Mes de Maria - Day 31

May 31

 The great crown of all the flowers of May

We have already finished our work. All the flowers of the month of May are already in the circle circumscribed by the finger of God. Let us examine now our work and let us contemplate it. Have we been careless? Are there in our fields, valleys, mountains, hills, meadows and banks any of the flowers of the cheerful season that do not embellish, adorn, strike our sight and perfume our great crown? If you see it, if you find it, pick it up and put it together with one of the thirty bouquets that will enclose and complete them. Let us celebrate now the complement of our work

The crown of glory due to the merit of the virtues

The crown the saints bear in heaven is due to them and given to them in exchange for the virtues they have earned on earth. The flowers on that crown are the emblems of our virtues. All of them tied around the golden circle traced when he announced the law of grace: “You shall love God; you shall love your neighbor.” The circle originates from a point, continues forming a curve and returns to where it originated. The precept of love and charity, which is the implementation of this precept, originates in God who is love, Deus Caritas Est. While passing through our hearts, it makes known its ambits, it takes up all our affections and ties them to charity, and upon returning to God from it proceeds, and it leaves them there satisfied. All virtue that is true virtue originates from charity grows in charity, and lives bound to it and with it.

Floral offering to Mary

Queen of heaven: I have given to you during this month consecrated to you whatever I have found of the most beautiful and fragrant in the garden; I have given the best that I had and I give it to you again. No more, oh Mary, no more: Ah! It is a little thing, but I have no more. I have given you my vows, promises, intentions, resolutions and I have given them to you firmly and efficaciously as far as it was possible for me to form. You have asked them of me and I have given them to you as you could see them in that crown.

Mary, these intentions for which, through God’s mercy and your favor, I have formed in these practices, to you I have offered them and in they are now in your hands. Foment them, activate them, give them firmness, constancy, perseverance, efficacy and fortitude. I offer myself anew so that I can put them into practice. I entrust them to your maternal solicitude, most beautiful, most amiable and skillful gardener, into your hands I leave my crown; into your sacred hands, I commend my virtues. Guard them, protect them, water them, cultivate them and perfect them.

Recite five Hail Marys

Invitation: Have you already given all? All? Have you kept nothing for yourself? Think about it well: today our work ends with the month of May; you still have time, examine your soul and give to Mary if you have forgotten or neglected anything.

Text: Mes de Maria of Francisco Palau, OCD - CM Founder

Thank you Lord! 25 years of prayer and service.

Sr. Sandra Telogio, cm
Celebrates her 25 years - Silver Jubilee

The Silver Jubilee of my First Profession is a celebration of God's faithfulness and merciful love to me. The past twenty-five years has been an experience of grace, pure grace, amazing grace, God's grace. It is a story of Love, God's love for me and God's love for His people.

This is what I celebrate today. I celebrate the unfathomable love of God. To Him, I give all my thanks. To Him, I offer the rest of my life. For Him, I would give up everything still. I do not hesitate to say this because, throughout the past twenty-five years, I have seen how good and faithful He is.

For the past twenty-five years, God allowed me to encounter all of you who had then become a very significant part of my vocational and missionary journey. I cherished all those beautiful experiences and memories in my heart. I give THANKS TO GOD FOR ALL OF YOU! You are God's gift to me, part of the package of my vocation. Thank you very much for your loving greetings on the occasion of this Silver Jubilee of my First Profession. Thank you to my family who generously offered me to God, to my students and teachers who taught me many things about life, to all those whom I met and shared life during my missionary journey in different parts of the world especially the young people who challenged me how to live in a multicultural community without prejudices and discrimination, there is beauty in each one to behold.
To all my FRIENDS and companions in the journey who up to this time still supporting me and my mission, I see God who is faithful and generous. To all the priests, religious sisters and brothers are my sojourners and who keep on inspiring me through the holiness of their lives and their passion for the Church and humanity, I thank you!

To my Religious family, the Carmelite Missionaries, my heart is full of gratitude for your sisterly love and support of my vocation in Carmel. Thank you so much for forming me in the spirit of Blessed Francisco Palau which made me say; " I live and will live for the Church; I live and will die for Her."

In the silence of your hearts, as the Holy Spirit our Gentle Comforter, breathe on you, please listen, for He will whisper what I wished to express to all of you.

