The day Blessed Francisco Palau was beatified, April 24, 1988, I was in Hayward's Heath getting ready to have my new baby. This blessed's day passed me by until this week, when I was introduced to Francisco Palau.
The Carmelite shows us that this world and the spiritual world of perfection can be balanced in order to serve both God and man.
His life seems exciting, but all he wanted to be was a hermit seeking God in perfection. But, God called him to love the Church and be active in the Church, the Mystical Body of Christ. Here is one prayer from the first link below.
My good Jesus, encouraged by your promises, I
am going to explain to you my need, and to present to you
my request. But we cannot pray, and do not know how to
pray, or to understand what we must pray for, nor how nor
when. We can only pray well and rightly and with the
necessary faith when the Holy Spirit, who knows all our
needs, and with unspeakable groans, prays in our hearts,
and moves us to pray, teaches us what we have to ask, and
makes us ask [Rom 8,26]. So my dear Lord, in order to think
of what I should ask, and to pray for it properly, and thus fulfil
the command you have given me to pray to you, I need the
help of the Holy Spirit. Send this divine Spirit into my heart,
and he will pray in me, he will teach me what I have to ask,
how and when I must pray, and he will give me strength to
persevere in my request until I have obtained what I wanted.
I ask you for this grace now so that afterwards I may know
how to pray properly for what your Holy Spirit teaches me.
Remember your promise that you would send him to us to
inspire us and teach us to do all that you command us. You
said: “The Paraclete, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will
send in my name will instruct you in everything.
Here are some links for more information on Bl. Francisco Palau.
http://www.carmelitasmisioneras.org/images/Palau/Palau-English.pdf
http://www.carmelite.org.uk/stfrancis.html
http://www.ourgardenofcarmel.org/palau.html
On the link on the above page, one reads this:
In prayer you shall find faith, hope and love. You are sufficiently instructed and experienced in the exercise of these virtues and the main preoccupations and errors you had have been eradicated. This is why you find the acts of union easy, sweet and satisfying, and without recognizing nor seeing the union, you feel it, you are at east with God, you deal easily and amicably with him and readily make friends with him. Well, I have nothing to tell you about this at present except that you must keep on and taking advantage of this interior ease with God, you must ask for graces, confirm and strengthen your moral virtues, and making yourself strong in this interior castle, you must fight your moods of sadness and their causes, uproot your unfounded sorrows aand get ready (My paper got over for hand not planned to write so extensively. But since I am at it I will go on) on the dreadful battles that the three enemies wage against this divine union. Live united with God and see to it that nothing, whether hunger or thirs, the sword, fortune or misfortune, nothing wahtever disturbs your heart. Live united with God and everything else vanish like smoke.
When you examine your conscience (attention to what I am going to tell you) do not go too far; look at it as we look at the seashore from the top of the Alps or the Pyrenees, lightly, without going into details. If you do not see anything clearly and certainly wrong, go ahead and be at peace with your God. Mind this, I repeat, anad do tell me how you are faring, because the devil could trick you and do you serious hard with his false doctrine and suggestions. This union produces peace of mind; then search for peace. Let nothing disturb you, be it good or bad. Give up everything else except your peace of mind. Wheny ou feel restless, sad, sorrowful and embittered, look for the cause, and ifi it is not worth being sorrying about (and nothing that does not offend God is worth being sorry about), get rid of your anxiety; if you do not see the causes but feel restless and dissatisfied all the same, put up with it, arm yourself with patience, let the storm pass, and your inner peace will return.
This union, my sister, demands a heart at peace, calm, unalterable, like some place in heaven, and we can and must acquire it fighting hard whatever threatens if from outside ourselves.
