Mary, Mother of Transformation in the Beloved
Mine are the heavens and mine is the earth; mine are the peoples, the just are mine and mine the sinners; the angels are mine, and the Mother of God and all things are mine; and God Himself is mine and for me, because Christ is mine and all for me. So what do you ask and seek, my soul? All this is yours, and all is for you. Do not belittle yourself nor dwell on the crumbs that fall from your Father’s table. Go forth and glory in your glory, hide yourself in it and rejoice, and you shall obtain the petitions of your heart (Sayings of Light and Love, 27).
Most Holy Virgin of Mount Carmel, Spouse of the Holy Spirit, Mother of the eternal Word made flesh and chosen Daughter of the Father, You who from the first instant were the creature most perfectly transformed by grace, the earth entirely possessed by Heaven, the purest mirror in which the beauty of the Most Holy Trinity shines without shadow, incline Your gaze upon my poor soul, which desires to belong entirely to Jesus Christ, and teach it the way of true union with the Beloved.
You know that the human heart grows weary of seeking outside what it can only find within, there where the Father has willed to make His dwelling with the Son and the Holy Spirit. I run after so many creatures, drink from so many springs that do not quench thirst, pursue lights that end by going out, while the living Fountain flows silently in the deepest part of the soul, waiting only for me to remove the stone of selfishness so that it may flood everything with its crystal-clear water. Lead me, Mother of Carmel, to that hidden fountain that wells up and flows, though it is night; make me cease living turned toward myself so as to begin living turned toward God, for only he who goes out of himself finds the Spouse who has awaited him from all eternity.
Teach me the holy self-forgetfulness that Your son John of the Cross so loved. Let me seek nothing but to gaze upon Christ; let me desire no other wealth than to do the Father’s will in all things. Uproot from my heart that secret inclination to seek myself even in the things of God, for as long as I live dependent on myself I shall not be able to lose myself happily in the Beloved.
Blessed Mother, lead me to the inner wine cellar where the Spouse communicates His secrets to souls; where words cease and contemplation begins; where silent music fills with harmony what the world cannot comprehend; where the sounding solitude is inhabited by the presence of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit; where the soul no longer lives by its own strength, but breathes with the very breath of God. May I experience that peace which does not arise from the absence of struggles, but from the certainty of knowing oneself infinitely loved.
When the Holy Spirit wishes to purify me with the fire of trial, do not allow me to turn back. If the Father prunes the branches, may I not rebel; if Jesus Christ invites me to ascend with Him to Calvary, may I not seek another path; if the night grows darker, remind me that the dawn is already hidden in its bosom. For every purification prepares a greater fullness, every renunciation opens space for Love, and every cross embraced with Christ ends by blossoming into eternal life.
And when the hour comes in which the Spouse comes forth definitively to meet me, grant that I may present myself with the lamp lit by the Holy Spirit, clothed with Christ and completely abandoned to the will of the Father. Then introduce me into the eternal dwellings, where there will no longer be distance between the soul and the Beloved, where faith will give way to vision, hope to possession, and only charity will remain, forever sharing in the ineffable Love with which the Father loves the Son and the Son responds to the Father in the eternal embrace of the Holy Spirit. There, under Your maternal gaze, I shall understand that the whole ascent of Mount Carmel was nothing but the path to allow myself to be fully transformed in Jesus Christ and to live, for endless ages, in the inexhaustible joy of the Most Holy Trinity.
Our Lady of Mount Carmel, grant that, forgetting myself, I may remain entirely transformed in Christ for the glory of the Father, by the fire of the Holy Spirit. Amen.