For unto us aZélie is born!

Saint John of the Cross used the story of Tobias and Sarah as an analogy in the Ascent of Mount Carmel. He describes three ways in which faith is experienced as a dark night, and compares them to the three nights of prayer that Tobias had to undergo before consummating his marriage to Sarah (an aspect of the story found in Saint Jerome's version of the book of Tobit.)

We can offer three reasons for calling this journey toward union with God a night. The first has to do with the point of departure, because individuals must deprive themselves of their appetites for worldly possessions. This denial and privation is like a night for all one's senses. The second reason refers to the means or the road along which a person travels to this union. Now this road is faith, and for the intellect faith is also like a dark night. The third reason pertains to the point of arrival, namely God. And God is also a dark night to the soul in this life. These three nights pass through a soul, or better, the soul passes through them in order to reach union with God. 

They are represented in the Book of Tobias [Tb. 6:18-22], where we read that the angel ordered the young Tobias to wait three nights before any union with his bride. On the first night he was to burn the fish heart in the fire. That heart signified the human heart that is attached to worldly things. To undertake the journey to God the heart must be burned with the fire of divine love and purified of all creatures. Such a purgation puts the devil to flight, for he has power over people through their attachment to temporal and bodily things. Tobias, on the second night, as the angel told him, was to be admitted into the society of the holy patriarchs, the fathers of the faith. After passing through the first night (the privation of all sensible objects), a person enters the second night by living in faith alone; not in a faith that is exclusive of charity but a faith that excludes other intellectual knowledge, as we shall explain later, for faith does not fall into the province of the senses. The angel told Tobias that on the third night he would obtain the blessing, which is God. God, by means of faith, which is the second night, communicates himself so secretly and intimately that he becomes another night for the soul. This communication of God is a night much darker than those other two nights, as we will soon point out. When this third night (God's communication to the spirit, which usually occurs in extreme darkness of soul) has passed, a union with the bride, who is the Wisdom of God, then follows. Tobias was also told by the angel that, after the third night had come to an end, he would be joined to his bride in the fear of the Lord. Now when the fear of God is perfect, love is also perfect, which means that the transformation of the soul in God through love is accomplished.

Saint John of the Cross was the Co-Founder of the Discalced Nuns of the Order of the Blessed Virgin Mary of Mount Carmel. One of his most famous spiritual daughters and heir to his spirituality was Saint Thérèse of Lisieux. Thérèse Martin was born of holy parents, the recently canonized Saints Louis and Zélie Martin.

As a souvenir of their marriage (at midnight between July 12 and July 13, 1858), Louis Martin designed a medallion as a gift for Zélie.  At the moment they exchanged their vows, the priest blessed the medallion.  Louis slipped the wedding ring on the finger of Zélie's right hand, and then placed the medallion in her left hand, saying "Receive the symbol of our wedding promises."  Louis chose the Biblical figures of Sarah and Tobias for this souvenir. Below are photographs of both sides of the original medallion, now located at the bishopric of the diocese of Sees, in which Zélie was born.

Last year my dear friends got married.



In their beautiful Wedding Mass, the reading they chose was from the Book of Tobit:

Tobias arose from bed and said to his wife, “My love, get up. Let us pray and beg our Lord to have mercy on us and to grant us deliverance.” She got up, and they started to pray and beg that deliverance might be theirs. He began with these words:
“Blessed are you, O God of our fathers; praised be your name forever and ever. Let the heavens and all your creation praise you forever. You made Adam and you gave him his wife Eve to be his help and support; and from these two the human race descended. You said, ‘It is not good for the man to be alone; let us make him a partner like himself.’ Now, Lord, you know that I take this wife of mine not because of lust, but for a noble purpose. Call down your mercy on me and on her, and allow us to live together to a happy old age.” They said together, “Amen, amen,” and went to bed for the night.

And today, on the Feast of Saint John of the Cross, to this dear couple a child was born, and they named her Zélie.

When a woman is in travail she has sorrow, because her hour has come; but when she is delivered of the child, she no longer remembers the anguish, for joy that a child is born into the world. -John 16:21

All my prayers and love today go out to my dear friends and their new bundle of JOY.