Mother Teresa Home Shallcross

[Breogan Heflin]

WhenI entered the Secular Carmelite Order, it was a great discovery for me to find in it this charism of prayer and meditation. The solid foundation of the spirituality, the type of formation involved, and the study of the Carmelite heritage and Saints really attracted me; this was the answer to what I had been searching for. I knew this would be the way to draw closer to God. But this great discovery has also required from me an obedience and daily commitment to the Order, over the years, which has also led me to discover, not only the truth about God and love, but about myself as well. It has been in the trials and struggles of my life, that the discovery of prayer has challenged yet strengthened me with joy and peace. To be a Secular Carmelite has not only been a privilege, but a responsibility

After the conversion she experienced when she contemplated the suffering Christ, Teresa began to experience the powerful and transforming presence of the Risen Jesus within herself and in the Church in ever deeper and decisive ways. On January 25th, 1561, on the Feast of the Conversion of St. Paul, Teresa had a vision of the Sacred Humanity of Jesus Christ in his Risen Form.

Her experience of the Risen Christ healed her affectivity, renewed her hope, liberated her from fear and anxiety, and gave her a desire to proclaim the Mercy and praises of God to the whole world. This presence gave her courage and enabled her to accept and face the realities of daily life calmly and confidently. In a powerful way, her encounter with the Risen Christ profoundly shaped her particular vision of the Christian life, primarily her view of prayer.

a note from the author: I am a mother of five and have been a member of the OCDS group in Santa Clara, CA since 1991. This comes from a short talk on St. Teresa that illustrates how similar we are to her in our own struggles and temptations. I hope and pray you may find some value in it. Please pray with me: Glory be to the Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy Spirit, as it was in the beginning, is now and ever shall be, world without end. Amen.

I remember stopping in front of the statue of our Lady with the Christ Child and praying to her for help. After that, I felt drawn to walk over to the cloister door and to my surprise, a kind, elderly nun opened it and let me in after I introduced myself. Without any reservation, I found myself asking if I could help cook or sweep their floors since I had a whole lunch hour free from work and could easily come by to help. Then I told her about myself and my painful personal struggles. At the very end of our time together, she invited me to look into the Secular Carmelite Meetings. This was the beginning of my being awakened to really want to see God.

I too remember struggling with my own attachments to particular relatives and friends as an adolescent. Every time certain relatives visited our home, my parents worried about the self-centered conversations and bad habits I developed from them. This experience caused me to walk along a difficult and confusing path.

While she was in the monastery of the Augustinians, Teresa began to think about a religious vocation. But even as she seriously considered a life devoted to God, at the age of seventeen and a half, Teresa suffered a health crisis. Because she was too weak to recover in the convent, she spent some time with her uncle, who was a very spiritual man and another good influence on her.

St. Teresa talks about having a prompt spiritual recovery; similarly, the good influence from this year of Catholic education influenced me to the love of good books like, Don Quixote, and the Poetry of Elizabeth Barrett Browning. I also heard inspiring stories of American Indians by a nun who had been a missionary. These influences were key and critical for my early desire to continue with school and pursue a college education; but more than that, I experienced a spiritual awakening. The nuns at St. Sebastian high school were a solid influence and their teachings of our Catholic faith helped to stir in me a desire to know God.

Teresa entered religious life at the age of twenty-one. Once she was there, she loved it and found great contentment in everything. She said she saw how our Lord repays everything even in this life to those who abandon everything for Him. But a period of real struggle began in her life and it would go on for almost twenty years. After a second health crisis, Teresa was introduced to a book called The Third Spiritual Alphabet by a Franciscan Friar who really wanted to foster prayer in the spiritual life, a method that St. Teresa responded to very positively. While she dedicated herself to this, she began to experience some advanced states of prayer.

At one point, she wound up in a coma for four days and appeared to be dead. They were celebrating her funeral Mass when she was awakened and revived; the first thing she asked was to see a priest. She was brought back to the monastery paralyzed, bedridden, and in great pain, and yet was strengthened in virtue. She was given the patience to bear this trial and began to pray especially to St. Joseph for a cure.

