Mysticism/Holiness Seminar/Retreat 2019

A Novena Prayer with Adrienne von Speyr – Day 2

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Prayer for Indifference

(From “With God And With Men” Prayers by Adrienne von Speyr.  Translated by Dr. Adrian Walker)

Lord, you know that I would like to serve you but that I am still attached to my work and to my judgment; that I am constantly scurrying back into myself to survey everything from my angle of vision: that I do this in order not to do that, that I desire this and loathe that. Whereas you showed us in every moment of your earthly life, and especially on the Cross, what it means to do the will of another. For you this other was the Father, the Father who is so perfect that you regarded every one of his decisions as perfect and accepted it in advance, without sizing it up first yourself. Not because of any judgment you might have arrived at after trying and weighing each case, but out of love. Your love for the Father took the place of your personal scrutiny once and for all. And you have also given the gift of this love to your saints; and your saint Ignatius has spoken and has written about it and has shown how the will of the superior, the will of the Father, the divine will pure and simple, is the decisive motive for the one who loves, for the one who no longer cares for anything but the wish of the beloved.

Grant us a share in this power of your Sonship, allow us to learn to love the Father in the way that you love him, to come to him through you and your filial attitude, to become obedient by the strength of your perfect obedience, to become indifferent by your indifference.

Grant that we may no longer seek our own interests in anything, but that, together with Saint Ignatius, our interest may go immediately to you, and we ourselves may become indifferent to the very core of our heart; not in order to lose all interest in you and the world, but in order to begin, at long last, to love you and the Father in the Holy Spirit above all things. Amen.

With St. Ignatius of Loyola we pray:

(The Suscipe Prayer)

Take, Lord, and receive all my liberty,
my memory, my understanding,
and my entire will,
All I have and call my own.

You have given all to me.
To you, Lord, I return it.

Everything is yours; do with it what you will.
Give me only your love and your grace,
that is enough for me.

Our Father. Hail Mary. Glory be.

Father, we ask that through the intercession of Adrienne von Speyr those called to live Christian discipleship might do so with ever-greater fidelity. Grant that, day-by-day, your love might burn and your Spirit might blow more intensely within us. In the presence of the Mother of your Son, your angels and saints, and the whole heavenly court, we beg this grace in the name of your Son, our Lord Jesus Christ. Amen.

 

 

St. Therese of Lisieux Novena – Day 1

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Day 1

St. Therese you have said:

“I understood that every flower created by him is beautiful, that the brilliance of therose and the whiteness of the lily do not lessen the perfume of the violet or the sweet simplicity of the daisy. I understood that if all the lowly flowers wished to be roses, nature would no longer be enamelled with lovely hues. And so it is in the world of souls, our Lord’s living garden.”

Saint Therese, flower of Carmel,
you said you would spend your heaven
doing good upon the earth.
Your trust in God was complete.

Listen to my prayer;
bring before God my special intention…
Pray for me that I may have something of your confidence
in the loving promises of our God.
Pray that I may live my life in union with God’s plan for me,
and one day see the Face of God who you so ardently loved.

Saint Therese,
you kept your word to love God
and to trust the world to that loving providence.
Pray for us that we may be faithful to our commitment to love.
May our lives, like yours,
be able to touch the world and bring it to peace.

Amen

Visit here for the complete 9 Day St. Therese Novena

St. Elizabeth of the Trinity Novena Day 1

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 Day One – For the grace to enter into great silence

In this nine days of prayer with Saint Elizabeth of the Trinity, we will offer her oblation to the Trinity, “O My God whom I adore. “ Elizabeth wrote this prayer to help souls seek a spiritually mature relationship with God. This journey to spiritual maturity progresses by way of silence, an interior silence. This is not an empty silence or an alienated one. It is a silence that is vigilant for the new work that the Holy Trinity is waiting to do in us. On this first day of this Novena, let us begin by recalling Saint Elizabeth’s mission – a mission completely oriented to the powerful silence in which the soul encounters the fullness of God. She writes, shortly before her death:

I suppose that in heaven my mission will be to attract souls
Helping them go out of themselves
To cleave to God by a entirely simple and loving movement
And to keep them inside this great silence
That will allow God to imprint Himself in them
And transform them into Himself. L 335

That this mission might be realized in us, and that we might enter into great silence, and through Saint Elizabeth’s intercession, remain there, let us pray:

O My God, Trinity whom I adore, help me to forget myself entirely so as to be established in you as still and as peaceful as if my soul were already in eternity. May nothing be able to disturb my peace, nor make me depart from you, o my Unchanging One, but may each moment carry me further into the depths of your Mystery. Pacify my soul, make it your heaven, your beloved abode, your resting place. May I never leave you there alone, but may I be entirely present, my faith completely ready, wholly adoring, fully surrendered to your creative action.

