Behold this Heart

Tuesday, 16 October 2018

Margherita Sacro Cuore.jpegThe Mystical Invasion
Saint Teresa of Jesus died in 1582. Thirty-two years later, on 31 December 1614, Catherine Mectilde de Bar was born at Saint–Dié in Lorraine. On 22 July 1647, sixty-five years after the death of Saint Teresa and thirty-three years after the birth of Mother Mectilde, Margaret Mary Alacoque was born in L’Hautecour in Burgundy.

The spiritual climate in Europe, following the Council of Trent, was one of extraordinary incandescence. Henri Brémond in his monumental Histoire littéraire du sentiment religieux en France speaks of a “mystical invasion.” Saint Teresa’s Carmel had crossed the Pyrenees, introducing men and women of all states of life to the way of interior prayer. The Jesuits had launched their missions to North America or, as they called it, “New France.” Men and women of God, too many to be counted, undertook great things for His glory. It was the golden age of great friendships in God. In 1610, the young widow, Jeanne-Françoise de Chantal, together with Francis de Sales, established at Annecy the Order of the Visitation of Holy Mary, declaring “that no great severity shall

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Illuminet vultum suum super nos (XIII:1)

Tuesday, 16 October 2018

CHAPTER XIII. How Lauds Are to Be Said on Week-days
15 Feb. 16 June. 16 Oct.

On week-days let Lauds be celebrated in the manner following. Let the sixty-sixth Psalm be said without an antiphon, as on Sundays, and somewhat slowly, in order that all may be in time for the fiftieth, which is to be said with an antiphon. After this let two other Psalms be said according to custom; that is, on Monday, the fifth and thirty-fifth: on Tuesday, the forty-second and fifty-sixth: on Wednesday, the sixty-third and sixty-fourth: on Thursday, the eighty-seventh and eighty-ninth: on Friday, the seventy-fifth and ninety-first: and on Saturday, the hundred and forty-second and the Canticle from Deuteronomy, which must be divided into two Glorias. But on the other days let canticles from the prophets be said, each on its proper day, according to the practice of the Roman Church. Then let the Psalms of praise follow, and after them a lesson from the Apostle, to be said by heart, a responsory, a hymn, a versicle, a canticle out of the Gospel, the Litany, and

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In the School of the Saints

Monday, 15 October 2018

Saint Teresa: La Madre
Saint Teresa of Jesus, mystic, teacher of prayer, reformer, and Doctor of the Church, has, without any doubt, set the benchmark for measuring the influence of holy women in the life of the Church. People do not, for example, find it at all odd that La Madre, as she is widely known, should be the primary reference for men who embrace life in any of the reformed expressions of Carmel that claim her as their inspiration and teacher. I have often heard Carmelite friars speak enthusiastically of Saint Teresa as their “holy mother.” So well known was Saint Teresa in the 17th century that Bossuet, “the eagle of Meaux”, found no better way of describing Blessed Marie of the Incarnation, the intrepid mystic of Tours and of Québec, than to call her “the Teresa of the New World”.

Dyed-in-the-Wool Benedictine
Is Saint Teresa the only woman at whose feet men are permitted to sit as disciples at the feet of a master? Is she so unique in the annals of holiness that, as far as men are concerned, a vast chasm separates her from all other mystics

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To thee do I watch at break of day (XII)

Monday, 15 October 2018

CHAPTER XII. How the Solemn Office of Lauds is to be said
14 Feb. 15 June. 15 Oct.
At Lauds on Sunday let the sixty-sixth Psalm first be said straight on without an antiphon. After this let the fiftieth Psalm be said, with an Alleluia, and then the hundred and seventeenth and the sixty-second. Then the Benedicite and Psalms of praise, a lesson from the Apocalypse, said by heart, a responsory, a hymn, a versicle, a canticle out of the Gospel, and the Litany, and so end.

The Office of divine praise at daybreak represents an element of the Catholic liturgy that is, at once, most traditional and universal. More recent use calls this Office Lauds. Saint Benedict, however, distinguishes three parts of the morning psalmody: (1) the psalmus confessionis; (2) the matutinal psalms; and (3) the true Lauds, Psalms 148–149–150.

First, on Sunday and also on every other day of the week, comes the psalmus confessionis, the daily prayer of sorrow for sin and resurrection to newness of life that is Psalm 50, the Miserere. John Mason Neale calls it “the Psalm of all Psalms; that which of

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Adoring silence is the Church’s most powerful arm

Sunday, 14 October 2018

8 Feb. 9 June. 9 Oct.
The eleventh degree of humility is, that when a monk speaketh, he do so gently and without laughter, humbly, gravely, with few and reasonable words, and that he be not noisy in his speech, as it is written: “A wise man is known by the fewness of his words.”

Current ecclesiastical events, and the bitter debates that they generate, compel me to reflect on Saint Benedict’s 8th Degree of Humility. Certain Catholics, dismayed by the state of things in the Church, may be tempted to use a discourse marked by an intemperate zeal. Our Lord will not acknowledge as His own those moved by what Saint Benedict calls “a bitter zeal” (Chapter LXXII).

And he sent messengers before his face; and going, they entered into a city of the Samaritans, to prepare for him. And they received him not, because his face was of one going to Jerusalem. And when his disciples James and John had seen this,

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Support the monks of Silverstream Priory:

Situated amidst pasture land and forest in the eastern reaches of County Meath, Silverstream Priory was founded in 2012 at the invitation of the Most Reverend Michael Smith, Bishop of Meath, and canonically erected as an autonomous monastery of diocesan right on 25 February 2017. The property belonged, from the early 15th century, to the Preston family, premier Viscounts of Ireland and Lords of Gormanston. In 1843 Thomas Preston (1817-1903), son of Jenico Preston, the 12th Viscount (1775-1860), built what today is Silverstream Priory.

Silverstream Priory is a providential realisation of the cherished project of Abbot Celestino Maria Colombo, O.S.B. (1874–1935), who, following the impetus given by Catherine–Mectilde de Bar in the 17th century, sought to establish a house of Benedictine monks committed to ceaseless prayer before the Most Holy Sacrament of the Altar in a spirit of reparation. The community of Silverstream Priory holding to the use of Latin and Gregorian Chant, celebrate the Divine Office in its traditional Benedictine form and Holy Mass in the “Usus Antiquior” of the Roman Rite. Praying and working in the enclosure of the monastery, the monks of Silverstream keep at heart the sanctification of priests labouring in the vineyard of the Lord. They undertake various works compatible with their monastic vocation, notably the development of the land and gardens, hospitality to the clergy in need of a spiritual respite, scholarly work, and publishing.

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