Maria Lucia Tcherassi, OCDS

Sharing the richness of the spirituality of the Teresian Carmel and its saints🤎

[Maria Lucia Tcherassi, OCDS @matcherassi]

“… His Majesty is being merciful enough to all of us who love him, by letting us know that it is he who is present in the most Blessed Sacrament.

He doesn't want to show himself openly, communicate his grandeurs, and give his treasures except to those who he knows desire him greatly; these are his true friends.”

(Saint Teresa of Jesus. The Way of Perfection. Chapter 34, 13)

[Maria Lucia Tcherassi, OCDS @matcherassi]

@lavozdetuoido 🙏🏻🙏🏻

[Maria Lucia Tcherassi, OCDS @matcherassi]

“…after having received the Lord, since you have the Person himself present, strive to close the eyes of the body and open those of the soul and look into your own heart.

For I tell you, and tell you again, and would like to tell you many times that you should acquire the habit of doing this every time you receive Communion and strive to have such a conscience that you will be allowed to enjoy this blessing frequently.

Although he comes disguised, the disguise, as I have said, does not prevent him from being recognized in many ways, in conformity with the desire we have to see him.

And you can desire to see him so much that he will reveal himself to you entirely.”

(Saint Teresa of Jesus. The Way of Perfection. Chapter 34, 12)

[Maria Lucia Tcherassi, OCDS @matcherassi]

@ProfEmilioMart1 😂😂😂

[Maria Lucia Tcherassi, OCDS @matcherassi]

“He reveals himself to those who he sees will benefit by his presence.

Even though they fail to see him with their bodily eyes, he has many methods of showing himself to the soul, through great interior feelings and through other different ways.

Be with him willingly; don't lose so good an occasion for conversing with him as is the hour after having received Communion.”

(St. Teresa of Jesus. The Way of Perfection. Chapter 34, 10)

[Maria Lucia Tcherassi, OCDS @matcherassi]

“His Majesty gave us…the manna and nourishment of his humanity that we might find him at will and not die of hunger, save through our own fault.

In no matter how many ways the soul may desire to eat, it will find delight and consolation in the most Blessed Sacrament.”

(St.Teresa of Jesus. The Way of Perfection. Chapter 34,2)

[Maria Lucia Tcherassi, OCDS @matcherassi]

“…when the Lord wishes the work to be done He will give us the wherewithal.”

(The Letters of St. Teresa of Jesus. Letter 70. To Don Teutonio de Braganza. January 6, 1575)

[Maria Lucia Tcherassi, OCDS @matcherassi]

“O my God, Trinity whom I adore, help me to forget myself entirely that I may be established in You as still and as peaceful as if my soul were already in eternity.

May nothing trouble my peace or make me leave You, O my Unchanging One, but may each minute carry me further into the depths of Your Mystery.

Give peace to my soul; make it Your heaven, Your beloved dwelling and Your resting place.

May I never leave You there alone but be wholly present, my faith wholly vigilant, wholly adoring, and wholly surrendered to Your creative Action.”

(St. Elizabeth of the Trinity)

[Maria Lucia Tcherassi, OCDS @matcherassi]

"The Holy Trinity created us in its image, according to the eternal design that it possessed in its bosom before the world was created…

Our created essence asks to be rejoined with its principle.

"The Word, "the Splendor of the Father is the eternal archetype after which creatures are designed on the day of their creation."

This is "why God wills that, freed from ourselves, we should stretch out our arms towards our exemplar and possess it,”rising above all things towards our model.”

(St. Elizabeth of the Trinity. Heaven In Faith. Seventh day)

[Maria Lucia Tcherassi, OCDS @matcherassi]

“It should be known that the Word, the Son of God, together with the Father and the Holy Spirit, is hidden by his essence and his presence in the innermost being of the soul.

Individuals who want to find him should leave all things through affection and will, enter within themselves in deepest recollection, and let all things be as though not. … and there the good contemplative must seek him with love, exclaiming: "Where have you hidden?"”

(St. John of the Cross. The Spiritual Canticle. Stanza 1)

[Maria Lucia Tcherassi, OCDS @matcherassi]

“All we ignorant people think of the Three Persons of the Most Holy Trinity as being in One Person, just as in pictures, in which we see one body painted with three faces…

The revelation which I have received consists of Three distinct Persons, each of Whom can be seen by Himself and each of Whom Himself speaks… the Son alone took human flesh, through which this truth is made manifest.

These Persons have mutual love, communication and knowledge, each in relation to the rest.

If, then, each Person is One by Himself, how do we say, and believe, that all Three are One Essence and this is a very profound truth:
I would die a thousand deaths in defence of it?

In all Three Persons there is not more than one will and one power and one dominion, so that none of Them can do anything without Another; so, however many creatures there may be, there is only One Creator.”

( Saint Teresa of Jesus. Spiritual Relations. Chap 33)

[Maria Lucia Tcherassi, OCDS @matcherassi]

“…my soul understood by a certain kind of representation (like an illustration of the truth), in such a way that my dullness could perceive, how God is three and one.

And so it seemed that all three Persons were represented distinctly in my soul and that they spoke to me, telling me that from this day I would see an improvement in myself in respect to three things and that each one of these Persons would grant me a favor: one, the favor of charity; another, the favor of being able to suffer gladly; and the third, the favor of experiencing this charity with an enkindling in the soul.”

