SCHOOL VISIT OF ARD SCOIL nDEISE, DUNGARVAN TO MONASTERY 18 NOVEMBER 2009

An unusual day occurred last  Wednesday in Glencairn when our community opened its doors to 25 6th Year pupils from Ard Scoil na nDeise, Dungarvan, Co.Waterford who came to the monastery for a retreat day to be given by the sisters.

They were accompanied by two teachers and their chaplain Fr. Flor O’Callaghan OSA.

During the day the were introduced to the different elements of our monastic way of life and experienced something of our balance of prayer and work, as prescribed for monks and nuns by Saint Benedict, the 6th Century monk whose Rule for Monasteries we follow.

Sr. Denise explains how her quiet work in solitude leads her to God

They saw how Eucharist Bread  is made by the sisters, one of the ways in which we make our living, and were given enriching talks on prayer by Mother Marie, the Abbess of our community.

The presence of our student visitors was a special addition to our celebration of the Eucharist where they read and sang so beautifully.

Later in the day, two of the younger members of our community shared their stories of their own personal faith journeys and call to the monastic way of life here in Glencairn and the girls had an opportunity to ask question to the sisters!

The students were invited to compose their own prayer petitions to place before God in a time of silent prayer before the Blessed Sacrament, and the day ended with the prayer of None in the Church, sung together with the community.

Since we are an enclosed monastic order and host only a small number of school visits in the monastery every year, we always greatly value this contact with young people, sharing our lives with each other in a meaningful way on these special days.

The sisters say farewell to the students

Thank you, student of Ard Scoil na nDeise and well done for your participation on this retreat day. We remember your needs and intentions particularly during this, your final year at school.

May the Lord show you the path of life and direct your hearts always.

Life and Writings of Brother Rafael (16)

26th February 1938

BLESSED BE THE LORD

 

Blessed by the Lord.  The slightest intimation on his part after a temptation or trial brings great peace to my soul.  A good thought, a word read by chance in a book …. a phrase of the Gospel is enough to dispel my darkness and fill my soul with light.

Bless be God …. a thousand, thousand times blessed by his servant Rafael, who does not know how to express his gratitude for so great a favour and wants only to plunge into the abyss of his nothingness in order to give glory to the greatness of the Lord!

My life is a continual change from desolation to consolation.

The former is periods of sadness and sorrow,, sometimes very deep …. thoughts that disturb me, temptations that cause me to suffer.  The consolations are the same but the other way around, unknown interior joys, longings to suffer, love of the Cross of Jesus that fills my soul with peace and rest in the midst of my solitude and pain, and that I would not change for anything in the world.

Here is a recent example.  The other day I saw everything black, my life dark, enclosed in the infirmary without the sun, without light, without anything that could help to bear the load God has placed upon me …..  sickness, silence, abandonment ….  I do not know ….  My soul was suffering very much; the remembrance of the world, freedom …. overwhelmed me ….  My thoughts were sad, gloomy;  I saw myself devoid of  love for God, forgotten by men, without faith and without light.

The habit weighed me down ….  I was cold and sleepy ….  I don’t know, everything piled up together.  The darkness of the church saddened me;  I gazed at the tabernacle, and it said nothing to me.  I saw myself dead in life;  I saw myself shut up in the monastery like a dead man in a tomb-worse than in a tomb, for there, at least, one rests.

In short, those were my thoughts the other day, before receiving the Lord in Communion.

The idea of being buried alive obsessed me drove me crazy …. the devil was set upon making me suffer with the memory of the world, of light, of freedom ….  And he hinted at the joie de vivre ….. Monks appeared to me like souls in torment, who were also living dead men, suffering the enclosure of the tomb.

All right, I do not know how to explain myself ….  in those moments I would really have wanted to die, really  …. so as not to suffer.  Afterward I saw that this thought was temptation.

With my soul in this state I went to receive the Lord.

I had just knelt down, intending to ask Jesus to comfort my spirit, when I felt great fervour and an immense love for Jesus, and I forgot absolutely all my former thoughts as I remembered some words that I believe Jesus brought to my mind at that moment:  “I am the Resurrection and the Life.”

Why try to express how  much my soul was consoled!

