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J.M.J.
Third Day of Novena to the Blessed Virgin Mary of Mount Carmel
"Stay in the cell..." Quest for God - and Him alone, for He "alone suffices!" ("Solo Dios basta!" says our holy Mother Teresa of Jesus) - is "conversio ad Deum" (conversion to God); the quest for something other than God is "aversio a Deo" (turning away from - TURNING ONE'S BACK against - God): "conversio ad creaturam" (turning towards a creature). Hence, to seek God alone is to set one's life and whole being in opposition to - better yet, in warfare against - the world (with all its allurement to quest for good-image-projection, 'wellness', wealth - to surround oneself with things to cater to and pamper vanity; to provide all ease, comfort, convenience, amusement; even: 1) just to have a taste of some luxury, but all the more better 2) to wallow in luxury), the flesh (with its naturally blind and morally disordered - by Original Sin - quest for all sort of sense pleasures), and the devil (with all his cunning schemes and suggestions - through subtly corrupt principles, maxims, and teachings - of evil but under cover of good and pretext of truth - seemingly true: counterfeit, semblance). For this reason, the man of religion - the religious of "the Order of the Virgin" - must be a man not just of a 'faith' but a "man of the Faith": he can not be a Carmelite without his being first a Catholic; the same for those who affiliate themselves to the Immaculate under the banner of Her Order and take refuge to the "chamber" of their Beloved - Her Heart - of which the Scapular She appoints to be its "seal." It is the Faith that will be our supernatural guiding light not just because we are renouncing the world, the zone, the atmosphere, or the 'order' of things familiar to us but precisely because it leads us unmistakably to union with the Cause of our unbounded, most secure and eternal happiness: the Divine Person - the true God of our Faith.
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