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A novena to St. Teresa of Avila


Day One: Setting foot on the Royal Road

“We need no wings to go in search of Him, but have only to look upon Him present within us.”

St. Teresa teach me how to find Jesus within myself where you say he is enthroned in the center of my heart. Show me how to go within, to see his beauty, know his tenderness.
You overcame impediments from the world, and reluctance of your own, to seek him and keep him company with growing love and joy. Lead me in the first steps onto the Royal Road of prayer meant for me, so that I may walk in the glow of your lamp held high to light my way.

Pray now a slow, attentive Our Father.

Day 2 The Sacred Humanity of Jesus

“Never set aside the Sacred Humanity of Christ. To do so is to lose your anchor.”

We are not Angel spirits as St. Teresa pointed out. We are human. We need a hug. We need to know that Jesus had and has hands and feet, had to blow his nose sometimes, that he sweated over his work, that his feet were often dirty in his sandals from all that walking he did, that he cried, that he laughed that he needed his friends as well as time alone. He knows all the stars by name but he also knows and cares about every tear we shed. He is glory beyond glory but when he takes our hands we can feel that they are work roughened and warm. You can trace your thumb along the deep scar in his palm.

Let yourself be captured by his eyes; dark and lovely. Ask him now: Jesus be real to me.

Day 3: Friendship with Christ

“It is a great thing to have experienced the friendship of Jesus Christ, because the friendship of His Majesty is full of love and reward.”

St. Teresa’s spirituality is rooted in friendship with Jesus, which implies intimacy, informality, and mutuality.
She cautioned us not to be irreverent toward the Lord. She often called him “Your Majesty” when she spoke to him. At the same time she had a complete trust in his love and regard for her as his friend, his dear friend, a friend he trusted and loved to be with. She loved him back in a deeply personal way. She strove to bring her loving attentiveness to his presence into all that she did throughout the day, and to make time to be alone with him in conversation or sweet silence.

Jesus no longer calls us servants but friends. Try thinking of him as the Friend who you know loves you and who you love back.

Make friends with Jesus. Teresa says the best way to start is to ask him humbly for his friendship.

Here he is. Ask him now.

Day 4: Come into the castle of your soul

“I began to think of the soul as if it were a castle made of a single diamond or of very clear crystal, in which there are many rooms, just as in Heaven there are many mansions.”

“The door of entry into this castle is prayer and meditation.”

Oh Teresa what a beautiful vision you had of what I look like inside and Who lives there!

Help me to find my way to the Lord within. Show me how to open the beautiful doors of my heart to see the One I love so intensely. I want to sit at his feet. I want to be in his arms against his Sacred Heart listening to its beating.

Call to me Lord, draw me, help me to love you truly, to be all yours, to listen to you, know you, to walk through the rooms of the castle seeking your hand.

Let me hear your voice and see your face for your voice is sweet and your face is beautiful.

Day 5 Solitude and silence

”Settle yourself in solitude, and you will

come upon him in yourself.”

“Silence is God’s first language.”

Sometimes Jesus went off by himself to be alone and to pray. How much more do we need to do the same, to go into our inner room, close the door on the outside world with its sights and sounds and interruptions for a time.

Teresa talked about this as recollecting the senses and bringing them within ourselves like bees returning to the hive to make honey.

Let’s find time to be alone today in quiet, even for a few minutes, to go within ourselves where Jesus waits.

Greet him by the name you most love to call him.

Do you have anything you need to say to Jesus? Does he say anything to you?

Maybe you have a conversation with him.

Now sit with him in silence in a comfortable kind of way, the way friends do.

St. Teresa pray for us that we will come to love silence and solitude where we can be alone with God.

Day 6 Talking to Jesus

“But above all things, I want to impress upon you that, when we are speaking to him, we should look at him and remain in his presence, and not turn our backs upon him.”  

Have you ever heard the rosary being prayed in church and thought it kind of sounded like an auction underway? It’s so easy to slip into vain repetition – meaning not paying attention to what we are saying or to Whom we are speaking. If the Lord is our friend we want to look at him when we talk to him, to know what we’re saying to him. To be attentive and not mechanical it’s important to slow down, and make conscious contact rather than reciting a formula. Jesus is here wanting us. He is the Friend, the Brother, a Father, our Spouse. St. Teresa advised us to speak to him one way and at other times another.
She wants us to speak from the heart whether with our words or with silent love.

Speak to the Lord today, either in the words of a set traditional prayer, your own words, or in quiet attentiveness. In all of these keep the eyes of your soul on him, present within you, listening to you and loving you.

