Saint Anthony Mary Claret


Resolutions Made on Retreat, between Ascension and the Solemnity of the Holy Spirit, from the 10th to the 20th of May, 1866



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Resolutions Made on Retreat, between Ascension and the Solemnity of the Holy Spirit, from the 10th to the 20th of May, 1866

        1. Every year I will make a retreat.

        2. Every month I will make a day of strict recollection.

        3. Every week I will be reconciled.

        4. Every week I will fast on three days, namely, Wednesday, Friday and Saturday, and at night on these days I will abstain from dessert.

        5. On Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays, I will take the discipline or something equivalent. On Tuesdays, Thursdays and Saturdays, I will wear the cilice.

        6. In reciting [the Breviary], I will think of the Mysteries. I will avoid haste, remembering the rebuke suffered by St. Catherine of Siena (Life, p. 69). St. Aloysius Gonzaga spent at least an hour just to recite Matins (Life, p. 191). Don Hernando de Talavera, Archbishop of Granada, recited the whole Office standing.2069 Don Pedro de Castro, Archbishop of Seville, recited it on his knees.2070

        7. I will make my particular examen on the love of God. Out of love for God I will take pains to do all things and every single thing well, with purity of heart and rectitude of intention.

Out of love for God I will abstain from talking about myself, my affairs and my occupations, in keeping with the Rules (p. 66).2071

        1. I will continually walk inwardly in the presence of God. To this effect I will always go about with my senses quite recollected, so that I might not become scattered. I will keep my imagination focused inwardly on the Lord, bearing in mind those words of St. Paul: Nescitis quia templum Dei estis? (1 Cor 3:16).2072 Vos enim estis templum Dei vivi (2 Cor 6:16).2073

I will imagine that my heart is the room in which Jesus is sitting, and that my soul, like Mary, is contemplating at Jesus’ feet, while my body, like Martha,2074 is imperturbably busy with the works of my ministry, so that they may become a most savory meal for Jesus.

I will imagine that my soul and body are like the two legs of a compass, and that my heart, like one point, is fixed in Jesus, while the other point of the compass is describing the circle of my appointments and obligations quite perfectly, since the circle is the symbol of perfection on earth and of eternity in heaven.2075



        1. At the feet of Jesus I will frequently repeat aspirations, such as: Deus cordis mei, et pars mea Deus in aeternum (Ps 72).2076 Noverim me, noverim te, ut amem te et contemnam me (St. Augustine).2077 Deus meus et omnia (St. Francis).2078

        2. This recollection in the heart was taught by Jesus Christ to St. Catherine of Siena (Life, p. 15).

The Bl. Virgin Mary also taught it to Sister Mary of Agreda (vol. 6, p. 41). St. Teresa taught it to her nuns (Way of Perfection, ch. 28, p. 516). Blessed Margaret Alacoque taught it to her novices (Life, p. 228).

        1. St. Paul taught it and said: Christum habitare per fidem in cordibus vestris (Eph 3:17).2079 Donec formetur Christus in vobis (Gal 4:19).2080

Simile of a photograph: the image of Jesus will be printed on my heart by my keeping Him ever before it. Simile of a burning-glass: my inner heart will be a concave lens, receiving the sun of Jesus, converging its rays and focusing them like fire on my soul, so that it will burn with love like a Seraph.

        1. Jesus lives in the house of my heart, thrust there as in the cave of Bethlehem.2081 I am a very poor child, begging alms of the Infant Jesus.

