Saint Teresa of Avila | A Life of Mystical Experience | Carmelite Saint
SANTA TERESA DE JESÚS: POEMA – Vivo sin vivir en mí, de Teresa de Jesús
Vivo sin vivir en mí, y tan alta vida espero, que muero porque no muero. Vivo ya fuera de mí, después que muero de amor; porque vivo en el Señor, que me quiso para sí: cuando el corazón le di puso en él este letrero, que muero porque no muero. Esta divina prisión, del amor en que yo vivo, ha hecho a Dios mi cautivo, y libre mi corazón; y causa en mí tal pasión ver a Dios mi prisionero, que muero porque no muero. ¡Ay, qué larga es esta vida! ¡Qué duros estos destierros, esta cárcel, estos hierros en que el alma está metida! Sólo esperar la salida me causa dolor tan fiero, que muero porque no muero. ¡Ay, qué vida tan amarga do no se goza el Señor! Porque si es dulce el amor, no lo es la esperanza larga: quíteme Dios esta carga, más pesada que el acero, que muero porque no muero. Sólo con la confianza vivo de que he de morir, porque muriendo el vivir me asegura mi esperanza; muerte do el vivir se alcanza, no te tardes, que te espero, que muero porque no muero. Mira que el amor es fuerte; vida, no me seas molesta, mira que sólo me resta, para ganarte perderte. Venga ya la dulce muerte, el morir venga ligero que muero porque no muero. Aquella vida de arriba, que es la vida verdadera, hasta que esta vida muera, no se goza estando viva: muerte, no me seas esquiva; viva muriendo primero, que muero porque no muero. Vida, ¿qué puedo yo darle a mi Dios que vive en mí, si no es el perderte a ti, para merecer ganarle? Quiero muriendo alcanzarle, pues tanto a mi Amado quiero, que muero porque no muero.
BIOGRAFIA
Teresa Sánchez de Cepeda Dávila y Ahumada ( 1515-1582), Teresa de Ávila o Teresa de Jesús como religiosa, santa Teresa para la Iglesia desde 1622, es una de las figuras señeras de la vida espiritual de todos los tiempos. Fundadora de la Orden de los Carmelitas Descalzos, por la que se reformaba una orden anterior, la de Nuestra Señora del Monte Carmelo, del siglo XII, viene hoy a este blog por otra faceta suya menos conocida pero no menos valiosa: como escritora, como poeta, como figura estelar -con san Juan de la Cruz, colaborador suyo en la reforma carmelita- de la poesía mística. La mística es una corriente espiritual, presente en varias religiones, no solo el cristianismo, que busca el grado máximo de unión del alma con la divinidad durante la existencia terrenal. La mística cristiana es una corriente que arranca en Pablo de Tarso (san Pablo) y los llamados padres de la Iglesia (san Agustín, san Gregorio, san Ambrosio y san Jerónimo), pasa por santo Tomás de Aquino y desemboca, entre nosotros, en figuras como san Juan de Ávila, fray Luis de León, san Juan de la Cruz y santa Teresa. Eclipsada por la Teresa de Jesús religiosa, la Teresa de Jesús poeta no fue suficientemente apreciada hasta el siglo XIX, muchísimos años después de su muerte. El poema de hoy, con esa paradoja constante de morir para vivir plenamente, de la muerte como liberación, como la mejor vía para la fusión con dios, es ejemplar tanto en su contenido como en su continente. Este, un villancico, una forma poética y musical que entre los siglos XV y XVIII se usaba en castellano y en portugués tanto para temas profanos como para asuntos religiosos. Un estribillo con el que acababan las estrofas era uno de sus signos distintivos. Aquí, ese «que muero porque no muero» que ha acabado siendo parte del acervo popular en nuestro idioma.
SAINT TERESA’S 7 STAGES OF SPIRITUAL GROWTH
Saint Teresa’s 7 Mansions
Les sept demeures de sainte Thérèse d’Avila pour les nuls, par Arnaud Dumouch
After a thorough examination of her life by the Church, Galgani was beatified on 14 May 1933 and canonized on 2 May 1940. Galgani’s relics are housed at the Sanctuary of Santa Gemma associated with the Passionist monastery in Lucca, Italy. Her bronze effigy atop her tomb was crafted by sculptor Francesco Nagni. In 1985, her heart was enshrined in the Santuario de Santa Gema in Madrid, Spain. Gemma Galgani’s confessor, Germano Ruoppolo, produced her biography
SPIRITUAL CANTICLE by Saint John of the Cross 1542-1591,_Ioannes_a_Cruce,_A_Spiritual_Canticle_Of_The_Soul,_EN.pdf Stages-of-Spiritual-Journey-by-St-John-of-Cross.pdf
THE LEVELS OF SPIRITUALITY OF SAINT JOHN OF THE CROSS
ACTIVE AND PASSIVE NIGHTS OF THE SOUL
“The divinization of one’s passivities.”