Day 7 Determined determination

St. Teresa you faced so many trials along the path of your spiritual life. Sometimes you laughed at threats like the Inquisition being suspicious of your work and ways. Other times like when a spiritual director thought your prayer experiences were from the devil you cried and you wanted to die and were afraid to be alone.

But God blessed you all the more with the consolations you were told to reject.

At times you even gave up prayer, feeling unworthy.

You dealt with other people’s fears and resentments toward you, opposition and obstacles. Somehow you accomplished all that the Lord asked of you. Once you knew what it was to pray with satisfaction, and once you truly knew the presence and love of God you were unwilling to ever give up prayer again.

You urged us on, reminding us that life is like one night at a bad inn and the prize, Christ himself was worth anything at all we could go through to get to him. You called this single minded persistence determined determination. Pray for us as we make our way inward and ultimately to Heaven, that we will proceed with “determined determination” as you did. Lead us straight into the Heart of Jesus.

Day 8 Holy Mary

It seems to me that there is no better teacher for prayer than the glorious Virgin.”

”Mary treasured all these things, pondering them in her heart.” Luke 2:19

Mary had a listening heart, attentive to every sign of God’s will and inspiration. Immaculately conceived and free from spiritual impediment she had a clarity of perception and relationship with God. She had one great visitation by the Angel Gabriel but we have no record of any visions and extraordinary signs she received otherwise. Mary live by faith as we do, living an ordinary life that was nevertheless quietly extraordinary.

In her heart she pondered and treasured the Word of God himself within herself, then in his daily presence, and remained United with him just as much in spirit as he began his ministry.

Teresa assimilated Mary’s spirit of contemplation, cherishing the Lord within, remaining attentive and united to him at all times. This is why Teresa’s Order of Discalced Carmelites sees Mary as Mother. Sister and Queen, and our primary devotion to her is meditation in the heart, contemplative prayer, perceiving God as within ourselves.

Oh beautiful Flower of Carmel, holy and singular, who brought forth the Son of God, ever still remaining a pure Virgin, assist us in our necessity! Show us that thou art Our Mother! Our Lady if Mt. Carmel, pray for us.
.

Day 9 Love

”Amor saca amor.” Love draws out love.

Prayer leads us into union with God and union with God fills us with love, his love becoming ours.
Teresa taught us that we should “make many acts of love.” She knew that love was active and effective, more than emotion it blossomed into friendship and service and compassion. The love of God is transformative and the more we pray the more we see that love of others deepens our prayer and prayer deepens the love with which we serve and our desire to serve.

Not only that but prayer becomes almost indistinguishable from love. Prayer becomes love and love becomes prayer.

St. Teresa pray for us and lead us into the depths of love with God. Brighten our way along the Royal Road of the spiritual life. Help us to truly know the Lord we love and live for. Remind us that love is both the means and the goal of this journey.
We wish you a happy feast day and we pray for all the intentions you have for the Church, for priests, for the sanctification of the people of God, that Jesus will have the best and trustiest of friends and that we will be among them, that he will be followed and loved and praised and known by all of us. In your special honor we ask all of this of the Lord and in the sweet Name of Jesus.

St. Teresa pray for us.
Our Lady of Mt. Carmel, pray for us.




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My new book I finished writing this summer

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This summer I finished my manuscript for a new book. The working title is Pray Like Teresa; how to pray the Prayer of Recollection of St. Teresa of Avila. The publisher will decide the official title. I agonized a lot writing it but that seems to be part of my creative process unfortunately. It was also my solace during a stressful summer as it turned out to be.

When I have a project on I continually “write” in my head until it’s finished. Then it’s hard for me to stop messing with it and to stop thinking about it all the time. I enjoyed St. Teresa’s accompaniment during the months of working on this little book for her. I hope she is happy with it.

The book is short, only 15,000 words, about half the length of my first one, Come to Mary’s House; spending time with Our Blessed Mother. It is also more instructional than Come to Mary’s House. I would describe the general vibe of the book as St. Teresa with a Shawn twist. I tried to stay absolutely true to Tersa’s teachings and to work in my own Teresian spirituality and experience as well.

An important goal I had for this book was to help everyday Catholics and others to get to know Teresa’s teachings in a friendly way. I included St. Teresa’s struggles and sense of humor along with her teachings on the Prayer of Recollection and her basic foundational teachings that underpin it. I hope for the reader to see that contemplative prayer is for everyone and that this method of prayer is one anyone can do.

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I also wanted to show why contemplative prayer is desirable, not only for the growth of the person who prays but for the good of the Church and the whole world. In this way I believe deepening inner prayer and contact with God, friendship with Jesus, and the practice of a life of prayer are urgent necessities in our world today and for the renewal of the Church.