If you would like to learn more about Saint Elizabeth of the Trinity, Father Donald Kinney also gave a wonderful talk on Saint Elizabeth and her sister Guite, titled Make my soul your heaven, given during the 2016 Congress .

O my God, Trinity whom I adore, let me entirely forget myself that I may abide in You, still and peaceful as if my soul were already in eternity; let nothing disturb my peace nor separate me from You, O my unchanging God, but that each moment may take me further into the depths of Your mystery ! Pacify my soul! Make it Your heaven, Your beloved home and place of Your repose; let me never leave You there alone, but may I be ever attentive, ever alert in my faith, ever adoring and all given up to Your creative action.

O Eternal Word, Word of my God, would that I might spend my life listening to You, would that I might be fully receptive to learn all from You; in all darkness, all loneliness, all weakness, may I ever keep my eyes fixed on You and abide under Your great light; O my Beloved Star, fascinate me so that I may never be able to leave Your radiance.

O Consuming Fire, Spirit of Love, descend into my soul and make all in me as an incarnation of the Word, that I may be to Him a super-added humanity wherein He renews His mystery; and You O Father, bestow Yourself and bend down to Your little creature, seeing in her only Your beloved Son in whom You are well pleased.

It is always good to return to the sources of our spirituality and vocation, to reflect, and to ask ourselves if we really know the great treasure we have in our saints. Do we really know them? Do we really love their testimony? Do we approach them regularly? How have they helped us to live more consciously, our identities as Catholic Christians, and particularly as Discalced Carmelites, as Secular Carmelites, and as Teresian Carmelites?

In August 2015, I saw the places where St. Teresa and St. John of the Cross once lived. The experience made me reflect often of the many ways St. Teresa uses to explain her spiritual process and relationship with God. She uses images like the castle, comparisons like the chess game, natural elements like water and fire, or the transformation of the butterfly. I too want to use a symbol to explain this spiritual reflection.

Similarly, our lives are a melody and every day we live is a musical note; all the notes are important in building a harmonic melody, so that together, every single note is part of a masterpiece; all our experiences are necessary and we must learn to find beauty moment by moment, measure by measure.

More importantly, the melody of our life is not for us, but is a melody that we are creating to delight Someone. This melody of our life is for God; it is a song, a hymn in his honor. And this symphony of our lives will be completed at the end of our days; it is our responsibility to keep composing a beautiful melody and not a musical disaster.

Let us pray: Graciously hear us, O God of our salvation! that as we rejoice in the commemoration of the blessed virgin Teresa, so we may be nourished by her heavenly doctrine, and draw from thence the fervour of a tender devotion; through our Lord Jesus Christ, Thy Son, Who liveth and reigneth with Thee in the unity of the Holy Spirit, God for ever and ever. Amen.

Recently, I participated in a 24-hour Adoration and Procession for Life at a local parish as part of the 40 Days for Life 2016 Fall Campaign. One of the organizers was a secular Carmelite, and I wanted to show some kind of support.

In the two months between my appointments, I would often place my hands on my belly and stare numbly into space. I asked for prayers from anyone who would listen, and rather than trying to imagine the unimaginable, I tried to stay resolute in our decision to keep the baby.

During the next ultrasound appointment, the doctors surprised us when they said that the brain growth had disappeared. The initial result was probably a misreading, they explained. A few months later, my fourth miracle child, a beautiful, healthy boy was born.

People say that abortion is a freedom and a choice, but my experience is that its availability gives a false choice, a false freedom. I wonder how many women have been offered the kind of choice that I was offered by a professional health practitioner, said yes, and unwittingly aborted a perfectly healthy baby. I wonder what young girls would say, if they even had a glimpse of understanding of the exponential joy children give to those around them. I wonder what they would do if they had the knowledge that with each newborn, God gives special graces to raise that child. Every time each of my children were born, my husband and I thought that for sure, we would not be able to afford it, and that we would collapse in financial ruin, but we were wrong. With each child, the blessings multiplied, as we faced each challenge with our wounded faithfulness and love. I wonder if the young girl I embraced on the last day of school has found freedom from the choice she was forced to make.

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