        2. I am a little black slave who serves the bright white and rosy Child Jesus,2082 and I tell Him, as the child Samuel did: Loquere, Domine, quia audit servus tuus.2083 Or, like Saul: Domine, quid me vis facere?2084

        3. For myself I will have the heart of a judge, and for my neighbors I will have the heart of a mother.2085

All the artifices that the devil has in order to deceive men may be reduced to two: To lead them not to believe in things invisible, and to believe only in things visible. And as faith believes in what it does not see, the devil is foiled in his first artifice. And if someone has a lively faith, he spurns what he sees not to be in accord with the Law of God, and thus he foils the second artifice (Ven. Avila, vol. 7, p. 394).2086

1867

MSS Claret II, 117-120

Introductory Note

The main concern of the 1866 retreat had been charity, union with God. However, the main point toward which everything converges this year is inner peace, the fruit of charity. In effect, this retreat was to prepare Claret’s soul to bear the onset of the coming revolution. Since his previous retreat, he had experienced more than enough to deprive him of inner peace: the barricades set up in Plaza San Martín; the libelous leaflets, songs and caricatures directed against him; his own failing health: “I can feel the forces of dissolution at work within me, though slowly, and I am glad that I do not have to see at close range, the things that I glimpse in the distance.”2087

The devil made every effort to undo the good work the Saint had accomplished at El Escorial, and the attack must have been very fierce, since the Lord chose to console him on January 4th of this year (cf. Lights and Graces, 1867).

On the second day of the retreat, he received a new heavenly confirmation of the fact that his place was in Madrid, despite the deep repugnance he felt for it, as well as the sufferings he knew it would bring (cf. ibid.).

The main reason he found to help him maintain his inner peace was the thought of God’s fatherly love: “My son, I want you to do and suffer this” (n. 9). “God sees how I am suffering and how I am bearing labors, contempt, sorrows, slanders and persecutions” (n. 10). This peace consisted of patience and inner joy, but the Saint wanted to go further than that: he wanted even his face to remain always untroubled and happy.

He had the consolation of making this retreat with his Missionaries, who had established a house in Segovia. It was to be the last retreat he would make in Spain.

Text

Resolutions Made on Retreat at Saint Gabriel’s with the Missionaries of Segovia,

which began August 26, 18672088


  1. Every year I will make a retreat.

  2. Every month, on the 25th, I will make a day of strict recollection.2089

  3. Every week I will be reconciled.

  4. Every week I will fast on three days, namely, Wednesday, Friday and Saturday.

  5. On Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays, I will take the discipline or something equivalent.

  6. On Tuesdays, Thursdays and Saturdays, I will wear the cilice.

  7. In reciting [the Breviary], I will recall the mysteries of the Rosary and of the Lord’s Passion; at Prime, Terce, Sext and None, Vespers and Compline.2090

  8. My particular examen will be on the love of God.

  9. I will always strive for inner peace. Therefore I will not become upset or speak or pull a long face, or indicate pain or dislike for all that is said or done against me, or for all that people charge me with.

  10. I will consider that all the things that happen to me, happen through the ordering of God, who tells me: “My son, just now I want you to do and suffer this” (Rodríguez, vol. 1, p. 380).2091

  11. I will bear each thing with patience, joy and gladness, since it is the will of God, who sees how I am suffering and how I am bearing labors, contempt, sorrows, slanders and persecutions.

  12. I will frequently say: Deus cordis mei, et pars mea, Deus in aeternum (Ps 72).2092

  13. I will do everything with the purest and most upright intention of pleasing God.

I will never speak of myself, of my actions or of my affairs. But if it should sometime be necessary for me to do so, I will speak in the third person, as St. Paul did.2093

  1. If someone speaks well of me, I will strive to change the conversation. And if someone speaks ill of me, I will say, “Blessed be God.”

  2. Noverim me, noverim te, ut amem te, novemrim me ut contemnam me (St. Augustine).2094

I will frequently read treatise 5, ch. 16 of Rodríguez, especially the last heading, which says: A very light matter may disturb and disquiet you later, and make you go backwards (p. 259).2095

The holiness of a soul consists simply in an effort to do two things, namely, an effort to know God’s will, and an effort to do that will, once it is known. Like St. Paul: Domine, quid me vis facere?2096

Look in Cornelius à Lapide,2097 and Faber.2098

St. Michael of the Saints2099 used to ask God most fervently for two things:

to allow him to suffer all the torments of the martyrs.

to grant him all the love of the Angels and Saints. Never once did the violence of his sufferings wrest from him the smallest moan or the littlest sigh.