My words of THANKS IS NOT ENOUGH. HE will supply what is lacking. With Mother Mary, Mother of Carmel, and Mother of the Church, I entrust all of you to Her maternal care.
I am sharing to all of you the joys and blessings of my Silver Jubilee.

THANK YOU VERY MUCH! To God be the Glory.

Mes de Maria - Day 30

May 30

The poppies [papaver], espuelas and capuchinas

The poppies, the espuelas, the capuchinas and the many other flowers that we set aside in order to put them together with the thirty species already indicated, serve to embellish our gardens with their variety of colours and forms. The poppies (plant of the genus Papaver) are flowers of primary magnitude, beauty in its form and variety of colours (red, violet, yellow & white) with its stem rising so high; but take care that nobody touches them; they have no odour.

Eutropelia - good manner in external gestures

We have to put in order the virtue of temperance not only in the internal activity of the soul but also in the external movement of the body such as jumping, dancing, doing gymnastics, way of dressing and manners. In everything, the rules of decency, respect, honesty, decorum, modesty and seriousness have to prevail.

Floral offering to Mary

Oh Mary, I offer you moderation in all my external gestures, actions and movements. Receive my intentions and make them strong and efficacious.

Recite five Hail Marys

Invitation: Does your exterior demonstrate composure? Do you observe order and moderation?

Text: Mes de Maria of Francisco Palau, OCD - CM Founder

Mes de Maria - Day 29

May 29

Alabaca

The alabaca has its preference more than the fragrant and aromatic plants cultivated in our gardens and in the ridges. Its flower has no value but together with the viola purple gillyflower, it forms a beautiful bouquet.

Humility

Pride puffs up a person, exalts him and places him where he does not belong, makes him pretend to be the contrary of what he is and boast of what he is not. We need a virtue that will abate our desires and appetites for worldly honor, glory, high office and greatness, so that, we will not be poisoned by the pestiferous breath of this infernal head. This virtue is humility.

Floral offering to Mary

Most humble and purest virgin, I accept willingly as something merited and deserved all the contempt, insults and humiliations that I may receive no matter where they came from. I desire that you accept me only for what I am. I am a poor and miserable sinner. Receive my Queen this bouquet as emblem of my humility.

Recite five Hail Marys
Invitation: Do you delight in being what you are not? Do you boast about what you do not have?

Text: Mes de Maria of Francisco Palau, OCD - CM Founder

Thankful... Grateful... Blessed...

Sr. Angie and her community
MCS - Dingle, Iloilo

Sr. Esperlita and her community
Davao City

Sr. Victoria & Sr. Corazon and their community
Quezon City

God continues to call... to love and serve him...

In this pandemic time, more good things the Lord has done in our lives. His Love endures forever. 

He is just marvelous. 

We give praise and thanks to God for the gift of vocation in Carmel and the gift of perseverance of our sisters who celebrates their 25 years of prayer and service in Carmel for the Kingdom!

YOu are my God, I give you thanks! Your love endures forever!

You are my God, I give you thanks! His love endures forever!

You are my God, I give you thanks! His love endures forever!

Lord, I give you thanks!

Mes de Maria - Day 28

May 28

The Violet

It is a flower that even if it does not bloom on the month of May. It anticipates to give us the news that frost had passed, the snow had melted and that the beautiful season of spring is approaching.

Modesty

This virtue modesty is a companion of temperance, maintained in the spirit its interior serenity and in the body the exterior against its tendency towards honours, glories, dignities, greatness, and knowledge, exterior adornment of the body, gestures and attitudes in licit enjoyments.

Floral offering to Mary

Mary, by the presentation of this bouquet, I commit myself to keep my interior and exterior modesty. Receive a flower that you love so much, accept my resolutions and let them be strong and effective.

Recite five Hail Marys

Invitation: To be proud and conceited is to take a monstrous spiritual figure. It is good to reflect in our spiritual figure. How is it like? Avoid discomposure.

Text: Mes de Maria of Francisco Palau, OCD - CM Founder

Mes de Maria - Day 27

May 27

Queen of the Night & Mallow

This plant is one of the species in which the Mallow is divided: its leaf is gentle to touch; its flower is very small and without odour but its crimson colour is so bright and vivid and the flowers come in a cluster. It avoids the heat of the sun and loves the pool of water.

