23 April: Blessed Teresa Mary of the Cross Manetti (Not observed in 2025)

April 23
BLESSED TERESA MARY OF THE CROSS MANETTI
Virgin

Optional Memorial

She was born at Campi Bisenzio, Florence, where in 1874 she founded the Congregation of Carmelite Sisters of St. Teresa, who she also sent to Lebanon and the Holy Land. She lived joyfully, body and soul, the mystery of the Cross in full conformity to the will of God and she was outstanding for her love for the Eucharist and her maternal care for children and for the poor. She died at Campi Bisenzio on April 23, 1910.

From the Common of Virgins or the Common of Holy Women (Religious)

Office of Readings

Second Reading
From the works of Saint Teresa of Avila
(Interior Castle VII, 4; 4, 5, 8. Way of Perfection 26, 7. Interior Castle II, 1; 11.)

Fix your gaze on the Crucified and everything becomes easy

His Majesty could not grant us a greater favor than to give us a life that would be an imitation of the life that His beloved Son lived. For this reason, I hold it certain that these favors are meant to fortify our weakness so that we may be able to imitate Him in his great sufferings.

Fix your eyes on the Crucified and everything will become easy for you. If His Majesty showed us His love by means of such works and frightful torments, how is it you want to please Him only with words?

Do you know what it means to be truly spiritual? It means becoming the slaves of God. Marked with His brand, which is that of the Cross, spiritual persons, because now they have given Him their liberty, can be sold by Him as slaves of everyone, as He was. In acting this way, He doesn’t do us any harm but rather He grants us a not insignificant grace.

We have always seen that those who were closest to Christ our Lord were those with the greatest trials. Let us look at what His glorious Mother suffered and the glorious apostles.

Take up the Cross of Jesus. Help your Spouse to carry the burden that weighs Him down and pay no attention to what they may say about you. If you should happen to stumble and fall like your Spouse, do not withdraw from the Cross or abandon it. No matter how great your trials may be, you will see that they are quite small in comparison to His.

If we never look at Him or reflect on what we owe Him and the death He suffered for us, I don’t know how we’ll be able to know Him or serve Him. And without these works in His service, what value will our faith have? And what value will our works have if they are separated from the inestimable merits of Jesus Christ, our Good? And then who will bring us to love this Lord?

Responsory

R/. I rejoice in the trials I bear and make up in my flesh that which is lacking in the sufferings of Christ * for the sake of His body which is the Church (alleluia).
V/. I have been crucified with Christ, and now no longer live but Christ lives in me: * for the sake of His body which is the Church (alleluia).

Prayer

O God,
you sustained the virgin,
Blessed Teresa Mary,
along the way of the cross
by a most ardent love of the Eucharist,
and you gave her a mother’s love
for your little ones and the poor.
Through her intercession, grant that,
strengthened by the bread of angels,
we may delight in sharing
the sufferings of Christ,
and hasten the coming of your kingdom
through our own works of mercy.

We ask this through our Lord Jesus Christ, your Son,
who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit,
God, for ever and ever. Amen.

Catholic Church 1993, Proper of the Liturgy of the Hours of the Order of the Brothers of the Blessed Virgin Mary of Mount Carmel and the Order of Discalced Carmelites (Rev. and augm.), Institutum Carmelitanum, Rome.