"The Works of Mercy," by the Master of Akmaar, Netherlands

In Misericordiae Vultus, Pope Francis writes:

“It is my burning desire that, during this Jubilee, the Christian people may reflect on the corporal and spiritual works of mercy. It will be a way to reawaken our conscience, too often grown dull in the face of poverty. And let us enter more deeply into the heart of the Gospel where the poor have a special experience of God’s mercy. Jesus introduces us to these works of mercy in his preaching so that we can know whether or not we are living as his disciples. Let us rediscover these corporal works of mercy: to feed the hungry, give drink to the thirsty, clothe the naked, welcome the stranger, heal the sick, visit the imprisoned, and bury the dead. And let us not forget the spiritual works of mercy: to counsel the doubtful, instruct the ignorant, admonish sinners, comfort the afflicted, forgive offences, bear patiently those who do us ill, and pray for the living and the dead.”

Most of the corporal works of mercy are based in Matthew 25:34-46, the gospel in which Jesus says “I was hungry and you fed me.”  Sts. Louis and Zelie Martin practiced the works of mercy every day, and they taught this practice to their daughter Therese.  Their vice-postulator, Fr. Antonio Sangalli, remarked:

Works of mercy were the very base on which Louis and Zélie Martin built their life. They showed love for neighbor, for family, for life, through corporal and spiritual works of mercy; and by carrying out these works, they grew in love for God and neighbor.

As we know, Pope Francis recently called for a Jubilee of Mercy, which, like the Martin parents, we must live out through works of mercy. We must carry out these works in all areas of life: at home, work, school and within all of our relationships. This, to me, was the Martins’ special charisma that they impart to us.

["Louis and Zelie Martin Model 'a Simple Spirituality Achieved in Daily Life."  National Catholic Register, July 7, 2015]

Louis and Zelie were hardly married when they welcomed into their home a foster child whose mother had just died.  When Louis went out, he always carried small change to give alms to the poor who begged of him.  When he found an intoxicated man on the street, he helped him get home.  At the train station, finding a poor epileptic man who had no money for his fare, he took up a collection and settled the man in his seat. Noticing a homeless family shivering near the police station, he took pains to help the father get a new job.  Finding a poor old man freezing in a barn, he battled the bureaucracy for a long time to get the man into a home for the elderly.  As a member of the St. Vincent de Paul Conference, he visited and cared for poor families.  He arranged for the burial of a neighbor when there was no one else to attend to it. 

Zelie often took care of children who needed temporary help; sent her maid to poor families with a bottle of wine, a hot meal, and coins; sent the children to give alms to the poor they met when out walking; nursed her servants and visited her employees when they were ill; went to great lengths, badgering the police and appearing in court, to rescue Armandine, a child who, taken in by two local women who pretended to be nuns, was being horribly abused. Zelie welcomed those in need to her own house and gave them food and clothes, often crying when she heard their tales of distress. 

The Martins extended themselves to the spiritual works of mercy, too: teaching catechism; accompanying the dying and arranging for the priest to visit them; offering Masses for living persons in need as well as for the dead; enrolling their whole family in making novenas for the cure of a sick neighbor or the conversion of a dying one; forgiving a neighbor who sued them in a boundary dispute. 

Today we may not find the poor living in our own neighborhood as Louis and Zelie did.  We might imitate them by participating in service projects as a family, or volunteering with groups or institutions which allow us to serve those in need.  We can support organizations which serve the increasing number of refugees.

