Spiritual Letter from Rome to a Carmelite Nun in Mexico
EDITOR’S NOTE: The letter below speaks of the extraordinary but nowadays barely remembered private revelation of Our Lord to an anonymous French nun in the late 1930’s, as Europe was on the verge of war. These most extraordinary private revelations are recorded in the book, Cum Clamore Valido (in French), key chapters of which are being made available in English on this website (under its subtitle, The Redeemer's Appeal to
Consecrated Souls (quod vide). It was the letter writer’s discovery of Cum Clamore Valido in a bookstore (while in Rome) that occasioned the letter below, written in 1961 to the writer’s spiritual child, a contemplative Carmelite nun in Mexico City. The letter refers to a Mother Auxilia de la Cruz, with whom the writer had a deep spiritual relationship. Mother Auxilia is foundress of an order of contemplative nuns (Oblates of the Blessed Sacrament) and was closely linked to Venerable Concepción Cabrera de Armida (Conchita) and to Archbishop Luis Martinez (author of The Sanctifier, among other remarkable works). The editor believes the letter reveals an important, not-to-be-lost connection between Our Lord’s revelations in Cum Clamore Valido and the transformative spirituality represented by Conchita Armida, Luis Martinez, Dina Bélanger, and Luisa Piccarreta. Interestingly, the writer of this letter in one way or another represents in himself a link to all of these figures and to the spirituality they represent. His meditation on the Our Father has been likened to the writings of Luisa Piccarreta, and also to The Dialogue of St. Catherine of Sienna. He is the author of the Stations of the Cross, and other meditations available on this website, including the Our Father meditation. Lastly, it might be noted that he happened to be the spiritual father of this website’s editors, under whose direction they lived for a good many years.
V
January 14th, 1961
Dear little J.
The fact is that I have bee inundated with so many lights that I want to share with you. I don’t know where to begin. Please pray for me to be able to explain this to you. I really do believe that just because these last things are so important, I realize that I could hardly hope to express them adequately. And that only shows you, before, the things which seemed so perfectly clear to me were just as superficial as they were clear. I needed to be purified in order to do this work. Yes, that is what He has been doing here, and you must pray that He will continue and finish this work of my purification, so that it will be He, only He, Jesus, who will live and speak, love and teach in me. How wonderful these words of John the Baptist, “He must increase and I must decrease.” That is what it is to be an apostle, and that is the very thing I wanted to share with you in this letter. And so I’ll tell you about this whole experience in its historical order: you will remember how, shortly before I left Mexico, Mother Auxilia was telling me of her doctrine of Eucharistic transformation, especially of the priest, and how much it meant to me – even though I understood next to nothing about it. Well, a couple of months ago, more or less, I wrote to Mother and told her something of what was happening to me, but she wasn’t very well and so I didn’t hear from her for a long time. Her letter finally arrived, and I’ll quote from it here:
"I see with intense joy by your letter that Jesus-hostia is calling you to live His Eucharistic life. This good news draws my soul nearest to your soul. May He in His Divine Mercy open to you this sublime recess of His loving Heart and teach you the untold mystery of the Eucharistic union, as He has designed to disclose it to your little sister. O, __ [Editor’s note: we omit the name here to oblige an expressed wish to remain anonymous]. I am convinced that there is no closer union with Jesus than that of the Eucharistic life. Jesus is truly and wholly in the host. In the Eucharistic life the soul offers herself to Jesus as species, places herself in the paten to be offered by this high and eternal priest to the heavenly Father. The little host – certainly not substantially as the host of the altar, by mystically, becomes Jesus by this union. The species, i.e., the human nature remains the same yet so transformed that it is Jesus Who glorifies the Father, Jesus Who saves souls, etc., in her. The soul has, as it were, disappeared and Jesus alone reigns supreme. Once the divine Priest consecrates her, transforms her in Himself she has but the same feelings, the same love, the same zeal for the glory of the Triune God. Indeed if any soul can appropriate to herself the words of St. Paul, “not I but Jesus lives in me” it is unquestionably the Eucharistic soul once she has been transformed.
"You, __, a philosopher, a theologian, be indulgent to my ignorance. I am not speaking of transubstantiation, no, yet I could die to defend the truth that there is no greater nor more divine union with Jesus than the Eucharistic life. I pray Him to teach you this wonderful way which He alone teaches to His choicest souls."
