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    Holy Thirst: Essentials of Carmelite Spirituality
    Holy Thirst: Essentials of Carmelite Spirituality
    Holy Thirst: Essentials of Carmelite Spirituality
    Ebook177 pages3 hours

    Holy Thirst: Essentials of Carmelite Spirituality

    By Editors at Paraclete Press and Adam Bucko

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    About this ebook

    These saints have spoken to the hearts of millions. They’ve helped many on the way to understanding the role of God in their lives. In this collection, may their words again help all who long for a life of meaning, touched and transfigured by God.

    Holy Thirst presents all the essential themes of Carmelite spirituality, excerpted from classics such as The Way of Perfection of St. Teresa of Avila, The Ascent of Mount Carmel by St. John of the Cross, The Story of a Soul of St. Therese of Lisieux, and The Practice of the Presence of God by Brother Lawrence. Also included are shorter portions by lesser known, more recent Carmelites: St. Elizabeth of the Trinity, St. Teresa Benedicta of the Cross (Edith Stein), and Sr. Miriam of the Holy Spirit (Jessica Powers).

    “As you hold this collection, it is important to recall the beginnings of Carmelite spirituality, a beginning that takes us back to the twelfth century and the time of the Crusades. A band of brothers–conscientious objectors, of sorts–witnessed firsthand the clash of civilizations and all that it entailed. They knew death, they knew loss, and their very souls were bruised. The only next step that they could envision was to leave the world as they knew it and settle on the sacred mountain known for centuries to Jews, Christians and Muslims as the holy home of the Prophet Elijah...” –Adam Bucko, from the Foreword
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherParaclete Press
    Release dateJun 11, 2019
    ISBN9781640603318
    Holy Thirst: Essentials of Carmelite Spirituality
    Author

    Editors at Paraclete Press

    The Editors of Paraclete Press are committed to offering inspirational texts to encourage readers on their spiritual journey.

    Read more from Editors At Paraclete Press

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      Book preview

      Holy Thirst - Editors at Paraclete Press

      PART ONE

      THIRST for GOD

      ST. JOHN OF THE CROSS

      God caresses the soul like a loving mother

      It should be known, then, that God nurtures and caresses the soul, after it has been resolutely converted to his service, like a loving mother who warms her child with the heat of her bosom, nurses it with good milk and tender food, and carries and caresses it in her arms. But as the child grows older, the mother withholds her caresses and hides her tender love; she rubs bitter aloes on her sweet breast and sets the child down from her arms, letting it walk on its own feet so that it may put aside the habits of childhood and grow accustomed to greater and more important things. The grace of God acts just as a loving mother by re-engendering in the soul new enthusiasm and fervor in the service of God. With no effort on the soul’s part, this grace causes it to taste sweet and delectable milk and to experience intense satisfaction in the performance of spiritual exercises, because God is handing the breast of his tender love to the soul, just as if it were a delicate child (1 Pet. 2:2–3).

      The soul finds its joy, therefore, in spending lengthy periods at prayer, perhaps even entire nights; its penances are pleasures; its fasts, happiness; and the sacraments and spiritual conversations are its consolations. Although spiritual persons do practice these exercises with great profit and persistence, and are very careful about them, spiritually speaking, they conduct themselves in a very weak and imperfect manner. Since their motivation in their spiritual works and exercises is the consolation and satisfaction they experience in them, and since they have not been conditioned by the arduous struggle of practicing virtue, they possess many faults and imperfections in the discharge of their spiritual activities. Assuredly, since everyone’s actions are in direct conformity with the habit of perfection that has been acquired, and since these persons have not had time to acquire those firm habits, their work must of necessity be feeble, like that of weak children.

