www.byzcath.org Forums Faith & Christian Life Faith & Theology Monday, June 12th St. Alice, Virgin, O.Cist.

Monday of the Tenth Week of the Year II
June 12
Memorial of Saint Alice, Virgin, O.Cist.


Sister Mary Alice�s patron saint was a
Cistercian-Benedictine
nun, one of a constellation of holy women who in the twelfth and
thirteenth
centuries set the Low Countries all ablaze with love for Christ and, in
particular, for the mystery of the Eucharist. Dame Alice died on June
11th,
1250; the Cistercian Order began celebrating her feast in 1702.
Thomas Merton wrote that the life of Saint Alice should be
placed in the hands of every monk; he presented her as the perfect
illustration of Chapter Seven of the Rule of Saint Benedict, On the
Degrees
of Humility. Father Chrysogonus Waddell ranked her with Th�r�se of the
Child Jesus and Elizabeth of Trinity; he saw her as the icon of that
particular stream of Cistercian spirituality that Dom James Fox, abbot
of
Gethsemane in the 1950s, expressed in his abbatial motto: Deus
crucifixus,
God crucified.
This year again � as so often happens � the feast of Saint
Alice
falls in the same week as the solemnity of Corpus Christi. The
significance
of this �coincidence� should not be lost on us. If anything
characterizes
Saint Alice and the other holy women who were her contemporaries in the
Low
Countries, it is that they were all ablaze with �Eucharistic
amazement.� I
am thinking of Saint Lutgard whose feast falls this coming Friday, and
also
of Beatrice of Nazareth, Ida of Louvain, and Juliana of Mont-Cornillon.
God
inflamed their hearts, through the sacrament of the Eucharist, to give
them
the knowledge of his glory shining on the face of Christ (cf. 2 Cor
4:6).
But there is more to Saint Alice. There is something that
makes
her very close to us. She was a �Benedictine of Jesus Crucified,� that
is
to say, that she lived by the Rule of Saint Benedict and was configured
to
Jesus Crucified by her fidelity to the will of the Father in illness.
Alice
was a woman touched by suffering in every fiber of her being: all kinds
of
suffering.
Alice�s most obvious suffering was the leprosy with which
she
was stricken after entering the Abbey of La Cambre, so called in honour
of
�the Chamber of the Virgin Mary.� Leprosy was, and to a certain extent
remains, a disease that causes people to shudder. For Alice, leprosy
was
but the beginning. It brought in its wake other sufferings, sufferings
of
the heart, of the mind, and of the soul. It brought, more than
anything
else, a great loneliness. Her biographer says that the first night of
her
reclusion �her heart was so severely crushed and bruised, that her
spirit
fainted away, and her mind remained forcibly in shock.�
Alice had entered her monastery to live with others, to
share
life, to love and to be loved in the communion of a Eucharistic body.
Cistercian-Benedictine life meant, more than anything else, life
together.
Because of her illness, Alice was obliged to forsake life together, the
very
thing she thought would be her lifelong path to God. I often think of
the
loneliness of Alice, of her feelings of rejection, of isolation, of
fear.
Unlike Blessed Damien of Molokai who lived within a community of
lepers,
Alice had to live a great loneliness.
I look at Alice in the little hut prepared for her outside
the
monastery, and I see an icon of the suffering Christ, the Christ of
Gethsemane, the Christ who, in solitude, surrenders to the will of the
Father for the salvation of the world. For fear of contagion, Alice
was
deprived of drinking from the chalice and of receiving the Precious
Blood.
One day, before her isolation, Dame Alice approached the altar with the
other nuns for Holy Communion. The priest refused her the chalice of
the
Blood of Christ out of fear of contagion. Alice complained bitterly to
the
Lord in her heart. She burned to be inebriated with His Precious
Blood, and
was inconsolable about being deprived of the holy chalice. At that
very
moment, the voice of Christ sounded in her ears, saying:� Oh most
loving
daughter, do not be disturbed. Cease complaining as if something had
been
withdrawn from you. Firm faith calls for any who have tasted of My
Body to
rejoice in the belief beyond doubt that they are also being refreshed
with
My Blood.�
It was with the greatest revulsion that the chaplain of her
monastery brought the Body of the Lord to entrance of her little hut.
Receiving the glorious Body of the Lord, she came to resemble, more and
more, his humiliated and crucified Body. Her Eucharistic
transfiguration
grew in proportion to her outward disfiguration. The suffering Servant
of
Isaiah�s prophecy conformed her to his own likeness: �a man of sorrows
and
acquainted with grief, and as one from whom men hide their faces� (Is
53:3).
By a strange and wonderful disposition of God, Alice was
able to
reach out and heal those afflicted with leprosy, but herself she could
not
heal. Many dreaded possible contagion from Alice; the only contagion
permitted by God was the contagion of holiness.
One day another nun, Dame Ida, seeing the extent of Alice�s
sufferings, began to groan and wail and weep. Alice, all disfigured
and
frightfully handicapped, consoled her, saying: �Sweetest Sister! Be
not so
afflicted! Do not imagine that is for sins of my own that I am prey to
these torments. Rather, it is for the deceased, subject to long,
excruciating detention in purgatory, and for the sinners of the world,
already miserably trapped in the fowlers� snares and apt to be
endlessly
seduced. Yes, while this penalty, as you see, is rapidly consuming me,
it
is also having the happy effect of releasing the living, and of freeing
the
deceased from all such snares.� Saint Alice�s theology of suffering was
that
of Saint Paul: �Death is at work in us, but life in you� (2 Cor 4:12).
At the end of her life, Saint Alice�s skin had become
furrowed
and hard like the bark of an old tree; her hands, so needed for even
her
limited tasks, were long shrunken from the illness. The disease
affected
her entire body, from head to foot. Her biographer says that, �all who
caught sight of that body were shocked to a standstill, awestruck as at
the
sight of some terrible monster. Thy were convinced no creature could
anywhere be found comparable with her for horror.�
Only Dame Alice�s tongue was left intact, and she used it
to
praise God until her dying breath. With the praise of God ever in her
mouth, Alice found, in her solitude, a communion surpassing all that
she had
hoped to find in the company of her sisters. Touchingly, Our Lord
tells
Alice that we will be her cellarer; that is, that, according to the
Rule of
Saint Benedict, he will be a father to her, providing for all her
needs.
�My child,� He says, �I shall never leave you nor forsake you.�
This promise of Christ was fulfilled in the mystery of the
Eucharist. Receiving the Body of Christ, she knew that in that same
sacrament of love He was welcoming her, drawing her into the inner
chamber
of His pierced Heart. Her humiliation, her sufferings, her loneliness
were
assumed eucharistically into His. And like Christ, the suffering
Servant,
Alice became wounded healer of both souls and bodies.
Saint Alice�s death agony began on Friday after Compline.
She
said her good-byes and recommended her soul to God in imitation of
Jesus
Crucified. Precisely at sunrise � a symbol of the resurrection of
Christ,
the Sun of Justice � she sighed gently and gave up her spirit.
Designedly,
Alice�s biographer described her death in terms borrowed from the
Gospel
accounts of the death and resurrection of Christ. Saint Alice�s death
was
the culmination of her configuration to the crucified and risen
Bridegroom.
We ask Saint Alice to accompany us to the altar today for
the
Holy Sacrifice. And we ask her to intercede for us that we may
celebrate
the solemnity of the Most Holy Body and Blood of Christ with
�Eucharistic
amazement,� and in a communion that nothing can limit, measure, or
impede:
the communion of the Body of Christ in the Holy Spirit.