This was the perfection of the Early Fathers: to love God, to contemn oneself, not to spurn or judge anyone else (Rodríguez, vol. 2, p. 158).2100

Five Things I will Strive to Attain:


  1. Horror of mortal sin.

  2. Horror of venial sin.

  3. Doing all things for God, for His greater honor and glory.

  4. Doing everything as best as possible in the presence of so great a King; all, even the most ordinary and insignificant things.

  5. Suffering everything for God, and as something sent by God, as a labor that God gives me so that I may gain grace and glory. This world is for suffering; heaven, for rejoicing. This is what being religious means: Doing what you don’t like and leaving off what you do like (Rodríguez, vol. 2, p. 61).2101 As in what happened to that man from the diocese of Tarragona.

  6. I will keep four miseries in mind: 1) Ignorance of what I ought to know. 2) Forgetfulness of what I already know. 3) Inclination to evil. 4) Difficulty regarding what is good. Tamquam aqua dilabimur.2102

Anthony Mary

1868

[Exile in France]

MSS Claret II, 121-124

Introductory Note

The resolutions for this year were written in France. The revolution foretold by Claret broke out on September 18, 1868, and on the 30th he left Spain, accompanying the Royal Family into exile. After spending a month in Pau in the South of France, the group moved on to Paris. Once they had settled in (they in a palace, he in guest quarters of a school of the Sisters of St. Joseph), the Saint resolved to make his yearly retreat, which he had not yet been able to do because of the turmoil of that eventful year.

His inner attitude is reflected in a letter written months later to Mother Antonia París: “Now, what I had so often predicted has been verified and is taking place in Spain. I offered myself as a victim, and the Lord deigned to accept my offering, because all sorts of slanders, infamies, persecutions, etc., have come down upon me. I had nothing but the testimony of my own good conscience, and so I remained tranquil and silent. I thought only of Jesus.”2103

The Lord soon made him aware that his offering had been accepted. In March, he was at the point of death from a cancerous lesion. Matters at El Escorial brought him many grave trials. A month before the revolution, he had written to Don Dionisio González: “It seems that El Escorial is indeed a great rack on which to torture those in charge of it.”2104 The great monastery of St. Lawrence at El Escorial was built by Philip II, whose grim piety saw fit to give the huge edifice the shape of a gridiron to commemorate the rack on which St. Lawrence was martyred. Even in exile, Claret was libeled as a thief, because for a while a few of the objects from the monastery’s sacristy could not be found.

On June 22, 1868, the Saint had felt strong desires for martyrdom. While he was hastening into exile, he felt a deep joy at being conformed to Christ in the Flight into Egypt, and he experienced something of the peace and resignation of the Holy Family.

The main concern in these resolutions is inner peace. A new element is the Saint’s having to accept the decay of his bodily frame and the humiliation he felt in attending to its needs, while remaining fully resigned to the will of God.

There is also for the first time a mysterious and striking phrase alluding to his own death (n. 15).

As he was reaching the end of a life of wholehearted striving for holiness, it is both instructive and consoling for us to read the prayer of aspiration that he resolved to say: “My God, you are all-powerful; make me holy.”

Text

Resolutions of the Retreat Made in France, from November 24th to December 3rd, 1868


  1. Every year I will make a retreat.

  2. Every month, on the 25th, I will make a day of strict spiritual recollection.

  3. Every week I will be reconciled.

  4. Every week I will fast, or deprive myself of something, on Wednesdays, Fridays and Saturdays.

  5. I will mortify myself with the discipline or cilice alternately on the six weekdays, or in other ways, e.g., saying five, six or seven Our Fathers with my arms outstretched in the form of a cross.2105

  6. I will mortify my senses, passions and faculties.

  7. I will strive for inner peace, without allowing myself to become upset or to show dislike for anything in this world.

  8. I will consider that God is always in my heart, and so I will say: Deus cordis mei, et pars mea [Deus] in aeternum.2106

  9. I will always walk in the presence of God, and to my God and Lord I will offer all things in general and each one in particular, doing them with the purest and most upright intention.

