16 th Sunday after Pentecost (The Little Arab)

Transcription

1 16 th Sunday after Pentecost (The Little Arab) Everyone that exalteth himself, shall be humbled; and he that humbleth himself, shall be exalted. 1. Humility can be simply defined as knowing your place and taking your place. Humble people do not promote themselves nor do they blaze new paths but simply accept the place God has assigned them to fulfill His will... to bring Him glory, to build up His Church and save souls. 2. Today let s meditate on a humble soul, recently canonized, the 19 th Century Carmelite Mystic, Mary or Miriam of Jesus Crucified. She was born of a Lebanese family of the Melkite Rite with thirteen brothers, twelve of whom died in infancy. Surely, these little ones in heaven made their sister on earth able to become a great saint. After all 12 sons died (how hard this must have been!), her parents made a pilgrimage to the Church of the Nativity in Bethlehem to invoke the aid of the Blessed Virgin. They were soon given a daughter whom they named after Our Lady, Miriam. She was born on Jan 5, 1846 near Nazareth. Her parents died when Miriam was only two, and she was then raised by a paternal uncle. After they moved to Alexandria, Egypt (aged eight); her uncle arranged a marriage for her when she turned 13. She refused to go along with this arrangement, insisting she had a vocation to the religious life. She knew her place! It was humility that resisted her uncle, not pride. In order to avoid the marriage, she ran away, trying to get back to her only living brother in Palestine. 3. As it happened, at that time a former servant of her uncle s household was preparing to return to Nazareth. He was Moslem. She went to him and he warmly welcomed her into his home. She told him her troubles. He and his family were sad at her situation but then tried to get her to convert to Islam, explaining that this would solve her problems. She responded with great conviction (again acting in humility knowing her proper God-given place): Moslem! No, never! I am a daughter of the Catholic, Apostolic, Roman Church, and I hope by the grace of God, to persevere until death in my religion which is the only true one. Perceiving an insult to his false religion (which allows its members to kill the infidel who insults the Koran or their prophet), the former Moslem servant suddenly became violent, slit her throat, wrapped her up in a

2 cloak and dumped her in a dark alley. The date: Sept 8, 1858 (the Nativity of Blessed Virgin Mary in the year of the Lourdes apparitions). 4. By her own account, she had actually died a martyrs death after which she received a heavenly vision and came back to life to be taken care of, attentively nursed back to health for about a month by a mysterious Lady in a Grotto. She bore the knife wound all her life, seen only by a few glorious scar, a battle wound. This Lady gave the little Arab orders to go to France and enter Carmel. In fact, this Lady gave to her a whole life-long program How she would enter in a Carmel in France, profess in another (Mangalore, India), and die in a third (Bethlehem). 5. So, soon she made her way to France, where she supported herself as a domestic, working for a Christian family. In 1860 she moved in with the Sisters of Saint Joseph. Supernatural events began to occur around her, leading the Sisters to prevent her from joining their number. She was then taken to the Carmel at Pau (not far from Lourdes, France) in 1867, and there became a lay sister, among the humblest of positions in Carmel. Later that year she entered the cloister, taking the name Mary of Jesus Crucified, and making her final profession on November 21, 1871 in the newly established Carmel in Mangalore, India, which she helped to found as a lay sister. 6. Later she would found the Carmel in Bethlehem, and there she would die on August 26, 1878 at the mystic age of 33 from an injury sustained in its construction. 7. She is well named Mary of Jesus Crucified, for she attained the heights of Calvary. Perhaps as a result of her rapid ascent of the MTN of God, seen most notably in her martyrdom and return to life, she was granted many extraordinary mystical graces and phenomena (stigmata, prophecy, seeing into souls, levitations, and many other things such as suffering for the Pope as well). But underlying it all was a profound humility and a willingness to suffer to maintain the place God put her. 8. Part of her suffering entailed being literally possessed by the devil for some time once for 40 days and then over a period of three or more years harassed by the devil with temptations, aversions, obsessions and even with momentary privations of her liberty. 9. Here is one story of how the devil caused her much suffering which she always bore without complaint. When the time came for solemn

