A Prophet For The Third Millennium

 

At a prayer group last evening, I gave a talk on one of the Church's new Blesseds - the mystic Blessed Elena Aiello.  What an amazing life!  A contemporary of St Pio of Pietrelcina, her life mirrors his to a great extent, and she was as famous as him in life.  I thought you might like to read something about her, so I'm posting the talk I gave for your information.  She is well worth researching.  Her prophecies are very unsettling.  There is very little on her in English - I hope as her congregation begin to work on furthering her Cause, they will begin to make more material available.  What better way to spend a dark winter's night than pondering over fearful prophecies - always a good spur to getting you to confession!

Blessed Elena Aiello

This evening we reflect on the life and mission of one of the newest Blesseds in the Church, and indeed one of the most remarkable mystics of the 20th century, one who is little known outside of her native Italy.  Blessed Elena Aiello was beatified in Calabria on the 14th September last, the feast of the Exultation of the Holy Cross – a very appropriate feast day indeed.  It seems, as we reflect on her life and teachings, that the Beata lived under the shadow of the cross, embraced it wholeheartedly, and indeed found her sanctification in sharing the mystery of suffering with her Divine Master.

Elena Aiello was born in Montalto Uffugo near  Consenza, in the Italian region of Calabria, on the 10th April 1895.  That day was Spy Wednesday, and the great Triduum was about to begin: what a providential sign for a woman who would live her mystical life in the heart of the events of Holy Week.  Her mother, Teresa Aeillo, had prayed for a girl, promising that if her prayer was granted she would call the child after the empress St Helen, and consecrate her to the Holy Cross: her prayer was heard, and so the little girl was baptised Helen, or Elena in Italian.  Both her parents were simple, hardworking and devout people, and Elena learned to follow their example from an early age.  While still a child she prayed a great deal and practiced penances.  There are numerous stories from her childhood which demonstrate this love of penance: she often wore a penitential belt. 

It seemed natural that Elena would gravitate towards a religious vocation.  She had promised Our Lady that she would become a nun if she was healed of a persistent cough and damage to her voice which had resulted from it.  She prayed to the Holy Virgin under her title, Our Lady of Pompei, and in response Our Lady appeared to her and assured the girl that she would be cured: she was, and she remained true to her promise: she would offer her life to God in the religious life.

While she was keen to enter religious life as soon as she could, numerous things stood in her way.  The First World War was raging, and as she intended to enter the convent in 1915, her father asked her to wait until the war was over: she was needed at home.  Accepting this as a sacrifice, she waited, but the wait proved providential.  During those years she found herself helping those affected by the war: refugees, prisoners of war, the sick and the dying.  In her service of these people, charity began to grow stronger in her heart and her love of those in need deepened – it was a love which would be required of her in great measure later in her life. 

One event during these years had an enormous effect on her.  One of the men she was nursing was a freemason.  Concerned for his soul, she tried, gently, to bring him to faith and persuade him to accept the Sacraments.   Not only did the man refuse, but furious at her suggestions, he flung a bottle at her which struck her in the neck inflicting a deep wound.  Trying to stop the copious bleeding with a cloth, Elena did not move: she told the man that she would stay with him until he asked for a priest.  After he got over the shock, he was moved and asked for the priest, but on the condition that she would nurse him.  Again true to a promise, Elena cared for him for three months until he died: he was reconciled with Christ and passed away peacefully.

On 18th August 1920, Elena finally got her wish, as she entered the Sisters of the Precious Blood, the congregation which ran the school she had attended.  God told her, however, that she would not stay in this congregation – he had other plans for her.  Trusting in him, she went forward.  She was soon struck down by illness – intestinal pain and a severe pain in her shoulder where a tumour soon manifested itself.  An operation, performed in March 1921, without anaesthetic, helped in part, but the surgeon mistakenly cut nerves, leaving her with lockjaw.   She continued preparing for her vows, living with intense pain.  A decision was made by her superiors: she would have to leave the congregation. 

After a time the doctor told her her shoulder had become gangrenous, but things got worse: she was no longer able to retain food – she was soon diagnosed as having stomach cancer.   The doctor told her she was dying, but Elena responded: “St Rita will make me well”.  And she was correct: St Rita appeared to her and assured her she would be healed, but asked that devotions to her be held in Montalto as a means of rekindling the faith of the people of the area.  The painful shoulder, however would remain, St Rita said, because God wanted Elena to offer her suffering for the sins of the world.  Elena was true to the promise to St Rita, and she gladly entered into her vocation of suffering.  A retreat with the Passionists led her to a great devotion to the Passion of Christ.  A new era was to begin for her: she began to suffer the passion herself.

