Pentecost Birthday

If I could only make you realize the happiness of a soul who gives herself to the Holy Spirit wholly and without reserve! She is no longer the one who acts, it is God…She moves only to follow the Spirit’s inspirations. Everything becomes easy to her: the Holy Spirit has taken possession of her…If the happiness of an individual is so great, how much greater that of a Society that allows itself to be wholly guided by the Spirit and gives itself without reserve….It would be heavenly! What peace, what union and, at the same time, how much good would be accomplished.
Madeleine Sophie Barat, Pentecost, 6-2-1827

Every time I read the above quotation I resolve anew to give myself to the Holy Spirit "wholly and without reserve!" I remember as a young religious on the eve of the opening of summer school the Reverend Mother Vicar apologized for not naming the Religious who was to teach one of the courses that summer. She said, "I know this has been upsetting for some of you, but I had to wait for the Holy Spirit to tell me; the Religious has now been told and will be on the night train." I have never forgotten that and felt consoled to think that it was the Holy Spirit making the decisions. I suspect it was not a consolation to the Academic Dean of the College!

I am so grateful for the action of the Spirit in my life. As I look back over the years it is easy to see that many of the crossroads in my life were decided by the Holy Spirit. What a grace to know that we have received the Holy Spirit!

Sequence for the Mass of the Holy Spirit

Does this image convey the Holy Spirit at work in our daily lives?

Here is the promised Sequence:
Come, Holy Spirit, come!
And from your celestial home
Shed a ray of light divine!
Come, Father of the poor!
Come, source of all our store!
Come, within our bosoms shine.
You, of comforters the best;
You, the soul's most welcome guest;
Sweet refreshment here below;
In our labor, rest most sweet;
Grateful coolness in the heat;
Solace in the midst of woe.
O most blessed Light divine,
Shine within these hearts of yours,
And our inmost being fill!
Where you are not, we have naught,
Nothing good in deed or thought
Nothing free from taint of ill.
Heal our wounds, our strength renew;
On our dryness pour your dew;
Wash the stains of guilt away;
Bend the stubborn heart and will;
Melt the frozen, warm the chill;
Guide the steps that go astray.
On the faithful, who adore
And confess you, evermore
In your sevenfold gift descend;
Give them virtue's sure reward;
Give them your salvation, Lord; Give them joys that never end.
Amen. Alleluia.

I hope you were struck by a line and will take time to pray over it.

The Holy Spirit

The Holy Spirit is often depicted as a dove, a symbol of peace. We forget how really dynamic the Holy Spirit is!
Last Sunday, to prepare for Pentecost, I asked the community to use the Sequence of the Mass for May 31 as a Lectio Divina - I read it slowly aloud and then, after a pause for reflection, read it again. Then we had a prayerful silence before a fruitful sharing. Each had been asked to say what line or phrase had struck her and we all had chosen different phrases. I am going to copy the sequence for you tomorrow for those who want to use it for prayer.
In the meantime we can be with Mary and the Apostles in prayer as they awaited the promised coming of the Holy Spirit who would transform them with his sevenfold gifts.

Prayer of Sophie

I thought today that I would share with you a prayer that St. Madeleine Sophie said everyday.
O Sacred Heart of Jesus,
Give me a heart that is one with your own;
A humble heart that knows and loves its nothingness;
A gentle heart that holds and calms its own anxieties;
A loving heart that has compassion for the suffering of others;
A pure heart that recoils even at the appearance of evil;
A detached heart that longs for nothing other than the goodness of heaven;
A heart detached from self-love and embraced by the love of God,
Its attention focused on God, its goodness is its only treasure
In time and eternity. Amen.

As we prepare for Pentecost, let us remember that Sophie also said:
"Let us pray to the Holy Spirit to guide us, then we will act on the Spirit's gentle inspiration."