  10. At Matins, I will think of the Mysteries of the Rosary, and at the [Little] Hours, Vespers and Compline, on the stages of the Passion.

  11. In the morning while I am dressing, I will think on the work of the Incarnation, in which the Lord clothed himself in our nature, and I will give Him many thanks for it.

  12. At night while I am undressing, I will think of death, and my bed will remind me of the burial.

  13. In bed, I will direct my heart to the nearest church, to think of our Lord in the Blessed Sacrament, asking the Angels to keep vigil there for me. And thus, even though I am sleeping in order to do God’s will, my heart will be watching.2107

  14. God wants me to eat and sleep as much as is needful: not out of pleasure, but out of necessity and for my own confusion, so that I may see how miserable I am, still needing such earthly things, whereas in heaven there is no need to eat or sleep. And so I will say: “Lord, I am doing this because it is your will.”

  15. I will remind myself of this truth: Two years and ten months.2108

I will think how all things that happen come through the ordering of God, who tells me in each of these things: “My son, just now I want you to do and suffer this.”

I will suffer with patience and even with joy, since this is the will of God,2109 who looks upon me and sees how I accept and bear labors, contempt, sorrows, slanders and persecutions. The servant of God should hold himself in contempt, and should hold nobody else in contempt or judge him, but rather, he should consider him better.



  1. Every day for spiritual reading, a chapter from Rodríguez. For meditation, The Passion of Our Lord Jesus Christ, by La Puente.2110

Particular examen on the Love of God, doing and suffering, and ejaculatory prayers for love of God.

God is in the midst of the soul in grace, and God himself has the conscience of the just as His throne (St. Augustine, The Decalogue, p. 22). God establishes His residence in the soul that is in grace, and the good and peaceful conscience that the soul has is the throne on which God himself is seated. “If anyone loves me, he will be loved by my Father, and I and my Father will come and make our dwelling place in him.”2111



To Persevere and Advance in Perfection

  1. Mental prayer well made.

  2. Frequent recourse to God, asking His help and afterwards giving Him thanks.

  3. Mortification of the senses, faculties and passions.

  4. Frequent and well-made reception of the Sacraments.

  5. Celebrating and hearing Mass well.

  6. Well-recited Rosary.

  7. Deep humility, like that of the Publican, like that of a sinner.2112

  8. Fervor, like that of the workers in the vineyard.2113

Virtues. Love of God and of Jesus Christ.

Grace. Devotion to the Blessed Virgin Mary: Ave, gratia plena.2114

I should uproot faults, flee occasions, and remove the obstacles to good works.

Charitas est virtus essentialiter orndinata ad actum. St. Thom[as], 2a-2ae, q. 24a. 4[ad 31].2115

Make frequent acts of love.

My God, you are all-powerful; make me holy. I love you with all my heart.

Anthony Mary



1869

[Council Father in Rome]

MSS Claret II, 125-128

Introductory Note

The resolutions for this year were written in Rome. Once the Queen was established in Paris, Claret took advantage of Pius IX’s priestly jubilee in order to travel to Rome to seek enlightenment. After arriving there, he was invited to collaborate in preparations for the First Council of the Vatican. Since he was grindingly poor, he was happy to live as a welcome guest at the Mercedarian House of Sant’ Adriano, in the Campo Vaccino.

The state of his soul is reflected above all in a letter written to Fr. Currius shortly before he began this retreat. In it he speaks, on the one hand, of his joy at being able to serve the Church at this vital juncture of events; on the other, he mentions his sufferings because of the slanders of his opponents in Spain, the climate of Rome (which had never agreed with him), and the lack of financial resources occasioned by his not receiving any salary or stipend (not even from the Queen, who owed him so much!). Moreover, he could foresee a stormy future for the Pope and for the peace of Europe, which led him to exclaim: “Woe to the earth!” Hounded by so many trials, he ended his letter with the remark: “I have suffered more than I am accustomed. I long to die.”2116

This was the third retreat he made in Rome. In 1839, he made one with the Jesuits before beginning his novitiate with them. Then, in 1840, after leaving the novitiate but before beginning his universal preaching apostolate, he made another. Now he was returning to the Eternal City to perform his last act of service to the Church on its highest level, so that he could truthfully say that he had completed his mission.

