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Desert Meditations
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As
Father Altier departs from Saint Agnes and begins his journey into another desert land, our
hearts go with him. A true shepherd, he did not leave without exhorting us once again
to wholeheartedly answer God's call to a deep and profound
holiness, to keep our focus solely on the Lord, and to remain faithful in prayer
to the end despite whatever may come.
Thank
you, Father, for all you have done for us, the sheep whom God entrusted to your
care. You have been a voice in our desert, preparing the way of the Lord. You
led us not to yourself, but to His mother, knowing that she would then lead us
to the Lord Himself. Through the precious gift of your priesthood, you have fed
us with the true Manna from heaven. You have fearlessly pointed out the rough and narrow way so
that our souls would find true life. And you have given of yourself untiringly
to all who sought your guidance. May God reward you a hundredfold
for your generous service to His people.
Father
Altier's last Mass at Saint Agnes was on June 16, and Divine Providence
arranged that the Mass readings for the day would be taken from the First Book
of Kings. And so we begin these Desert
Meditations with Saint Elijah, the great prophet and father of the Order of
Carmel, whom Father Altier has always looked to as an example of what it
means to give one's life totally for God.
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As
his enemies sought to take his life, Elijah journeyed
through the desert for forty days and forty nights until he finally came upon Mount
Horeb, where he took shelter in a cave; and behold, the word of the Lord came to him, and
said to him:
"Why are you here, Elijah?"
And
he answered:
"With zeal I have been zealous for the Lord, God of hosts."
Then
suddenly a strong, heavy wind came rending the mountains and crushing the rocks
to pieces. This was followed by a mighty earthquake and a blazing fire.
But
only afterwards, as he stood in the cleft of the rock, did Elijah hear in
the very depths of his heart the tiny
whispering sound of the mysterious presence of God passing by.
Again,
the voice said to him: “Why are you here, Elijah?”
And
once more Elijah answered:
"With zeal I have been zealous for the Lord, God of hosts."
See 1 Kings 19:8-14
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One must pass through the desert and spend some time there in order to receive
the grace of God; it is there that one empties oneself, that one drives away from
oneself everything which is not God and that one empties completely the house of
one's soul in order to leave all of it to God alone.
-Blessed Charles de Foucald
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The desert is an interior detachment from
every creature in which the soul neither pauses nor rests in anything.
-Saint John of the Cross
Ascent of Mount Carmel
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When one speaks of the soul's desert, and says that the
desert must be present in your life, you must not think
only of the Sahara or the desert of Judea...If you cannot
go into the desert, you must nonetheless "make some desert"
in your life. Every now and then leaving men and looking
for solitude to restore, in prolonged silence and prayer,
the stuff of your soul. This is the meaning of 'desert'
in your life...you must leave everything and everybody and
retire, alone with God. If you don't look for this solitude,
if you don't love it, you won't achieve real contemplative prayer.
-Carlo Carretto
Letters from the Desert
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The heart cannot be given over wholly to God, unless it first be set free from every
other love.
- Saint Catherine of Siena
The Life of Saint Catherine of Siena
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You must break with everything which
is not I, you must make a desert for yourself where you will be as alone with
Me as Saint Mary Magdalene was alone with Me in the desert. It is by detachment
that you will arrive at that state.
- From the Diary of Blessed Charles de Foucald
Soldier of the Spirit
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We want to get rid of everything that holds us down, everything that is selfish,
so that we can love God perfectly.
- Father Robert Altier, OCDS
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Privileged soul, come apart, hide yourself - with Jesus, escape into the desert! It is there that manna falls
from Heaven... Go into the desert, ascend to the heart of God! What wonderful works the good
Master will accomplish in your dear soul if He finds it alone with Him!
- Saint Bernard of Clairvaux
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Show me, O Lord, Thy pure treasure, which Thou hast concealed in the desert.
-Abba Zosimas
The Life of Saint Mary of Egypt
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She lived in solitude, and now in solitude has built her nest;
and now in solitude He guides her,
He alone, who also bears
in solitude the wound of love.
