few days after she finished her Act of Oblation to Merciful Love:

“I had commenced the Stations of the Cross in Choir, then all at once I felt myself wounded by a dart of fire so ardent that I thought I must die. I do not know how to explain it; it was as if an invisible hand had plunged me wholly into fire. Oh, what fire, and what sweetness at the same time! I was burning with love, and I thought one minute, nay, one second more, and I shall not be able to support such ardour without dying. I understood then what the Saints have said of those states which  they had experienced so often. For me I have but experienced it that once, only for an instant, and afterwards I fell back again into my habitual dryness. From the age of fourteen I have also experienced the assaults of love. Ah! how much I love God! But it was not at all to be compared to what I experienced after my offering to Love….” (Cruz, p.68; see References below).

Therese tells us elsewhere that:

“I have had several transports of love, and one in particular during my Novitiate when I remained for a whole week far removed from this world. It seemes as though a veil were thrown over all earthly things. But, I was not then consumed by a real fire. I was able to bear those transports of love without expecting to see the ties that bound me to earth give way; whilst, on the day of which I mentioned (the dart of fire), one minute, one second more and my soul must have been set free…. True, the Divine Hand had withdrawn the fiery dart – but the wound was unto death!” (Cruz, pp. 68-69; see References below).

A core feature of Carmelite spirituality is contemplation or contemplative prayer (Saint John of the Cross and Saint Teresa of Avila, both Carmelites, were great mystics and contemplatives). It is sometimes thought that Saint Therese was less graced with the gift of mystical contemplation but certainly the examples just given help to shed light on Therese’s mystical journey, and as Father Garrigou-LaGrange points out:

“Truly St. Teresa of Lisieux traced for us the simple road which leads to great heights. In her teaching, as it pleased Pope Pius XI to point out, the gift of wisdom appears in a lofty degree for the direction of souls thirsting for the truth and wishing, above all human conceptions, to live by the word of God….The way of childhood thus understood, especially as we see it toward the end of the life of St. Teresa of the Child Jesus, is very elevated in its simplicity. Its lofty simplicity comes home to us because the saint certainly passed through the night of the spirit (which corresponds to the sixth mansion of St. Teresa of Avila), as may be seen on reading chapter nine of the Histoire d’une ame. It was the reading of this chapter, some thirty years ago, that gave us the idea of explaining the night of the spirit by a profound and intense influence of the gift of understanding, which brings out in powerful relief the formal motive of humility and of each of the three theological virtues. Thereby these infused virtues are purified of all alloy or attachment to secondary and accessory motives on which until then the soul had dwelt excessively” (The Three Ages of the Interior Life, Chapter 41, regarding the way of spiritual childhood, emphasis added).

I do not have time in this short note to trace out St. Therese’s dark night of the soul and trial of faith that began around ten months after she composed her Act of Oblation to Merciful Love, but as Father Frederick L. Miller points out: “In her harrowing trial of faith that lasted with hardly any relief for a year and a half, Therese experienced an inexplicable grace, a mystical, infused sharing in Christ’s passion. She felt as her own the thirst of the Crucified for all those people who reject his love. The words of St. Paul offered her light in her darkness: ‘For our sake, God made him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God ‘(2 Cor 5:22).“

The core of Saint Therese’s message, says Saint John Paul II, is the merciful love of God.  In his Apostolic Letter Proclaiming Saint Therese of Lisieux a Doctor of the Church, Pope John Paul II made the following observation regarding the core of Saint Therese’s message:

“The core of her message is actually the mystery itself of God-Love, of the triune God infinitely perfect in himself. If genuine Christian spiritual experience should conform to the revealed truths in which God communicates himself and the mystery of his will (cf. Dei Verbum, 2), it must be said that Therese experienced divine revelation, going so far as to contemplate the fundamental truths of our faith united in the mystery of Trinitarian life. At the summit, as the source and goal, is the merciful love of the three divine Persons, as she expresses it, especially in her “Act of Oblation to Merciful Love.”  At the root, on the subject’s part, is the experience of being the Father’s adoptive children in Jesus; this is the most authentic meaning of spiritual childhood, that is, the experience of divine filiation, under the movement of the Holy Spirit. At the root again, and standing  before us, is our neighbor, others for whose salvation we must collaborate with and in Jesus, with the same merciful love as his.” (no. 8)

Therese’s last words moments before she died in Carmel were: “Oh! I love Him…My God…I love You.” She died on September 30, 1897. 