A lot of people may be intimidated by Teresa of Avila because of her profound mystical experiences, because she is the “Doctor of Prayer,” and such a great figure of Catholic spirituality. Maybe they had not thought of reading her works before because they were written about 500 years ago and they assume she is inaccessible and too Medieval to be understandable or applicable to their lives.

I hope the reader will find that St. Teresa was also very human, witty, funny, practical and grounded. Her wisdom is relevant to anyone wanting to live the spiritual life, to grow in prayer, to this day. I hope I have provided a simple way to take up this prayer that Teresa said the Lord himself taught her, to anyone who picks this book up.

I think it would be a perfect book to take to Adoration with you, enriching your prayer in that hour with Jesus, or to keep by the place you like to sit when you pray daily. One could easily read a section each day and try the part of the prayer that section suggests.

I intend to encourage everyone who reads this book to try the prayer, to stick with it, along with giving practical ideas to help them be consistent.

I arranged it as an introduction to Teresa herself, and then I played out reflectively her basic discoveries about prayer such as friendship with Jesus, his Sacred Humanity, and God being experienced as within us.

Then I wrote a section about each step of the prayer and how to do it, each one headed by a quote from Teresa or from Scripture.

I allowed myself the pleasure of writing about the effects of the prayer as well and let myself get poetic about those but not overly so I hope. I wanted to communicate the beauty and joy of intimate love of God.

I am hoping this book will appeal to the everyday Catholic who may be being called by God to cast their nets into the deep or at least the deeper or even a little bit deeper. Whether the reader takes up everything in the book as part of their daily prayer life or not I hope reading it will improve their prayer life and their relationship with the Lord at least a little. I think it will.

My parish is primarily young people in college. They are remarkably devout, however. I can imagine some of them being interested in this book. I thought of them while I was writing, but also of people my own age or so (I’m 56) who at this time of life may be more interested in contemplation and want to give it daily time. I want it to speak to anyone who looks through it.

I turned in my manuscript to Our Sunday Visitor on Assumption Day, a few days early. But I thought it was a good way to honor Our Lady and St. Teresa, whose habit (the Carmelite habit) she wore.

Look for the new book August 25th, 2025

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Abbess Hildegard

Born in 1098, the tenth child of her family and dedicated as a tithe to a monastery of Benedictine nuns at the age of eight, St Hildegard grew up to be an extraordinary and holy woman. She was a mystic, a poet, a composer of unique, soaring liturgical music so different from the plain chant of the time. St. Hildegard was the author of books, music, and plays. As a  Benedictine Abbess she communicated with Bishops and Popes. She was a popular public speaker at a time women were normally not allowed to teach or speak. Abbess Hildegard was a prophet, an adviser, an influencer of her time. 

Her colorful mandala like art, not created by herself but overseen by her, represented her visions of the Trinity, and other Heavenly realities. The paintings often have a multi-layered appearance leading the eye to a central space containing a symbol. Looking at them makes me feel like I’m  seeing into another world or a into a great depth. 

Her  illustrated book Scivias describes  her mystical visions  and the interpretations of them she heard from God. It was written in 1151. She begins it with her experience of God commanding  her to write it. It is still available now as are other works of hers which ranged from the botanical to the medicinal, to the  theological. Her exquisite music has been performed for centuries.. Her musical play, Ordo virtutum, or Play of the Virtues, may well be the oldest known morality play. It is beautiful but you may jump when in the middle of the serene vocals, the wild discordant  voice of Satan interrupts the song unexpectedly for a moment. I have listened to it so many times but it still startles  me. Otherwise her songs are pure ethereal loveliness. You might start with The Origin of Fire (no devil voice,) or A feather on the Breath of God which sounds as poetic and pretty as the title.

St. Hildegard’s world view, like her poetry, was lush, verdant, filled with rich, vivid imagery. She was deeply in tune with nature and the divine as expressed in creation. She was profoundly  Incarnational, at once earthy and luminous in her spirituality and writing. 

Here is Viridissima Virga, a hymn she wrote in honor of Mary 

“ O branch of freshest green,

O hail! Within the windy gusts of saints

upon a quest you swayed and sprouted forth.

When it was time, you blossomed in your boughs—

“Hail, hail!” you heard, for in you seeped the sunlight’s warmth

like balsam’s sweet perfume.

For in you bloomed

so beautiful a flow’r, whose fragrance wakened

all the spices from their dried-out stupor.

And they all appeared in full viridity.

 Then rained the heavens dew upon the grass

and all the earth was cheered,

for from her womb she brought forth fruit

and  the birds of the sky

     have nests in her.

Then was prepared that food for humankind,

the greatest joy of feasts!

O Virgin sweet, in you can ne’er fail any joy.

All this Eve chose to scorn.

But now, let praise ring forth unto the Highest!”