On Good Friday 1923, Elena, having a vision of Christ crowned with the Crown of Thorns, placed the crown on her head and conferred on her the stigmata of the crown: blood poured out of her.  The following Friday the same happened again.  Until her death, every Friday, Elena began to suffer the passion, shedding much blood as the wounds appeared on her body.  The wounds of the stigmata appeared over time and remained on her body for the rest of her life.  Various other phenomena manifested themselves, and St Rita continued to appear. Eventually her shoulder was healed.

Another vocation lay in store for her: God was calling her to found a new congregation.  As the great saint of Calabria, Elena had a great devotion to St Francis de Paolo, the founder of the Minim friars – she was destined to follow him and found a new congregation living according to his spirit and teachings.  Meeting a young woman who was searching for a community, and having asked St Therese of Lisieux for help, Elena experience a manifestation of St Therese and was given money help start a foundation.  In 1928 she founded the Sister Minims of the Passion of Our Lord Jesus Christ, dedicated to looking after orphans and women in need.  Vocations came, and as she formed and guided her new community, Mother Elena, as she was now known, continued to suffer her passion experiences together with various other mystical phenomena.  People began to find out about her and the curious and pious arrived: sometimes the sisters had to hide their foundress in a locked attic to protect her and keep her from the pious hysteria of some visitors. 

Numerous stories and miraculous occurrences surrounded the rest of Sr Elena’s life.  Divine Providence provided for the needs of the sisters.  She began to receive numerous prophecies, some apocalyptic in nature.  She wrote to Benito Mussolini warning him against a pact with Hitler and going to war: if he ignored her warnings, Italy would be devastated and he himself would be severely punished.  He ignored the warning and what she said came to pass.  We do not have time to go into all the messages and indeed every aspect of her life – there is plenty for us to discover as we explore her life in greater detail in the months and years to come. 

As famous as St Pio of Pietrelcina, with crowds coming to see her, ask her advice and seek her prayers, Mother Elena was deeply venerated.  A faithful daughter of St Francis de Paolo, she grew in humility and holiness, bearing the wounds of Christ and advising people to give their hearts to him.  For as long as she could, she worked side by side with her sisters, caring for the poor and orphaned.  On 19th June 1961 her mission on earth was over, her mission in heaven was about to begin.  Just before dawn broke, Mother Elena died, surrounded by her community and holding in her hand an oil lamp burning brightly, a fitting symbol for one who had sought to shine the light of Christ, through her life and suffering, to every corner of the world.

Further information can be found on this blog.

Love Has Let Himself Be Found!

Yesterday the Holy Father dedicated his weekly audience to one of my favourite saints - St Veronica Giuliani, Capuchin Poor Clare and mystic.  St Veronica was a remarkable woman, one who would remind you of St Teresa of Avila, who has left us volumes of profound and insightful works.  Her Diary is one of the most extraordinary Christian documents which gives us a real glimpse of the mystical life - a life we are all invited to enter. 

Like her brother Capuchin, St Pio, she bore the stigmata, and endured years of suspicion and investigation, growing in holiness and earning the deep respect and love of her sisters in the Monastery.  When all censures were lifted, as the Church, having completed an exhaustive investigation, recognised that her stigmata and mystical gifts came from God, she was elected Abbess at the first opportunity, an office she served with great wisdom, simplicity, love and practicality - she may have been a mystic, but her head was not in the clouds.  

St Veronica offers us so many wonderful insights, but my favourite quotation from her is in fact her last - her dying words.  As she looked into eternity, about to leap into the arms of God she said, "Love has let himself be found" - that sums up her whole life, her teaching and her lesson to us.

She was also a great devotee of Our Lady who dictated part of the Diary.  In fact, it was Our Lady who told her that her death was near and so said to the saint that now it was time to call a "Halt" to the writings, which Veronica did.   At the moment those writings are being examined by the Church with the view to possibly declaring her a Doctor of the Church.  Let us pray that she will be, soon.  Veronica is one of the Church's great treasures, but at the moment a hidden one.  Her elevation as the fourth woman Doctor will be a gift to the Church in these times, one who with the other Doctors, brings a unique teaching which will help us grow in knowledge and love of God.  I see in his talk the Holy Father sees her as a great devotee of Scripture, perhaps he is reflecting on a possible declaration, and sees her contribution to the understanding of Sacred Scripture as a possible reason to raise her.

