The Carmelite praying with Jesus of the Gospels Foreword St Teresa of Jesus throughout her life shared a vibrant friendship with Jesus, albeit at a period in time it was low key. In hindsight, one could describe their friendship as a real companionship. It was not an ordinary one either. For her, it meant being one with him in his divine redemptive mission. This affirmation could be said of a great number of saintly Christians, men and women, down the ages. However, something which characterises her above the average saint is that she was a charismatic contemplative and a reforming founder of contemplatives. Teresa of Jesus grew up nurturing her friendship through the faithful exercise of meditative contemplation from the heart. This was a secret she treasured and extolled in her writings, and fully expressed in talking about it to her nuns and friends alike. She learned it in nascent form from an Augustinian sister friend while still in her teens: while in prayer she endeavoured always to imagine that she was personally present with her heart close to Jesus in whatever he happened to give his attention to in the Gospels. In my lifelong endeavour to promote spirituality in my pastoral ministry, Teresa’s way of prayer always intrigued and guided me. In recent years, with more time available for prayer and writing, the Lord is granting me a reserve of energy and inclination to channel everyday grace into worthwhile attempts to document historical facts, insights, discoveries and lines of thought into writing. Already a sixteen-year collaboration has produced the publication of the spirituality review ‘Teresa’. Last year saw the limited publication in Maltese of an update and revision of the ‘Imitation of Christ’ with Carmelite and Vatican II spirituality’. It enjoyed a quick sell out and practically from a single outlet: The Sanctuary of St Therese, at B’Kara, Malta. God willing and provided my health hold well; I intend to publish it in English at an appropriate time. This booklet may be considered a sequel to the referred publication in one way at least: its direct encounter with the Lord Jesus, as reported in the Gospels. I’ve tried to follow St Teresa by placing myself at Jesus’ feet, recalling many incidences of his life and interactions with people. Happily endowed with training in Carmelite spirituality down many years of formation received and provided to others, quite recently, I collected excellent relevant information available on the internet on theology, history and geography, and embarked upon a project which sprang in my heart a couple of years ago. My great source of ideas, however, has been silent prayer engaged in throughout the better part of 55 years. Through God’s mercy and guidance, every-day concerns, insights and discoveries, even dreams, have concurred in building up convictions and ideals dear to my vocation as a priest and a Carmelite religious. About two thousand years ago, Christ called around him friends and disciples to bear witness and have a part in his redemptive mission. And yet, the time lapse does not present a different Christ and invitation today extended to other persons to commit themselves to him as friends and disciples in the work of continued redemption and sanctity. No one comes to the Father except through me What I mean by meditation is to busy one’s understanding in the following way. We begin to think about God’s goodness to us in giving us his only Son, but we don’t stop there, we go on to all the other things of his glorious life. Or we begin with his prayer in the garden, and our understanding doesn’t stop until we picture him nailed to the cross. Or we take a single scene from his passion, and go on thinking about that one mystery, working out in detail everything that can be thought or felt about it. It is a very admirable and meritorious kind of prayer. No soul that has received so much from God, such precious proof of his love, can forget them. They are live sparks that can only intensify what we feel for our Lord. Anyone who says he can’t dwell on these mysteries is quite mistaken. He will often have them in mind, especially when they are being celebrated by the Catholic Church. The company of our beloved Jesus, and his blessed Mother, is far too good to be given up. For my own part I could not wish for any blessing that had not been won for us by him, though whom every good thing comes to us. Our Lord said himself, ‘No one can come to the Father except through me’, and whoever sees me, sees my Father’. So, if we never look at him, or think about what we owe him and the death he underwent for our sake, I don’t see how we can hope to know him or do anything to serve him. (Without such good works, what good is faith? And what good are works, unless they are joined to the merits of Jesus Christ, our only good, which alone has any worth?) And how can anyone persuade us to love our Lord? From The Interior Castle by St. Teresa of Jesus, VI, 7, 10-15; II 1, 11 A word about the title. A Carmelite in prayer with Jesus of the Gospels When a Carmelite approaches Jesus to pray, he entrusts himself to him in an act comprising faith, hope and love. Any Carmelite prayer wholly centred on Christ is contemplative. The reference to the Gospels refers to parameters of subject matter, of time and logistics. This booklet delves into a friendly association with Jesus concerned with everyday occupations and his interactions with the eternal Father, his foster father Joseph and mother Mary and later with disciples and followers, while on mission to realise his unique and specific task of Redemption. Related events and salvific truths are realities often contemplated by the attentive believer. In substance this is the perspective and simple content of this book. Its aim is to encourage familiarity with and imitation of Jesus always with a proclivity to come to the aid of ailing humanity. In the name of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit We take up our journey of faith in the name of the prodigal love of the Father, the bountiful grace of the Son and the soothing enabling union of the Holy Spirit… As I thread the threshold of the dark unknown, I fling myself, unaware of any inner beauty, yet trusting confidently in the embrace of the loving Almighty. It’s a moment where imperceptibly and necessarily come in action the theological virtues. And in this perspective that I long to reach towards the brightening horizon. Lord, you fire in me a home coming instinct whenever and wherever I dare approach you. And along with it you favour me with a touch of love, faith and hope. Instinctively, I close my eyes eager to behold you, hugging your presence in unknowing abandon and heartfelt adoration. Keeping off any lurking distractions, I focus my limited faculties on your innate goodness. There opens up the vast expanse of the largely undiscovered universe unenclosed in billions of light years but also the minute gamut of our own planet earth, so replete with myriad life amid an apparently stable environment yet evolving reiterating itself between manifold extremes. It’s a wonder of wonders, that central to reality, as we know it, the mystery of the Incarnation has occurred with Christ’s coming. The eternal Word spoken in hallowed silence by the Father conveyed by his Spirit assumed human nature becoming man himself in order to enact redemption in favour of his joy and masterpiece but fallen humanity. Through untold travail, abject humility and supreme gentleness, you, beloved Christ, freely bore the Cross making yourself victim of expiation for sin, then, arising from death with enriched new life, you promised it also to all who believe in you. Once the unique work of redemption was accomplished, You ascended to the Father’s right in power and glory, mandating your salvific mission to the Spirit and to chosen apostles and countless disciples down the ages. How proud I find myself to be part of such a rich mystery of wisdom, mercy and love. Never far from your heart-beat, dear Jesus, - you said you would never leave us alone as orphans – my own heart overflows with comfort knowing that my daily pilgrimage, as long as I keep close to you, is safeguarded against the wiles of the devil and his wild cohorts. The Annunciation I am led to contemplate and giving precedence to the absolute divine initiative in God’s plan for the redemption of mankind. The one privileged person to spearhead such initiative fell on Mary the dearly beloved spouse of Joseph, the gentle carpenter of Nazareth. Both spouses suffered unimaginably interiorly on account of it. Mary was consulted directly by the archangel, Gabriel, and she gave her outright consent once she was confided with God’s plan. While Joseph, left to face accomplished reality, had to struggle within himself for months. Apparently, neither discussed the situation among themselves. Joseph loved Mary too much to permit any harm to fall on her. He was on the point of deciding to wrench his heart and quietly separating himself from her without denouncing her. And then, the Lord God intervened through a dream and provided him with knowledge of his plans. Joseph was told that the Holy Spirit had overshadowed Mary and that Jesus was conceived; while he, the just, found strength thrust upon him to take Mary as his lawful ever chaste wife and assume the responsibility of a lifelong guardianship of both mother and son (Mt 1, 16, 18- 23).