Bronchain Meditations: August 27

The Seraphic Teresa’s Wound Of Love

Preparation. - The Church has permitted several religious institutes to celebrate the memory of this signal favor. We shall consider its two great effects on the saint: in the first place, a total detachment from all that is not God, and secondly, a sincere love of suffering. Thus we shall enkindle in us the desire of watching over our affections, and of peacefully accepting the trials of this life, so that God may ever be our only treasure, our only love. “the God of my heart and the God that is my portion forever” (Ps. 72. 26).

I. The Detachment Produced In St. Teresa By The Wound Of Love

St. Teresa relates that a seraph several times appeared to her and pierced her heart with a flaming dart. The first effect of her wound was to detach her wholly from all but the supreme Good. “I was as if stunned,” she writes, “and would have wished no longer to see or speak, but only to be entirely absorbed in that delightful pain, whence I derived more contentment and joy than from all created goods.”

And, in fact, do we not find every thing in God: science, glory, riches, and the purest and sweetest pleasures? Truly could our saint exclaim with David: “What have I in heaven, and besides Thee what do I desire upon earth? ... Thou art the God of my heart, and the God that is my portion forever.” And indeed nothing in the world can captivate the desires of him who possesses the infinite Good and is wounded with His love. We ought, like the saints, to direct all our aspirations towards the God who inebriates with delights the angels and the elect; we should then enjoy already in our exile a foretaste of the joys of our heavenly country.

The worldling who has been keenly hurt in his honor or reputation, cannot forget the wound that makes his heart bleed; it occupies all his thoughts, and he speaks of it at every opportunity. Such was the state of the Seraphic Teresa; God absorbed her; in Him alone she concentrated all her desires and affections, so that for her there was no attraction, no pleasure, but the supreme and eternal God. Oh, were the Lord to pierce us with one of His divine darts, that is, with the rays of His grace, how we should be filled with His love! At our meals, in our walks, at our work the sweet remembrance of our God, ever present in our soul and conferring favors on us, would never leave us; by day and by night, like our saint, we would speak affectionately to Him in order to testify to Him our gratitude and love.

O my sovereign Good, do not allow my heart, created for Thee alone, to seek any longer what flatters, amuses or pleases it on earth. Detach it from every gratification, and enkindle it with the desire to love Thee as the most ardent seraphim love Thee. Wound my soul at mental prayer and remove from it every remembrance, every affection, that tends not to Thee, the God of my heart, the God that is my portion forever.

II. The Seraphic Teresa’s Love Of Suffering

The pain caused by the seraph’s fiery dart was so keen that our saint could not keep back plaintive cries. “ But,” she adds, “love predominated over the pain;” and she would not have wished o be freed therefrom, so delicious it seemed to be to her. Such is the fruit of perfect charity; it sweetens all bitterness. Had we but a spark of it, would we have such a horror of all that is opposed to our inclinations?

In fact, how can we love a crucified God without loving the cross? “Do you imagine,” said our Lord to Teresa, “that merit consists in enjoyment? No; it consists in working, suffering and loving.” Suffering is, as it were, inseparable from love, for Jesus crucified testified His boundless love for us chiefly by suffering and dying for us. Wishing to contract the most sublime union with Teresa, He showed her on of the nails wherewith He had been nailed to the cross, saying: “This is the mark and pledge that thou art henceforth My Spouse.” Therefore our union with Jesus is sanctified by means of suffering. The wood of the cross must keep up and increase in us the fire of divine love.

Have we hitherto grasped this doctrine, we who wish always to enjoy and never have any thing to bear? That there may be room in us for divine love, we must necessarily banish from our heart pride, sensuality, and all vice and defects. But how can we secure such a result, without denying and mortifying ourselves, without patiently bearing contradictions, hardships, infirmities and all the little trials strewn over our daily life? Great trials, which rarely occur, are usually well accepted only by the souls accustomed peacefully to carry their daily cross.

Let us examine whether we are patient, first, when our feelings are hurt, when we are contradicted, interrupted in our occupations, or overloaded with work; and secondly, when accidents, disappointments, shock us, or upset our plans and projects. Are not all these and similar occasions providential means leading us to perfect love, which consists, according to St. Teresa, “in making our will one with the will of God.”

“O Love,” I say to Thee with her, “Thou who loves me more than I can conceive, dispose my soul to serve Thee as Thou pleasest and not as I please. May all selfishness die in me, so that Thou mayst live in me, and give me life, and reign over me, and make me Thy slave, for I wish for no other freedom.”

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Servant of God

Charles Louis Laurent Bronchain was born of excellent parents, September 4, 1829, at Frameries, near Mons in Belgium. From his early boyhood he was distinguished for his piety. As an altar boy he was modest and recollected, and was wont after serving Mass to remain as close as possible to the priest. Being asked why he acted thus, he replied: "I do this, because I wish to be nearer to the good God." When he saw people going to holy communion, he was filled with a holy envy, and would say to himself: "When shall I also have the happiness of receiving our Lord?" We may easily imagine his joy and happiness when this favor was vouchsafed to him for the first time. When out walking with his playmates, he always managed to bring them near a church and induced them to enter it with him to pay homage to our divine Saviour in the Sacrament of His love.

During the six years he studied at the "Petit Seminaire de Bonne Esperance," he was universally admired and respected for his modesty, piety, charity, and other virtues. Heeding the divine call to a more perfect life, he, with the consent of his parents, renounced the world and the brightest prospects of success, and entered in 1850 the Redemptorist Novitiate at St. Trond. The following year he made his profession and was sent to Wittem to prosecute his studies. As novice and student, Louis Bronchain was a model to his companions in regular observance, charity, love of prayer, and study, and self-denial. After his ordination in 1857, he labored zealously for some years in the ministry and in giving missions.

In 1865 he was appointed Master of Novices. To his novices he was ever a tender and loving father, giving them the example of every virtue. His life was practically a continual prayer. Rising very early every morning to be able to devote more time to it, he would spend hours in meditation before the Blessed Sacrament. Though very severe towards himself and addicted to corporal austerities, he, like a true saint, was always cheerful and full of charity and condescension towards others, and of solicitude in supplying the wants of his novices. His health failing, he was relieved of his heavy burden in 1870. From that time until his death, his life was one of continual suffering, borne with wonderful patience and resignation. As long as he was able he labored for his fellow-religious, and for the salvation of souls. Being an able spiritual director, he enabled his many penitents to make great progress in the spiritual life. As for himself he was an “interior man,” such as he describes in his “Meditations.” He died June 2, 1892, in the odor of sanctity.

Father Bronchain spent his years of suffering in composing spiritual works, which passed through many editions during his lifetime and have done incalculable good to souls. They are, like the works of St. Alphonsus, whose spirit he possessed in a remarkable degree, noted for the solidity of their doctrine, the simplicity and popularity of their language, and especially for that sweet unction which induces the practice of virtue, horror of sin, and especially the love of Jesus and Mary.

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August 27

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