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Quotes from Fr. Thomas "The Blessed Mother is so good...the only refuge of the Heart of Jesus on Earth was the Heart of Mary, that little piece of the Earth. It was the only rest for Him. It is the only rest for me." "Only charity and the Gifts of the Holy Spirit can deepen our faith directly in a supernatural way, in developing it on the plane of the eternal. They alone can make us penetrate into the very reality of the mystery. Theological study, whatever form it may take, speculative, historical, biblical, or spiritual, is no more than a remote preparation for supernatural contemplation, and is never an indispensable condition of it…Therefore, spiritual reading and a fortiori study cannot replace the visit to the Blessed Sacrament. On the contrary, they should always bring us back to it. They should find their culmination before the tabernacle, if they are to be an aid for our interior life. The more extensive our religious knowledge, the more need we have of returning to Jesus as beggars, humbly asking for the grace to set all this human matter ablaze with His love. Let us never forget that while we are capable of increasing our command of the sacred sciences by our own study, without grace, we are always incapable of transforming them into love…[We hope to be] like St. Thomas Aquinas, to remain the poor in spirit who learn more before the tabernacle than from their books or their personal reflections."
"Let us ask Jesus for his immense tenderness towards all those who suffer, in whatever way that might be. This will bring about a great conversion on our parts if we cease to believe anymore that we are superior to all the 'poor people,' those to whom life has brought apparently nothing. Indeed, it is they who are the privileged ones of his heart." "Often we do not understand the love of Jesus, his pity with regard to sinners, but they sometimes will welcome much more gracefully than we do the mystery of the Passion into which we enter with such difficulty: "Learn from me, for I am meek and humble of heart." Let us ask Jesus for this deep humility, that he might wish to purify us of everything born of pride – and often unconscious pride – in our personality that closes us in on ourselves. Let us ask him for his immense tenderness towards all those who suffer, in whatever way that might be."
"True adoration requires you to stay in the present moment. You can go a long ways in the present moment! You can cover a lot of terrain by staying put. True Christian contemplation necessarily happens in the present moment because that is the only place where you communicate with eternity." |
Fr. Thomas Philippe, O.P. (†1993) was a respected theologian and spiritual director who co-founded, with Jean Vanier, the L'Arche Community in 1964. He spent the last three decades of his life receiving visitors from all over France and the world, to listen to them and give them spiritual direction. In the small town of Trosly-Breuil, located an hour north of Paris, Fr. Thomas worked with the mentally and physically handicapped, seeing them as the privileged poor ones of the heart of Jesus. It was in this small town that he received Patrick Meaney, the future founder of the Little Brothers of the Eucharist, who took Fr. Thomas as his spiritual father.
"Interior souls seem more and more attracted by Marian spirituality. But what is the meaning of this spirituality? In the midst of this troubled world, pulled at from all sides, assailed by materialism in every form, God in His mercy, by a divine compensation, appears to want to grant His graces of intimacy with profusion. He seems to want to communicate Himself to people, whatever the exterior conditions of their existence may be, making light of exterior difficulties. He appears to want to reveal the secret of His intimacy both to those in the world and those in the cloisters. To accomplish this divine plan, He invites them to make themselves disciples of His Mother. Mary teaches them to discover spiritual childhood. She teaches them to become little in love, to live more and more in her Immaculate Heart in an unceasing heart-to-heart relationship with her. In a very humble way, the divine Mother appears to lead her children into what was her own life of prayer. She seems to help them partake of what was her own interior prayer: a prayer of humility and love."
"May our prayer flow out of our weakness itself. 'By the grace of your third fall, help me Jesus not to become discouraged. Help me to pardon again.' These two attitudes go together. We need to know that hope is communicative. We need to be witnesses of hope for each other. Yes, we should have theological hope for ourselves, but also for others. Our life is not a triumphal march from success to success, but an unceasing struggle to pick ourselves up again. During his passion Jesus continuously gives us an example of pardon. If we hope in God, there simply will disappear little by little from our heart the first movements of impatience and of criticism in the face of the errors or the faults of others, which are always repeated. We should ask this grace for ourselves, but also for priests, parents, and those responsible for communities: a grace of patience, perseverance and pardon to know how to start again without ceasing, knowing that after a fall one should never be made to feel discouraged by oneself or others."