I almost cried with joy upon seeing myself buried alive at the feet of Jesus.  My hands tightened on the crucifix and my heart would have liked to die, but now, for love of Jesus, for love of true life, true freedom.  I would have liked to die on my knees, embracing the Cross, loving God’s will, my illness, my enclosure, my silence, my darkness, my solitude, loving my pain, which, in a moment of  light …. and with a tiny spark of God’s love, is so quickly forgotten.

How petty everything seemed to me!  The world with all its creatures … how insignificant human interests ….  how small the monastery with its monks …. In short, how everything was disappearing before the immense goodness of a God who abases himself to me in order to say:  Why are you suffering?  O  I am health ….  I am the life  ….. What are you looking for here?

Ah!  Good Jesus ….  if men but knew what it is to love you on the Cross!  If  men only suspected what it is to renounce everything for you.

What happiness to live without a will!  What a great treasure it is to be nothing and nobody …  the last  …. what a great treasure is the Cross of Jesus, and how well one lives embracing it-no one can suspect it.

Do with me what you wish, good Jesus ….  Send me consolation when I need it and let not my desolation matter to you; in then is my life my love, my ….I don’t know what I am saying.

Lord, I would like to love your Cross insanely; let me not depart from it.

Look at my life as a Cistercian oblate:  to suffer, to endure, and to love madly everything that God in his infinite love may want to send me.  he it is who does it ….  And f he sends me consolation, he also sends me pain….  How not to love God who does everything for our well-being?  How not to go crazy with happiness on seeing that it is God who sends the Cross?  How not to adore until death that blessed Cross that is our only salvation, resurrection and life?

I do not know …. if I keep on writing I lose myself.

I can say only that in loving the Cross of Christ I have found true happiness and I am happy, absolutely happy, such as no one can suspect when I embrace the blood-soaked Cross and see that Jesus love me, and that Mary also loves me, despite my miseries, my negligence, my sins.

But I am not important.  Only God.

Life and Writings of Brother Rafael (15)

23rd February 1938

I AM THE RESURRECTION AND THE LIFE

 

The sun was beginning to rise. Great peace reigned in nature.  Everything was beginning to wake up …. earth, heaven, birds …. everything little by little was sweetly awakening at the command of God ….  Everything was obeying his divine laws without complaint, without being startled, meekly, sweetly, the light as well as the darkness, the blue sky as well as the hard earth covered with early morning dew.  How good God is, I thought …. There is peace in everything except in the human heart.

And gently, sweetly, God also taught me to obey by means of this sweet and peaceful dawn … Great peace filled my soul ….  Only God is good, I thought,k everything is put in order by him …. What does it matter to me what men do and say ….  For me there must be only one thing in the world: …. Dios.  God, …. who is putting everything in order for my good.

God who makes the sun rise every morning, who melts the hoarfrost, who causes the birds to sing, and who is constantly changing the clouds of the sky into soft colours.

God, who offers me a corner of the earth where I can pray; who gives me a corner where I can wait for what I am awaiting.

God, so good to me that in silence he speaks to my heart and keeps teaching me little by little, with tears perhaps, always with the Cross, to detach this heart from all creatures, not to seek perfection except in him, to show myself to Mary, and to say, “Here is the only perfect creature …. In her you will find the love and charity that you will not find in men.”

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Life and Writings of Brother Rafael (14)

18th February, 1938

 

YOU LORD, ARE MY HOPE

Lord, Lord, do not delay.  Help me.  See how my feet are so wobbly if I see myself alone.  Look, I do not know how far I shall go,, and I would like, Lord, to go to the finish, but when I see my feet bloody and in such great pain …. will I endure?

Do not leave me, good Jesus.  Protect me, Virgin Mary.

I do not know why I am writing this … I do not know the purpose.  Who is going to read my weaknesses and my miseries?  I do not know and do not care, but it is a consolation for me, since I communicate with no one, to cover sheets of paper and write as if I were writing to Jesus himself.  Perhaps this will serve as my prayer and he will hear me.

Sweet solitude that makes the soul come closer to Jesus and seek only him.

Sweet penance, unknown to men, that causes one to weep in silence without anyone other than Jesus being aware of it.