- Saint John of the Cross
Spiritual Canticle
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He accompanied me across all the deserts and through all
dangers. I see clearly that God alone could have led me through such great
perils unharmed, with my soul untarnished and passing victoriously through all
difficulties, immense though they were.
- Saint Maria Faustina of the Blessed Sacrament
Divine Mercy in My Soul
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In
the wasteland He adopts him, in the howling desert of the wilderness. He
protects him, rears him, guards him as the apple of His eye.
- Deuteronomy 32:10
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The
more we have to suffer from darkness, the more rocks, cliffs, and deserts there
are in our way, the more we have to endure from fears, dry times, weariness of
mind, anguish of soul and even despair - the greater must be our confidence
and faith!
- Fr. Jean-Pierre de Caussade
The Joy of Full
Surrender
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Amid
the shadows I see very clearly how frivolous everything is that is not of
God.
- Saint Maravillas of Jesus, OCD
Thoughts
of Maravillas of Jesus
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If we cling to our Creator alone and care
nothing for created things, His Majesty will infuse the virtues into us, so that,
doing by degrees all that is in our power, we shall have little left with which to
struggle, for our Lord will defend us against the devils and the whole world as well.
Do you think that it is a small gain to give ourselves entirely to Him, keeping nothing
for ourselves, since in His goodness all is contained?
- Saint Teresa of Avila
Way of Perfection
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I will lead her into the desert, and speak to her heart.
-Hosea 2:16
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I felt that Carmel was the desert where God wanted me to hide myself...
-Saint Therese of Lisieux
Story of a Soul
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Who is this coming up from the desert
leaning on her Beloved?
-Song of Songs 8:5
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O Most Holy Trinity, be my great treasure, for to find You,
it is very little to sell all the things of this earth!
- Father Gabriel of Saint Mary Magdalene, OCD
Divine Intimacy
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It (the desert) is a time of grace, a period through which every soul
wanting to bear fruit must necessarily pass. It needs this silence,
this withdrawal, this oblivion of all created things, amidst which God
establishes His reign and molds the interior spirit in it.
- Blessed Charles de Foucald
Soldier of the Spirit
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O,
Father, I do not know the road that will bring me to You. Show it to me; teach
me the way.
-
Saint Augustine
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The way that leads to God is
the way that leads through the desert.
-Father Robert Altier, OCDS
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O Most High and glorious God,
cast Your light into the darkness of my heart.
Give me right faith, and certain hope, and perfect charity.
- Saint Francis of Assisi
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In a desert way, dry and pathless,
I appeared before You to see
Your power and glory.
-Psalm 63:1-2
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If the soul is seeking God, its Lord is seeking it much more.
- Saint John of the Cross
Living Flame of Love
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Remember that Mary is not only God's mother, but yours too.
In the order of grace you owe her everything. She gave Jesus to the world and
she also gives Him to you. She has brought Him to birth in your soul by Baptism
and there she makes Him grow, fashioning you in His image. Happier than any
explorer, you set off into the desert under the watchful eye of a mother who
shows you what path to take, protects you with her hand and provides for all
your needs: the most imperious of which is your need for God. She will lead you to Him.
-A Monk
The Hermitage Within
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I have remembered you, pitying your youth and tenderness when
you followed Me in the desert.
- Jeremiah 2:2
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Our
Lady is the place of the divine response, of the divine coming. In her,
humanity becomes conscious of God’s desire and fully efficacious will to
give Himself to us. Mary is the place of this meeting; better still, she is
the temple in which is consummated God’s espousals with humanity, the hidden
sanctuary in which the Spouse is united with the bride, the desert that
flowers at the breath of God.
-
Paul-Marie
of the Cross, OCD
Carmelite
Spirituality in the Teresian Tradition
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To walk in Jesus Christ seems to me to mean to leave self, lose sight of self, in
order to enter more deeply into Him with every passing moment, so deeply that one is
rooted there.
- Blessed Elizabeth of the Trinity
Last Retreat
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Leave all to be wholly Mine, to love Me as a God, as a Savior,
deserves to be loved.