Well, you can imagine what this meant to me. Some time after that I was beginning the Stations of the Cross, very tired and very weary, and knowing that it would be all I could do to finish them saying the Our Fathers and Hail Marys and uniting myself with Jesus in intention, but feeling more like a corpse, physically and spiritually, than among the living. And then, at the very first station, as I was looking at the picture of Jesus being condemned to death (this was in our chapel here in our house), it seemed that He was speaking to me – not in words but in the way I have told you about, in ideas. And this is what He said: “Why do you look up at Me, trying to console Me on My Way to Calvary as though I were someone else? Do you not know that it is I Who am suffering in you, that you are following Me now as you are walking to your own death in Me, and that it is I Who am going to My death in you? Do you not see, you would console Me, and you are sad because you think you cannot do so, but now it is I Who want to console you, to console you in the way of the Cross. I am with the Father now, I no longer suffer, but My suffering, my Passion and Death, are prolonged in you.”
I knew as soon as that had happened, that I would never be the same, but I never even thought to relate this to what Mother Auxilia had written me. And then, several days later, it seemed that I was back in the same state of a kind of numb sadness. Then, one evening, I had to go see Mother Mildred and Silvia who were here in Rome, and because I had a little extra time I thought I would go downtown to St. Mark’s chapel here where they have perpetual adoration of the Blessed Sacrament before seeing Mother. Which I did. But in a little while I felt that I should leave, and on the way out I had the definite feeling that I should get myself a new book (Desclee’s shop was just around the corner). Then I felt that maybe that was just being soft with myself, and I had almost resolved not to go there, but I did anyway.
When I got to the store they told me it was closing in five minutes, but I thought I’d look at some spiritual books anyway. And then, in a moment my eye was caught by Cum Clamore Valido, about which I had already written you. I bought the book, and, because there was still time, I went to St. Marcella’s close by to read a little. The pages of the book were uncut, so I turned to an open page, 15, and this is what I read {Note: The writer of the letter quoted the passage in original French. It is translated here by the editor]:
"Fifteen days ago (the First Friday of September, 1935) at the close of my retreat, the Heart of Our Lord, during Holy Communion, had so penetrated my heart that, in a moment of inexpressible happiness, He substituted his own pain for mine, wanting only that in some way it be me who suffers the weight of his crucified love, but that it be Him in me who suffers, having become Himself this me, or at least seeking to become so entirely."
You can imagine the joy that filled my heart to have the message of his love verified in this wonderful way. But still I didn’t connect this with what Mother Auxilia had written me about the Eucharistic transformation, at least not right away. But when, in this very book I began to read, in the very words of Jesus Himself, of this doctrine Mother had tried to explain to me, I see it was all of a piece. In fact the book was filled with this doctrine, and with so much that Jesus had taught me about His Merciful Love. But now I was beginning to sense that this teaching about Jesus-Hostia was the true consummation of everything else, and it seemed as though everything I had understood until now was at best a preparation for this. To give you a little sample (the book will be here in French in a few days now, so they say, and I’ll send it to you airmail as soon as it gets here—I know Jesus wants you to have it):
"Be holy spouses to me, O consecrated souls, bearing the marks of your crucified Spouse, proud in your humility, courageous in your faith. The most Holy Host needs holy hosts so that He may expand his sanctifying acts to the glory of the Holy Trinity. These are the “living hosts, wholly given up” that my supplication speaks of, little co-redemptive perpetuators (survies)."
But that scarcely gives you any idea of how this Eucharistic transformation is the very heart and secret of Jesus’ love – you’ll see for yourself when you read the book and meditate on it. Anyway, now I was more sure than even that I had to give all my mind and heart to this Eucharistic transformation, because by now I know that it was what Jesus was asking of me. And so, in addition, to reading, studying and pondering Cum Clamore Valido, I began to study St. Thomas on the Eucharist in earnest – until this point I had been studying the Incarnation almost exclusively. And then, only the other day, I was in the Angelicum library reading St. Thomas on the necessity of the sacraments when I read something which I knew at once was the consummation of what I had been seeking:
"I answer saying that sacraments are necessary to human salvation for a threefold reason. Of which the first derives from the principle of human nature itself, to which it is proper to arrive at the understanding of spiritual things through those which are corporeal and sensible. But it is the part of divine providence to provide for each thing in a way which conforms to its nature. And therefore divine wisdom fittingly brings the aids to his salvation which man requires under certain corporeal and sensible signs, which are called sacraments.