Clemency and meekness

Clemency moderates the rigours and severity of punishment insofar as it is compatible with the laws of justice; meekness protects the peace of the heart against anger. These virtues soften and calm, sweeten and pacify. The mallow is a plant that is very soft, smooth and delicate to touch and its species perfumes with its fragrance and embellishes our garden with its variety of flowers.

Floral offering to Mary

Oh most merciful and sweetest Mary! I offer to you today the flower of my meekness; I will maintain peace of heart, and I will hold the impetus of anger on a bad day. I promise you so; receive this resolution of mine, accept my flower.

Recite five Hail Marys

Invitation: What do you do when the wind blows in your heart the breeze of anger, restlessness and discontent? Do you abandon yourself? Do you burst out into complaints, utter inappropriate and offensive words?

Text: Mes de Maria of Francisco Palau, OCD - CM Founder

Mes de Maria - Day 26

May 26

The vanilla

This plant fills the whole garden with a very strong fragrance; its flower has no beauty, but it serves to adorn the bouquet and perfumes it. It cannot stand by itself, it needs someone to support it.

Continence

Temperance, as the principal virtue, together with abstinence, sobriety, chastity, virginity, with penance and other mortification of the flesh, regulates the strongest passions of a person. Continence checks the passions of the lower order to achieve its objective. It has at its disposal clemency, meekness, modesty, humility and moderation in pleasures and merrymaking.

Floral offering to Mary

Mary, I offer you, the gillyflower bouquet - the vanilla, emblem of continence and I promise to put over all my passions. Receive my flower and grant that my flesh may be controlled by the holy fear of God.

Recite five Hail Marys

Invitation: When you feel moved and compelled to go against yourself in addition to the following passions: sadness & melancholy, excessive joy & happiness, unfounded fear & fright, audacity & boldness, love & hatred and other passions, what do you do?

Text: Mes de Maria of Francisco Palau, OCD - CM Founder

Novitiate... First stage of formation

 Novitiate is a journey of life, an initial stage wherein we follow the footprints of our Friend Jesus. The first stage of formation to discover the beauty of religious life and the graces and marvels God has gifted us. Hence, we can be witnesses and sharers of his love and compassion.

The five newly initiated to the novitiate
Anastasia Natalia Anshelly, Leovonia Soares Simoins,
 Adalgiza Ferreira, Maria Gertrudi Tahaf & ReginaNdari

Novices
5 first year, 5 second year and 7 preparing for first profession

Mes de Maria - Day 25

May 25

The lemon-verbena 

This the plant has neither flower in its splendid branch nor vanity but it has very fine fragrance and very sharp and delicate odor; and moreover, it has a special powerful effect on the physical health. Although in itself this flower had no beauty, its essential is supplemented by the gillyflower and rose.

Poverty

Poverty is an indispensable virtue for charity to become operative in us; the love of God empties and cleans the soul of whatever is in it that does not belong to God, and this vice, this interior detachment from all created things, is such a necessary virtue that without charity it cannot operate. If this interior detachment is added to the exterior, and the renunciation of all goods and riches of the world, poverty acquires a greater perfection.

Floral offering to Mary

Mary, I offer to you today poverty; I commit myself to a detachment that the love of God demands. There goes, Oh Mary, my lemon-verbana together with the rose: accept it and strengthen my resolutions.

Recite five Hail Marys

Invitation: The heart is full of what it loves. Do you love God with your whole heart? Does God have a place in your heart? Take some moments of your time with the Lord every day and He will fill you.

Mes de Maria - Day 24

May 24

Thyme, Romany & Mint

Choose for our gardens certain plants that serve to adorn it with their greenness and perfume it with their fragrance, such are the thyme, romany and mint. They are fragrant, aromatic and medicinal plants.

Penance

We are taking here penance in the broadest sense. The repentance of a fault, the flagellation and mortification of the flesh with afflictions and use of sackcloth and the limit of servile work respective of the arts, the mortification of the senses, all these is symbolized by the thyme, romany, mint and other strong herbs which are planted along the pathway of the garden. And when stepped on and compressed, it exudes its special fragrance and are medicine for the body and soul.

Floral offering to Mary

Mary, there goes the plants and strong herbs as a sign of my repentance of my sins. Receive them Oh Mary, and present them to your Son and grant me the forgiveness of all of them.

Recite five Hail Marys

Invitation: Offer to God a penance such as his justice demands.