Hildegard possessed unusual wisdom and compassion. People of every class came to her for medical advise, healing remedies, wise counsel, spiritual help or prayers. At times she even delivered babies. 

She was a Renaissance woman before the Renaissance, a polymath, someone brilliant in many subjects and incredibly creative. 

Her faith was absolute. When she was sure she was doing Gods will she was literally unmoveable. She ran into some trouble with religious authorities for burying a sinner who had been excommunicated on the holy grounds of her monastery. She insisted the man had confessed and received absolution and communion. She was not believed by the Bishop. She was ordered to have the man’s body removed. She refused.  Her sisters stood by her. She and they were placed under an interdict which meant they could not sing the Liturgy  of the Hours or receive the Sacraments. It was basically a mass excommunication. Hildegard became very ill in her spiritual anguish and could not leave her bed. When the Bishop sent six men to remove her, she became so heavy they could not, no matter how many worked together to lift her, be moved at all. It was considered a sign from God. 

The young man’s body remained where it had been buried. 

St. Hildegard Abbey, also known as St. Hildegardis Abbey, is located in Eibingen, along the Rhein river in Germany.  It was founded by Saint Hildegard  in 1165. It is still functioning and is visited by pilgrims from all over the world devoted to her and interested in her life and work. . 

Strangely she was not canonized  for more than 800 years after her death. Finally on May 10th, 2012 Pope Benedict XVI did so though she had been already widely regarded and locally venerated as a Saint after her death in 1179. This lapse was because the necessary paperwork was lost en route to the Vatican when her cause was first undertaken.  Pope Alexander III ordered the witnesses of her life and miracles to be gathered and interviewed again but somehow no one ever did so. 

Maybe the delay was because we need this brilliant Saint to arrive in our consciousness now in these times we live in. Who doesn’t need a beautiful vision, remarkable and holy art, gorgeous music and vivid poetry, showing us a spirit  that is unique in beauty with the ability to open our eyes in new ways to the glory and splendor of God? I think we all need that right now. 

Pope Benedict XVI elevated St. Hildegard  to the well deserved status of Doctor of the Church on October 7 of 2012 because of “her holiness of life and the originality of her teaching.” She is one of only four women Doctors of the Church along with St. Teresa of Avila, St. Catherine of Sienna and St.Therese of Lisieux. 

After Abbess Hildegard’s death the  nuns  of her monastery reported seeing her luminous figure several times carrying a bright light through their monastery. She was radiant and she was chanting. 

We celebrate St. Hildegard of Bingen on September 17. 

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How to love in troubled times; St. Teresa Benedicta of the Cross (Edith Stein)

How to love in troubled times; St. Edith Stein (Teresa Benedicta of the Cross)
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Acedia; a spiritual malady

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During this little slice of Ordinary Time after Christmas and before Lent we might begin to feel spiritually unenthused. Maybe we were already. Maybe we even avoid prayer and the practice of our faith. Maybe we have an aversion to our daily duties. Maybe we’re bored and drawn mostly to distractions. What’s going on? St. Evagrius (AD 385-399) who lived  in the Egyptian desert as an early monastic wrote about something called acedia. 

What is acedia? The Catechism of the Catholic Church (2733) calls it a form of depression caused by giving in to spiritual laxity or presumption. The Desert Fathers thought of it as a spiritual condition people can fall into with a complex set of symptoms, a spiritual malady, or even as a demon. 

[Acedia is] a hatred of industriousness, a battle against stillness, stormy weather for psalmody, laziness in prayer, a slackening of ascesis, untimely drowsiness, revolving sleep, the oppressiveness of solitude, hatred of one’s cell, an adversary of ascetic works, an opponent of perseverance, muzzling of meditation, ignorance of the scriptures, a partaker in sorrow, a clock for hunger.

St. Evagrius

Yikes. 

St. Evagrious of Pontus says the real roots of acedia are self centeredness, anger and misdirected desire. When oppressed by acedia we tend to seek comfort and pleasure to counteract the restlessness we feel, and in response to our aversion to spiritual practice. We avoid the tasks we are responsible for. We withdraw from charitable activity and are more prone to gab with others for our own entertainment and distraction than to be useful to them.  We fill our lives with surface busy-ness, avoiding prayer and study. We lack spiritual desire and quietly long for things and activities that will draw us away from the spiritual. We are both restless and exhausted. We want to sleep, we want to pace the floor. We feel at once angry and dissatisfied as well as listless, staring at nothing. This sounds terrible. No wonder Evagrious called it “the most oppressive of demons.’ 

All of this reminds me of  a passage from one of my favorite books, The Phantom Tollbooth by Norton Juster. 

