During our pilgrimage this year, Fr. Paul Staes taught us the following nine words, to be said every morning when we awake, and indeed at every hour of every day, especially when beset by cares and worries beyond our ability to bear:
Jesus, You love me. Jesus, I trust in You.
And lest we forget what those words truly mean…
Jesus, You know I keep saying “I love You”, but You also know the many times when I don’t really mean those words, when I simply say them under duress, or when my heart is mired in mundane lusts. So many times I’ve said “I love You”, while committing grievous sins against You.
But I know that, through it all, You love me. You’ve loved me even before I was born, and You’ll love me till the end of time. You love me with an intensity and a faithfulness that exceeds anything I could muster from this frail soul locked in a failing body. Your love is a LOVE that will never fail, ever.
And so, Lord, I trust in You. I offer up all my hopes and dreams, my plans and schemes, everything I would call my own. I surrender them all to Your Divine Mercy, trusting that You know what is best for me at every moment in my life.
Guard this frail body of me, Lord. Show me what to do at every waking moment, to preserve and protect this temple of Your Holy Spirit [1 Corinthians 6:19-20]. Guide my hands to do the Father’s will. Guide my feet to walk Your holy Way. Guide my thoughts and words, that they may always be to the glory of the Father, Son and Spirit.
We visited the Vézelay Abbey church, now the Basilica of St. Mary Magdalene, and while it was under heavy restoration…
there was still much to see inside, including a number of chapels to various saints, with corresponding prayers in French.
So here’s a mini “prayer book” compiled from the photos I took of the prayers themselves. The photos are mostly crap, so my OCR program choked several times, and I’m still trying to refine the translations.
If you can suggest corrections, I’d be most thankful. Otherwise, consider this a work in (perpetual?) progress…
Seigneur Jésus,
Tu nous as dit : « mettez-vous à mon école, car je suis doux et humble de cœur ».
Ton Cœur est un refuge où tu nous accueilles comme nous sommes, avec nos blessures, nos fatigues et nos détresses ; il est le lieu de notre repos.
Par toute ta vie, tu nous révèles l’amour du Père. Tu lui as été obéissant jusqu’à la croix. De ton côté transpercé, tu répandis le sang et l’eau afin que tous, attirés vers ton Cœur ouvert, nous venions sans cesse dans la joie puiser aux sources du salut.
Seigneur Jésus dont le cœur est brûlant d’amour, rempli de tendresse et plein de patience, attire-nous à toi et aide-nous à recevoir ton amour. Apprends-nous à aimer et fais-nous un Cœur selon ton Cœur. Amen.
Lord Jesus,
You said to us, “Learn from me, for I am meek and humble of heart”.
Your Heart is a refuge where you welcome us as we are, with our hurts, our tiredness and our distress; it is the place of our rest.
Throughout Your life, you revealed to us the love of the Father. You were obedient to Him to the cross. Through your pierced side, you shed the blood and water so that, drawn to your open Heart, we come in joy to draw upon the source of our salvation.
Lord Jesus, whose heart is burning with love, filled with tenderness and full of patience, draw us to you and help us to receive your love. Teach us to love and make of us a Heart according to your Heart. Amen.
Sainte Marie, Mere de Dieu
Sous ta misericorde, nous cherchons refuge, Sainte Mere de Dieu.
Accueille nos prieres quand nous crions vers toi.
Et delivre-nous de tout danger, toi Marie toujours vierge glorieuse et benie.
Sainte Mere de Dieu, prie pour nous.
Holy Mary, Mother of God
We seek refuge in your mercy, Holy Mother of God.
Hear our prayers when we cry to you.
And deliver us from all danger, Mary ever Virgin, glorious and blessed.
Holy Mother of God, pray for us.
Saint Joseph,
Tu as ete donne pour pere au Fils de Dieu; tu as recu pour epouse virginale la Mere de Dieu.
Toi le protecteur de l’Eglise qui est la sainte famille des enfants de Dieu, nous nous adressons a toi avec confiance.
Dans le silence, l’humilite et la foi, tu as prie, travaille et aime, ne cherchant rien que d’obeir saintement a la volonte de Dieu.
Nous nous recommandons a ta priere et a ta paternelle vigilance: garde nos familles sous la protection du Pere eternel.
Veille sur nos vies afin qu’en toute chose, nous servions fidelement le Seigneur Jesus et rendions grace a Dieu par nos actes de charite et la disponibilite de notre coeur. Amen.
