Mystics of the Church

Dear DLL Jesus,

I am done compiling my second handbook on the Doctors of the Church. There are around 36 Doctors of the Church.

I have started the compilation of my third handbook on the Mystics of the Church. I have not counted them yet. But the first one is Ignatius of Antioch. From tomorrow I will get going with the research.

This handbook will be the third and the last in this series. Last night I got the idea of creating a trilogy of handbooks:

1) Carmelite Saints and Blesseds

2) Doctors of the Church

3) Mystics of the Church

Diwali

Good morning my Jesus!

Soon it will be your festival - Diwali - the festival of Lights!❣️

My favourite festival since my childhood but during my RCIA I was told that I can't celebrate any Hindu festival! How disheartening it was for me because Diwali was the only festival I enjoyed the most because I could me myself!

In Bhilai, I enjoyed a lot during Diwali. I made rangolis every day and made this thing called "Ghar kunda" and decorated it beautifully according to my abilities. I burst crackers in the afternoon itself and then would cry in the night because I had no crackers left while others were bursting them.

Basically it was fun because I could be myself. Unlike the Vanity Fair, I could be alone and not get bothered by the jazzi essentials. I guess I celebrated in Vasai also.

Then everything stopped!

But then thanks to the Liturgical Inculturation session during the catechists training course in 2015. Here we were told about the true meaning of Diwali! We actually celebrated Diwali by making rangolis with flowers and colourful rangoli powder. We applied chandan tikkas and even celebrated an Indian-style Mass!❣️❣️

Thanks to that I started celebrating Diwali again since 2016. This photo is of 2016. In 2016, Diwali was on 29th October. This year it's on 14th November. 

Now I know why I always enjoyed celebrating Diwali - because it is your festival; festival of Lights! You knew me then but sadly I didn't know you!

Late have I known you Lord!

But it's better late than never!!!

Monastic Life

Though I had heard about monasteries, and I knew they existed, I had absolutely no idea how they looked like. Actually I never paid any attention to monasteries!

And then in October 2017 I visited the Carmelite monastery in Goa! I was taken aback by its beauty! First I fell in love with its garden - it was the most beautiful one I had ever seen in my life! Then I saw the green vegetables and the boars and the more I saw, the more I fell in love with the monastery! 

The Carmelite monastery in Goa is the only monastery that I have ever seen in my entire life. I have already blogged about it before but the reason I am blogging about it again today is because of something I have been thinking about for quite some time now.

I am in the midst of compiling my second handbook! This time on the Doctors of the Church! I have compiled 23 of them till now. 

The reason I am writing about monasteries is because most of these great Doctors lived a monastic life and never ventured out much! They did all their writings from the cells of their monasteries!

What made me think and stop my research and write this post is that if all the monasteries in the world are as beautiful as the one in Goa or maybe more beautiful than it, why would a monk ever want to venture out in the big bad world?

If you have a beautiful garden and beautiful vegetables and beautiful boars around you, why would you want to be out? Wow, just the thought of being amidst so much of beauty is so soothing to my soul! No wonder St. Bede hardly went out of his monastery and St. Elizabeth of the Trinity fell in love with the monastic garden which she saw from her home!🏡 In fact she wanted to join the Carmelite Order only because of its beautiful garden!🤩

Jesus, my dear DLL, I want to visit the Carmelite monastery again! Just one more time!😇

“I live life”

Something I wrote in 2015 still holds true!

In 2015, somebody asked me, “So, what do you do nowadays?” Without batting an eyelid, I had answered smilingly, “I live life”.

And this answer got me thinking. And I thought over it the whole night and am still thinking over it.

And I am so glad I gave this answer.

Indeed I am living my life – the kind of life I had always dreamed for myself – with only positive people around me. I have started loving the most dreaded chore – cooking and today I again thank the Almighty for this beautiful life and giving me the chance to enjoy it with the people I love the most.

No more negativity and no more rushing to work – I do things at my own pace and I am not answerable to anyone except the people who love me the most – and the most beautiful part is that they never question and they never judge. 

I have cultivated hobbies and I study and I read and I write for pleasure and not for people…I laze around, I stand at the window looking at the rising sun, admiring the leaves trying to touch the window pane and I smile and I live life. 

Yes, indeed, my life is beautiful even though it’s ordinary and I am living it to the fullest!😍

Have a Happy Wednesday!!!

Today's Gospel

At that time Jesus exclaimed:

“I give praise to you, Father, Lord of heaven and earth, for although you have hidden these things from the wise and the learned you have revealed them to the childlike."

Dear DLL Jesus,

How apt this gospel verse, taken from St. Matthew, is for me! 

All my life I have been considered childlike because I don't possess a college degree and not specialized in any creative course! Right from my childhood I have been ridiculed by relatives and friends for not having extraordinary talents and intellectual. The teachers in school, especially St. Michael's, Durgapur, would humiliate me because of the poor quality of my studies! I didn't have a great school life as I lagged behind in class because of so many changes in curriculum and syllabus due to relocations.

But Lord you raised me up by giving an understanding of the Bible - by revealing to me things that you withheld from the intellectuals! You handled me patiently unlike my school teachers - you gave understanding to this slow learner, this late bloomer!

I thank you Lord for this!🙏

I also understood yesterday's gospel verse - "I have come to bring fire and not peace and I have come to bring sword......"

While I was reading its commentary I read that there used to be discord in the family over following you! This rang a bell in the morning when I looked at my father's photo during the Mass - it dawned on me that how upset he was when he came to know that I would have to get converted to Christianity after marriage! Even my brother was wild and didn't attend my wedding! 

This verse further says that "if you prefer your family - father and mother and brother - over me, then you are not worthy of me". But then Lord I preferred you over everyone and decided to follow you! Though at that time I did it just to get married!

But you know everybody's heart! You must have found something special in my heart and that's why you showed special favour to me and slowly started revealing the hidden things!

Wow Lord, everything is so clear now! As clear as the morning!

The gospel passages of last few days are so very relatable to my life! And I have understood them so very well!😊

Word of God

The Eucharist and the Word of God are the two pillars of Carmelite Spirituality.

To read the word of God in the spirit of Carmel is to pray it with the heart of Mary. This means that as she, more than anyone, listened to and welcomed the word of God, we too should listen to and welcome the word of God in our life. As St. John of the Cross wrote so beautifully: “The Mother gazed in sheer wonder” (R 9).

Carmelite Spirituality is a spirituality of the Word of God.

Way of Perfection

THE WAY OF PERFECTION (Spanish: Camino de Perfección) is a handbook for the sisters of her reformed convent by St. Teresa of Ávila. She urged her nuns onto a deeper relationship with Our Lord.

It is a method for making progress in the contemplative life and was written in 1577. It was written during the height of controversy which raged over the reforms St. Teresa enacted within the Carmelite Order. In it, she sets out to lead others along the way to union with God through prayer, silence, and contemplation.

This book is a practical guide to prayer setting forth the Saint's counsels and directives for the attainment of spiritual perfection. Of all of St. Teresa of Avila's works, THE WAY OF PERFECTION is the most easily understood.

Although she designed her book for her fellow sisters of the Carmelite Order, there's plenty in there for those of us who don't live in convents.