�In a world where there is so much noise, so much bewilderment,
there is a need for silent adoration of Jesus concealed in the Host.
Be assiduous in the prayer of adoration and teach it to the faithful.
It is a source of comfort and light particularly to those who are
suffering.�
Pope Benedict XVI, May 25, 2006


Dom Mark Daniel Kirby, O.Cist.

Dear Father Gregory,

BLESS!

My dear, dear friend...may God bless you!

Thank you for that! We need some spiritual nourishment every once in a while!

Welcome back to the forum!

With much love in our Lord,
Alice, Moderator

I'm not sure which to do first ...

Wish dear Alice a happy feast day or say "Hooray! Fr. Gregory is back!"

Two wonderful people who have been wonderful to me. I love you both and often give thanks for you in my prayers.

-- Penthaetria

Abouna Gregory you have been missed!

Welcome back!!!

Yes, I have a holy card of her.

Dear Father Gregory,

Welcome back! I do hope we'll hear from you more often.

Zenovia

Thank you Father Gregory! We miss you.

Amen! I rejoiced when I saw your post. It is good to hear from you, especially now that I live so close!

Gordo

Thank you for that little biography! I never knew I had a patron Saint!
Blessings
Alice

Oh Alice, I am sorry that I forgot about you!
I am sure that you appreciated this.

Happy belated Feast Day!

In Christ,
Alice