Totus Tuus - Totus 2us

by John Pridmore       ♦

"I can only say to you that the greatest gift in my life is being able to love. I couldn't love before - I couldn't love myself and I couldn't love anyone else. Do you know what I beg God for every day? To be able to love more.

I was in a prison in Swellside speaking to lifers and there was a real spirit of intimidation, a real spirit of macho-ness, all that stuff I used to be caught up in. And there were 80 guys in there, real aggressive guys and you know, at the end of that talk, it was the spirit of love, and a lot of these guys were crying. And do you know what I said - any spirit of anger, any spirit of intimidation, will always be destroyed by love. Whatever we face, if we face it for Christ, we are always victorious, always."

^{(full talk (click on link) - 43 mins)}

by Father Michael Dunne       ♦

"What's all this about? Why I think it's so important is the theology of the resurrection. This is what Teresa teaches us about. As St Paul to the Philippians says: "All I want is to know Christ and the power of his resurrection and to share his sufferings by conforming myself to the pattern of his death." Teresa teaches us: 'If ever I become a saint, I will surely be one of darkness. I will continually be absent from heaven to light the light of those in darkness on earth." The paradox of darkness is that it is the gateway to light, through the cross to light - per crucem ad lucem. The key to holiness in every Catholic's life - not just in the lives of the great saints, every one of us is called to sanctity - must be this interiorisation of the Passion; of what St Paul of the Cross calls 'participation in the Passion.' Because if we can interiorise the Passion of Jesus Christ, live it in our own suffering, then we are open boundlessly to all that the Passion is for the redemption of the world. It is the means of our own purification, living our suffering, but even when we have done that, it is the means of reparation also, that we share Christ's redemptive role in the world, which is the dignity conferred upon us in our baptism.  Mother Teresa says to the sisters going to daily Mass: 'Each sister is to do the work of the priest where the priest cannot go, and do what he cannot do. She must be imbibed by the spirit of Holy Mass, which is one of total surrender and offering. For this reason, Holy Mass must become the daily meeting place where God and his creature offer each other for each other and the world." What a staggering theology of the Mass - that you go to Mass offering yourself to God for the salvation of the world and, yes, God offers himself to you for the salvation of the world, and in that intimacy and communion we have joined the Cross and the Resurrection. Because, when St Paul tells the Galations: "I am crucified with Christ and yet I am alive. Yet it is no longer I who live but Christ who lives in me', it looks as if he is talking about the crucifixion, about darkness; but he's not talking about the crucifixion. He never knew Jesus of Nazareth on earth; he has only known the Risen One and what he is talking about there is the power of the resurrection, the power of 'per crucem ad lucem.' The last words to Mother Teresa: "The joy of loving Jesus comes from the joy of sharing his sufferings so do not allow yourselves to be troubled or distressed but believe in the joy of the resurrection. In all of our lives, as in the life of Jesus, the resurrection has to come, the joy of Easter has to dawn." So in the very darkness she lived, she was a witness to the resurrection and all of us are called and have that same gift offered to us in the daily suffering that we have in our lives."

^{(full talk (click on link) - 30 mins. Apologies for sound quality - there was a torrential downpour going on outside during the talk!)}

by Father Dominique Faure CSJ       ♦

"When Jesus says that he came to bring tidings of joy, that is what it means to be evangelised - the Gospel, the Good News is when we have opened ourselves to this tidings of joy that Jesus came to offer, and I often wonder if we have really discovered this Christian joy. Do we really understand what Jesus means when he speaks of the Good News? ...  Our Christian life demands from us to be on the battlefield. St Thomas Aquinas doesn't hesitate to say after the Cross there is more suffering in the world than before, and the closer is the return of Christ the more the suffering will increase.  It is important to accept that trials are an essential part of our Christian life, destabilisations are an essential part of our Christian life, the battlefield is an essential part. Jesus didn't come to bring us back to the peace and harmony of the garden of Eden; he came and demanded from us that we live again and again with Him all the tension that he has lived at the Cross. There, so easily, so quickly, we run away from the battlefield..we prefer to run away rather than stand in hope  ....to discover that whatever suffering we go through, this is the battlefield that Jesus is waiting for us  and there that he is willing to meet us in order to give us this joy that the world cannot give us, to give us this peace that the world cannot give us. "

^{(talk - 40 mins; q&as 10 mins)}