It is the season now to develop our relationship with the Holy Spirit, our Advocate and Comforter! It is also the Holy Spirit who transforms us and can give us a heart more like the Heart of Jesus - humble, gentle, loving, pure, detached, compassionate...

I keep going back to a chapter in Carlos Martini's book on the Gospel of Paul that speaks of three attitudes that Paul had after his transformation experience: joy, gratitude, and praise. We see these attitudes in Paul's letters and I hope others can see them reflected in my own life. I think they are worth cultivating, but only God can give us the grace to live with a joyful, grateful heart and one full of praise. Martini also speaks of Paul's never giving up but always bouncing back when rejected, thrown out, etc. I guess this is the grace of perseverance! He also acted with great freedom; when we seek only God, it makes us free.

Growing Older

This will just be a personal reflection as I approach my 78th birthday. First, I admit that I am growing older and that I can look back now on a life full of graces. This gives me both joy and gratitude. I can never begin to thank the Lord enough for all the gifts and graces he has bestowed on me. I suspect that one of the joys of old age is being able to look back and name these graces.

Relationships are precious and fill me with gratitude for so many wonderful people that the Lord has put into my life. I also find myself wanting to reach out to others and keep these relationships - some are now in the Communion of Saints, but what a blessing to have so many friends in heaven; I also am now making an effort to stay in touch with the friends left on earth. It gives me joy, too, to find that the Lord keeps sending new friends into my life; the Internet makes it easy to share our lives with one another.

I am finding time now just to allow the Lord to love me. I no longer think it is my activity that counts, but am content just to do what the Lord shows me is pleasing to him. Resting in his heart is becoming my main occupation - or at least the desire for this quiet being with the Lord no matter what the day brings. (At least this is true on some days!)

I think there is also a certain wisdom that comes with growing older; we see things in perspective and have a better grasp of the essential. I suspect I am also more aware of my own limitations and that helps me to be humble and keep silence, to discern and be content with God. What more can we want?

Preparing for Pentecost

Next Sunday, May 31, is the Feast of Pentecost. It is also my birthday and I will be seventy-eight years old and happy that I have had so many years filled with grace and with God's love. It is lovely to have the Feast of the Holy Spirit coincide this year with my birthday. St. Madeleine Sophie loved the Holy Spirit; in her letters of spiritual direction fidelity to the Holy Spirit was urged over and over again. In a letter to Adrienne Michel written in June of 1811 when Mother Barat was only thirty-two years old, she wrote: "Be very faithful to the Holy Spirit; you realize that he wants great things of you, and the fruit of this fidelity is beyond description; all my distress comes from my failures in this. If I could live my life over again, it would be to obey the Holy Spirit and act under his impulse only." She added that these were vain regrets for no one can be born again. At least it is possible "to begin to live today with that divine superhuman life, and the more time we have wasted so far, the more urgently we should begin." Then she tells Adrienne that she is fortunate for she is so much younger!

Feast of St. Madeleine Sophie and Memorial Day

We have a national holiday today as it is Memorial Day in the United States. We are invited to the other RSCJ community tonight for prayer and dinner to celebrate Sophie. It seems fitting that my blog entry today be the final entry in Sophie's Journal; it sums up te main thrust of Mother Barat's direction to the novices. In her notes for the last conference she said: "After having outlined all that God has done for us, the graces He unceasingly showers on us, especially the profusion of graces He has just given us in the retreat, I added that we should regard ourselves as the most despised of all creatures if we were not fully determined to detach ourselves from all, even ourselves, and to make the most generous sacrifices for our Lord which are necessary to respond to the greatness of our vocation. In the world, when it is a question of some human success, people make great sacrifices to succeed; what would they say, then, if we, Spouses of Jesus Christ, are cowardly in pursuing His interests?"

The excerpts from the Journal of Sophie have allowed us to glimpse her spirituality as it developed at the beginning of her government of the Society as Superior General. Centered on the Heart of Jesus, her spirituality was full of joy and freedom at this time. She stressed the importance of prayer and the interior life because she was convinced that without this foundation union and conformity with the Heart of Jesus was not possible.