"The second reason is taken from the (actual) state of man, who through sin has made himself subject to corporeal things in his affections. Well, it is necessary to apply the remedy to the place where it is diseased. And therefore it was fitting for God to apply the spiritual medicine to man through certain corporeal signs: for if spiritual things were proposed to him devoid of all relation to things corporeal, he would not be able to apply his mind to them, given as he is in his actual state to the pursuit of the things of sense.
"The third reason can be grasped from the study of human action which shows itself to be drawn particularly to bodily things. And therefore, lest it be too hard for man if the acts required of him were so abstract completely from bodily acts, certain bodily exercises were proposed to him in the sacraments, by which he might be healthfully exercised, thereby avoiding those superstitious exercises which consist in the cult of demons, or others likewise harmful, all of which are sinful acts. And thus, therefore, through the institutions of the sacraments man is fittingly instructed in a way conformable to his nature; he is humiliated as he seems himself subject to bodily things even as he is helped through them; and he is protected from harmful bodily acts even as he is helped by the healthful exercise of the sacraments."
Well, that isn’t much of a translation, but it gives you the sense. And now I want to show you how this fits with what I’ve been telling you. As I was saying, I was reading this by way of grasping the Eucharistic transformation. Also, and this is another integral part of the picture, I had been thinking and writing on the disagreement I had been having with __ on the relation of psychiatry to the faith. Also, you must see and realize that I am a child of the Holy Infant of Good Health.
Well, that, in the midst of all this intense preoccupation, came like a little bomb. I saw at once that the necessity we have to know that we are loved is not satisfied by any abstract theological teaching (not even mine), that you are convinced you are loved when the Beloved tells you you are loved, Himself. And how is Christ present now? Only in the Eucharist! Therefore it is only in His sacrament of Love that Jesus tells us that He loves me, and not in an abstract way, but in reality and truth, as He really is. But then I thought how different this sensible object, which is the sacrament, is from beauty which naturally attracts us. Whereas here what we see hides the Beauty which attracts us: “Visus, tactus, gustus in te fallitur, sed auditu solo tuto creditur.” {Sight, touch and taste are in Thee each deceived; hearing alone most safely is believed—St. Thomas.) And here is the crux of the matter, because God gives us this sensible sign under which he hides except from the eye of faith. Yet it is a sensible sign, conforming to our nature. And yet the efficacy of this sign is as I believe in what it signifies, not from any proportion between the sign and the object, but only by faith.
And then I thought how true it is, not only that Jesus, my beloved Jesus, hides under these signs, and not only, even, that He loves me, but that His Love is forever fresh and now, that this is the love, not only of a man whom I see with the eyes of faith, but of a man Who is God! Therefore this is a love which is perpetually actual, perpetually new, perpetually conforming itself to the needs of my poor little soul, His beloved. O J, can you see now why I can hardly bear to go on writing, because these are all only the poor little signs of this actuality of His Host Love, His Love begging for your love, begging to be allowed to give Himself to you, begging at each moment, speaking to my soul, even as my eyes see Him in the Host, I his little host, becoming Jesus-Hostie.
And then I saw how filled with hypocrisy and duplicity my whole relation to Jesus has been, because I had been loving my idea of His merciful Love instead of Jesus Himself, how I had been speaking myself about Him instead of listening to Him, how I had been trying to convince myself of my ideas about Him that He loved me instead of listening to Him as He Himself told me!
I really cannot write any more now, because, I am sure, Jesus is calling you now to Himself, to His adorable Heart which He wants to give to you—all! Listen to Him in the dark silence of faith, and you will hear His Voice telling you how much He loves you, how much He desires to give you His Heart. And then you will see how your misgivings about His Love (to think that we mistrust that love!) are only the duplicity which refuses to acknowledge how much it desires to find love in the things of sense, because it has not learned to discern the Heart of Jesus in the sensible Reality of His Sacrament of Love. That is all for now, pray for your poor little father, that he may learn to give his blood freely to be mixed with the Blood of Jesus in His chalice, and lost in His Blood, become one with His Blood. O, if you know how He loves you, how He longs for you—it would break my heart now to let myself think of it another moment. May He be Blessed forever, and we his children, in Him forever!
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