Saint Joseph,
You were given as father to the Son of God; you received for your wife the virgin Mother of God.
Protector of the Church, that is the holy family of the children of God, we pray to you with confidence.
In silence, humility and faith, you prayed, worked and loved, seeking nothing but obedience in holiness to the will of God.
We commend ourselves to your prayers and paternal vigilance: keep our families under the protection of the eternal Father.
Watch over our lives so that we may faithfully serve the Lord Jesus in all things, and give thanks to God through our acts of charity and the openness of our heart. Amen.
Sainte Marie-Madeleine, toi qui as ete pardonnee par Jesus, toi qui as beaucoup aime, montre-nous le chemin de la conversion veritable et de la purete du coeur.
Par amour, tu as suivi Jesus pour le servir. Apprends-nous a livrer gratuitement notre vie pour nos freres et soeurs.
Tu te trouvais pres de la croix de Jesus, avec Marie et Jean. Obtiens-nous la grace de la foi et de l’esperance dans nos epreuves.
Au matin de Paques, tu as recu de Jesus la mission d’annoncer sa resurrection a ses disciples. Aide-nous a croire que la vie est plus forte que la mort, que l’amour triomphe de tout.
Sainte Marie-Madeleine, prie pour nous. Amen.
St. Mary Magdalene, you who were forgiven by Jesus, you who have loved greatly, show us the way to true conversion and purity of heart.
By love, you followed Jesus to serve him. Teach us to freely offer our lives for our brothers and sisters.
You were at the cross of Jesus, with Mary and John. Obtain for us the grace of faith and hope in our trials.
On the morning of Easter, you received from Jesus the mission to announce his resurrection to his disciples. Help us believe that life is stronger than death, that love triumphs over everything.
St. Mary Magdalene, pray for us. Amen.
Saint Jean-Baptiste,
Prophète du Très-Haut, tu as été rempli de l’Esprit-Saint dès le sein de ta mère, et tu as tressailli d’allégresse à l’approche du Sauveur.
Précurseur du Messie, tu nous annonces Jésus, Lumière du monde qui vient nous visiter.
Sur les bords du Jourdain, tu nous montres l’Agneau de Dieu. Dans les eaux qui en sont sanctifiées, tu baptises l’auteur même du baptême, le Fils de Dieu.
Tu nous accueilles au pied du grand tympan de cette basilique et nous ouvres un chemin de lumière afin que, délivrés des ténèbres et tout entier illuminés par le Christ Jésus, nous le suivions jusqu’au terme de la route, la Cité de Dieu, où le Père nous a préparé la table des noces éternelles.
Saint Jean-Baptiste, prie pour nous qui nous confions à toi ; Amen.
Saint John the Baptist,
Prophet of the Most High, you were filled with the Holy Spirit from your mother’s breast, and you leapt for joy at the coming of the Savior.
Precursor of the Messiah, you announced Jesus, Light of the world who comes to visit us.
On the banks of the Jordan, you showed us the Lamb of God. In the sanctified waters, you baptized the origin of baptism, the Son of God.
You welcome us at the foot of the great entrance of this basilica and open a path of light so that, delivered from darkness and fully illuminated by Christ Jesus, we followed him to the end of the road, the City of God, where the Father has prepared the eternal wedding banquet.
Saint John the Baptist, pray for us who have recourse to you. Amen.
Saint Jacques,
Toi l’un des douze apôtres, tu laisses tout lorsque Jésus t’appelle avec ton frère Jean au bord du lac. Ton caractère est rude : on t’appelle “fils du tonnerre”.
Avec Pierre et Jean, tu es témoin de l’intimité de Jésus ; tu es présent à la Transfiguration, mais aussi à Gethsémani. Et ta joie fut totale lorsque tu vis le Christ ressuscité ! Rempli de l’Esprit-Saint à la Pentecôte, tu as témoigné du Sauveur jusqu’à boire à la coupe du martyre.
Saint Jacques, toi qui as tout laissé pour suivre le Maître, dénoue les liens qui nous retiennent loin du Christ pour que nous le suivions pas à pas.
Saint Jacques, étoile pour l’Europe et ardent missionnaire, convertis et protège tes pèlerins en route vers Compostelle.
Saint Jacques, premier apôtre martyr, donne-nous audace, courage et force pour que notre vie soit de nous oublier, d’écouter, de méditer et d’aimer. Prie pour nous qui nous confions à toi. Amen.
