A SOUL THAT CANNOT SUFFER CANNOT LOVE

It is related that when St Peter was leaving Rome in the time of persecution, he met our Lord Jesus Christ, who was carrying a heavy cross upon his shoulders. St Peter asked his Lord whither he was going in that sad condition, and our Lord answered him: “I am going to Rome to deliver Myself to be crucified for you, because you refuse to suffer for me.” St Peter, ashamed of his weakness, and penetrated by a lively sorrow, returned to Rome, where, with great courage and joy, he suffered martyrdom for the name and honour of his Divine Master.

We have imitated St Peter in his weakness; when shall we imitate him in his generosity? Alas! how often might our Lord Jesus Christ say to us: I am going to give Myself up again to death for you, because you refuse to bear My cross! We would like to have nothing to suffer; we complain and murmur at the least trouble. The mere sound of the word “sufferings,” nay, even the thought of it, makes us tremble. 

Is this to be a Christian, is this to be a disciple of a God who died for us on the cross? O suffering Saviour, teach us to suffer! sanctify us through our sufferings, united with thine, and receiving all their merit from thine! Let us then be a little more considerate, and instead of bewailing our sufferings, let us praise God who gives us the means, with the merits of our Lord Jesus Christ, to atone for our sins.

A soul that cannot suffer cannot love. True love only shows itself in suffering. Jesus Christ has planted the cross in order to show us the way to heaven; He holds it before the soul to guide her there.

Many Saints would have been lost without suffering, and many lost souls would have been great saints through suffering. It is better to weep than to sin. Weep now with the penitent, that by and by you may rejoice with the elect.

– Laverty & Sons (eds), 1905

 

PROMPTED BY THE ATTACKS ON THE CATHOLIC CHURCH SHE LOOKED INTO THE CHURCH AND SUBSEQUENTLY BECAME A CATHOLIC CHRISTIAN – ELIZABETH LESEUR

“This Tuesday, 3rd May, is the anniversary of the death of Elizabeth Leseur who died in 1914 at the age of 47. Elizabeth was born in Paris to a wealthy family. She had hepatitis as a child and this recurred throughout Elizabeth’s life, with varying severity.

AN EDITOR OF AN ANTI-CATHOLIC MAGAZINE

Elizabeth met Dr Felix Leseur, who had renounced his Catholic Faith, and they were married in 1889. In fact Felix was the editor of an anti-Catholic magazine in Paris.

Prompted by the attacks on the Catholic Church   by her husband and others, Elizabeth began to look into the Church and soon found herself undergoing a religious conversion, this being completed at the age of 32.

A MAJOR TASK

One of the major tasks from then on was for Elizabeth to pray that her husband would also convert to Catholicism. Elizabeth worked on charitable projects for poor families, which was largely unknown to her husband. Her health deteriorated in 1907 to the extent that she was unable to go out. In 1911 Elizabeth underwent surgery and radiation for a malignant tumour. She recovered slightly but was bedridden by 1913. Elizabeth died from generalised cancer in 1914.

A DISCIPLINED PATTERN OF PRAYER, MEDITATION, SACRAMENTAL PRACTICES AND SPIRITUAL WRITING

After her conversion to the Catholic Church, Elizabeth organised her spiritual life around a disciplined pattern of prayer, meditation, spiritual reading, sacramental practices and spiritual writing.

After her death, Elizabeth’s husband found a note by her addressed to him prophesying that he would also be converted to Catholicism and then be ordained a priest.

OUR LADY OF LOURDES

Felix, who laughed at this prophesy, later went to Our Lady’s Shrine at Lourdes in order to write against the ‘superstitious’ nature of the place and to report the healings there as fake.

However, at Our Lady’s Grotto Felix experienced a religious conversion. He later became Catholic and then in 1919 he joined the Dominican Order. Felix was, as his wife prophesied, then ordained a priest in 1923 and he spent the rest of his life speaking publicly about his wife Elizabeth and of her spiritual insights. He was instrumental in opening the cause of Elizabeth’s beatification in 1934.

“I KNOW FROM EXPERIENCE THAT IN THE HOURS OF TRIAL CERTAIN GRACES ARE OBTAINED”

Elizabeth Leseur wrote about her agonising sufferings and the intense pain she felt from hepatitis and cancer in the following spiritual words.

“I know all that suffering means, the fine and mysterious power it possesses, what it obtains and what it accomplishes. When God’s providence prefers to work by means of suffering, we should not complain too much. Then we can be sure that the work will be done and not mixed up with all the misery of egoism and pride which sometimes spoil so much of our outward activity. I know by experience that in the hours of trial certain graces are obtained for others which all our efforts had not previously obtained. I have thus concluded that suffering is the higher form of action, the best expression in the wonderful communion of saints. In suffering one is sure not to make mistakes, sure to be useful to others and to the great causes one longs to serve … Suffering helps Christ to save the world and souls.”

– From: “Spiritual Thought From Fr Chris” 5/2016

 

 

THE TEARS OF ST MONICA

THE TEARS OF ST MONICA

“Tears are the heart’s blood. This is a beautiful thought of Saint Augustine’s, which he applies to his mother. ‘My God” he cries “my mother’s tears, this blood of her heart, which flowed night and day, rose to thee in sacrifice for me’.

‘The soul’, said the ancients, ‘is in the blood’. It carries at least part of life; it rolls with our impressions, our thoughts, our desires, our sorrows, our joys, our hopes; for in reality man’s blood is not merely a scarlet liquid which circulates in his veins and constantly repairs his forces. Tears are also a form of blood, and when they rise, they contain as it were drops from the heart, which thus fall to the ground.

 

O Christian souls, you, like Saint Monica, have dear ones, to whom you cling with all your strength! Have you not often shed tears for them before the Lord? And did you not feel that those tears were the very blood of your inner nature, and that this blood, the shedding of which so tore your heart, was like a sacrifice, a veritable martyrdom? Oh! do not regret it; rejoice in this sacrifice; this it was, perhaps, which restored peace and piety in your family. Continue to pray, to shed tears before God. Each one of these drops is taken up by angels, and when they reach the throne of God, Heaven knows what metamorphosis they have undergone in the transit – they are all changed into pearls, whose price serves to purchase the redemption of those who are dear to you.

 

One day a poor woman was weeping in a church for her sins. A Bishop who was on the altar saw a dove collecting her tears in order to bear them to heaven.”

– Laverty&Sons, Leeds, 1905

 

JESUS CHRIST ON EARTH: “THE ETERNAL ENTERS TIME”

“In the Incarnation of the Son of God we see forged the enduring and definitive synthesis which the human mind itself could not even have imagined: The Eternal enters time, the Whole lies hidden in the part, God takes on a human face.

The truth communicated in Christ’s Revelation is therefore no longer confined to a particular place or culture, but is offered to every man and woman who would welcome it as the word which is the absolutely valid source of meaning for human life. Now, in Christ, all have access to the Father, since by his Death and Resurrection Christ has bestowed the divine life which the first Adam had refused (cf. Rom 5:12-15).

Through this Revelation, men and women are offered the ultimate truth about their own life and about the goal of history. As the Constitution Gaudium et Spes puts it, ‘only in the mystery of the incarnate Word does the mystery of men take on light’ (No. 22).

Seen in any other terms, the mystery of personal existence remains an insoluble riddle. Where might the human seek the answer to dramatic questions such as pain, the suffering of the innocent and death, if not in the light streaming from the mystery of Christ’s Passion, Death and Resurrection?”
– Fides et Ratio