Text: Mes de Maria - Francisco Palau, OCD - CM Founder

Mes de Maria - Day 23

May 23

The white simple and double gillyflower (viola)

He who contemplates attentively the white simple and double gillyflower will see in the first, all the qualities of a true flower and it opens our sight upon presenting it. White as the snow, its flowers clustered in many branches, abundant, long lasting, not delicate, and beautiful and one of those aromatic perfumes very pleasant to the sense of smell.

Who does not see here?

Chastity and virginity

The white simple gillyflower teaches us chastity and the double, virginity.

All the state of life follows chastity in a common sense; this is, within the rules of temperance. The single man and single woman as well as the married man and woman, widow and widower have to be chaste.

Flora offering to Mary

Virgin Mother, the purest among creatures, receive this branch of flower: I give you a heart resolved, determined and ready to keep chastity within the rules of temperance and the laws of my state of life or profession: receive most pure Mother, receive this flower of mine, I entrust it to your care; take care of it.

Recite five Hail Marys

Invitation: Reflection - One flower comes from another flower. A virgin conceives and its seed is a flower not a plant but virginity, and the Virgin Mother is pure and does not lose her purity in childbirth. If the virgin double gillyflower comes near to the simple, touches its roots and fertilizes it, that is, gives it the quality to produce virgin gillyflower like itself, double gillyflower, whose flower gives forth another flower as seedling. Who does not see here the virginity, the maternity and the fecundity of one and the same being?

Text: Mes de Maria - Francisco Palau, OCD - CM Founder

Mes de Maria - Day 22

May 22

Gillyflower or Viola

The gillyflower or Viola is one of those that burst open first at the beginning of the beautiful season of spring; with good soil, fertilizer, water and favourable climate it bears an abundance of fabulous flowers. Its cultivation is not delicate. It is very varied in its colours, which are always maintained in its species.

Abstinence and sobriety

These virtues moderate a person in eating and in drinking and are supported by fasting. They are attacked by gluttony and drunkenness. Abstinence and sobriety go together. Plant it side by side and touching its plant in the same heart, one will fertilize the other, and the double and simple flower will form a most fragrant and beautiful bouquet.

Floral offering to Mary

Mary, I offer you a bouquet of (viola) purple gillyflower, symbol of my abstinence and sobriety. I promise to fight with these weapons against gluttony and its five daughters: vain joy, non-sense jokes, filth, talkativeness and stupidity. Receive, Oh Mary, this offering and strengthen my intentions.

Recite five Hail Marys

Invitation: Be moderate in eating and drinking: take the golden mean. The rule is to attend to the needs of life. Eat and drink moderately at a fixed schedule, not excessive. Abstain from sumptuousness, grandeur, useless and superfluous expenditures in parties and banquets.

Text: Mes de Maria - Francisco Palau, OCD - CM Founder

Mes de Maria - Day 21

May 21

The simple gillyflower or Viola

Let us now enter to see and visit in our gardens another very rich and affluent family and very distinguished in the plant world: it is the gillyflower or viola.

Some are simple and others double: the first are the mothers because they produce seeds.

Temperance

Is not the double gillyflower more beautiful? Yes, let us unite the two in one bouquet and we will have all. Temperance is a virtue that moderates the passion of a person.

The attendants of temperance are honesty and shame, or rather, modesty and bashfulness; and its daughters are, the abstinence, sobriety, chastity, virginity, continence, clemency and modesty.

Floral offering to Mary

Mary, I present to you the gillyflower emblem of temperance. I commit myself to be tamed, to have self-control and to moderate my dominant passion. Strengthen my resolution and take it up as if it were yours.

Recite five Hail Mary

Invitation: How do I practice temperance in provoking situations? Do I have self-control?

Text: Mes de Maria - Francisco Palau, OCD - CM Founder

Mes de Maria - Day 20

May 20

White Crimson carnation and Zamba

The spotted white-crimson carnation and zamba. Zamba is an herb cultivated in all gardens as  fragrant and very aromatic plant. It does not bear flowers but put together with the carnation family it adorns and embellishes them.

There are carnations that are white spotted with blood red. These are the most appropriate to symbolize this virtue; but as in the pressure and in the tribulation these acts are made, we need another herb that would exude its perfume when stepped on and compressed: such is the zamba, and this form with the carnation a beautiful and fragrant bouquet.

Perseverance

If pains and contradictions come because of God and of the virtue for long duration and continue until death, in order to persevere in the pressure of trials, we need perseverance. Its most important act is martyrdom and the most noble and heroic martyrdom is to suffer firmly to the extent of giving away one’s life for God.