The Holy Father's talk can be found here.

Juan de la Cruz

Today the Carmelite Order celebrates the Solemnity of St John the Cross, co-reformer with St Teresa, and Doctor of the Church.  St John is famous for his Dark Night of the Soul, and this has coloured many people's view of him.  I remember talking to a religious about him but the sister was not too keen to engage: "He's very dark", she said, "All Dark Night".   I suppose I could not blame her, when a theologian is taught as if he is a one trick pony, the richness of his theological teaching is not apparent or well known.  John is much more than the Dark Night: he is also the Living Flame of Love and the beautifully amorous Spiritual Canticle.  He has not been taught well.  If we look at his biggest fan, for example - St Therese of Lisieux, we realise there is more to him than misery.

If you are looking for a good introduction to St John, to ease you into his work, go to Ralph Martin.  He is the author of that wonderful synthesis of the Mystical way, The Fulfilment of All Desire.  Ralph gets St John, and sees the magnificence of his teaching.  During my retreat this year I used a series of Ralph's CDs on St John's theology as my talks and they were a revelation.  Having read St John, Ralph brought new insights and a freshness.  His basic understanding of St John - which is on the ball, is that he plots out the various steps of the spiritual life to help those who want to begin the journey to perfection here and now.  It is a journey, Ralph explains, which we will all have to do either here on earth or, if we are lucky enough to get there - in Purgatory.   The teaching on the two nights (Dark Night) - the night of the senses and the night of the spirit, are part of the journey where God purifies human desires and the soul, and so draw the person closer to union with him. 

Of course all the talk about St John centres on his mystical theology, but what was he like?  Many see him as a remote figure, very serious and distant: a man living on another plane, unable to identify with the ordinary person and their struggles, a mystic far above the ordinariness of life.  Well, nothing could be further from the truth.  Yes, John was quiet and serious, and St Teresa of Avila, who saw his qualities, also saw his faults, the strain of remoteness in his character.  In her inimitable way she worked on him to bring out that beautiful soul. John was sensitive, he loved deeply, and so, I think, he may have taken shelter in his quiet nature.  Gifted with many insights, he took life and faith seriously, and he was hard on himself.  Teresa brought out his humanity, and she was successful.  John was one of those people whom, when you met them, touch your soul and inspire love.  His gentleness and simplicity impress.

Throughout his life, he inspired great loyalty - the sisters of the reform loved him to bits, even if they found him a hard taskmaster at times.   When he was in prison, St Teresa's heart was breaking, and her sisters were praying day and night for his release.  When he finally escaped, it was Discalced sisters who took him in, hid him and nursed him back to health.  This experience would lead to his greatest works, which have allowed us a glimpse into his beautiful soul.

Reading St John, he is very different from St Teresa whose writing reveals her distinctive and lively voice: her work is all personality.  John's is more sedate, but just as powerful.  He is a great teacher, an understanding one and as he explains the mystical way, he does so using images to help us understand, repeating himself a great deal so we get the message. He is all heart as he tries to gently lead the soul on the path of holiness to union with God.  No wonder little St Therese fell in love with him: he was, in fact, the one writer she could identify with - it was his teaching which helped her understand where she was, and proved to be a great consolation in her trial of faith.  Another great saint who found St John's writings to be a great help in life was Pope John Paul II who wrote his doctoral thesis on St John of the Cross's teaching on faith.  In these days as many struggle faith, and many are looking for God, St John points us to the path which leads into the Heart of Christ to find therein, the invitation to a union of souls.

La Madre

First of all, thank you for your prayers.  The Mass went very well last night. There was a good crowd, all gathered to honour St Therese.  The ceremonies began with the Rosary, followed by Mass, then Adoration and then blessing with the relics of St Therese and her parents, Blesseds Louis and Zelie.  As I have said before, these devotions do so much for the faith - not only of the people, but of us priests too.

The Mass celebrated was that of the great St Teresa, whose feast it is today.  For us Carmelites, today is a Solemnity, having begun at dusk yesterday evening.  I say us Carmelites because, while I am a diocesan priest, I am also a Secular Discalced Carmelite (or Third Order as it used to be known).  This means that, in reality, I am a member of the Discalced Carmelite Order by my profession, but also a priest of the diocese of Meath.  Sounds confusing - not really: diocesan priests are permitted in canon law to join Third Orders.  One of the ways I like to clarify it is by thinking: in life I am priest in Meath; when I get to heaven (that should  be an "if", a big IF), I'll be in the Carmelite crowd, all going well.  I'm hoping to elbow my way in between St Therese and Blessed Hermilo of St Eliseus (Spanish Civil War martyr) - I'm trying to bribe them to get me into heaven somehow, but their price is very high - love.  I do my best, but most of time I know I don't meet the rent!  But I'm trying.  This year is important for me because I am preparing for my final profession on the 18th December, or Definitive Profession as it is called. 

