[Edit: The title of the thread should say, Transverberátio Cordis sanctæ Terésiæ Vírginis. I do not know why the Latin diphthongs did not come through. Oh well..]

Hello everybody!



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,"* and 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."**

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:***

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." [St. Matt. ch. 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.

* Martyrologium Romanum ad usum Fatrum et Monialium Carmelitarum Discalceatorum Ordinis Beatissimæ Virginis Mariæ de Monte Carmelo. Romæ: Typis Polyglottis Vaticanis, 1958.

** 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 Three Ways of the Spiritual Life. London: Burns Oates & Washbourne, 1938.

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Here is some more from the book Carmelite Devotions and Prayers for Special Feasts of the Liturgical Year, compiled by a Carmelite Tertiary (Milwaukee, WI: The Bruce Publishing Company, 1956).

And here's the Latin text of the Office as found in the 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).