In Carmel, Therese gave herself to the spiritual works of mercy.  She devoted her life to prayer, often praying for special intentions recommended by the other nuns or by those outside the monastery; taught, counseled and admonished the novices; and forgave with her whole heart those who hurt her. Most of all, she offered herself to Merciful Love and allowed that love to flow through her. The Pope emphasizes how crucial these works of mercy are:

We cannot escape the Lord’s words to us, and they will serve as the criteria upon which we will be judged: whether we have fed the hungry and given drink to the thirsty, welcomed the stranger and clothed the naked, or spent time with the sick and those in prison (cf. Mt 25:31-45). Moreover, we will be asked if we have helped others to escape the doubt that causes them to fall into despair and which is often a source of loneliness; if we have helped to overcome the ignorance in which millions of people live, especially children deprived of the necessary means to free them from the bonds of poverty; if we have been close to the lonely and afflicted; if we have forgiven those who have offended us and have rejected all forms of anger and hate that lead to violence; if we have had the kind of patience God shows, who is so patient with us; and if we have commended our brothers and sisters to the Lord in prayer. In each of these “little ones,” Christ himself is present. His flesh becomes visible in the flesh of the tortured, the crushed, the scourged, the malnourished, and the exiled… to be acknowledged, touched, and cared for by us. Let us not forget the words of Saint John of the Cross: “as we prepare to leave this life, we will be judged on the basis of love” 

Let us not use the words of Christ to make ourselves wrong, but remember that the Jubilee of Mercy is above all a time of grace.  Let's ask St. Therese to celebrate her feast by obtaining from God for us the grace of recognizing his face in every human being we meet and of ministering to him in those in whom he still suffers poverty, illness, and loneliness today, so that one day He will say to us “I was hungry and you fed me . . . come, enter into eternal joy!” 

Time of Personal Prayer

Pray as the Holy Spirit leads you.  Consider reading over paragraph 15 of "Misericordiae Vultus” and pausing wherever your heart feels moved.

The Prayer of Pope Francis for the Jubilee

Click here to read the Prayer of Pope Francis.

Saint Therese of the Child Jesus: An Echo of the Heart of God

Definitive documentary about St. Therese, made in 1997 to honor the centenary of her death. Filmed on location in France, it gives Therese's whole story in interviews, dramatizations, and long visits to her birthplace, her home in Lisieux, and the Carmelite monastery. The distinguished Theresian scholar, the Carmelite friar Bishop Guy Gaucher, supplies commentary. 90 minutes.  If you have ever longed to see the places where Therese lived and to visit the interior of her monastery, this is your chance.  

To purchase the DVD "Saint Therese of the Child Jesus: An Echo of the Heart of God. click on the image above or click here.

Teresa of Calcutta

To enter into the “thirst of Jesus,” then, is to touch the most radical and absolute level of desire.  It is to experience, not just conceptually but in the most intimate ground of one's created being, what Emmanuel Levinas called "the idea of Infinity"  that awakens the most imperious desire--in his words, "not a Desire that the possession of the Desirable slakes, but the Desire for the Infinite which the desirable arouses rather than satisfies."

On the occasion of the canonization of Mother Teresa, I recommend this article by Mary Frohlich, editor of Saint Therese of Lisieux: Essential Writings.  With the distinction that characterizes all her work, she explores the theme that linked Mother Teresa to her patron saint, herese of Lisieux. This article, first published in New Theology Review in November 2008, may now be read online.

Read "'The Thirst of Jesus' in the Vocations of Mother Teresa and Therese of Lisieux." 

United in the bond of sainthood, may St. Therese and her newest canonized disciple continue to quench the thirst of Jesus. 

See in one volume some of the texts of the saint who inspired Teresa of Calcutta:

Saint Therese of Lisieux: Essential Writings, edited by Mary Frohlich

Ordering the book here supports this Web site.

Mgr Georges Pontier, archbishop of Marseille and President of the Bishops' Conference of France, invited Catholics to a day of fasting and prayer Friday, July 29.

“From Krakow, where I learned of the unthinkable and horrible drama of Seine-Maritime [the section of Normandy where the terrorist attack took place this morning], I want to convey to the family of Father Hamel, to the parish of Saint-Etienne-du-Rouvray, and to the Archbishop of Rouen the assurance of my closeness and my prayer and solidarity.  This tragedy, which occurred in a church, shakes up and disturbs all the French people.

I thank all those who, in their diversity, have expressed their friendship to the Catholic family.

