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September 1 |
Teresa Margaret was born in Arezzo in Tuscany in 1747 of the noble Redi family, and entered the Discalced Carmelites in Florence on September 1, 1764. She was given a special contemplative experience concerning the words of Saint John, "God is love." She felt deeply that her vocation was to live a hidden life of love and self-immolation. That vocation was confirmed by her heroic exercise of fraternal charity, but was soon completed: she died in 1770, aged twenty-three.
From the Common of Virgins, except the following:
Office of Readings
Hymn
Come, happy Saint, and teach us all
The boundless love of Christ,
His gifts to you, that for the height
Of sanctity sufficed.
You made Teresa's teaching yours,
Together with her name,
Determined to become with her
A spirit of pure flame.
Drawn by your Spouse, you lived with Him
A hidden life apart.
Teach us to drink the healing springs
That well up from his heart.
C.M.
Unknown
The Second Reading
Decr. Super tuto From the Decree of Canonization
The love of Christ overwhelms us
Brief as it was, Teresa Margaret's whole life may be regarded as one continual raising up of her guiltless soul to God.In its innocence her soul turned spontaneously to God, and seemed able to find rest in him alone. In her, utter purity was joined to profound humility and she genuinely loved to be disregarded and despised. She did not simply bear humiliations, she rejoiced in them. Her purity of heart and her lowliness of spirit earned for her a high degree of charity, and this rapidly increased until her ardor became truly seraphic and she could hardly speak of God without her face becoming suffused with joy. Her love of God went hand in hand with a deep love for her neighbor and especially for sinners, on whose behalf she offered herself unreservedly to God as a victim. Her unassuming kindness and complete self-denial for the sake of her sisters in religion, especially the sick, were such that she was regarded as an angel of charity. The fires of her love were fed principally by the Eucharist, and she looked forward with longing to her communions. She was also especially devoted to the Sacred Heart of Jesus, a devotion which did much to curb the advances of Jansenism at that time in Tuscany. She was utterly devoted to Our Lady, whom she regarded as the model and protectress of her own virginal purity. She was endowed to a high degree with the gift of contemplative prayer, and daily grew closer to God, as though reflecting the glories of the eternity she was fast approaching.
As her life neared its end this true daughter of the holy Mother Teresa and faithful disciple of Saint John of the Cross was called upon through a mystical
martyrdom of the spirit, to resemble her crucified Spouse yet more closely. It was the very intensity of her love which caused this martyrdom; for the more
fervent love becomes the more unrelentingly it spurs the soul on to further love, and since no love of ours can match God's infinite lovableness, such a soul suffers exquisite torments from its insatiable thirst for greater love, and seems to itself to be wrapped in impenetrable darkness and to be totally lacking in love for God. In fact the greater love is, the less it seems to itself to be. It is the soul that is truly 'nailed to the cross with Christ' by this supreme martyrdom of the heart that wins for itself and for others the choicest fruits of redemption.Such souls by their silent apostolate of suffering, love and prayer, are foremost in the benefits they obtain for mankind and are the purest and most exalted in the whole Church.
Responsory
R. Hear, O Israel: the Lord our God is the one Lord.
-- You must love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength.
V. The Lord our God is a consuming fire, a jealous God is he.
-- You must love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength.
Morning Prayer
Hymn
The life that flowered in Carmel's shade,
Yielding a fragrant-scented grace,
Is crowned in heaven, a bud of light
Washed in the radiance from God's face.
Margaret, you blaze with charity
Among those weaving virgin choirs
Who, for reward, follow the Lamb
Singing the love his name inspires.
Help us to catch that same love's fire
That, lit with the interior flame,
we find our life, our peace, our joy,
All things in Christ and in his name.
Help us deserve the Father's gifts,
tasting eternity and heaven
In the unclouded source of joy
From whom alone all gifts are given.
Open your hearts to take the life
Which his renewing Spirit pours,
Life that returns the Fathers's love
with the same freedom it restores.
So even on earth we come to know
God's Trinity by God's own grace,
Happy, like you, for evermore
To sing his glory and his praise.
Unknown
Benedictus
I am the way, the truth and the life: no one comes to the Father except through me.
Prayer
Father,
you enabled Saint Teresa Margaret Redi
to draw untold resources of humility and charity
from the fountain-head, our Savior.
Through her prayers may we never be separated from the love of Christ.
Grant this through our Lord.
Evening Prayer
Hymn
as at Morning Prayer.
Magnificat
As the Father has loved me, so have I loved you: remain in my love.