The resolutions for this year are similar to those of the last few years, in that they stress inner peace and love. There is one new aspiration, in keeping with his Gethsemane like state of soul: Non mea voluntas sed tua fiat.2117

Since he regarded his apostolate as a mission, his retreat resolutions bear on his ministerial occupations, especially since heaven was inspiring him even now to undertake a new form of apostolate.

He was thinking of a kind of ‘street ministry.’ As he had to come and go daily through the streets of Rome en route from the Forum, where he lived, to the Vatican or the Chancery (to transact the approval of the Constitutions of his Missionaries, of the Teaching Sisters of Mary Immaculate and of the Carmelites of Charity), or to hospitals and the Latin American College,2118 he resolved to renew on the streets of Rome the itinerant apostolate he had practiced along the highways and byways of Catalonia in the 1840s.

As in 1868, he again includes the mysterious phrase, “two years and ten months” (n. 12).



Text

Resolutions Made on Retreat in Rome, from October 5th to the 14th of the Same Month, 1869

  1. Every year I will make a retreat.

  2. Every month, on the 25th, there will be a day of spiritual recollection.

  3. Every week I will be reconciled.

  4. Every week I will fast or deprive myself of something on Wednesdays, Fridays and Saturdays.

  5. I will mortify myself with disciplines and cilices, or do some equivalent thing, on the six weekdays.

  6. I will mortify my senses, faculties and passions.

  7. I will strive for inner peace, without becoming upset or showing dislike for anything.

  8. I will consider that God is always in my heart: Deus cordis mei, et pars mea in aeternum (Ps 72:26).2119 Non mea voluntas sed tua fiat (Luc 22:42).2120

Doce me facere voluntatem tuam, quia Deus meus es tu (Ps 142:10).2121

  1. I will strive to walk always in the presence of God, doing and suffering for His love.

  2. In reciting [the Breviary], I will think of the Mysteries of the Rosary... In the [Little] Hours, Vespers, id.

  3. Every day I will recite the three parts of the Rosary.

  4. I will continually remind myself of two years and ten months.2122

  5. I will never say a word of self-praise.

  6. I will strive to do ordinary things with the greatest possible perfection, through God and the Bl. Virgin Mary.

  7. Every Sunday I will read these Resolutions, in order to fulfill them better.

  8. Very frequently I will say: “Long live Jesus, death to sin, death to self-love, the enemy of the love of God.” Self-love or egoism consists of pride and sensuality.2123

What I will stress most “in season and out of season”2124

  1. To teach and exhort people to recite the Holy Rosary well.2125

  2. Likewise, to hear Holy Mass well on Days of Obligation, and also on other days out of devotion.

  3. Likewise, to visit the Most Blessed Sacrament.

  4. Likewise, to receive It sacramentally, not only at Eastertide, but frequently throughout the year, and even more frequently spiritually.

  5. Likewise, to teach the way to walk in the presence of God.

  6. Likewise, the way to do ordinary things well.

  7. Likewise, the way to make a good examen.

  8. Likewise, how to do spiritual reading.

  9. Likewise, mental and vocal prayer.

  10. Likewise, how to offer all things to God.

  11. Likewise, to teach and exhort others to confess frequently.

The particular examen will be on:

  1. The love of God. The virtue I will always practice and ask for will be the love of God and neighbor, reminding myself of what St. Teresa says.2126

  2. The grace I will ask for will be devotion to Mary Most Holy.

  3. Familiar conversations with the sick in civilian and military Hospitals.2127

Along the streets, or wherever the occasion presents itself, the subject will be Religion, the Sacraments, the Holy Rosary, etc. I will address everyone, whenever the opportunity arises, but especially with Girls and Boys, Soldiers... Giving them a medal, a holy card, etc.2128

Anthony Mary



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