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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- Bu səhifədəki naviqasiya:
- Resolutions Made on Retreat at Saint Gabriel’s with the Missionaries of Segovia, which began August 26, 1867 2088
- Five Things I will Strive to Attain
- Resolutions of the Retreat Made in France, from November 24th to December 3rd, 1868
- To Persevere and Advance in Perfection
- Resolutions Made on Retreat in Rome, from October 5th to the 14th of the Same Month, 1869
Resolutions Made on Retreat, between Ascension and the Solemnity of the Holy Spirit, from the 10th to the 20th of May, 1866
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
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
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).
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.
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
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
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
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
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.
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
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.
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
Doce me facere voluntatem tuam, quia Deus meus es tu (Ps 142:10).2121
What I will stress most “in season and out of season”2124
The particular examen will be on:
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 Yüklə 5,08 Mb. Dostları ilə paylaş:
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