“There once was a boy named Milo who didn’t know what to do with himself; not just sometimes but always. When he was in school he longed to be out, and when he was out he longed to be in. On the way he thought about coming home, and coming home he thought about going. Wherever he was he wished he were somewhere else, and when he got there he wondered why he’d bothered. Nothing really interested him- least of all the things that should have. “It seems to me that almost everything is a waste of time,” he remarked as he walked dejectedly home from school.”

And “… while he was never anxious to be where he was going, he liked to get there as soon as possible.” 

Had Milo been a monk he would have been diagnosed by the Desert Fathers like Evagrius, as suffering from, and indulging in acedia. 

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If we find ourselves troubled by acedia, what is the remedy? What should we do?

  1. Master your thoughts. 

Notice when your thoughts are going into that irritable, lazy restless lane again, and change course as soon as you notice. Something that helps me is to repeat the names of Jesus and Mary; “Jesus Maria Jesus Maria Jesus Maria” each time I find myself on that negative track again. Be patient with yourself. It doesn’t help to be mad or disappointed in yourself. Simply move on and persevere.

“Whether or not all these thoughts trouble the soul is not within our power; but it is for us to decide if they are to linger within us or not and whether or not they stir up the passions.”

St. Evagrius
  1. Resist. If you want to sleep or run away or indulge in compulsive activity, persevere in what you are actually supposed to be doing in spite of how you feel. If you are avoiding prayer, pray. If you are avoiding your duties, get back on track. If you’ve lost sight of your routines, get back to them. I suggest working on one thing at a time so you aren’t overwhelmed. When you are stuck in acedia even one of these things can be hard enough to change.
  1. Gratitude. Write down five things you are grateful for when everything is getting on your nerves. It works surprisingly well. 
  1. Manual labor. Nothing helps me as much as some vigorous sweeping, mopping or dragging things around outside.  According to the Fathers, acedia is both mental and physical. This is why it’s so hard to kick.  
  1. Meditate on the Passion and Death of Jesus. Maybe praying the Sorrowful Mysteries of the Rosary or The Way of the Cross can assist you in this. This is uniquely grounding for us as Christians.
  1. Ask God for the gift of tears. According to Evagrius, the gift of tears in prayer, and tears of repentance are indispensable for liberation from acedia.  So have a good holy cry, it cleanses the soul. 
  2. Preach the Psalms to your own soul. As Dorothy Day wrote, “My strength returns to me with my cup of coffee and the reading of the psalms. ” 
  1.  Engage your intellect. I learned this from Fr. Gregory McLaughlin who taught me that when I was being ruled too much by my emotions, I should study, especially religious study such as Scripture or good spiritual reading. It works.
  1.  Go to confession. This may seem obvious but remember the Sacrament of Reconciliation is healing and restorative. God gave us Confession so we can receive his mercy, overcome our sins and begin anew which is exactly what we need to be free of acedia and free for God. 
  2. Good deeds. Go through the day quietly tucking in small kindnesses wherever you can. This is a remedy for almost any malady of any kind. When you are ready, throw yourself into working for others in some way.

Gently fold these things into your life and you will soon sense a clear fine spiritual love reclaiming its place in your heart. 

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In her hearing

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During these horrifying days of unutterable violence and war, of every kind of atrocity, what can we do? We are far away. We are not leaders of nations. We have to go to work, we have to let the dogs out, listen to a little kid, put dinner together, and also be horrified, feel helpless, ache for the children caught in this, and feed the cat. We have to figure out what to wear tomorrow, wonder if we forgot something we were supposed to do, and as the scenes of  mutilation blood and terror cross our minds we wonder what to even say to God. 

Maybe nothing.

Maybe we should just let our hearts be pierced as Mary did. We could take on her pure and open heart completely in tune with her suffering Son’s and willing to be present and active in those hours he was slowly dying. She accepted the piercing of her heart, and “the secret thoughts of many [were laid] bare.” I used to wonder what that last part meant. I couldn’t get an answer from anyone about it that seemed right.

But what happens when our secret thoughts are laid bare? We see the truth about ourselves. Our conscience is awakened and we tend to desire to change. Maybe the piercing of Mary’s heart caused conversion of heart for others and still does. 

At the same time she was made the mother of all Christians from the cross by Jesus, she received from God a special gift for nudging us toward conversion, of laying bare the truth within us. This would be in line with her role as Spouse of the Holy Spirit who is the Spirit of Truth and Love.

We know Mary has been given unique gifts and that she intercedes for us in heaven. She is advocate of the people of God and she hears the cries of the world. 

Such is her unity with God that in her hearing of suffering her knowledge of it is already prayer. Mary is there in Israel and Gaza now touching every face, assisting the dying, suffering with those in distress and in the piercing of her heart at the foot of this cross the possibilities open for changes of heart. 