- From the Diary of Sister Mary of the Holy Trinity
The Life and Message of Sister Mary of the Holy Trinity
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We should resolutely give Him our heart for His own and should empty
it of everything else, that He may take out or put in whatever He pleases
as if it were His own property.
- Saint Teresa of Avila
The Way of Perfection
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Do you know, My daughter, who you are and who I am?
You are she who is not; I am He Who is.
- Words of Our Lord to
Saint Catherine of Siena
The Dialogue
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Give
me, O my God, a thorough knowledge of myself! Let me be really convinced that I
am nothing and that You are everything! Do not let me think that I am anything
more than the nothing I am.
- Saint
John Eudes
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The more the soul is afflicted, stripped, and humiliated,
the more it acquires, with purity, an aptitude for the heights.
The elevation of which it becomes capable is measured by the depth
of the abyss in which it has its roots and foundations.
- Saint Angela of Foligno
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Let
us allow ourselves to be purified, illuminated and consumed by Him, since He
alone is the reason for our life.
- Saint Maravillas of Jesus, OCD
Thoughts
of Maravillas of Jesus
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There
cannot be anything great in us in the sight of God except our willingness to
endure.
- Fr. Jean-Pierre de Caussade
The Joy of Full
Surrender
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In
the desert, man becomes
aware of how small and resourceless he is, how much at
the mercy of the Creator whom all the elements obey.
- A Monk
The Hermitage Within
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The emptiness of the desert makes it possible to learn the
almost impossible: the joyful acceptance of our uselessness.
- Ivan Illich
From the Forward to
Letters from the Desert
by Carlo Carretto
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God refuses only the person who does not
admit his own weakness; He sends away only the unhappy proud person. You must
"hold him" well and strongly, with a poor spirit, with a poor heart,
with a life entirely poor...The life of a soul who seeks true happiness clearly
and indisputably depends on this: that those who seek their joy in God are the
ones who give joy to God.
- Saint Raphael Kalinowski, OCD
On Baptism and Religious Vows
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I long for Your face, Lord;
it is You that I seek.
- Psalm 27:8
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O Jesus, may I never seek nor find anyone but You alone...May
You, Jesus, be everything!...My God, You know that the only thing I've ever
wanted is to love You.
- Saint Therese of Lisieux
Prayers and Meditations of
Therese of Lisieux
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Had I but wings like a dove
to fly away and find
my rest,
I would flee far away
and encamp in the desert.
-Psalm 55:7-8
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As the doe longs for the springs of fresh water, so my soul longs
for You, O God! My soul thirsts for the living God! When will
I appear before His face?
- Psalm 41:1-2
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Put away every attachment, all care
and solicitude, and serve, love, honor, and adore our Lord and God with a pure
heart and mind ... A man is really clean of heart when he has no time for the
things of this world but is always searching for the things of Heaven.
- Saint Francis of Assisi
Franciscan Rule and Admonitions
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 Only when we are out in the desert recognizing our own helplessness,
only then, sadly, do we turn to God. But it is there, if our faith
is strong, if our hope is unwavering, if our love for God is firm and
secure, that we will see the Lord work in a way that we would never be able
to imagine…but we must trust Him first.
- Father Robert
Altier, OCDS
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There You will show me what my soul has been
seeking, and then You will give me, You, my life, will give me there what You
gave me on that other day…
- Saint John of the Cross
Spiritual Canticle
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I have come into the desert to pray, to learn to pray.
- Carlo Carretto
Letters from the Desert
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The Holy Spirit has been poured forth into our
hearts to lead us to the Lord, to lead us through this world of a desert into
the promised land of eternity, into Heaven itself.
- Father
Robert Altier, OCDS
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Remember
how Yahweh your God led you for forty years in the desert, to humble you, to
test you, and to know your inmost heart.
-
Deuteronomy 8:2
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From the bare heights a scorching wind blows from the
desert on the daughter of My people.
- Jeremiah 4:11
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Extinguish these miseries, since no one else can stamp them out; and may my eyes
behold You, because You are their light, and I would open them to You alone.
- Saint John of the Cross
Spiritual Canticle
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