This is a line from one of the great spiritual works of the twentieth century, The Divine Milieu by the French Jesuit Pierre Teilhard de Chardin. In that seminal text, Teilhard famously distinguished between the divinization of one’s activities and the divinization of one’s passivities. The former is a noble spiritual move, consisting in the handing over of one’s achievements and accomplishments to the purposes of God. A convinced Jesuit, Teilhard desired to devote all that he did (and he did a lot) ad majorem Dei gloriam (to the greater glory of God). But this attitude, Teilhard felt, came nowhere near the spiritual power of divinizing one’s passivities. By this he meant the handing over of one’s suffering to God, the surrendering to the Lord of those things that are done to us, those things over which we have no control. We become sick; a loved one dies suddenly; we lose a job; a much-desired position goes to someone else; we are unfairly criticized; we find ourselves, unexpectedly, in the valley of the shadow of death. These experiences lead some people to despair, but the spiritually alert person should see them as a particularly powerful way to come to union with God. A Christian would readily speak here of participating in the cross of Christ. Indeed how strange that the central icon of the Christian faith is not of some great achievement or activity, but rather of something rather horrible being done to a person. The point is that suffering, offered to God, allows the Lord to work his purpose out with unsurpassed power.
In some ways, Teilhard’s distinction is an echo of St. John of the Cross’s distinction between the “active” and “passive” nights of the soul. For the great Spanish master, the dark night has nothing to do with psychological depression, but rather with a pruning away of attachments that keep one from complete union with God. This pruning can take a conscious and intentional form (the active night) or it can be something endured. In a word, we can rid ourselves of attachments—or God can do it for us. The latter, St. John thinks, is far more powerful and cleansing than the former.
SAINT MAXIMILIAN KOLBE
The Milicia of the Inmaculada? (la película subtitulada en español)
Who is St. Maximilian Kolbe? – 14 mn
St. Maximilian Kolbe – 2mn
Saint Maximilian Mary Kolbe
SAINT BERNADETTE SOUBIROUS
St. Bernadette Soubirous – My Name Is Bernadette
Catholic Culture Audiobooks
Incorrupt Body of St. Bernadette (Nevers, France)
St.Bernadette: A Life of Faith and Wonder
Bernadette Soubirous, cuerpo incorrupto y testamento espiritual.
SAINT AUGUSTINE
A Life of Heroic Sanctity: Augustine of Hippo
“The Confessions of St. Augustine” – Full Audiobook
ENGLISH
Les Confessions de Saint Augustin
FRENCH:
Las Confesiones de San Agustín | Filosofía Religiosa | Audiolibros en Español Completos
SPANISH:
San Agustín en 3 Minutos – El Santo del Día – 28 de Agosto
CATHERINE OF SIENA USED TO CAST OUT DEMONS IN THE NAME OF JESUS
A Unique Relic: Catherine of Siena’s Skull
CATHERINE OF SIENA USED TO CAST OUT DEMONS IN THE NAME OF JESUS
SAINT PATRICK
Story of Saint Patrick | English | Stories of Saints
St. Patrick (17 March): Embrace Your Suffering Like Patrick Did
SAINT VINCENT DE PAUL
Biographie de Saint Vincent de Paul
Vincent de Paul a donné comme maxime à ses lazaristes Evangelizare pauperibus. Évangéliser les pauvres partout dans le monde.
Vincent de Paul ou Vincent Depaul, né le 24 avril 1581 au village de Pouy près de Dax et mort le 27 septembre 1660 à Paris, est un prêtre et une figure du renouveau spirituel, apostolique du catholicisme français du XVIIe siècle. Fondateur de congrégations, il œuvra tout au long de sa vie pour soulager la misère matérielle et morale. Il a été canonisé en 1737.