Thomas L. Mulcahy, M.A.

References: For this note I am relying primarily on Joan Carroll Cruz’ book, Mysteries, Marvels, Miracles (TAN books), pp. 68-69. She references the quote about the dart of fire as follows: Sister Agnes of Jesus, Novissima Verba: The Last Conversations of St. Therese of the Child Jesus : May-September 1897 (London: Burns, Oates & Washbourne, Ltd., 1929), pp. 43-44. The subsequent quote about transports of love is referenced by Cruz as follows: Soeur Therese of Lisieux, The Little Flower of Jesus (Story of a Soul), T.N. Taylor, editor. (New York: P.J. Kennedy and Sons, 1912), p.195. The quote from Father Frederick L. Miller is from his article, “Saint Therese of Lisieux: Doctor of Divine Love” (September 22, 2020), available online.

Link: https://stpaulcenter.com/the-act-of-oblation-to-merciful-love/#:~:text=I%20offer%20myself%20as%20a,your%20Love%2C%20O%20my%20God!

Image: St. Therese of the Child Jesus in the photograph taken in the courtyard of the monastery of Lisieux Easter Monday, April 15, 1894.

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THE AWESOME PRIVILEGE AND POWER WE HAVE TO PRAY FOR OTHER PEOPLE!

“More things are wrought by prayer than this world dreams of”  (Alfred Lord Tennyson)


It is truly an amazing thing that God grants us the power to change the course of other people’s lives through intercessory prayer. We take this form of prayer for granted, but when you think about it intercessory prayer is one of the greatest powers God has granted to a creature. Literally, within seconds, we can petition God for the good of other human beings. Now that’s power, and God allows us to do it all life-long. The very justification (or at least one of them) for cloistered religious communities must be the incredible value of intercessory prayer.

Given the foregoing considerations, the question then arises: – Do we value intercessory prayer? Do we use it for our neighbor’s good? Have we taken the time to consider just how important intercessory prayer is?  We are commanded to be charitable to our neighbors. Intercessory prayer can help us to fulfill this duty in a wonderful and mysterious way. Saint Paul is adamant that Christians should pray for each other (1 Timothy 2:1). Since God has given us this great gift of intercessory prayer, it follows that He expects us to use it. Sometimes we feel there is very little we can do in the service of Jesus, but all of us can become more devoted to intercessory prayer. To pray for others is an important responsibility. Our prayers have the power to change lives and save souls who are precious to Jesus and Mary.

Devotion to intercessory prayer will, no doubt, increase our good-will towards others, especially those whom we don’t care for. It is also an exercise of the theological virtues of faith, hope and love which are of the essence of being Christian. And finally, per Father Faber, joy is a wonderful effect of this devotion seeing that it involves an unselfish act of seeking the good of others.

Why not make a list of the people you are going to pray for this week? Pray for those who need a job, pray for those who have left the church, pray for those who have hurt you, pray for those undergoing trials, pray for someone who is in mortal sin, pray for someone to grow in holiness and draw closer to the Lord. There are so many good things we can pray for. When you pass a hospital, pray for the person in the hospital who is closest to death. One thing is for sure: people need your prayers. I need your prayers. We should all be, in the power of the Holy Spirit, mighty apostolates of intercessory prayer, for the good of our neighbor and the glory of God.    

Now if we who are on the road to salvation have been granted such an immense power to pray for others, imagine then how much more the saints in Heaven (fully and forever united to God) are qualified to pray for us!  “We are one body.”

Tom Mulcahy, M.A.

Reference: I am relying entirely on Chapter Four of All for Jesus by the great F.W. Faber, and this note is merely a paraphrase or a summary or a condensing of parts of that chapter.

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THE PRACTICE OF PURITY OF HEART ACCOMPLISHES SO MUCH IN THE SPIRITUAL LIFE!

“Create in me a clean heart, O God, and renew a right spirit within me.” (Psalm 51:10)

“We take captive every thought to make it obedient to Christ” (2 Corinthians 10:5)

Father Grou, a great spiritual writer, tells us that one of the means by which we attain to “true and solid virtue” is through the “mortification of the heart.” He states: “We cannot watch too much over our own heart, and all that passes there.” Grou says that to “watch carefully over the heart, to restrain its first motions,” is a “great means” to overcome our fallen human nature and its attendant evil – or at least misguided –  inclinations, and thus to keep ourselves in “peace and self-possession.” Grou advises that this “constant attention” to what is passing in our hearts “is not so difficult as we might think,” and clearly he is suggesting that there are great spiritual dividends to be obtained through this practice of purity of heart.