Happy-happy a thousandfold- when at the foot of the Cross of Christ I recount my afflictions to him and only to him; I offer him my deep happiness at seeing myself loved by him;  at other times, I offer him my aching and distressed soul that sees itself so alone in tribulation;  I water the wood with my penitent tears …. And I sing and weep; and …. I only know to ask for love …. love in order to wait …. love, to suffer …. love, to enjoy ….  And there are moments when nothing in the world matters to me-neither man nor beast, neither darkness nor sun.  ….  There are moments when I even forget hunger …. I should like to die with my arms around the Cross of Jesus, kissing his wounds, drowning myself in his divine blood, forgotten by everything and by everyone.

Happy, a thousand times happy am I, although in my weakness I complain sometimes.

I desire nothing.  I want nothing except to do God’s will meekly and humbly, to die someday embracing his Cross and to go to him in the arms of the Most Holy Virgin Mary.

So be it.

 

 

Life and Writings of Brother Rafael (13)

1st January 1938

THE VOW

 

The first day of January, 1938.  At prayer this morning I made a vow.  I vowed to love Jesus always.  I have realised what my vocation is.

I am not a religious;…. not a secular; …. I am nothing.

God be blessed, I am nothing more than a soul in love with Christ.  He wants nothing else except my love, and he wants it detached from everything and from everyone.

Virgin Mary, help me to keep my vow.  To love Jesus in everything, for everything, and always; …. just love.  Humble, generous, detached, mortified love in silence; …. may life be solely an act of love.

I see clearly that it is God’s will that I not make religious vows, or follow the Rule of Saint Benedict in everything.  Am I to want something that God does not want?

Jesus gives me an incurable disease, it is his will that I humble my pride before the misery of the flesh.  God sends me illness.  Should I not love everything Jesus sends me?

With immense love I kiss the blessed hand of God who gives health when he wishes and takes it away when it pleases him.  Job said that since we receive good things from God with joy, why should we not receive bad things?

But can all that keep me from loving him? No; …. I must love him insanely.  Life of love!

Here I have my rule, my vow …. Here is the only reason for living. 

The year 1938 is beginning.  What is God preparing for me in this year? O do not know;…. perhaps it does not matter to me; it is all the same to me, provided I do not offend him …. I belong to God, let him do with me what he wills.

Today I am offering him a new year in which I want nothing to reign other than a life of sacrifice, of abnegation, of detachment, guided only by love for Jesus …. by a very pure love.

I should like, my Lord, to love you as no one else has.  I should like to spend this life touching the earth  only with my feet;  without pausing to look at so much misery; without delaying for any creature, with my heart on fire with divine love and buoyed by hope.

I should like, Lord, to look only at heaven, where you are waiting for me, where Mary is, where the angels and saints are blessing you forever; they passed through the world just loving your law and observing your divine precepts.

Lord, how greatly do I desire to love you!

Help me, Mother mine!

I must love solitude for God puts me in it.

I must obey blindly, for it is God who commands me.

I must mortify my senses continually.

I must be patient in community life.

I must exercise myself in humility.

I must do it all for God and for Mary.

Life and Writings of Brother Rafael (12)

 

HUMILITY

31 December 1937

More and more I realise that the most practical virtue for peace in community life is humility.

Humility before God helps us towards trust, for humility is knowledge of oneself; and he who knows himself, can he hope for anything from himself?  He would be insane if he did not expect everything from God.

Humility brings peace into our relationships; with it there are no arguments, no envy, no offence possible; …. who can offend nothingness itself?

I lovingly ask Mary to teach me what she mastered:…. humility before God and before man.

Life and Writings of Brother Rafael (11)

29th December, 1937

 PERSEVERANCE  IN  PRAYER

One hour of prayer without a thought of God.  I hardly realized it; time had passed.  The clock struck five o’clock and I had already been an hour on my knees.

And prayer?  I do not know ….  I did not pray …. I was thinking of myself, my personal sufferings, and memories of the world.

And Jesus and Mary?  Nothing ….  I have only selfishness, little faith, and much pride!

So important do I believe myself to be ….  so highly do I consider myself!  Poor little fellow!  A tiny speck of insignificant dust in the eyes of God; since you do not know how to benefit from prayer, learn to humiliate yourself before him and then you will humiliate yourself better before men.

Lord, have mercy on me ….  I am suffering, yes ….  but would that my suffering were not so selfish;  I should like,  Lord, to suffer for your pains on the Cross, for the forgetfulness of men, for my sins and those of others;…. for everything, my God except for myself.