O my beloved Christ, crucified by love, I would like to be a bride for your heart. I would like to cover you with glory, I would like to love you… unto death. I feel my powerlessness, however, and I ask you to clothe me with yourself, to identify my soul with all the movements of your soul, to defeat me, to overwhelm me, to substitute yourself for me, that my life might be but the radiation of your Life. Come into me as Adorer, as Healer, as Savior. O Eternal Word, Word of my God, I want to spend my life listening to you, I want to be completely docile, ready to learn everything from you. Then, through all nights, all voids, all weakness, I want to fixate on you always and to remain under your great light. O My beloved Star, fascinate me so that I would not be able to forsake your shining light.

O Consuming Flame, Spirit of love, come over me until my soul is render into an incarnation of the Word; may I be for Him another humanity in which he renews His whole Mystery.

And you, O Father, bend over your little creature, cover her with your shadow, and see in her only the Beloved in whom You are well-pleased.
O my Three, my All, my Beatitude, Infinite Solitude, Immensity in which I loose myself, I surrender myself as prey. Bury yourself in me in order that I might bury myself in you, while waiting to contemplate in your light the immeasurable depths of your grandeur.

Amen

The Novena to St. Elizabeth of the Trinity is authored by Dr. Anthony Lilles S.T.D.

For the entire 9-Day Novena to St. Elizabeth of the Trinity

A Novena Prayer with Adrienne von Speyr – Day 1

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Prayer for Renewal of Spirit

(From “With God And With Men” Prayers by Adrienne von Speyr.  Translated by Dr. Adrian Walker)

Dear Lord, you see how we get used to everything.
It was with joy that we once took up your service, firmly resolved to be totally dedicated to you.
But because every day brings nearly the same thing over and over again, it seems that our prayer has contracted.
We limit it to ourselves and to what we deem necessary for the task we have to perform right now, so that in the end our prayer has been reduced to the dimensions of this small chore.
We beseech you now, do not permit us to become so narrow.
Give us new breadth, give us once more something of the elastic vigor of Mary’s Yes, which is ready for the entire divine will, which always remains as wide as it was when it was first pronounced, and which is ratified anew every day.
Whether Mary rejoiced or was afraid or hoped, whether she was tired from her daily round of duties or was being led to the Cross:
she always stood before you as if for the first time, was always obedient to whatever you said, always hoped to be allowed to do all that you wished, always saw behind every one of your wishes, even the most insignificant, the great, unlimited will of the Father, which you, her Son, were fulfilling.
Grant that we may contemplate and affirm you and your Church, and carry out the requirements of our mission in an ever new spirit, the spirit of the Mother’s Yes.
Grant also that we may pray for this spirit.
We know that wherever you send your Spirit, you yourself are present.
The Spirit brought you to your Mother, the Spirit enabled her to carry you, to give birth to you, to surround you with care.
And because you recognized your own Spirit in her, you formed your Church from her.
And since you have called us into this Church: make of every one of us a place where the Spirit of your Church blows, where, together with you and with the help of the Holy Spirit, the will of your Father, of our Father, is done, so that we may dare to pray in earnest:
“You, our Father, who art in heaven…” Amen.

With St. Ignatius of Loyola we pray:

(The Suscipe Prayer)

Take, Lord, and receive all my liberty,
my memory, my understanding,
and my entire will,
All I have and call my own.

You have given all to me.
To you, Lord, I return it.

Everything is yours; do with it what you will.
Give me only your love and your grace,
that is enough for me.

Our Father. Hail Mary. Glory be.

Father, we ask that through the intercession of Adrienne von Speyr those called to live Christian discipleship might do so with ever-greater fidelity. Grant that, day-by-day, your love might burn and your Spirit might blow more intensely within us. In the presence of the Mother of your Son, your angels and saints, and the whole heavenly court, we beg this grace in the name of your Son, our Lord Jesus Christ. Amen.