From: richarra@gmail.com   
      
   The good shepherd feeds us with the words of God   
      
   "The pastures that this good shepherd has prepared for you, in which   
   he has settled you for you to take your fill, are not various kinds of   
   grasses and green things, among which some are sweet to the taste,   
   some extremely bitter, which as the seasons succeed one another are   
   sometimes there and sometimes not. Your pastures are the words of God   
   and his commandments, and they have all been sown as sweet grasses.   
   These pastures had been tasted by that man who said to God, 'How sweet   
   are your words to my palate, more so than honey and the honeycomb in   
   my mouth!'   
   --St. Augustine--(Psalm 119:103)." (excerpt from Sermon 366.3)   
      
   ===============   
   12 April – Saint Teresa de Jesús “de los Andes” OCD   
      
    (1900-1920) aged 19   
   – Virgin, Carmelite Nun, Mystic, apostle of prayer. Born on 13 July   
   1900 at Santiago, Chile and died on 12 April 1920 at the Carmelite   
   convent at Los Andes, Chile of typhus.   
      
   Patronages – Against disease, against illness, Ill people, Young   
   people, Santiago, Los Andes.   
   The young woman who is today glorified by the Church with the title of   
   Saint, is a prophet of God for the men and women of today  . By the   
   example of her life, TERESA OF JESUS OF LOS ANDES shows us Christ’s   
   Gospel lived down to the last detail.   
   She is irrefutable proof that Christ’s call to be Saints is indeed   
   real, it happens in our time and can be answered. She is presented to   
   us to demonstrate that the total dedication that following Christ   
   involves, is the one and only thing that is worth this effort and that   
   gives us true happiness. Teresa of Los Andes with the language of her   
   ardent life, confirms for us, that God exists, that God is love and   
   happiness and that He is our fulfilment.   
      
   She was born in Santiago de Chile on 13 July 1900. At the font she was   
   christened Juana Enriqueta Josefina of the Sacred Hearts Fernandez   
   Solar. Those who knew her closely called her Juanita, the name by   
   which she is widely known today.   
      
   She had a normal upbringing surrounded by her family, her parents   
   Miguel Fernandez and Lucia Solar, three brothers and two sisters, her   
   maternal grandfather, uncles, aunts and cousins. Her family were   
   well-off and were faithful to their Christian faith, living it with   
   faith and constancy.   
      
   Juana was educated in the college of the French nuns of the Sacred   
   Heart. Her brief but intense life unfolded within her family and at   
   college. When she was fourteen, under God’s inspiration, she decided   
   to consecrate herself to him as a religious in the Discalced Carmelite   
   Nuns. This desire of hers was realised on 7 May 1919, when she entered   
   the tiny monastery of the Holy Spirit in the township of Los Andes,   
   some 90 kilometers from Santiago. She was clothed with the Carmelite   
   habit on 14 October the same year and began her novitiate with the   
   name of Teresa of Jesus. She knew a long time before, that she would   
   die young. Moreover the Lord revealed this to her. A month before she   
   was to depart this life, she related this to her confessor. She   
   accepted all this with happiness, serenity and confidence.  She was   
   certain that her mission to make God known and loved would continue in   
   eternity.   
      
   After many interior trials and indescribable physical suffering caused   
   by a violent attack of typhus that cut short her life, she passed from   
   this world to her heavenly Father on the evening of 12 April 1920. She   
   received the last sacraments with the utmost fervour and on 7 April,   
   because of danger of death, she made her religious profession. She was   
   three months short of her 20th birthday and had yet 6 months to   
   complete her canonical novitiate and to be legally able to make her   
   religious profession. She died as a Discalced Carmelite novice .   
      
   Externally this is all there is to this young girl from Santiago de   
   Chile. It is all rather disconcerting and a great question arises in   
   us, “What was accomplished?” The answer to such a question is equally   
   disconcerting: living, believing, loving.   
      
   When the disciples asked Jesus what they must do to carry out God’s   
   work, he replied, “This is carrying out God’s work – you must believe   
   in the one he has sent.” (Jn 6, 28-29). For this reason, in order to   
   recognise the value of Juanita’s life, it is necessary to examine the   
   substance within, where the Kingdom of God is to be found.   
      
   She wakened to the life of grace while still quite young. She affirms   
   that God drew her at the age of six to begin to spare no effort in   
   directing her capacity to love totally towards Him. “It was shortly   
   after the 1906 earthquake that Jesus began to claim my heart for   
   himself.” (Diary n. 3, p. 26).   
      
   Juanita possessed an enormous capacity to love and to be loved joined   
   with an extraordinary intelligence. God allowed her to experience His   
   presence. With this knowledge He purified her and made her His own,   
   through what it entails to take up the cross. Knowing Him, she loved   
   Him and loving Him, she bound herself totally to Him.   
      
   Once this child understood, that love demonstrates itself in deeds   
   rather than words, the result was that she expressed her love through   
   every action of her life. She examined herself sincerely and wisely   
   and understood that in order to belong to God it was necessary to die   
   to herself, in al,l that did not belong to Him. Her natural   
   inclinations were completely contrary to the demands of the Gospel.   
   She was proud, self-centred, stubborn, with all the defects that these   
   things suppose, as is the common lot. But where she differed from the   
   general run, was to carry out continual warfare on every impulse that   
   did not arise from love.   
      
   At the age of ten she became a new person. What lay immediately behind   
   this was the fact that she was going to make her first Communion.   
   Understanding that nobody less that God was going to dwell within her,   
   she set about acquiring all the virtues that would make her less   
   unworthy of this grace. In the shortest possible time she managed to   
   transform her character completely. In making her first Communion she   
   received from God the mystical grace of interior locutions, which from   
   then on supported her throughout her fife. God took over her natural   
   inclinations, transforming them from that day into friendship and a   
   life of prayer.   
      
   Four years later she received an interior revelation that shaped the   
   direction of her life. Jesus told her that she would be a Carmelite   
      
   [continued in next message]   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)