What do I amount to in creation?  What am I before you?  What does my hidden life represent in infinite eternity?  If I could forget myself, it would be better, Lord.

I have nothing else but refined self-love and, to repeat and repeat, a lot of vanity.

With Mary’s help I shall try to amend.  I will make the intention that every time a worldly thought comes to disturb me, I will have recourse to you, Virgin Mary, and I will say a Salve for all those who offend you in the world. 

Instead of meditating on my sufferings …. meditate on gratitude and love God in my own wretchedness.

I will persevere in prayer even though I should be wasting time.

Life and Writings of Brother Rafael (10)

21 December 1937

I must convince myself of one thing, that all I do is for God;  the joys he sends me, the tears he gives me, the food I take for his sake, and when I sleep it is for him.

My rule is his will, and his wish is my law.  I live because it pleases him; I shall die when he wants it. I desire nothing apart from God.

May my life be a constant Fiat.

May the Most Holy Virgin help me and guide me on this short road of life in the world.

Life and Writings of Brother Rafael (9)

16 December 1937

After a long interval (almost a year) spent in my parents’  home recovering from a bad spell with my sickness, I am back at the monastery to continue following my vocation, which is solely to love God in sacrifice and renunciation, with no rule other that blind obedience to his divine will.

I believe today that I am doing just that by obeying, without vows and in the quality of an oblate, the superiors of the Cistercian Abbey of San Isidro de Duenas.

God asks nothing more of me than humble love and a spirit of sacrifice.  yesterday, when I left home, my parents, brothers and sister, was one of the days I suffered the most.

This is the fourth time that in order to follow Jesus I am leaving everything, and I believe that this time it was a miracle of God, because it is certain that of my own strength I could not have come to the infirmary of this Trappist monastery, to go through hardships, bodily hunger due to my illness, and loneliness of heart, for I find that man is very far away …. Only God.  Only God.

This is my theme song …. it is my only thought.

I am suffering a great deal; …. Mary, Mother mine, help me ….

I have come for various reasons.

First: I believe that in the monastery I will fulfill better my vocation of loving God on the Cross and in sacrifice.

Second: To help my brothers fight because Spain is at war.

Third: To make good use of the time that God gives me of life and to learn quickly to love his Cross.

Only to this do I aspire in the monastery.

Frist: to unite myself absolutely and entirely with the will of Jesus.

Second: to live only to love and to suffer.

Third: to be the last except in obedience.

The only thing this poor oblate wants today is that the Most Holy Virgin Mary take my resolutions in her saintly hands and place them at the feet of Jesus.

Life and Writings of Brother Rafael (8)

15th December 1936

FREEDOM

 

The man who meditates a little will see how mistaken the world is in the midst of what it calls freedom; he will see that true freedom is often enclosed within the four walls of a monastery.

Freedom of the body is not  freedom, for it is subject to carnal man, to his flesh and his passions, and in the spiritual  man to his spirit.

Freedom of spirit is also not true freedom for while it lives in the flesh it is a prisoner unable to fly.

Where, then is freedom?

It is in the man whose soul is not attached to the spirit or to the material, but only to God.

It is in the soul that is not subject to the egotistical me; in the soul that rises above its own thoughts, its own sentiments, its own sufferings and joys.  Freedom exists in that soul whose only reason for living is God, whose life is God and nothing else but God.

The human spirit is small, puny; it is subject to a thousand variations, highs and lows, depressions, deceptions, and so forth, and to the body with so many weaknesses.

Freedom is, then, in God; and the soul that truly passes over all things and affirms him in his life can be said, by one who is still in the world, to enjoy freedom whatever his situation.

He who clings to something that is not God or to that which represents him indirectly, such as for example the love of neighbour, the saints, the most Blessed Virgin, who sets his heart upon something outside of him, does not know what it is to enjoy freedom, although he might traverse the skies of Spain in a plane and all the countries of the earth in the speediest train.

To love God!  To live in the infinite!  To rejoice in the shutting in of the body and spirit so that the soul may fly to God …. so that it may plunge into the infinite beauties of the Eternal in order to soar into the regions of the supernatural on the wings of divine love!

This is freedom