The Catholic spiritual practice of Purity of Heart is one of the most important spiritual disciplines we can and should make use of. The Catholic cognitive discipline of purity of heart monitors and detects disordered and evil thoughts, capturing them and deleting them as hostile to growth in holiness. Saint Paul says: “We take captive every thought and make it obedient to Christ” -that is, obedient to the Christian law of charity (see 2 Cor. 10:5). Our goal, then, is to detect and weed out thoughts (movements of our heart) that are opposed to growth in holiness.

By the practice of purity of heart we keep a very careful watch over all the thoughts being presented to our mind and over all the affections and passions being presented to our heart. By this careful watch, we almost immediately intercept and delete the thoughts and affections which violate purity of heart. Thus, as a very simple example, should I suddenly feel the desire to gossip about someone, I check out this movement of my heart, examine it, and ultimately suppress or delete it since it violates purity of heart. Or, as another example, should I suddenly feel swelling up in my heart ill-will towards a certain person, the practice of purity of heart obligates me to take a close look at this movement of my heart, and to mortify it, and to replace it with Christian charity and forgiveness. Gradually, by steadfastly and diligently practicing purity of heart, our heart becomes cleaner and cleaner. What do we want more in our lives than purity of heart? 

Purity of heart is a mechanism of introspection whereby we carefully look at our thoughts and affections, even moment by moment, to place them under Christ’s law of charity. As soon as we observe that our mind or affections are tending in a sinful direction, we immediately mortify such thoughts or affections, giving them no chance of growth within our souls.  Its sort of like we’ve installed security software in our brain that immediately detects and deletes bad stuff (God’s given us the software and all we have to do is learn how to use it!!). 

Father Jacques Philippe, the well known spiritual writer, recommends the practice of purity of heart in his very worthwhile book, In the School of the Holy Spirit (see Appendix II beginning on page 70, and pages 40-42 ). But the two giants of our Catholic spiritual heritage who speak so highly of practicing purity of heart are Father Lallemant (in his classic The Spiritual Doctrine), and Father Grou (in Manual for Interior Souls). Both Fathers Lallemant and Grou were French and Jesuit.

Father Lallemant recommends the practice of purity of heart in conjunction with regular, sacramental confession. He states:

“For the oftener we confess, the more we purify ourselves, the grace proper to this sacrament being purity of conscience. Thus, every confession, besides the increase of habitual grace and of the gifts, imparts also a fresh sacramental grace, that is to say, a new title to receive from God  both actual  graces and the aids necessary for emancipating ourselves more and more from sin.” (Father Lallemant, The Spiritual Doctrine, II,  Chapter 6, as cited in The Mystical Evolution, pages 99-100).

What an amazing purifying tool at your immediate disposal for growth in holiness: the practice of purity of heart! Its like an ongoing, perpetual examination of conscience that keeps all the junk out of our hearts and mind. And when the junk is gone, we become, as Father Lallemant insists, more docile to the whispers of the Holy Spirit, which we previously could not hear. This is why Father Lallemant says that “purity of heart accomplishes so much” in the spiritual life.

Dear friend, take captive every thought in obedience to the Gospel (see 2 Corinthians 10:5). “Blessed are the pure in heart, for they will see God” (Matthew 5:8).

We should practice purity of heart calmy, peacefully, without any panic and with appropriate perspective, with the ultimate goal of keeping ourselves in the peaceful presence of God as much as possible (not being too shocked that from time to time we experience some very disconcerting thoughts).

With respect to the purification of the heart from lust and unchastity, see Catechism of the Catholic Church, nos. 2514 to 2533, which is quite good.

Tom Mulcahy, M.A.

Sources: Father Lallemant, The Spiritual Doctrine...purity of heart is one of his main doctrines for growth in holiness, and he formed saints!!! Saints Isaac Jogues and Jean de Brebeuf were his students. And also Father Grou as mentioned above. Matt Maher sings, “Hold my heart up to the light” in one of his songs. That is what the practice of purity of heart is: holding our heart up to the light!