1033 We cannot be united with God unless we freely choose to love him. But we cannot love God if we sin gravely against him, against our neighbor or against ourselves: “He who does not love remains in death. Anyone who hates his brother is a murderer, and you know that no murderer has eternal life abiding in him.”610 Our Lord warns us that we shall be separated from him if we fail to meet the serious needs of the poor and the little ones who are his brethren.611 To die in mortal sin without repenting and accepting God’s merciful love means remaining separated from him for ever by our own free choice. This state of definitive self-exclusion from communion with God and the blessed is called “hell.”
1034 Jesus often speaks of “Gehenna” of “the unquenchable fire” reserved for those who to the end of their lives refuse to believe and be converted, where both soul and body can be lost.612 Jesus solemnly proclaims that he “will send his angels, and they will gather . . . all evil doers, and throw them into the furnace of fire,”613 and that he will pronounce the condemnation: “Depart from me, you cursed, into the eternal fire!”614
1035 The teaching of the Church affirms the existence of hell and its eternity. Immediately after death the souls of those who die in a state of mortal sin descend into hell, where they suffer the punishments of hell, “eternal fire.”615 The chief punishment of hell is eternal separation from God, in whom alone man can possess the life and happiness for which he was created and for which he longs.
1036 The affirmations of Sacred Scripture and the teachings of the Church on the subject of hell are a call to the responsibility incumbent upon man to make use of his freedom in view of his eternal destiny. They are at the same time an urgent call to conversion: “Enter by the narrow gate; for the gate is wide and the way is easy, that leads to destruction, and those who enter by it are many. For the gate is narrow and the way is hard, that leads to life, and those who find it are few.”616
Since we know neither the day nor the hour, we should follow the advice of the Lord and watch constantly so that, when the single course of our earthly life is completed, we may merit to enter with him into the marriage feast and be numbered among the blessed, and not, like the wicked and slothful servants, be ordered to depart into the eternal fire, into the outer darkness where “men will weep and gnash their teeth.”617
1037 God predestines no one to go to hell;618 for this, a willful turning away from God (a mortal sin) is necessary, and persistence in it until the end. In the Eucharistic liturgy and in the daily prayers of her faithful, the Church implores the mercy of God, who does not want “any to perish, but all to come to repentance”:619
Father, accept this offering
from your whole family.
Grant us your peace in this life,
save us from final damnation,
and count us among those you have chosen.620
Levels of Heaven & Hell: What are They?
– Explaining the Faith with Fr. Chris Alar
Father Steven Scheier’s Judgment Experience
Father Steven Scheier judgment experience SECOND interview with Mother Angelica
Hell: Man Shot & Saw Hell – Shocking Must-See Video
EL INFIERNO: LXIV. El Infierno de los condenados y Cristo
631 Jesus “descended into the lower parts of the earth. He who descended is he who also ascended far above all the heavens.”475 The Apostles’ Creed confesses in the same article Christ’s descent into hell and his Resurrection from the dead on the third day, because in his Passover it was precisely out of the depths of death that he made life spring forth: Christ, that Morning Star, who came back from the dead, and shed his peaceful light on all mankind, your Son who lives and reigns for ever and ever. Amen.476
Paragraph 2. ON THE THIRD DAY HE ROSE FROM THE DEAD
632 The frequent New Testament affirmations that Jesus was “raised from the dead” presuppose that the crucified one sojourned in the realm of the dead prior to his resurrection.477 This was the first meaning given in the apostolic preaching to Christ’s descent into hell: that Jesus, like all men, experienced death and in his soul joined the others in the realm of the dead. But he descended there as Saviour, proclaiming the Good News to the spirits imprisoned there.478
633 Scripture calls the abode of the dead, to which the dead Christ went down, “hell” – Sheol in Hebrew or Hades in Greek – because those who are there are deprived of the vision of God.479 Such is the case for all the dead, whether evil or righteous, while they await the Redeemer: which does not mean that their lot is identical, as Jesus shows through the parable of the poor man Lazarus who was received into “Abraham’s bosom”:480 “It is precisely these holy souls, who awaited their Saviour in Abraham’s bosom, whom Christ the Lord delivered when he descended into hell.”481 Jesus did not descend into hell to deliver the damned, nor to destroy the hell of damnation, but to free the just who had gone before him.482
634 “The gospel was preached even to the dead.”483 The descent into hell brings the Gospel message of salvation to complete fulfilment. This is the last phase of Jesus’ messianic mission, a phase which is condensed in time but vast in its real significance: the spread of Christ’s redemptive work to all men of all times and all places, for all who are saved have been made sharers in the redemption.