So today is a big feast.  St Teresa is one of those saints you fall in love with immediately.  Her personality shines through her work as does her holiness and love of God.  If you have never read her, make a resolution to do so.  The best book to begin with is her autobiography.  If you find it difficult, keep going, it's worth it: she'll just jump out at you. 

Teresa was not always a saint. In her childhood she showed great signs of it, but then she blew it.  She entered the convent out of fear for her soul, but then proceeded to waste twenty years, dodging prayer, for the best of intentions, or so she thought.  It took two conversions and a serious illness to call her to her senses and bring her back on track.  So Teresa can identify with all the problems we face in the spiritual life, and can guide us along the path to union with God.   Her works detail this path, but with great simplicity and lots of digressions which actually reveal her personality and help endear her to you.  She writes very differently from St John of the Cross with whom she is most often compared: same theology, same spirituality, but different way of exploring and expressing it. 

One thing I love about her is her ingenious way of getting around people - a God-given gift which, it seems, most of the founders in the Church had: Blessed Teresa of Calcutta had it.  When she was setting up the first house of the reform of Carmel, San Jose in Avila, Teresa faced many difficulties, including a superior who was caught between her and those objecting to the reform.  Teresa was obedient in all she did, but recruited others to do the work for her, so when permission was given, she was ready to fly like a dove into the new house.  Later in life she was brought back to her original convent to reform that.  The nuns in the convent rebelled, and there was ructions in the house.  Teresa arrived at the door to find it locked and the nuns barricading themselves in.  Teresa just sat quietly outside until negotiations were over and the door, reluctantly opened.  With her charm and charity, Teresa proposed a solution: sitting on a stool, she had a statue of Our Lady placed in the Prioress' chair: until peace was restored and hearts won over, Our Lady would be prioress.  Teresa won hearts, she brought St John of the Cross as confessor, and that convent became one of her great supporters and one of the flagships of the reform.

Prayer: O Holy Mother St Teresa, in these difficult times in the Church, obtain from the Lord for us those graces he granted you: love, patience, charity, tact and a thick skin.  Like you, may we sing of his mercies for all generations to hear.

St Teresa, patroness of reform and spiritual renewal, pray for us.

Happy feast day!  We're having partridge tonight!

Servant of the Eucharist

The idea of a victim soul may sound strange to modern ears, even within the Church, but, as today's feast reminds us, he or she has a unique vocation in the Church, living in a radical way the Lord's call to his disciples to take up their cross and follow him.  Today is the feast of Blessed Alexandrina da Costa, a Portuguese lay woman who spent most of her life bedridden, but found there the means of interceding for the world.  Alexandrina's story is fascinating and bound up with the apparitions of Fatima - she would have been contemporary with the visionaries.  She is often called the "Fourth Visionary" since her life of suffering and reparation fulfils in a mystical way, the calls of Our Lady.  Interestingly, Alexandrina died on the anniversary of the Miracle of the Sun, 13th October. 

Alexandrina is also famous for two extraordinary occurrences.  She had many visions which sustained her in her suffering, but it was her passion ecstasies which brought her to the attention of many.  Every Friday she entered into a mystical state and went through the passion of the Lord.  During those ecstasies her paralysed limbs regained their power.   These ecstasies were filmed and these films were examined as part of her Cause. The other was her eleven year fast, as she lived only on the Eucharist.  This is a medical fact - she underwent extensive tests and was observed by doctors who found that she ate or drank nothing except the Eucharist, with no ill effects.

Since I was ordained, most Monday evenings, I attend a small Eucharistic prayer group under Blessed Alexandrina's patronage - it has been a great source of blessings and graces for all involved, most particularly for my priesthood.  Members of the group have travelled to Fatima and to Balasar in the north of Portugal where Alexandrina lived and is buried.  So today is a special day for them.  I wish them a happy feast day. 

My colleague, Caroline, over at the St Genesius blog notes that the Archbishop of Braga has suggested to Archbishop Dermot Martin of Dublin, that Blessed Alexandrina be declared one of the patrons of the 2012 Eucharistic Congress. An excellent idea! 

There is an online video which includes some of the footage from one of passion ecstasies here.