Chapter 6

In this chapter, the Little Flower writes about her pilgrimage to Rome. Well, it is yet another desire of my heart to go on a pilgrimage to the holy land but I don't know when and how it will be fulfilled as it is expensive. 

But in this chapter of my life, I would like to write about my two visits to the Infant Jesus shrine in Mangalore - one in October 2022 and the second in February 2023. I have already written at length about my feelings on my first visit. There are certain expressions that I would like to quote from the chapter though. Like "I can never tell you what I felt at the shrine" and "I was filled with happiness and peace". This is what happened to me as well - I was overwhelmed and can never explain how I feel at the Infant Jesus shrine. I am mesmerized!

When she writes "emotion overwhelmed me when I realized that I was indeed beneath the very roof......" I can feel the same. This is what happened to me at the shrine - I had always seen the shrine in the photos and on YouTube and when I found myself standing under the roof of the shrine, my heart was overwhelmed. I couldn't believe that I was on the holy premises of the shrine. I clicked photos for memory's sake and drank into the beauty of the shrine. "I was gazing at the same walls" and "was treading the ground" which I always saw on YouTube. 

Also my one-week stay at Ryshivana. "What good all those marvellous beauties of nature did to my soul, lifting to God". 

"How sweet are all these memories!"

"How can I describe the feelings which thrilled me as I gazed on the Coliseum?" For me the Infant Jesus shrine and the glass chapel at Ryshivana.

"At last, my eyes beheld......."

Another thing I would like to write from this chapter is the reverence she had for the holy priests. "Despite the sublime dignity of the Priesthood which raises them above the angels, they still remain men and subject to human frailty". This I understood way back in 2018 when I was deeply planted in the soil of Carmel as a secular Carmelite. Thus I keep them in holy reverence and distance myself from people who have anything negative to say about them. As the President of St. Elizabeth of the Trinity community, I will be praying for the entire Carmelite Order during the Lenten season. Like her, I say "how beautiful is our vocation". 

"We Carmelites are called upon to preserve 'the salt of the earth to offer our prayers and sacrifices for the apostles of the Lord, to be their apostles".

I conclude this chapter by writing what the Little Flower writes: "Have we not a noble mission to fulfil? But I must say no more on this subject, or my pen would run on for ever".