      — Dark Night of the Soul

      ST. TERESA OF ÁVILA

      The beauty of the soul

      [O]ur soul …[is] … like a castle made entirely out of a diamond or of very clear crystal, in which there are many rooms, just as in heaven there are many dwelling places … the soul of the just person is nothing else but a paradise where the Lord says he finds his delight.… So then, what do you think that abode will be like where a King so powerful, so wise, so pure, so full of all good things takes his delight? I don’t find anything comparable to the magnificent beauty of a soul and its marvelous capacity. Indeed, our intellects, however keen, can hardly comprehend it, just as they cannot comprehend God; but he himself says that he created us in his own image and likeness.… His Majesty in saying that the soul is made in his own image makes it almost impossible for us to understand the sublime dignity and beauty of the soul.

      It is a shame and unfortunate that through our own fault we don’t understand ourselves or know who we are. Wouldn’t it show great ignorance, my daughters, if someone when asked who he was didn’t know, and didn’t know his father or mother or from what country he came? Well now, if this would be so extremely stupid, we are incomparably more so when we do not strive to know who we are, but limit ourselves to considering only roughly these bodies. Because we have heard and because faith tells us so, we know we have souls. But we seldom consider the precious things that can be found in this soul, or who dwells within it, or its high value. Consequently, little effort is made to preserve its beauty. All our attention is taken up with the plainness of the diamond’s setting or the outer wall of the castle; that is, with these bodies of ours.

      — The Interior Castle

      ST. THÉRÈSE OF LISIEUX

      Jesus consented to teach me this mystery

      The day you asked me to do this, it seemed to me that it would consume my heart needlessly by causing it to be engrossed with itself. But afterward Jesus made me feel that by simply obeying I would be pleasing to Him. Besides, I’m going to only do one thing: begin to sing of what I ought to repeat forever: The mercies of the Lord!

      Before taking my pen in hand, I knelt before the statue of Mary (the one that gave us so many proofs of the Queen of Heaven’s motherly partiality for our family), and I begged her to guide my hand so that I might not write a single line that would not be pleasing to her. Then, opening the Gospels, my eyes fell on these words: Jesus went up on a mountainside and called to him those he wanted, and they came to him (Mk. 3:13). Now this is the mystery of my calling, of my whole life, and above all the mystery of Jesus’ privileges over my soul. He doesn’t call those who are worthy, but those He wants, or, as St. Paul puts it: ‘I will have mercy on whom I have mercy, and I will have compassion on whom I have compassion.’ It does not, therefore, depend on human desire or effort, but on God’s mercy (Rom. 9:15–16).

      For a long time, I wondered why God showed partiality, why all souls don’t receive the same amount of graces. I was astounded to see Him lavish extraordinary favors on the Saints who had offended Him, such as St. Paul and St. Augustine, and whom He so to speak forced to receive His graces. Or when I read the life of Saints whom Our Lord was pleased to embrace from the cradle to the grave, without leaving in their path any obstacles that might hinder them from rising toward Him, and granting these souls such favors that they were unable to tarnish the immaculate brightness of their baptismal robes, I wondered why poor primitive people, for example, were dying in great numbers without even having heard the name of God pronounced.…

      Jesus consented to teach me this mystery. He placed before my eyes the book of nature; I understood that all the flowers that He created are beautiful. The brilliance of the rose and the whiteness of the lily don’t take away the perfume of the lowly violet or the delightful simplicity of the daisy.… I understood that if all the little flowers wanted to be roses, nature would lose its springtime adornment, and the fields would no longer be sprinkled with little flowers.…

      So it is in the world of souls, which is Jesus’ garden. He wanted to create great Saints who could be compared to lilies and roses. But He also created little ones, and these ought to be content to be daisies or violets destined to gladden God’s eyes when He glances down at His feet. Perfection consists in doing His will, in being what He wants us to be.…

      I understood that Our Lord’s love is revealed as well in the simplest soul who doesn’t resist His grace in anything, as in the most sublime of souls. In fact, since the essence of love is to bring oneself low, if every soul were like the souls of the holy Doctors who have shed light on the Church through the clarity of their doctrine, it seems that God wouldn’t come down low enough by coming only as far as their great hearts. But He created the child who doesn’t know anything and only cries weakly, He created simple ordinary people who only have natural law as a guide—and it is to their hearts that He consents to come down: Here are wildflowers whose simplicity delights

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