St. James,
You were one of the twelve apostles, you left everything when Jesus called you with your brother John by the lake. Your character was rough: they called you “son of thunder”.
With Peter and John, you witnessed the intimacy of Jesus; you were present at the Transfiguration, but also in Gethsemane. And your joy was complete when you saw the risen Christ! Filled with the Holy Spirit at Pentecost, you testified from the Savior until you drank the cup of martyrdom.
Saint James, you who left everything to follow the Master, loosen the bonds that keep us away from Christ so that we may follow Him step by step.
Saint James, star of Europe and ardent missionary, convert and protect your pilgrims on the road to Compostela.
Saint James, first martyred apostle, grant us boldness, courage and strength in our life to forget, to listen, to meditate and to love. Pray for us who have recourse to you. Amen.
Sainte Thérèse de l’Enfant Jésus
Au Carmel, tout dans ton comportement semblait si simple et ordinaire, presque insignifiant ! Mais tu as découvert l’inlassable miséricorde de Dieu et tu t’y es abandonné,: voilà ton secret.
Tout en te considérant comme une « petite âme » pauvre et fragile, incapable de parvenir par ses seules forces à la perfection de l’amour, tu as mis en Jésus ta confiance en disant : «l’ascenseur qui doit m’élever au ciel, ce sont vos bras, Ô Jésus ». Ta « petite voie » te fait parcourir le chemin de la sainteté dans une « course de géant », et quand tu traverseras la nuit du doute et de la maladie, tu multiplieras les actes de foi en offrant tes épreuves pour que les incroyants découvrent la joie de se connaître.
Tu rends ton âme à Dieu à 24 ans, en promettant de « passer ton ciel à faire du bien sur la terre ». C’est pourquoi nous comptons sur tes prières.
Père, qui ouvres ton Royaume aux petits et aux humbles, donne-nous de marcher avec confiance sur les pas de Sainte Thérèse en brûlant du même amour et en vivant de sa force dans la foi. Amen.
Saint Therese of the Child Jesus,
In Carmel, everything in your behavior seemed so simple and ordinary, almost insignificant! But you uncovered God’s tireless mercy, and you abandoned yourself to it: this is your secret.
Thinking yourself a poor and fragile “little soul”, unable to attain by your own strength the perfection of love, you placed your trust in Jesus, saying “your arms will lift me to heaven O Jesus”. Your “little way” caused you to walk the path of holiness in a “giant race”, and when you crossed the darkness of doubt and illness, you multiplied the acts of faith by offering up your sufferings, so that unbelievers might discover the joy of knowing each other.
You gave up your soul to God at the age of 24, promising to “spend your life doing good on earth”. This is why we rely on your prayers.
Father, who opened your Kingdom to the little ones and the humble, give us the confidence to walk in the footsteps of St. Teresa, while burning with the same love and strength of a life in faith. Amen.
At last. After 18 years, I’m back at La Salette, the place where God started turning up the heat on my faith.
Hardly anything has changed; the most obvious difference is the appearance of shower/toilet cubicles, that look oddly like those on jet airliners, and not that much larger.
The most prominent feature in my mind remains the same: the giant cross of La Salette that greeted my tired eyes on that long-ago morning, after a terrifying night trip up a twisty mountain road in a bus two sizes too large. This time, we wisely made the trip both ways on consecutive days, giving us a smoother ride and more time for contemplation and long walks (two benefits of pretty much all mountainside monasteries).
And yet, there were still new things to learn, especially about the story of Notre Dame de La Salette’s brief but world-shaking (for me, at least) apparition. I’d completely forgotten about her unique appearance compared to all other currently recognized apparitions, shedding her traditional brilliant white-blue dress for a simple peasant woman’s garb, replete with chains, roses and tears streaming down her face.
Otherwise, it almost seemed like a meeting of old friends after decades. My feet retraced the familiar steps I’d taken up the hill to the giant cross, down to the spring fountain, and other places in between. My face recalled the blazing sun tempered by a stiff breeze. My lungs remembered the altitude and the heavy breathing.
It was like coming back to a second home.
Speaking of the La Salette cross, most people know about the traditional interpretation of the hammer and pincers on either side of Jesus’ outstretched arms: All our actions either drive the nails of crucifixion deeper into his hands, or gradually draw the nails out. While sitting in front of the cross, a different aspect of this symbology came to mind…
A hammer is a noisy instrument. Its sole purpose is to pound on things, generally making lots of noise, and is therefore a good analog to the fruits of human pride and selfishness.