3 profession, she received the unanimous votes of the sisters that enabled her to be accepted permanently into Carmel. She could now profess her vows to live with these sisters until death. But with all the supernatural phenomena, the Bishop hesitated, wondering if it could be diabolical in origin. He had her take a 21 day retreat during which he visited her everyday. The retreat was a festival of ecstasies, apparitions, visions, and meditations. She faithfully gave an account of everything to the bishop. At the end he exclaimed, I had some doubts before, but I assure you that now I have none. Everything comes from God. She happily professed her vows on November 21, 1871 coming out of an ecstasy. 10. But the amazing thing is that on the day after her profession, nearly everyone, including the bishop, turned against her and began to attack her, claiming that she was acting under the spirit of the devil. At Pau she had the confidence of her bishop, of the priests, of her superiors, and all her companions! At Mangalore a web of mistrust and hostility closed in more and more around the little Arab. Even her trusted confessor was transferred far away. She courageously entered her Garden of Olives. 11. On December 15, Our Lord said to her: Do you believe you are the only one suffering? I suffered more than you: I bore the weight of your sins. I do not wish you to be one moment without suffering; and if there were no one else to cause you suffering, I would change these stones, the earth, into men to make you suffer. I want you to suffer always. 12. Within a year, she was sent back to Pau, rejected. She did not blame anyone but herself. Besides, she knew with whom she was engaged in battle (the devil). When the expected peace did not come to the Carmel in Mangalore, it was not long before the whole community was swept by a wave of repentance. They went away from Calvary thumping their breasts by writing many letters of apology. Even the Bishop seems to have died of sorrow at 46 over the way he treated her. (She later rescued him from Purgatory through the first Mass offered at the new Carmel in Bethlehem.) 13. Here are some of the Little Arab s insightful words and maxims on humility (all of which were taken down while she was in ecstasy): 14. The me is what ruins people. Those who have the me carry sorrow, anguish with them. You cannot have God and the me together. If you have the me, you do not have God; and if you have God, you do not have

4 the me. You do not have two hearts, you have only one Everything succeeds for the one who does not have the me; everything satisfies him. Where there is the me, there is no humility, (nor) meekness, (nor) any virtue. You pray, you implore, and the prayer does not rise, does not reach God. The one who does not have the me has all the virtues and peace and joy. 15. In another place, There are many saints who sanctified themselves by means of pride, because they worked all their lives to combat it and to do the contrary of whatever pride inspired them to do. When it inclined them to go forward, they went backward; to go up, they went down; to open their eyes, they closed them; to speak, they were silent. 16. It is good to be held in scorn, to be nothing; it is good to be in sorrow on earth, so as to be glorified in heaven. Every soul that seeks scorn on earth shall have joy in heaven. You will not always be held in scorn, O soul, you will not always be in suffering, always poor; trials are not made to last forever. Therefore, seek occasions to humble yourself. If someone blames you for doing all sorts of evil, say thank you. 17. Be little, little, like earthworms. If you are (underground) and someone walks over you, you remain untouched. But if you appear above ground, you will be crushed For the worm, when the ice comes, the earth is its warmth; when the sun comes, the earth is its coolness Walk underground. Be little, little, like earthworms. 18. St. Vincent de Paul: The most powerful weapon with which to overcome the devil is humility; because, not knowing how to use it, he does not even know how defend himself from it. Here is an example. One day, while the desert father, St. Macarius, was returning to his cell he met the devil who tried to cut him in half with a sickle (the devil is a murderer from the beginning). He could not do so because when be drew near the saint he lost his energy. Then, full of anger he, said: I suffer great violence from you, Macarius, because though I greatly desire to harm you, I cannot. I do all that you do and more. You fast once in a while, I never eat. You sleep little, I never close my eyes. You are chaste, and so am I. In one thing only do you surpass me. And what is this thing? asked Macarius. He answered: It is your great humility. 19. True humility is knowing your place and taking your place. Here is one thing I want to leave with you today a secret of how to start down the

5 path to true humility. It is simply this No matter what happens to you no matter who does it to you say to yourself, I deserve this. (Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn story about the woman who came to the Gulag who when asked what she was in for she said, my sins. How long are you in for? Until they are expiated She was released in a short time!) This can be hard to do at first, for a thousand objections will rise up in our minds but once we say it and mean it, even if we feel or think otherwise, we will inevitably discover that truly we do deserve it and if we are really honest, we deserve more! for all our sins, for the sins of our family, for the sins of our nation, for the sins of the those in the Church of which we are members, for the evil of Original Sin and for what mankind has done to the Son of God. When we do this well, what happened to this woman in the Gulag, to St. Miriam the Little Arab, to all the saints will happen to us too, we will find our time of trial cut short and a grace-filled freedom forthcoming.