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CONTINUAL DEVOTION TO THE HOLY NAME OF JESUS

“Therefore God exalted [Jesus] to the highest place and gave him the name that is above every name, that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth” (Phil. 2: 9-10)

“Jesus” literally means “he saves.” It is thus a saving name, or rather a name full of saving power.

Why is Jesus’ name more powerful than all other names (indeed, more powerful than all other names combined)? – because Jesus has been resurrected, because Jesus has ascended into Heaven, because Jesus has been crowned Lord of all creation, and because, enthroned in Heaven, Jesus always lives to make intercession for you (Hebrews 7:25). This is power. This is the power of invoking Jesus’ name!

The Catechism of the Catholic Church states (at 519):

All Christ’s riches “are for every individual and are everybody’s property.” Christ did not live his life for himself but for us, from his Incarnation “for us men and for our salvation” to his death “for our sins” and Resurrection “for our justification”. He is still “our advocate with the Father”, who “always lives to make intercession” for us (Hebrews 7:25). He remains ever “in the presence of God on our behalf, bringing before him all that he lived and suffered for us” (Hebrews 9:25).

Therefore, an easy yet powerful way to grow closer to Jesus is to simply hold His name in great reverence. The basic assumption for this devotion is that Jesus’ name is full of power and grace. The Church apparently agrees with this assessment because it sets aside January 3 as the Feast of the Most Holy Name of Jesus. It is a reminder to us to greatly reverence Jesus’ name the rest of the year. What an awesome New Year’s resolution that would be! Imagine the growth in holiness you would experience if you kept that resolution.

Father Paul O’Sullivan writes that the “Holy Name of Jesus fills our souls with a peace and a joy we never had before.” He adds that the “Name of Jesus is the shortest, the easiest and the most powerful of prayers. Everyone can say it, even in the midst of his daily work. God cannot refuse to hear it.”

“The frequent repetition of this Divine name [Jesus],” says Father O’Sullivan, will save you from much suffering and great dangers.” It seems to me the key to this devotion is to say Jesus’ name with great reverence and love, calling to mind – without even having to think about it – all that Jesus is and means to us. This is a formula which will clearly increase our love for Jesus and will maintain us in a spirit of faith. We should never forget that faith is one of the most important virtues in the spiritual life (it is a theological virtue, literally meaning “God-directed”).

Father O’Sullivan encourages us to “understand clearly the meaning and value of the Name of Jesus.” He adds that the “Holy Name of Jesus saves us from innumerable evils and delivers us especially from the power of the devil, who is constantly seeking to do us harm.” He says that “every time we say ‘Jesus,’ we are saying a fervent prayer for…all that we need.”

If you are looking for a simple devotion, filled with power, this is it! Father O’Sullivan assures us that the simple devotion of reverently saying Jesus’ name throughout the day has amazing power. And, as Father Faber states, what do we need more in the spiritual life than “power” to overcome our tepidity and weakness.

“[Mary] will bear a son, and you shall call his name Jesus, for he will save his people from their sins” (Matthew 1:21). May the most holy name of Jesus be on your lips and in your heart throughout the upcoming year. And remember Jesus himself said: “Truly, truly, I say to you, whatever you ask of the Father in my name, he will give it to you” (John 16:23).

Thomas L. Mulcahy, M.A.

References: The Wonders of the Holy Name by Father Paul O’Sullivan (TAN). “With the release of the revised Roman Missal in March 2002, the feast [of the Most Holy Name of Jesus] was restored as an optional memorial in the Ordinary Form on January 3” (from catholicculture.org).

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BIBLICAL FOUNDATIONS FOR THE IMMACULATE CONCEPTION

 “And the angel … said… : ‘Hail, full of grace, the Lord is with thee: blessed art thou among women’.” (Luke 1:28)

1. Mary’s Immaculate Conception is an infallible doctrine of the Catholic Church promulgated by Pope Pius IX , ex cathedra  (from the chair of St. Peter) on December 8, 1854. The Papal Bull reads:

“We declare, pronounce and define that the doctrine which asserts that the Blessed Virgin Mary, from the first moment of her conception, by a singular grace and privilege of almighty God, and in view of the merits of Jesus Christ, Savior of the human race, was preserved free from every stain of original sin is a doctrine revealed by God and, for this reason, must be firmly and constantly believed by all the faithful.” 