Floral offering to Mary

Mary, there you have my bouquet as a sign of my resolutions and constancy to suffer and to suffer even to the extent of giving my life for you. My life and my blood belong to you; I offer them to you. I promise to persevere, firm in your service until the hour of my death. Accept my offering.

Recite five Hail Mary

Invitation: Examine your conscience well and see what you are doing. How do you conduct yourself during a prolonged tribulation that occurs because of virtue? Do you recede and run away?

Text: Mes de Maria - Francisco Palau, OCD - CM Founder

Mes de Maria - Day 19

May 19

The rose mallow and the passionflower

The passionflower is a flower that burst open in May having the figure of a crown of thorns, five wounds and three nails over the star with ten rays and with a seven leaf; however, by itself it cannot form a bouquet because it lacks odour. We shall put together the rose mallow and the one with odour with its species.

Patience

To start by the way of virtue, a person has to be sustained in the midst of trials, tribulations and contradictions and must be firm, strong, faithful, constant and persistent. It is the role of patience to tolerate, bear, endure, and suffer the worries; and persecutions that come to us because of virtue. Our passion, suffered for God’s sake, is a flower. The rose mallow is another flower, its leaves are very sweet and gentle; it transforms suffering into consolation and loads sweet when borne for God’s sake.

Floral offering to Mary

Mary, I offer you the rose mallow and passionflower as a sign of my resignation in suffering. I commit myself to accept sorrows, contradictions and tribulations voluntarily, willingly and with gratitude. Present my passion to your Son and take care of my patience.

Recite five Hail Mary

Invitation: In the face of trials, and tribulations, how do you welcome them? Reflect on your spirit of constancy, persistence and firmness.

Text: Mes de Maria - Francisco Palau, OCD - CM Founder

Mes de Maria - Day 18

May 18

Carnation in cluster

Among the various species of carnation, there is one that blooms throughout the season, grows its slender straight stem and gives forth a pinecone of buds and when these buds burst open they form a cluster. Although they are not as large as the others of its specie, they have however the gift of opening many at one time in the same pine cone: with its special odour.

Magnanimity

This virtue provides us with a big heart, capable of undertaking whatever God orders. The languishing of spirit, the disheartening of moral energies or pusillanimity kill the soul. If the undertaking that God orders brings with it considerable cost in its execution and we need another virtue the companion of magnanimity, it is magnificence.

Floral Offering to Mary

Magnanimous Judith, receive the flower for today, the cluster of carnation, emblem of my magnanimity. I promise you, I resolve to keep my spirit upright, sincere, never discouraged nor faint-hearted in times of trial and temptation. Unite my spirit to yours and I shall be magnanimous. I entrust it to your maternal care and solicitude.

Recite five Hail Mary

Invitation: When the occasion arises in time of trials, temptations and contradictions. Does your spirit fade or do you get discouraged? What were your victories?

Text: Mes de Maria - Francisco Palau, OCD - CM Founder

Mes de Maria - Day 17

May 17

The pink carnation (clavel)

After the roses and the lilies, the carnations come among the aromatic flowers. They are very common plants, easy to cultivate and they bloom throughout the seasons of the year; they have varied colours and they bloom abundantly. Its odour is very delicate and pleasant.

Fortitude

Fortitude is the third among the cardinal virtues. Magnanimity and magnificence, patience and perseverance are at her service. It has in the battle two acts, which are to assail and to sustain until death the conquered territory. It goes forward rather than backward, it wages offensive and defensive war.

The carnation flower sustains itself against the weather and amidst all vicissitudes. It blooms throughout the seasons of the year. It pertains to this virtue and to its dependents the gift of fortitude.

Floral offering to Mary

Mary, here is the flower of the day: it is a bouquet of carnation. I present it to you as a symbol of an intention that I have conceived and it is that of putting my life in order in my actions, the order that my conscience dictates and that of maintaining it amidst the vicissitudes and the elements of this world and to persevere in it until death. I will be strong with the strength that I hope to receive

Recite five Hail Mary´s

Invitation:  In your trying times, what event in your life were you able to overcome and praise God for his grace and mercy?
...or with Mary thanking for her accompaniment to be courageous?  

Text: Mes de Maria - Francisco Palau, OCD - CM Founder