Sophie's Journal - 22

Today I promised to tell you about Suzanne Geoffroy. She had a very interesting life before she joined the novices in Poitiers on the Feast of St. Teresa of Avila in 1807. She liked to tell how she had been brought up by an uncle and "as my education cost him less than fifteen francs, I have never been able to spell a word the same way twice." When the Revolution began and religious orders were suppressed, she formed her own community which assisted persecuted priests and religious during the Reign of Terror. Her great object in life was "to establish a Society following the Rule of St. Ignatius, which should be devoted to the Sacred Heart and to the salvation of souls."
Suzanne's community became the nucleus of Father Coudrin's order of the "Religious of the Sacred Hearts and of Perpetual Adoration." Suzanne was "overtaken by calumny and advised to retire to a convent in La Vendee." Shortly after Mother Barat arrived in Poitiers in July of 1806, Suzanne begged to enter but was refused. Later, when the Vicar General of te diocese asked Mother Barat to make a foundation at Niort, she replied: "Very well, on the condition that you give me Suzanne Geoffroy. I know her. She will suit me perfectly."
When Suzanne entered the community at Poitiers, Mother Barat wrote: "Though she was forty-four years of age and had been Superior for fourteen years, she fulfilled all her duties as a novice with the most exemplary humility and obedience."

The older novice had one of the most exciting stories to tell, but when the candle-flame approached the pin she summed up: "I obeyed; I came; Mother Barat received me and here I am."

Sister Geoffroy made her vows on the Feast of the Sacred Heart, 1808. Mother Barat named her superior of the new foundation at Niort.

Sophie's Journal - 21

Mother Barat's love for the poor made her long for free education for poor children. She said: "By our vocation we ought to welcome this kind of good work; it saddened me that this house had not been able to undertake one of the aims of our Institutions."
Her joy was great when she could finally open a school for the poor at Poitiers. The Pastors in all the nearby parishes were informed by a circular letter. They were asked to send children who would be taught by the religious to read, calculate, and sew, as well as learn their catechism. Soon ninety were enrolled; the boarding school also increased to twenty-seven by the beginning of 2008.
Mother Barat wanted every house to have a school for the poor and to give their best teachers for this work. She said in her Journal, "I have designated the two religious who are most fervent and filled with the Holy Spirit, Mothers Suzanne Geoffroy and Therese Maillucheau, to share the work with the youngest children." The preference for the poor and for the youngest children was characteristic of Mother Barat. She thought highly of both Suzanne and Therese and said that "these are chosen by God and are faithful to him."
After such praise, it is tempting to look at what Mother Barat wrote elsewhere in her Journal about both of these religious. Therese had a gift for prayer; Mother Barat had chosen her as superior when she had to be away and had made her second in charge with the title of "assistant". She wrote of her: "she loves our Lord with extreme ardor, and is very humble, very straightforward, and very simple. She follows in St. Teresa's footsteps, and what more can I say?
Tomorrow we will look at Suzanne Geoffroy who was nearly twenty years older than Sophie when she became a novice in 1807.

Sophie's Journal - 20

Following the spirit of St. Ignatius, Mother Barat held to the two daily "examens", or examinations of conscience, that Saint Ignatius thought so important. "Spiritual reading" was valued as a means of nourishing prayer. Mother Barat explained to the novices how they should pause to reflect on what had most touched them. She felt that the novices did not retain what they read because they did not reflect enough. As always, she pointed out the need for recollection.
In November the novices made the Spiritual Exercises under the direction of Father Lambert. Mother Barat permitted lay people to join the novices in the Chapel for the retreat instructions. Inviting others to make the retreat was a powerful way to bring them closer to the Heart of Jesus. The work of retreats was encouraged by Mother Barat from the beginning; it would be one of the four chief "works" of the Society mentioned in the Constitutions.
After the retreat, Mother Barat received the first widow into the novitiate conditionally. She wrote: "I could not give her a definite answer since it is not decided whether we will receive widows in our Society." The widow was Mme. de Chasseloup from Bordeaux. Mother Barat pointed out that "although she is not young, she is full of zeal for all that is the end of our vocation." Her entrance into the Society is recorded for December.