“With these words in 1854, Pope Pius IX in the Papal Bull Ineffabilis Deus, declared Mary’s Immaculate Conception to be dogma. Pius was simply affirming a long-held belief of many Christians East and West before him, that Mary was conceived free of the stain of original sin, on account of Christ’s work, in order to bear God-made-flesh.”  (From Saint John Cantius Parish web-site)

2. The dogma is confirmed four years later (in 1858) by the Blessed Virgin Mary herself in the most famous of her apparitions at Lourdes. At Lourdes, when asked her name by St. Bernadette, Mary responded in an extraordinary fashion, saying, “I am the Immaculate Conception.” Since then, Lourdes has been the situs of countless miracles.

3. Some of the early Reformers, such as Martin Luther, at least initially stood firmly behind this doctrine in that they saw that Mary would have to be a pure and sinless vessel in order to communicate to Jesus his sacred and holy body. The following quote from Martin Luther is illustrative:

“It is a sweet and pious belief that the infusion of Mary’s soul was effected without original sin; so that in the very infusion of her soul she was also purified from original sin and adorned with God’s gifts, receiving a pure soul infused by God; thus from the first moment she began to live she was free from all sin.”
Martin Luther, (Sermon: “On the Day of the Conception of the Mother of God,” 1527).

4. Contrary to popular belief, the doctrine has strong scriptural support in that:

A. Gabriel announces that Mary is “full of grace” (Luke 1:28). If Mary is full of grace it follows that she is without sin (note how the angel does not call Mary by her name, but rather by a title, saying:“Hail, full of grace”  – and the angel is God’s messenger). The Ignatius Catholic Study Bible defends the traditional translation, “Hail, full of grace,” as against some modern translations, stating: “[The Greek word used by Luke], kecharitomene, indicates that God has already graced Mary previous to this point, making her a vessel who ‘has been’ and ‘is now’ filled with divine life. Alternative translations like ‘favored one’… are possible but inadequate.”   

B. Saint Luke (in his Gospel) and Saint John (in the Book of Revelation) identify Mary as the  Ark of the New Covenant, thus comparing her to the all-holy Ark of the Covenant in the Old Testament. See “Topical Essay: Mary Ark of the Covenant” in The Ignatius Catholic Bible Study or click the following on-line article from This Rock: Mary, the Ark of the New Covenant | Catholic Answers

C.  Mary’s Immaculate Conception is internally consistent with the doctrine of Original Sin (which flows from a number of Old and New Testament passages, especially at Romans 5:12-21). Since original sin is transmitted by physical generation, it follows logically that Jesus, who was born without sin, would have to be born from a spotless womb. Mary is that pure and spotless vessel: the woman who overflows with God’s grace; and

D. John the Baptist was sanctified in his mother’s womb. At Luke 1:15 it states that John the Baptist was filled with the Holy Spirit even from birth. The passage, in context, reads as follows:

Then an angel of the Lord appeared to him, standing at the right side of the altar of incense. When Zechariah saw him, he was startled and was gripped with fear. But the angel said to him: “Do not be afraid, Zechariah; your prayer has been heard. Your wife Elizabeth will bear you a son, and you are to give him the name John. He will be a joy and delight to you, and many will rejoice because of his birth, for he will be great in the sight of the Lord. He is never to take wine or other fermented drink, and he will be filled with the Holy Spirit even from birth. Many of the people of Israel will he bring back to the Lord their God. And he will go on before the Lord, in the spirit and power of Elijah, to turn the hearts of the fathers to their children and the disobedient to the wisdom of the righteous—to make ready a people prepared for the Lord.”(Luke 1:11-17)

The angel then identifies himself as Gabriel, the same angel of Mary’s annunciation a few lines later at Luke 1:26, who addresses Mary, not by a name, but by a title, “Hail, Full of grace.”  The point is obvious (I think its obvious): if John was filled with the Holy Spirit from birth, what was done in God’s providence to prepare Mary to be the mother of God? Luke then, as you know, makes a direct comparison between Mary and the Ark of the Covenant, implying the incredible magnitude of her sanctity and holiness. All of this fits in very nicely with the Church’s proclamation of her Immaculate Conception.

Tom Mulcahy, M.A.

References: Those cited within this note. See also: The Gospel of Luke by Dr. Scott Hahn (St. Joseph Communications).

Image: Madonna on a Crescent Moon in Hortus Conclusus by unknown author, 1450s, Germany. Public Domain, U.S.A.

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