She is to be found wherever her Son is found, exactly where he said he would be; among those who are hungry naked imprisoned or persecuted. He is with the suffering and so is Our Lady. She is there praying with all who pray. Her feet are muddy and her face is streaked with tears. She wants us to join her and in the wind of the Spirit we can. 

This is not a helpless dwelling on the horror taking place. This is knowing that God makes our little prayers BIG. We are to reign with Christ and this is how he shares his reign with us. He loves to share his mission with his disciples. 

We don’t know what God will do in response. But we know he will do something. We know he gave the world a mother we need so much. 

We can take on the mind and heart of Mary. We can go with her and bring comfort in mysterious ways, change hearts even when we don’t know it. We can become windows of grace God’s will can flow through into this world. 

We are only little windows but God doesn’t care. He shares his power and love to widen our hearts for his love to flow through.

And in our hearing and seeing and knowing if we remain close to God, our silence becomes full and active. What we know instantly becomes intercession, becomes prayer. 

When you hear of bloodshed and terror you will already be praying, and prayer does things. 

Like Mary let our hearts be pierced at the foot of this cross. May God receive our offering.

“Come, Holy Spirit, come by means of the powerful intercession of the Immaculate Heart of Mary, thy well beloved spouse.”

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Mary of Bethany; an oil poured out

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July 29 is the feast of Sts. Martha, Mary and Lazarus, the siblings of Bethany. Bethany was a little village not far from Jerusalem. It seems to have been Jesus’ favorite stop on his journeys, his home away from home.  Apparently these three friends were great company, and supportive of his mission. They had a house big enough for his travel companions, the food was great and Martha, Mary and Lazarus were always eager to be caught up on the latest adventures of Jesus and his itinerant followers.  

Martha and Lazarus’ sister Mary has been conflated with St. Mary Magdalene since the Middle Ages and this impression continued for centuries in Christian hagiography and art. Modern Biblical scholarship and a pronouncement of Pope Paul VI put an end to that mix up.  St. Mary Magdalen continues to be celebrated on July 22, and Mary of Bethany joined her brother and sister as her own person. 

This leaves us with three Gospel stories of St. Mary of Bethany. 

At the feet of Jesus (Luke 10:38-42)

Poor Martha is hosting all by herself, running ragged, resentful and starting to bang the pots and pans in the kitchen. Finally she decides to get her feelings out. She unburdens her heart right to Jesus. Isn’t that what we should do? Maybe not in front of the company, granted, but we should lay out burdens before him and be honest with him. He knows what’s inside us anyway. 

I like to think the Lord’s answer gave Martha peace. All the times Jesus has straightened me out when I was wrong or off course I have felt instant peace. Whether what he asked of me was easy or unpleasant I felt peace and that’s how I knew he was speaking. It seems Martha had taken on more than she was required to.  I have taken on tasks and responsibilities God was not asking me to and the first symptom I have is usually exhaustion followed by resentment and self righteousness. Eventually there will be an outburst. I hope Martha felt unbound and freed by what Jesus said to her. 

It’s easy to see Mary feeling affirmed and freed, protected and understood by Jesus’ defense of her. I recently read that the way she is sitting at Jesus’ feet listening to his teaching would have been controversial in her time and culture. It was something a disciple did. Rabbis weren’t supposed to have female disciples. The study of Torah and the pursuit of knowledge was for men only.  By sitting at Jesus’ feet as his student she was being quite bold and acting as an equal to the men. Jesus affirms her in this, allowing her to keep the place she has chosen.  

Of course we also see Mary of Bethany here as a beautiful model for Christian contemplatives. She is deeply attentive to Jesus, looking  at his face, internalizing all that he says, pondering in her heart.  

During a skit of this scene we acted out as a family my then four year-old daughter Maire had Mary get up, offer to take over the host duties, and invite Martha to take a turn at Jesus’ feet. I like that a lot. Maybe it was that way. 

Mourning Lazarus John (11:1–45)

Lazarus fell ill. His sisters cared for him and prayed over him, waiting for Jesus to come and heal him. They knew he could save their brother. They sent an urgent message. Mary would have sat by her brother’s bed keeping vigil, offering him her gift of profound presence and connection. Martha would have changed his blankets, kept a wet rag on his head, brewed medicinal teas, asked advice from the wise, sent for doctors, made favorite dishes she hoped he would eat. Sometimes they would have had to switch places and learn the other one’s ways of loving and serving. 

Jesus never comes, though they keep a lamp burning for him through every night in hopes he will. Every footfall outside, every stirring they hear they think perhaps it is Jesus or at least a message from him. They don’t understand. Why doesn’t he come? Why doesn’t he respond? 