BANG! Riches! BANG! Power! BANG! Casual sex! BANG! BANG! BANG! I’m the KING OF THE WORLD!
When you wield a hammer, everyone knows it, and humility is the last thing on your mind. Think Thor the Thunder God.
In contrast, pincers are quiet tools often used to correct errors, to fix metaphorical wrongs. When you use them, you don’t stand out at all. Often, the only person who knows when you’re relieving another’s pain is the recipient, but as the Son of Man assures us:
Truly, I say to you, as you did it to one of the least of these my brothers, you did it to me.
Matthew 25:40
Then too, pincers work by curving round the object in question, much like the arms of infinite Love would embrace a suffering nobody.
Gentle extraction, or brutal pounding. Which would you choose?
Oh, and mountain goats!
I didn’t remember them from the last time, but they certainly made their presence known this round, with the cowbells (goatbells?) around their necks…and the smell.
Even here, a scriptural moment revealed itself, when I encountered a young pilgrim gently coaxing a lost black goat towards the herd that had left her behind, reminiscent of the Parable of the Lost Sheep [Luke 15:4-7].
We exchanged a few words about the goat, and I only hung around long enough to ensure that she wouldn’t get mauled by a frisky billy, but I’m sure the young pilgrim received her own blessings in return:
Give, and it will be given to you. Good measure, pressed down, shaken together, running over, will be put into your lap. For with the measure you use it will be measured back to you.
Our pilgrimage group decided on the spur of the moment to buy a giant candle to be lit for all our intentions. Many other pilgrims gathered round to take photos of us in the process; I guess very few folks opt to carry a 35kg candle in procession, singing Marian hymns all the way.
We were told that a candle that size would burn for three days, so early the next morning, before the sun had risen, my wife and I detoured to the candle pavilions after our final mass in Lourdes to see how our candle had fared.
We walked in the darkness past several workers sweeping out fallen clumps of melted candle wax, and relighting the remaining candles that had been blown out by the capricious wind. When we reached the last pavilion, where the giant candles were lit, we discovered that our candle had fallen over, and its flame had gone out. A couple of other gros cierges had also suffered the same fate, but strangely, ours was the only one that hadn’t broken in half.
All that I witnessed in the cold and dark became a powerful sign for me. It reminded me that all of us are constantly buffeted by the winds of sin. No matter our state of righteousness or faithfulness, Satan continually tempts us in myriad ways, and as sinners, we will likely fall many times, our Christ-light going out as well.
But we need not break in despair under the assault of sin. With Christ as the center of our lives, we can return to Him and rise again, whole in mind and body.
And even if we think we’re too weak to do it on our own, there are many brethren around us ready to help us clean out our minds and souls, and relight the flame of faith in our hearts. Indeed, we may someday be called to become these humble “soul cleansers” ourselves.
Should that time come, may our response be…”Yes.”
Many pilgrims have their favorite spiritual moment in Lourdes. Mine…was at confession, a ritual unlike any other Sacrament of Reconciliation I’d ever experienced.
For starters, I’d mentally prepared myself before confession as usual, with a litany of sins running through my head, but after I’d closed the confessional door behind me, I came face to face with my confessor, who said, “Let’s begin with a moment of silence to collect ourselves.”
Instantly, that mental list evaporated, and I sank into a meditative reflection of my real transgressions, which turned out to be a completely different list from before.
Then he said, “OK, let’s begin,” but before I could even begin with the traditional “Bless me, Father, for I have sinned,” he extended his hand in friendship. “I’m Joe. What’s your name?”
No longer was I confessing my sins to God, with the priest as intermediary. I was now confessing my sins to a fellow human being, a man with (probably) his own burden of sin, a friend. A stranger, to be sure, but still…literally no barriers between us, and hands clasped in friendship.
It’s been a very long time since I’d come close to crying during my confession. Fr. Joe must have seen the shifting emotions on my face, because he chose his next words very carefully. “God knows how truly sorry you are, and He’s already forgiven you. For your penance, think of five people you love in your life, and tell God how much you love them.”
By the time I was done, I’d offered up almost a hundred people, including every one of my fellow pilgrims.
I guess this sort of reconciliation is a little hard to do on a regular basis in Singapore, given our propensity to rush through everything. I thank God for giving me this opportunity to experience a more intimate sharing of sin’s burden, and the joy of “making good” on my transgressions by turning outwards to lift others up.