Going over some of these excerpts from Sophie's Journal has called me to new reflections. In fact, her words are a continuous call to strive to live the ideals she called her novices to way back in 1806.

Ascension Thursday

Although Ascension Thursday has a long history of being celebrated as the 40th day after Easter when Jesus left the Apostles and "ascended into heaven", most dioceses in the United States now have transfered the Feast of the Ascension to Sunday. We want to prepare ourselves to enter this mystery.

In the opening prayer we ask God to make us joyful in the ascension of his Son, Jesus Christ. Imagine God's joy to have Jesus ascend, body and soul...

There are two Prefaces in the Liturgy for the Ascension: the first says that today "the Lord Jesus, King of Glory, conqueror of sin and death, ascended to heaven while the angels sang his praises. Christ, the mediator between God and man, judge of the world and Lord of all, has passed beyond our sight, not to abandon us but to be our hope. Christ is the beginning, the head of the Church; where he has gone, we hope to follow."

Both Prefaces give hope. In the second we read that Jesus, "in his risen body plainly showed himself to his disciples and was taken up to heaven in their sight to claim for us a share in his divine life."

St. Madeleine Sophie died on the Feast of the Ascension. An old Sacred Heart custom in our boarding schools was to gather just before noon on Ascension Thursday and sing "Beau Ciel" and think of Jesus ascending to his Father.

Sophie's Journal-19

Whatever Mother Barat saw in prayer, she tried to put into practice. She did not just talk about humility and suffering but lived what she said. She terminated the conference given at the end of her retreat by asking to kiss the feet of the novices. In her Journal she admitted: "The next day I had to stay in bed because of an attack of rheumatism." This attack was very painful and lasted several days. Mother Barat noted: "I was delighted to have something to suffer, but thanked God that the attack had not come during the retreat for I would not have been able to continue it."
Shortly before the retreat Mother Barat had learned that a projected foundation to be made at Niort had fallen through because the owner of the boarding school decided not to turn it over to her. Always seeing God's action in people, events, and circumstances, Mother Barat accepted this calmly. Her humility made her turn to God and she included in her Journal a prayer straight from her heart:
O God, you know what we are and what we can do by ourselves: if you do not sustain us by your grace and hold our your hand to us, what can we do? Poor, ignorant, and weak, are we capable of doing anything without your help?...But it is a consolation to know that you do have need of human help to carry our your plans. Did you not choose a dozen poor and ignorant apostles to preach the Gospel to the whole world? Our weakness does not discourage me; on the contrary, ordinarily you choose the weakest to confound the strongest."

Sophie's Journal - 18

On coming out of retreat, Mother Barat gave the novices a summary of the subjects on which she had been meditating. She had followed the Spiritual Exercises of Saint Ignatius. Her notes give insight into her spirituality. She wrote: "I am made for God and to possess Him eternally." She pondered the "Principle and Foundation: and said that "these deep truths are capable of renewing our fervor in order to do anything the Holy Spirit asks for the reform of our life and the perfection to which we are called."
In the "Second Week"-(Ignatius divided his Exercises into four "weeks" but this does not mean a week of seven days but is a division that can be lengthened or shortened according to the graces received during the time period)- of the Spiritual Exercises Mother Barat told the novices that she had meditated on the life of Our Lord and the virtues of which he has given us an example, especially his poverty, humility, and obedience. She declared "when we are on fire with love for Him who has so loved us all becomes easy." She saw the Paschal Mystery as a whole and did not make any distinction in her notes between the "Third" and "Fourth" weeks of the Spiritual Exercises. She pointed out that the Lord's resurrection and triumphant entry into heaven should be a motive to sustain us in our troubles for "if we imitate him we will have the same happiness. Let us look at our Crucifix in all our difficulties; it is this which gives us courage."