635 Christ went down into the depths of death so that “the dead will hear the voice of the Son of God, and those who hear will live.”484 Jesus, “the Author of life”, by dying destroyed “him who has the power of death, that is, the devil, and [delivered] all those who through fear of death were subject to lifelong bondage.”485 Henceforth the risen Christ holds “the keys of Death and Hades”, so that “at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth.”486
Today a great silence reigns on earth, a great silence and a great stillness. A great silence because the King is asleep. the earth trembled and is still because God has fallen asleep in the flesh and he has raised up all who have slept ever since the world began. . . He has gone to search for Adam, our first father, as for a lost sheep. Greatly desiring to visit those who live in darkness and in the shadow of death, he has gone to free from sorrow Adam in his bonds and Eve, captive with him – He who is both their God and the son of Eve. . . “I am your God, who for your sake have become your son. . . I order you, O sleeper, to awake. I did not create you to be a prisoner in hell. Rise from the dead, for I am the life of the dead.”487
IN BRIEF
636 By the expression “He descended into hell”, the Apostles’ Creed confesses that Jesus did really die and through his death for us conquered death and the devil “who has the power of death” (Heb 2:14).
637 In his human soul united to his divine person, the dead Christ went down to the realm of the dead. He opened heaven’s gates for the just who had gone before him.
WHY IS HELL ETERNAL?
This scary glimpse of Hell should make you think long and hard about joining Satan
The absolute loneliness and lack of God in hell
Upon the Four Principal Gates of Hell
– St. Alphonsus Liguori
Most people in hell believed Hell did not exist
VISIONS OF HELL BY JOSEPHA MENENDEZ
Catholic priest explains why hell is a grace (for the fallen angels)
HELL IS THE LONELIEST PLACE
THERE IS NO RELATIONSHIP IN HELL
Is Hell Empty? | Msgr. Stephen Rossetti
The Existence of Hell: Revealed by Our Good Lord
Knowing Up From Down Heaven & Hell
A Letter from Hell
Lo que dice la Iglesia con comentarios de San Josemaría
El cielo, la muerte, el purgatorio. ¿Qué son los Novísimos?
Hell: Faustina Kowalska: “I have seen hell, I will tell you what happens, I beg you, please listen to me!”
“If you lived an evil life, there is often a manifestation of evil (at the moment of your death).”
Catholic priest explains: Fun people seem to go to Hell & Preservation of youth among celebrities
Is Judas in Hell?
Demons obey Christ in exorcism sessions
ABSOLUTE MUST SEE VIDEO TESTIMONY OF PRIEST
When Jesus sentenced this priest to hell for eternity
St Gemma meditating on Hell and her sins
SANTA ESCRITURA DE LA BIBLIA SOBRE La ira del Señor
Lecturas
Primera Lectura Eclo 5, 1-8.
No tardes en convertirte al Señor.
Lectura del libro del Eclesiástico. NO confíes en tus riquezas, ni digas: «Con esto me basta». No sigas tu instinto y tu fuerza, secundando las pasiones de tu corazón. Y no digas: «Quién puede dominarme?», o bien: «Quién logrará someterme por lo que he hecho?», porque el Señor ciertamente te castigará. No digas: «He pecado, y ¿qué me ha pasado?», porque el Señor sabe esperar. Del perdón no te sientas tan seguro, mientras acumulas pecado tras pecado. Y no digas: «Es grande su compasión, me perdonará mis muchos pecados», porque él tiene compasión y cólera, y su ira recae sobre los malvados. No tardes en convertirte al Señor, ni lo dejes de un día para otro, porque de repente la ira del Señor se enciende, y el día del castigo perecerás. No confíes en riquezas injustas, porque de nada te servirán el día de la desgracia.
Palabra de Dios.
Fr. Joseph Iannuzzi: Saving souls from Hell
HE DIED AND MET GOD, AND HE WASN’T READY.
The incredible near-death experience of Fr. Rick Wendell.
¿Cómo librarse del infierno??
-Libro de Tobías – Te Explico la Biblia Episodio – 6
No priest goes to hell or to heaven alone…
He always takes others with him – Don Bosco
Hell is torture and solitary confinement deprived of God
Catholic priest explains: Majority in Hell now are there because they didn’t believe there’s Hell.
Psaumes 63: 10,11: Mais eux cherchent à m’ôter la vie: ils iront dans les profondeurs de la terre. On les livrera au glaive, ils seront la proie des chacals.
SALMS 63:10,11: But those who seek my life will come to ruin;
they shall go down to the depths of the netherworld!
Those who would hand over my life to the sword shall
