The Dove and Rose - Chapter 14
Spiritual equanimity and The Dove and Rose devotion
The Dove and Rose is available for free. If you enjoy The Dove Rose regularly, consider becoming a monthly or yearly paid subscriber to support my work.
Or, if you enjoy a post and want to make a one-time contribution, the gesture will be much appreciated!
Most importantly, enjoy yourself because I appreciate that you are here.
"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)
What happens when The Dove and Rose embrace you in the warmth of the light radiating their heavenly color is that they bring you along the Trail of the Dogmatic Creed, the pathway of all those who have gone before us, to the point where we can "see" our homeland in the distance, though as like a mere reflection of a beautiful landscape off the waters of a still lake. Once you sense this land of destiny, all other values become subordinated to those of the Kingdom of God. That precious gift of spiritual equanimity settles in as it becomes apparent that we do have legitimate and healthy hopes, dreams, and desires in this earthly life, but they must fall into place in a more authentic Divine Order, a rich and regal hierarchy, that is consonant and congruent with the substance of the Kingdom. That substance is Jesus Christ, through Whom all things were made (Jn 1:1-3).
Our values are re-integrated after being disintegrated in the spiritual wastelands where we had been living. Our good earthly values in time and space fall into the proper place in the eternal schema of the Divine Order in the Kingdom. That order, threaded together in the Holy Spirit, illuminates and brings life to the whole through unity in the one Divine Principle End, Who is God. Further, we see the authentic order of the saints, such as Sts. Joan and Thérèse, the angels, the Blessed Virgin Mary, and upward to Jesus Christ, our Divine King. We rightfully offer our honor of dulia and hyper-dulia to our saintly sisters and our Mother the Queen, along with the adoration of latria to our King, Christ Jesus, and the whole of the Trinity through Him.
This ennobling Kingdom is opened to us through that equanimity that keens our discernment in the spiritual life. In their combined spirituality, the Dove and Rose provide us with a truly magnificent and beautiful foundation for a peaceful surrender to the will of Jesus Christ, if only we will take their hands long enough and in obedience to the Trail of the Dogmatic Creed. In my case, by sensing Mystical France somewhere over the horizon, reflecting in a graceful beauty from the waters in that Kingdom, my desires are unified toward the one goal of obtaining it. All other desires, even authentic ones, are subordinated to it. I don't care if it is obtained through being forgotten on Mount Carmel or storming the bastille walls to free Orléans.
Mysteriously, that serenity of spirit helps me fly toward my goal, with St. Joan holding one hand and St. Thérèse holding the other. It just may be that the secret to eliminating friction and soaring with joyful freedom is that I never receive a final answer but that I only stay balanced in the asking. For, knowing the answer to the question of whether it is Mount Carmel or Orléans toward which I should lean is likely a subordinated principle to that of obtaining a serene balance to fly. Simply saying, "whatever You wish, Lord," keeps me soaring with hands and arms locked tightly in spirit to Sts. Joan and Thérèse, our Dove and Rose. You may fly with them to a different field in the Kingdom of God. Yet, whatever our respective destinations in the Great land, I do not doubt we are all in "good hands."
"To Jesus through Mary in the friendship and sisterly care of Sts. Joan and Thérèse"!