Lazarus’ illness becomes imminently  life threatening, their anxiety for him so intense, neither of them sleeps at all. They hold him in his struggle for breath and as life ebbs away. 

They try to comfort one another. They ask each other, “Why did Jesus never come?” 

They wash and anoint his body with the women of their family winding him in scented burial cloths to bury him in their family tomb.  

The house is full of family friends and neighbors sitting shiva with them. https://www.shiva.com/learning-center/sitting-shiva

Finally Jesus shows. Martha as we have seen her do before, makes her thoughts and feelings known to him. She confronts Jesus while at the same time expressing her faith in him. She knows he could have saved her brother as he has saved so many others. She also has come to know and believe he is the Messiah and Son of God, just as Peter had also done and she says so. “Even now,” Martha says hopefully, “I believe.”

She runs to get her sister who is in the house with all the mourners and tells her Jesus is here and asking for her. 

It’s when Jesus sees Mary’s tears that he cries too. This is important to me, to all of us. Yes for some reason Jesus does allow bad things to happen to us. At the same time, as Madeleine Le’Engle says, everything that happens to us happens to God too. 

Mary also confronts Jesus, falling at his feet, her movement a desperate plea of prostate grief. 

He doesn’t ask Mary for a declaration of faith. Maybe he knew she had it in abundance already. He only responds with his tears and his actions. He gives her her brother back alive. 

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Anointing Jesus (John 12:1-8)

This is the beautiful story that captures the imagination so powerfully; Mary of Bethany interrupts dinner, unbinding her hair, carrying in an alabastron of outrageously expensive perfume worth a year’s wages. 

Since she seems to have been unmarried (as she is living at home) perhaps it had been meant for her dowry. To me this brings out an extra meaning. Perhaps she intended never to marry and to fully dedicate her life to Jesus, pouring out her love and devotion to him alone. 

Her contemplative nature, her attentiveness and connection to Jesus lead her to anticipate his death; the only one of his followers who understood that it was imminent, and maybe even what his death would mean.  

With compassion she comes to acknowledge both what he is about to endure and what he means to her. 

Have you ever smelled spikenard, aka nard?  It is not a floral scent but a sharp, pungent smell. It would have filled the whole house and the scent would have lingered for days and days in every room and on both Jesus and on her hair.

The others at the table were offended at her extravagance, saying the nard could have been sold and used to feed the poor. Jesus defends her. We will always be able to help the poor but we would not always have him. “She has done a beautiful thing for me.” She dries his feet with her hair.  

Women’s hair was supposed to be covered in public and especially in the presence of men who were not their husbands. Here our Mary of Bethany unveils and not only that dries the feet of Jesus with her hair. I wonder what those present would have made of that? 

I’m thinking of the spiritual marriage written about and experienced by the great mystics of our faith such as Sts. Teresa of Avila, John of the Cross, Rose of Lima, Catherine of Sienna among others, in which the soul becomes one with God. Maybe Mary of Bethany was experiencing this or had. Maybe this bold and lavish gesture was her response, her understanding of his destiny born of that union and love. 

Wouldn’t you love to be able to comfort Jesus with your compassion and love? To do something that is deeply meaningful for him? To pour out your love diffusing its fragrance through all his house, to smell it on your hair for days to remind you, knowing he also carried it? To remember his words, that you had done a beautiful thing for him? 

We can. When we love, when we serve, when we pray like an oil poured out to the One we love. 

 Your anointing oils are fragrant; 

your name is oil poured out; 

therefore maidens love you.

Song of Songs 1:3

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“And now that you are alone daughter,”

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To me Ordinary Time is getting back to the everyday and delightful work of prayer and service that makes up our beautiful Christian lives. It means hot Texas afternoons, coming into the cool, quiet church, feeling relieved as the sweat evaporates from my face and back and peace surrounds me.

“Hi Jesus. hi. Help me pay attention at mass this time.” I can’t help but smile to myself, or really, at him, in his sweet presence there.

His presence is also right here with us, in us.

Ordinary Time beckons

with the promise of quiet inner space

to be with Jesus in the center of my heart,

I in the center of his,

drawing from the source of all life.

St. Teresa wrote about how the companionship of the Lord is magnified when we are prayerfully solitary, our awareness of him not in the least disturbing our perfect solitude.

“Contemplation is nothing more than making time to be alone with the one who we know loves us.”

Instructing us in how to go about practicing inner prayer, she writes, “And now that you are alone, daughter, make the Sign of the Cross.”

In this way you acknowledge that you are in the presence of God, with the intention of spending time alone with him.

You will notice this kind of quiet and solitude are more full than empty, and that the fullness is nourishing, often joyful. Again, it makes me smile. “Hi Jesus, hi.”