(St. Teresa of Jesus. Spiritual Testimonies, 13)

[Maria Lucia Tcherassi, OCDS @matcherassi]

“Once after receiving Communion I was given understanding of how the Father receives within our soul the most holy Body of Christ, and of how I know and have seen that these divine Persons are present, and of how pleasing to the Father this offering of His Son is, because He delights and rejoices with Him here—let us say—on earth.

For His humanity is not present with us in the soul, but His divinity is.”

(St. Teresa of Jesus. Spiritual Testimonies. 52)

[Maria Lucia Tcherassi, OCDS @matcherassi]

“Could we love the Father without loving the Son and the Holy Spirit?

No, for whoever pleases One of these Three Divine Persons pleases all Three; and equally so with whoever offends Them.

Could the Father exist without the Son and without the Holy Spirit?

No, for there is One Essence, and, where the One is, there are all the Three, for They are indivisible.”

( Saint Teresa of Jesus. Spiritual Relations . Chap 33)

[Maria Lucia Tcherassi, OCDS @matcherassi]

“This father began to lead me to greater perfection.

He told me that to please God completely I must leave nothing undone; he did so also with great skill and gentleness because my soul still was not at all strong but very fragile, especially with regard to giving up some friendships I had.

Although I was not offending God by them, I was very attached, and it seemed to me it would be ingratitude to abandon them.

So I questioned why I should have to be ungrateful since I was not offending God.

He told me to commend the matter to God for some days and to recite the hymn Veni Creator so that God might give me light about the better course of action.

One day, having spent a long time in prayer and begging the Lord to help me please Him in all things, I began the hymn; while saying it, a rapture came upon me so suddenly that it almost carried me out of myself.

It was something I could not doubt, because it was very obvious.

It was the first time the Lord granted me this favor of rapture.

I heard these words: "No longer do I want you to converse with men but with angels."

…These words have been fulfilled, for I have never again been able to tie myself to any friendship or to find consolation in or bear particular love for any other persons than those I understand love Him and strive to serve Him; nor is it in my power to do so, nor does it matter whether they are friends or relatives.

If I'm not aware that the persons seek to love and serve God or to speak about prayer, it is a painful cross for me to deal with them.

…From that day on I was very courageous in abandoning all for God…

May God be blessed forever because in an instant He gave me the freedom that I with all the efforts of many years could not attain by myself…”

(St. Teresa of Jesus. The Book of Her Life. Chapter 24.5-8)

[Maria Lucia Tcherassi, OCDS @matcherassi]

“O lamps of fire!
in whose splendors
the deep caverns of feeling, once obscure and blind, now give forth, so rarely, so exquisitely, both warmth and light to their Beloved….

these lamps of fire are living waters of the spirit like those that descended on the Apostles [Acts 2:3]; although they were lamps of fire they were clear and pure waters as well.

The prophet Ezekiel referred to them in this fashion when he prophesied the coming of the Holy Spirit: I will pour out upon you, God says there, clean waters and will put my spirit in the midst of you [Ez. 36:25-27].”

(St. John of the Cross. The Living Flame of Love. Stanza 3)

[Maria Lucia Tcherassi, OCDS @matcherassi]

“… the delight that the flaring of the Holy Spirit generates in the soul is so sublime that it makes it know that which savors of eternal life.

Thus it refers to this flame as living, not because the flame is not always living but because of this effect; it makes the soul live in God spiritually and experience the life of God in the manner David mentions:
My heart and my flesh rejoiced in the living God [Ps. 84:2].”

(St. John of the Cross. The Living Flame of Love. Stanza 1.6)

[Maria Lucia Tcherassi, OCDS @matcherassi]

“How gently and lovingly you wake in my heart, where in secret you dwell alone; and in your sweet breathing, filled with good and glory,
how tenderly you swell my heart with love…

Oh, how happy is this soul, which ever experiences God resting and reposing within it!

Oh, how fitting it is for it to withdraw from things, flee from business matters, and live in immense tranquility, so that it may not, even with the slightest speck of dust or noise, disturb or trouble its heart where the Beloved dwells.”

(St. John of the Cross. The Living Flame of Love. Stanza 4)

[Maria Lucia Tcherassi, OCDS @matcherassi]

“O sweet cautery,
O delightful wound!
O gentle hand!
O delicate touch that tastes of eternal life and pays every debt!
In killing you changed death to life…

This cautery… is the Holy Spirit.

For as Moses declares in Deuteronomy, Our Lord God is a consuming fire [Dt. 4:24], that is, a fire of love that, being of infinite power, can inestimably consume and transform into itself the soul it touches.

Yet he burns each soul according to its preparation.

He will burn one more, another less, and this he does insofar as he desires, and how and when he desires.”

(St. John of the Cross. The Living Flame of Love. Stanza 2)

[Maria Lucia Tcherassi, OCDS @matcherassi]

“O living flame of love that tenderly wounds my soul in its deepest center!

Since now you are not oppressive, now consummate! if it be your will: tear through the veil of this sweet encounter!…

This flame of love is the Spirit of its Bridegroom, who is the Holy Spirit.

The soul feels him within itself not only as a fire that has consumed and transformed it but as a fire that burns and flares within it, as I mentioned.

And that flame, every time it flares up, bathes the soul in glory and refreshes it with the quality of divine life.”

(St. John of the Cross. The Living Flame of Love. Stanza 1)