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"And I will gather together the remnant of my flock, out of the lands into which I have cast them out: and I will make them return to their own fields, and they shall increase and be multiplied." (Jer 23:3) (Douay Rheims)
"For whithersoever thou shalt go, I will go; And where thou shalt dwell, I also will dwell; Thy people shall be my people, and thy God my God (Ruth 1:16b) (Douay Rheims) "Mystical France, I love your saints They hold us both, to us impart Kinship and joy that renders you The sanctuary of my heart." (From "Little Flowers and Fiery Towers" by Walter Emerson)
One of the most beautiful gifts the Holy Spirit grants us in The Dove and Rose (St. Joan and St. Thérèse) devotion is that of the consolation of spiritual equanimity, which significantly aids our spiritual discernment.
I find in my devotion and consecration to Sts. Joan and Thérèse an increasingly perceptible and serene balance in my attitude toward spiritual discernment, particularly regarding how our Lord wishes for me to live out the remainder of my life, more as a contemplative or more as an active evangelist.
St. Ignatius of Loyola, who gifted the inspired reservoir of our Tradition with powerful insights on the discernment of spirits and of God's will for our lives, found it necessary for us to be balanced in our desires if we are to be genuinely open to the guidance of the Holy Spirit. If we pray for God's will, we should care not which way He leads us; we should be concerned only with doing His will. This balance is necessary for quieting our unruly, prejudicial desires and discovering our destiny in the Kingdom of God, which is one of the many graces Sts. Joan and Thérèse bequeath to us through their intercession.
I think they do this through their combined spirituality, which I refer to in my tagline, "St. Joan and St. Thérèse – together they are the most beautiful color in the world." That spiritual beauty is beyond description in earthly terms, for it is a heavenly color that originates in the Holy Spirit, shines forth through the Immaculate Heart of Mary, and then emanates out across the skyline of the Kingdom through the prism of these two saintly sisters. The equanimity that falls upon us like light rain in a peaceful meadow finds its source in both a Thérèsian desire to be unknown in the world as we climb mystical Mount Carmel with St. John of the Cross to the Interior Castle of St. Teresa of Avila on the one hand, and, on the other, a desire to actively engage the world with a radical Jehannian-like intensity and warrior-like Crusading spirit.
As I seek the will of Jesus Christ for my own life, I find myself more and more entirely and peacefully surrendered to either end, that is, to a contemplative life shut away from the world or to an active life of public evangelizing. As it stands, I do some of both, and that is ultimately, as I mentioned above, the true mystery of our devotion to The Dove and Rose. In the end, congruent to the advice of St. Ignatius, the Dove and Rose lead us through this equanimity to unspeakable happiness in the Kingdom, driven by the surrender of our unruly desires to a love for the will of God in itself, no matter the outcome.
Yet, looking more deeply into the saintly, sisterly influence of St. Joan and St. Thérèse, The Dove and Rose, I see a more sublime methodology at work. Through their care, I gain a sense of my true homeland and find myself seeking only that end. I want to go home. Having been cast out, I now desire "to return to my own field." That field, or true homeland, is not one of this earth, for it transcends time and space where it is established as an eternal Kingdom. My love for Sts. Joan and Thérèse, which in substance is simply a love between the Holy Trinity and me through the heart of the Mother of God, brought me out of the land where I had been cast out, as promised by our Lord through the prophet Jeremiah, to a field I have come to know as "Mystical France." I cried out for it years ago when I wrote,
My prayer to God if he would hear my plea
Is to live in heaven with the Maid from Domrémy
I merit not a destiny of this kind
Just thankful for the day of seventeen, July."
(Excerpt from "Day Seventeen, July")
And when I wrote even earlier,
"The desert of our silent inner soul
The sanctuary for I AM, He said
Traversing through in quiet wonderment
With those I love so much like St. Thérèse."
(Excerpt from "The Desert of St. Thérèse" by Walter Emerson)