If you have trouble with your focus when you are alone, if stillness causes you anxiety, or of you have many worries that disturb your peace, here are a few things to try.

It helps me to listen to the sounds around me. If you are blessed with a silent house or a quiet chapel, these sounds will be small. Mentally note them, starting with the farthest away. Maybe a dog barks from a neighbor’s yard down the street. Someone is mowing in the distance, a car drives by. Now bring your awareness closer. Maybe you hear birds singing, children playing next door, wind in the trees outside your window, a sprinkler perhaps. How about sounds in your house or wherever you are right now? A clock ticking, a washing machine swishing, the refrigerator humming, the dog drinking its water in the kitchen;

listen.

What sounds are in your room? The ceiling fan, the air coming on… your own breathing.

Speaking of breathing, take a few deep breaths; in through your nose, out through your mouth.

Put all your worries in a little pile; Milagros to leave here in his lap while you pray. He will take care of you.

And now that you are alone, daughter, son, love of God’s life, make the Sign of the Cross.

Ah, there he is now.

Smile.

See him smile back.

Send some time with this, with him.

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The Ascension

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To us who celebrate it every year the Ascension of Jesus  seems to naturally follow the initial celebration of his Resurrection. 

However I imagine it was an earth shattering surprise to his followers that he would be leaving them yet again. 

When I reflect on this event as part of the rosary the virtue I link to the Ascension is detachment as I see him beautifully disappear before the eyes of his followers as “a  cloud removed him from their sight.” 

The family of believers had to let go of their expectations that Jesus as they knew him would permanently remain to walk and talk with them. Again they had to face that Jesus was not about to get rid of the Roman occupiers either. There would be no restoration of the Davidic Kingdom  in the literal way they had thought of it. And the One they loved was going to withdraw from them yet again. They must have felt as if they were back from the defining experience of their lives with nothing to show for it, as if they were just a rag tag group of people standing on a mountainside for no particular reason. They were shocked and bereft. They didn’t understand what Jesus meant about him having to leave that the Holy Spirit could come to them. How could they? 

When the angel said that Jesus would be back they must have shaken their heads. Jesus had said for them to go and baptize, to take his message to the world. This must have seemed like too much for them, an overwhelming task, especially on their own. 

They had to greatly expand their understanding of God even past the miraculous three years they had left everything for and deeply identified with now. 

They had to let go so they could be filled and receive Jesus in a whole new way, by his presence in their hearts, and to come to know the Holy Spirit who was new to them. 

How can we receive the Spirit without detachment, self emptying, without freedom of heart? 

“Love- the way God wants to be loved, and leave off your own way of acting,” said St. John of the Cross. 

Or, as Jesus said to St. Angela of Foligno, “Make of yourself a capacity and I will make myself a torrent.” 

Jesus said that if his friends loved him they would be happy he was going to the Father. (Jon.14:28) Is there something more to that than being happy for him? Yes, because he says, “for the Father is greater than I.” Maybe it also means that we have to let our current perhaps more comfortable understanding go to make room for the immensity he has for us. We can be happy he is going to the Father because then, in letting him go as we thought we had him, he then is truly closer than our breath, more accessible than ever. Detachment is hard. We feel that we are losing our Treasure.   

 St. Faustina said of Mary’s experience of the Ascension that she deeply grieved as any mother would  that her Son was leaving but that, “her heart could not want what God did not want.” 

In seeking a pure heart for God and a Marian detachment; a detachment with great love, a detachment even from the way we thought Jesus would be present to us, we open ourselves to what is even greater, beyond what we could ever have thought of ourselves.  But first we let go. 

“Bend  my heart according to your will, O God.” (Ps. 119:36) 

Then, 

“I shall run in your paths for You will enlarge my heart.” (Psalm 119:32)

In this is peace that comes from open-ness to God and freedom of heart.

These verses are a perfect prayer to cultivate holy detachment as the disciples struggled to do this, standing there on the Mount of Olives, not knowing what to do with themselves. 

Fortunately we don’t have to rely on our own strength in this and neither did they.

Jesus had said to wait in Jerusalem and to pray. They did. They trusted in simplicity. And prayer continually purified theirattachments and intentions as disciples, transforming their dismay into receptivity.   

They still longed for Jesus; his voice, his hug, the sound of his footsteps, “like a deer that longs for running streams in a dry weary land without water,” (Ps. 42:2)  However they soon found that once emptied, their muddled and broken hearts were then open to the new gift of God’s presence; the descent of the Holy Spirit at Pentecost, filling them past overflowing, their thirst for God more than quenched.  “Your torrents and all your waves swept over me.”  (Ps. 42: 8)

Come, Holy Spirit, come. 

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