We have various feelings in such moments as these.  We know, however that one of them, fraternity, dear to our country, is the way that leads to lasting peace. Let's build it together.

I invite all the Catholics of France to participate in a day of fasting and prayer for our country and for peace in the world this Friday, July 29th.

Here in Krakow, with all the French bishops present, I invite the youth of our dioceses and our movements to live the Way of the Cross with Pope Francis for this intention. We follow Christ in his victory over hatred, revenge, and death.

It is our light and hope.

Mgr Georges PONTIER

Archbishop of Marseille

President of the Bishops' Conference of France

(translated with thanks from the Web site of the Catholic Church of France).

Let's show our solidarity with the suffering people of France by joining them in this day of prayer and fasting on Friday.

To meditate on the life story of Fr. Jacques Hamel, please see "Jacques Hamel, 85, a beloved French priest killed in his church" in the New York Times.

Photo of Marie-Paul Stevens, whose cure was certified as the miracle for the canonization of Blessed Elizabeth of the Trinity. Released by the Dijon Carmel June 20, 2016

The story of the healing of Marie-Paul Stevens

The first photograph of Marie-Paul Stevens, the Belgian woman whose healing was accepted as the miracle for the canonization of Elizabeth of the Trinity (announced by Pope Francis today to take place on October 26, 2016) was released today by the Carmel of Dijon, with new details about her story.

Diagnosis with Sjogren's syndrome; treatment

In 1997 Marie-Paul Stevens, a Belgian woman, was a professor of religion at the Institute of the Marist Brothers in Malmedy.  She was then 39 years old.  In May she started to have trouble speaking and developed other symptoms.  On the advice of a friend, she underwent various medical tests, and, some weeks later, was diagnosed with Sjogren's syndrome, an autoimmune disease.  Her sickness advanced; the government asked her to retire early, and she had to leave her profession in 1998.  Although Marie-Paul received chemotherapy and other treatment, her health grew worse.  In 2000 and 2001, she became more and more disabled and was in unbearable pain.

Prayer for healing

Since her adolescence, Marie-Paul had loved Elizabeth of the Trinity and had prayed for her intercession.  Now all her friends, together with the nuns of the Carmel of Dijon (now in Flavignerot, where the nuns had moved in 1979), continued to pray the novena to Blessed Elizabeth to ask for Marie-Paul's healing. The patient herself did not ask to be cured, but she wanted to go on pilgrimage to the Carmel of Flavignerot before she died to thank Elizabeth, who had accompanied her so powerfully during her illness.

The patient makes a pilgrimage of thanksgiving to pray at Elizabeth's Carmel before she dies

Accompanied by friends, Marie-Paul came as a pilgrim to the Carmel of Flavignerot.  On April 2, 2002, in the chapel of the Carmel, she prayed and gave thanks to Elizabeth for sustaining her during her five-year illness.  Coming out of the chapel exhausted, she sat down to rest on one of the rocks that edged the monastery's parking lot. All at once she stood up, raised her hands to heaven, and cried out in amazement and happiness "I'm not in pain any more!"  From that day she has been well.

Restored to health, Marie-Paul makes a second pilgrimage of thanksgiving on foot

Just a few months later, Marie-Paul was able to walk 350 kilometers (217 miles) on a pilgrimage to give thanks.  It took some time, and many medical examinations, till the happy day when, on March 3, 2016, Pope Francis authorized Cardinal Amato, prefect of the Congregation for the Causes of Saints, to promulgate the decree approving the cure of Marie-Paul Stevens as a miracle attributable to the intercession of Blessed Elizabeth of the Trinity.  It was this which opened the way for Elizabeth's canonization, and Pope Francis announced today that she will be canonized on Sunday, October 16, 2016. 

Blessings

Marie-Paul, we thank you for your faith and endurance, and we rejoice in your cure and in God's having chosen you as an instrument to make soon-to-be-Saint Elizabeth of the Trinity known and loved.  May she accompany you more and more closely.