I have been reading a new book by David Fleming, S.J. on Ignatian Spirituality as we are adding it for the International Online Certificate Program in Spirituality Studies for the first Unit next September. Anyone reading it will have a grasp of the Spiritual Exercises of St. Ignatius and, hopefully, a desire to make them. Creighton University has an online retreat of 32 weeks for anyone interested. I have made this myself, but find they offer too much material so I counsel using only what really helps you and leave the rest.

Sophie's Journal - 17

Mother Barat often used anecdotes to illustrate the point she was making in her conference. While giving a talk on the Rules of Modesty, she recounted how Saint Francis of Assisi went out with one of his companions saying: "Let us go and preach." After having made the rounds of the town, he returned to the monastery. His companion protested: "Father, you said you wished to preach." To which Francis replied that he had just done so. He made him understand that by their modesty they had produced more fruit than if he had given a long sermon.

Mother Barat began her retreat in February. She told the novices that in order to help them she was entering into solitude with God because to guide you in the paths of sanctity I must be there myself." Therese Maillucheau wrote a description of Mother Barat's first retreat at Poitiers: "In the garden was an isolated little chapel dedicated to Saint Joseph where our Mother went into solitude and where she gave free rein to the tender effusions of her heart for God. No one under any pretext could go to her." She also said that during this time "our Mother remained in the depths of God, heart to heart with Jesus, speaking only to her confessor, and that briefly. We only saw her in the evening, at the far end of the chapel when she came to visit the Blessed Sacrament."

Sophie remained in retreat more than the usual eight days. She wrote in the Journal, "I finished my retreat at the end of thirteen days. I would have liked to prolong it still, but I thought before God that I should give up my own satisfaction in favor of the duty of being in the midst of my sisters."

I have been blessed with the grace of having made several retreats of 30 days and none has seemed long to me. I have also given the 30-day to retreat to priests and religious brothers and sisters and it is always a grace. In Chile I gave many directed retreats every summer and each was a grace for me. This summer the directed retreat I will be making is only six days but I will take a few days hopefully somewhere before starting back at the University. If you have not had a retreat where you can sink into silence with God, I suggest you make one. It is such a grace!

Sophie's Journal - 16

In January 1807 Mother Barat "gave a conference on the way to give conferences." Unfortunately, she did not record any notes of that conference in her Journal. It would be interesting to know what she said to novices about giving conferences!
Mother Barat does mention in her Journal the different feasts for which she gave talks to the novices. St. Hilary, the patron saint of the diocese, merited a conference. Mother Barat was always interested in the local as well as the universal Church. Love of the Church was characteristic of her spirituality from the beginning.

For the Feast of the Holy Name of Jesus, Mother Barat explained that all their joy and consolation should be in the Divine Name of Jesus which should be unceasingly on their lips. Because the original inspiration of the Society had been drawn from the Society of Jesus, the novices should have "greater recourse to the Divine Name and pronounce it with greater devotion."

Sophie's Journal 15

In 1806, on the octave day of the feast of the Immaculate Conception, Mother Barat gave a conference on "the means to attain union with God: Union which must be their happiness on earth while awaiting perfect union in Heaven." The means consisted in "purifying their hearts from all that could hinder the infinitely holy God, who is also a jealous God, from dwelling within them." Detachment was the way to purification of heart. Intimate union should be "the end of all their desires." Mother Barat told the novices: "Try to detach your heart from all that is not God in order to prepare for Him a worthy dwelling place, and He will fill it and be your happiness."

Her words still are true today. Am I detached from all that is not God?

