Author Topic: The Tranverberation of the Heart of St. Teresa of Jesus (Read 1318 times)

Hobbledehoy · « **on:** August 26, 2013, 11:17:26 PM »

The Discalced Carmelites had announced today's Feast of the Transverberation of the Heart of St. Teresa of Jesus yesterday at Prime, "Transverberátio Cordis sanctæ Terésiæ Vírginis, Matris nostræ," (Martyrologium Romanum ad usum Fatrum et Monialium Carmelitarum Discalceatorum Ordinis Beatissimæ Virginis Mariæ de Monte Carmelo. Romæ: Typis Polyglottis Vaticanis, 1958). These selfsame children of the great Prophets Sts. Elias and Eliseus had broken the silence of the night at Matins by inviting everyone to adore the Lord who wrought this great prodigy, "Christum vulnerantem Teresiam amore languentem, * Venite adoremus," "Christ wounding Teresa fainting away in love, * Come ye, let us adore" (Breviarium Romanum ex decreto Ss. Concilii Tridentini, restitutum S. Pii V Pontficis Maximi, jussu editum aliorumque Pontificuм, cura recognitum Pii Papæ X autoritate reformatum: pro Fratribus et Monialibus Discalceatis Ordinis B. Virginis Mariæ de Monte Carmelo. Rastisbonæ: Typis Friderici Pustet, 1931).

The lofty heights of mystical prayer attained by this great Mistress of Prayer, the Carmelite Foundress so venerated by St. Alphonsus, shows us what great rewards awaits us even on this earth if we only cooperate selflessly and generously with the grace of the present moment and practice self-abnegation and penance, all the while abandoning ourselves to prayer and to childlike confidence in Divine Providence, and being faithful always to the duties of our state.

We are all called to the apices of the interior life, as illustrated by St. Teresa of Jesus today, since we are all called to the Beatific Vision, the unending possession of God in clarity of vision and plenitude of charity so long as God is God.

As Fr. Reginald Garrigou-Lagrange explains (The Three Ways of the Spiritual Life. London: Burns Oates & Washbourne, 1938):

Quote

To understand what our interior life is in itself and in its various phases, we must consider it not merely in its seed, but in its full and complete development. Now, if we ask the Gospel what our interior life is, it tells us that the life of grace, given to us in Baptism and nourished by the Eucharist, is the seed or germ of eternal life.

According to St. Matthew's account of the Sermon on the Mount, preached by Christ at the beginning of His ministry, our Lord says to His hearers (and it is the burden of the whole of His discourse): "Be ye perfect as your heavenly Father is perfect." He does not say: "Be ye as perfect as the angels,"' but "as your heavenly Father is perfect" (S. Matt. cap. v., 48). It follows, therefore, that Christ brings to men a principle of life which is a participation of the very life of God. Immeasurably above the various kingdoms of nature: the mineral kingdom, the vegetable, the animal kingdom, and even above the kingdom of man and above the natural activity of the angels, is the life of the kingdom of God. And this life in its full development is called, not the future life -- of which even the better among the pre-Christian philosophers spoke-but eternal life; a life measured, like that of God, not by future time, but by the one instant of motionless eternity.

Hobbledehoy · « **Reply #1 on:** August 26, 2013, 11:19:40 PM »

From The Missal According to the Carmelite Rite in Latin and English for Every Day in the Year (Rome: Vatican Polyglot Press, 1953), here is the Mass of the Feast of the Transverberation of the Heart of Saint Teresa of Jesus:

Hobbledehoy · « **Reply #2 on:** August 26, 2013, 11:21:46 PM »

From The Missal According to the Carmelite Rite in Latin and English for Every Day in the Year (Rome: Vatican Polyglot Press, 1953), here is the Preface proper to the Masses for the Feasts of Saint Teresa of Jesus:

poche · « **Reply #3 on:** August 26, 2013, 11:25:50 PM »

Perhaps the most influential of Teresa’s mystical moments was immortalized in marble by the Italian sculptor Gian Lorenzo Bernini. He called it Saint Teresa in Ecstasy. In this unabashedly sensual image, we see the nun swooning blissfully backward while a clearly delighted androgynous angel plunges a flaming sword into her, leaving her on fire with love for God. This experience has come to be known as the "Transverberation" and it occurred repeatedly over a sustained period of Teresa’s life. Each time the blade was withdrawn, Teresa felt as if her very entrails were being pulled out with it. "The pain is so severe," Teresa writes in her autobiography, "it made me moan. The sweetness of the intense pain is so extreme, there is no wanting it to end, and the soul isn’t satisfied with anything less than God." She had to admit that "the body has a large share" in this agonizing ecstasy.

http://ocds-carmelite.blogspot.com/2008/08/transverberation-st-teresa-of-jesus-of.html

Hobbledehoy · « **Reply #4 on:** August 26, 2013, 11:27:52 PM »

I apologize for the gross spelling error painfully obvious in the title of this thread and, consequently, in its proper hyperlink: it was to be "Transverberation" instead of "Tranverberation."

:smash-pc:

poche · « **Reply #5 on:** August 26, 2013, 11:38:41 PM »

Quote from: Hobbledehoy

I apologize for the gross spelling error painfully obvious in the title of this thread and, consequently, in its proper hyperlink: it was to be "Transverberation" instead of "Tranverberation."

:smash-pc:

I knew what you meant

Mathieu · « **Reply #6 on:** August 27, 2013, 09:22:33 PM »

Happy feast day! Thank you for posting this - I wish I had had a chance to see it earlier today. God bless you and may St. Teresa help you to become a great Saint!