To be perfectly honest, I would have loved to have written a long, thoughtful post on this lovely “sister” of mine, but right now my brain is way, WAY too tired from trying to study Diritto Canonico in Italian. (Right now, I am working on a summary/reaction paper for a book with the translated title of “A Critical Introduction to Natural Law”--and this work is pretty much what it sounds like. Happily, at least with this asignment, the book has a good English translation and you can write your paper in whatever major European language you want. Guess which language I’m choosing!)
So instead, I am going to let the Church’s liturgy speak for me! The Office of Readings for St. Lucy is one of my favorites in the breviary. Taken from St. Ambrose’s work De Virginitate, it reads like exceedingly beautiful “spiritual direction” for consecrated virgins, applying equally as well to the consecrated virgins of our own century as it did to the consecrated virgins of the Patristic era.
Emphases and comments are mine.
***
You light up your grace of body with the radiance of your mind |
You are one of God’s people, of God’s family, a virgin among virgins; you light up your grace of body with your splendor of soul. More than others you can be compared to the Church. When you are in your room, then, at night, think always on Christ, and wait for his coming at every moment.
This is the person Christ has loved in loving you, the person he has chosen in choosing you. (I think here, St. Ambrose means that Christ loves the Church in His love for the individual consecrated virgin.) He enters by the open door; he has promised to come in, and he cannot deceive. Embrace him, the one you have sought; turn to him, and be enlightened; hold him fast, ask him not to go in haste, beg him not to leave you. The Word of God moves swiftly; he is not won by the lukewarm, nor held fast by the negligent. Let your soul be attentive to his word; follow carefully the path God tells you to take, for he is swift in his passing.
What does his bride say? I sought him, and did not find him; I called him, and he did not hear me. (Most of these quotes are from the Song of Songs--a book St. Ambrose loved to reference in his writings to and about consecrated virgins.) Do not imagine that you are displeasing to him despite having called him, asked him in, and opened the door to him; and that this is the reason why he has gone so quickly – no, for he allows us to be constantly tested. When the crowds pressed him to stay, what does he say in the Gospel? I must preach the word of God to other cities, because for that I have been sent. But even if it seems to you that he has left you, go out and seek him once more.
Who but holy Church is to teach you how to hold Christ fast? Indeed, she has already taught you, if you only understood her words in Scripture: How short a time it was when I left them before I found him whom my soul has loved. I held him fast, and I will not let him go.
How do we hold him fast? Not by restraining chains or knotted ropes but by bonds of love, by spiritual reins, by the longing of the soul.
If you also, like the bride, wish to hold him fast, seek him and be fearless of suffering. It is often easier to find him in the midst of bodily torments, in the very hands of persecutors.
His bride says: How short a time it was after I left them. In a little space, after a brief moment, when you have escaped from the hands of your persecutors without yielding to the powers of this world, Christ will come to you, and he will not allow you to be tested for long. (This is a valuable concepts even to those of us who are unlikely to be called to “red” martrydom. We should still earnestly pray for the grace to “love Him till the end” in whatever circumstances we live our lives.)
Whoever seeks Christ in this way, and finds him, can say: I held him fast, and I will not let him go before I bring him into my mother’s house, into the room of her who conceived me. What is this “house,” this “room,” but the deep and secret places of your heart?
Maintain this house, sweep out its secret recesses until it becomes immaculate and rises as a spiritual temple for a holy priesthood, firmly secured by Christ, the cornerstone, so that the Holy Spirit may dwell in it
Whoever seeks Christ in this way, whoever prays to Christ in this way, is not abandoned by him; on the contrary, Christ comes again and again to visit such a person, for He is with us until the end of the world.
Prayer:
May the glorious intercession
of the Virgin and Martyr St. Lucy
give us new heart, we pray, O Lord,
so that we may celebrate her heavenly birthday
in this present age,
and so behold things eternal.
We ask this through our Lord Jesus Christ, your Son,
who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit,
one God, for ever and ever.
Amen.*
* There is an interesting explanation of the new (2011) translation of this prayer at WDTPRS?
Don't be discouraged if your brain is tired after studying in Italian. It gets easier. I arrived at Santa Croce, with zero Italian background, and studied a new subject, too. You'll get the hang of it. Once you get used to the foreign language (after the first 6 months or so) it won't seem that hard. Really, it isn't as hard as it sounds, or as it first seems! Most good students can do it, you just have to persevere in the beginning. And, after all, people all over the world learn to operate in English as a second language.
ReplyDeleteLovely post! Good luck with that paper!
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