Carmelite Novena - Day 1 for the Exaltation of the Cross Feast Day

                                                            Novena – Day 1
Prayer:  I come, O my God, to converse with You, I seek a place where You will be alone with me which is the throne of my heart where You reside through love. I descent into this interior sanctuary of my soul, there I find You and I commence by annihilating myself before You, filled with confusion and sorrow at the sight of my profound misery and numberless sins. I wish to detest them, to regard myself as the most unworthy and the most culpable of Your creatures. I come to adore You, to contemplate You and to unite myself to You. I implore You to come to my aid, that I may draw from this meditation the lights and the fruits which are most appropriate for my sanctification.

 
Meditation:  “Alas, the earth is made desolate with extreme desolation, because there is no one who thinks in his heart”, for if we think always of our last end, we shall never sin. Where comes so much relaxation which is found in certain Religious Orders? Why even in holy communities under the strictest rules do we find so many tepid and imperfect souls? It is because they have neglected to lay a solid foundation to their perfection by the attentive consideration of their last end, and wishing to leave too soon the exercises of the purgative way, if they have ever so much seriously entered it, they have abandoned the practice of mortification, of doing penance for their sins, and of correcting their faults, to throw themselves with temerity into a search after imaginary virtue, and a prayer replete with illusions. Is it not from a want of serious consideration upon the fundamental truths of salvation that I myself should attribute the little fruit which I have until now drawn from my ordinary meditations, and especially from my retreats, in which I have produced only superficial reflections, and deluded myself by sentiments of piety which soon vanished, leaving me in my habitual sterility?

Oh Lord Jesus, open the eyes of my soul and I will consider the wonders of Your Law, and the secrets of eternity. “Give me intelligence and I shall live”. Grant me the grace to be so entirely penetrated with the fundamental truths of salvation, that I may preserve the salutary impressions of them for the rest of my life. I pray that the Holy Spirit will take possession of me and change me into a saint – living to do the Will of God alone in imitation of the Blessed Virgin Mary – Our Lady of Mt. Carmel.