Enter Contemplative.
Enter Contemplative.
..in which I invite St. Teresa de Jesus onto my Substack.
🔥
As a Carmelite, I’m really not supposed to talk.
Our Charism is prayer, we live in the Heart of the Church, as Thérèse said. But, the difference between me & Hugo (also a Carmelite) and the cloistered Discalced Carmelite nuns is that we live in the world, we don’t live in a secluded convent away from everyone. We’re in the world, not of it.
I’m really not supposed to talk.
But, every cloistered Discalced Carmelite Community has their personal story of who make up their community, who they are and what they are like. Every Carmelite has their personality to glorify God. Living for Him doesn’t strip you from you. You tend to live more authentically. In fact, the more you avoid sin, the more sinless you become, the more you are who God really intended you to be. For heaven. When you reach heaven, you’ll be a saint who likes fresh strawberry ice cream and watching clouds go by across blue periwinkle skies at dusk.
So, I talk. :)
And I hope to keep talking. And keep sinning less and less.
May He increase as I decrease.
Seeing that I have a pretty stout digital presence and pretty much live online as a hobby, I thought it was time to offer Teresa a permanent home here.
Contemplation came into mind during the month of October, you see. October is my favoritest month in the world. It is also the month of the Rosary. I began to think of how anyone who prays the Most Holy Rosary really Contemplates. Then I looked around Catholic Social Media — all of it, for all time (I’ve been around awhile) — and thought that if anyone has anything to say about the Faith, if anyone has ever thought deeply about Christ and His Church, or if anyone has ever been inclined to hang around anyone who thought anything about the Faith, thought deeply about Christ and His Church, then they, too, are Contemplatives. They just probably don’t know it.
What is a Contemplative? Do you know?
What is union? What does it mean to meditate? What does it mean to really pray?
For years, I thought about these things. Then I thought about these things in Formation — my immersion in the writings, charisms, and Constitutions of our Primitive Rule as a Secular Discalced Carmelite. Then I thought about how all these things apply to whatever we as Catholics do now to follow Christ and His Church on the straight and narrow.
My husband was right — many Catholics are really Carmelites, they just don’t know it.1
It’s time that I talk about the Contemplative Life.
It’s time that I live the Contemplative Life in the world. The digital world.
If I am going to think and pray before you, then I must ponder the Life of a Contemplative and live it before you, too.
Because, I’ll be honest. It’s hard to be a Contemplative in today’s day and age with so many distractions and distractions built upon new and old distractions alike. So, I thought I’d try to outwit the devil and invite Teresa to keep us company.
If I’m having trouble staying focused and staying offline enough to Contemplate, I personally know by talking about my Holy Mother and her writings, I will definitely be set straight. I need this, sometimes I’m very much still a child.
Madre, you spent so much time writing for & consoling your daughters in teaching them how to pray. Pray for us now, that our minds can be herded like the scattered cats they are, and learn to settle in the Love of His Majesty, as Jesus Himself taught you. Bless my friends who have come here today — all of them, Madre, the Whole World. You said where one of us prays, there is the Church in zealous for Christ. I ask Christ to take care of us all, especially His Church. Speak to Him now, Madre, and His Mother, our Queen of Heaven. Tell her I’m so thankful we wear her habit, I hope to please her with many friends for Our Lord. Kiss my Father for me, I love Him, so. In Jesus name I pray, in union with the Holy Spirit, all placed in the hands of the Blessed Virgin for her intercession. Father, for the sake of His Holy Passion, may we all be One in the name of Your Son, Jesus. Amen.
❤️
in Love,
your veronica
—
In Spiritu Tuo, ad gloriam Patris. 11.13.2023, St. Didacus, St. Frances Cabrini
..just like he’s right about many people are already Catholic, just they just don’t know it.
Enter Contemplative.
I’m visiting the idea of becoming a Third order Carmelite. I can relate so much to what you are saying here. I’ve been naturally contemplative for the majority of my life. I just felt called in this season of my life to make it more official and to be guided by a really great spiritual director of whom I’ve been praying for for years now.