Sopie's Journal - 14

In promoting devotion to the Immaculate Conception, Mother Barat was ahead of her time. Before the feast she told the novices: "We who have such a need for protection should have recourse to her with confidence, rejoicing that our Blessed Mother has been preserved from the corruption of original sin; she will obtain for us the help that is so necessary for us to overcome our tendency to evil." Mary was to be their model. Devotion to the Immaculate Conception was promulgated by Mother Barat long vefore it was proclaimed a dogma by the Church. This devotion expressed itself in a tradition of serious novenas, patronal feasts for the boarding schools, and the solemn "lily procession" on the 8th of December each year. I still remember the lovely procession when I was in boarding school at the Academy of the Sacred Heart in St. Charles. Each of us in white dresses, veils, and carrying a lily went before the statue of Our Lady and solemnly presented our lily saying (I think I have the words right but remember this was over sixty years ago), "O Mary, I give thee the lily of my heart; be thou its guardian forever." And this tradition was kept in all the Sacred Heart schools all over the world!!

Sophie's Journal-13

On the Feast of the Presentation of Our Lady, Mother Barat and Henriette Girard renewed their vows. The night before the Feast, Mother Barat told the novices that "if they could not yet consecrate themselves to Jesus forever by vows, they could do so by desire and give themselves entirely and generously to God following the example of the Blessed Virgin Mary." They were to place themselves under her protection and ask her for the grace to be faithful to their vocation.
St. Francis Xavier had been chosen as patron of the house as Mother Barat had great confidence in his intercession. To prepare for his feast she proposed a double novena spending the nine days before the feast and the nine after it asking the saint for "the virtues which are most necessary to fulfill our vocation: humility, the spirit of recollection and zeal for the salvation of souls."
These are still the virtues needed for union and conformity with the Heart of Jesus in the spirituality of Madeleine Sophie.

I think that whatever our state in life we are called to have humility, a certain spirit of recollection, and zeal for the salvation of others. Where do I see this in my own daily, ordinary life? Maybe it would be good to make a novena asking Sophie to give me these necessary virtues and make it nine days before her feast and nine days after it. We need to begin soon as her feast is May 25.

Sophie's Journal - 12

On the eve of the Feast of St. Stanislaus, Mother Barat gave the novices a conference, for she had chosen this young Jesuit saint as patron of the novitiate. They were to contemplate him from different viewpoints: "to look at what he had been in the world; what he accomplished in the six months from his entrance into the novitiate until his death; and what God had done for him, that is to say, all the graces God had given him because of his fidelity." God brought him to highest sanctity at only eighteen. Mother Barat recorded in her Journal that she was not proposing an extraordinary model to the novices because "Stanislaus did nothing extraordinary except love God in all his actions."

All the novices of the Society of the Sacred Heart have St. Stanislaus as their patron. How important it is to learn that lesson of doing all with love; we, too, are to love God in all our actions!

Sopie's Journal continued -11

Let us return to the Journal of St. Madeleine Sophie that she kept in Poitiers in 1806. Mother Barat felt that recreation was an important part of the novices' life. It was a bit different from what we would call "recreation" today. They had formal times of recreation together every day and Sophie wanted them to be both joyful and spiritually stimulating. She encouraged the novices to share the stories of their vocations. The action of God was evident in many of the adventures suffered during the Revolution; the stories grew longer until time had to be measure for each by sticking a pin in a lighted candle.
Outside the hours of recreation, silence was to be kept. Therese Maillucheau's "notes" on the early days at Poitiers emphasize how strict Mother Barat was about silence. Stillness was to reign in the house; silence was conducive to interior life. Mother Barat taught by example.
Today, we need to build silence into our lives. We can still practice "silence of action" and many do. It was said of Reverend Mother Stuart that she studied each door knob so that she could go in and out without ever disturbing anyone by the slightest noise.

We do not stick a pin in a candle, but sometimes when RSCJs get together to share we have used egg timers!! Having a limit for sharing enables all to have time to be heard. It is good to be able to share our lives with others. With whom do you share?