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Month of the Holy Souls (Nov 17)

November 17, 2025

Fr. John Colacino C.PP.S.

Day 17

A reading from the Holy Gospel according to John (8:50-58)

Jesus said, 'I do not seek my own glory; there is one who seeks it and he is the judge. Very truly, I tell you, whoever keeps my word will never see death.’ The Jews said to him, ‘Now we know that you have a demon. Abraham died, and so did the prophets; yet you say, “Whoever keeps my word will never taste death.” Are you greater than our father Abraham, who died? The prophets also died. Who do you claim to be?’ Jesus answered, ‘If I glorify myself, my glory is nothing. It is my Father who glorifies me, he of whom you say, “He is our God”, though you do not know him. But I know him; if I were to say that I do not know him, I would be a liar like you. But I do know him and I keep his word. Your ancestor Abraham rejoiced that he would see my day; he saw it and was glad.’ Then the Jews said to him, ‘You are not yet fifty years old, and have you seen Abraham?’

Jesus said to them, ‘Very truly, I tell you, before Abraham was, I am.’

From a letter to her sister by St. Elizabeth of the Trinity

“Having loved those who were His own in the world, He loved them to the end.”

Darling little sister,

I don’t know if the hour has come to pass from this world to my Father, for I am much better and the little saint of Beaune seems to want to cure me. But, you see, at times it seems to me that the Divine Eagle wants to swoop down on His little prey and carry her off to where He is: into dazzling light! You have always put your Sabeth’s happiness before your own, and I am sure that if I fly away, you will rejoice over my first meeting with Divine Beauty. When the veil is lifted, how happy I will be to disappear into the secret of His Face, and that is where I will spend my eternity, in the bosom of the Trinity that was already my dwelling place here below. Just think, my Guite! to contemplate in His light the splendors of the Divine Being, to search into all the depths of His mystery, to become one with Him whom we love, to sing unceasingly of His glory and His love, to be like Him because we see Him as He is! . . .

Little sister, I would be happy to go up above to be your Angel. How jealous I would be for the beauty of your soul that I have loved so much already here on earth! I leave you my devotion for the Three, to “Love.” Live within with Them in the heaven of your soul; the Father will overshadow you, placing something like a cloud between you and the things of this earth to keep you all His, He will communicate His power to you so you can love Him with a love as strong as death; the Word will imprint in your soul, as in a crystal, the image of His own beauty, so you may be pure with His purity, luminous with His light; the Holy Spirit will transform you into a mysterious lyre, which, in silence, beneath His divine touch, will produce a magnificent canticle to Love; then you will be “the praise of His glory” I dreamed of being on earth. You will take my place; I will be “Laudem Gloriae” before the throne of the Lamb, and you, “Laudem Gloriae” in the center of your soul; we will always be united, little sister. Always believe in Love. If you have to suffer, think that you are even more loved, and always sing in thanksgiving. He is so jealous for the beauty of your soul. . . . That is all He has in view. Teach the little ones to live in the sight of the Master. I would love for Sabeth to have my devotion to the Three. I will be at their first Communions, I will help you prepare them. Pray for me; I have offended my Master more than you think; but above all thank Him; say a Gloria every day. Forgive me for having often given you a bad example.

A Dieu, little sister, how I love you. . . . Perhaps I will go soon to be lost in the Furnace of love; whether in Heaven or on earth, we must live in Love to glorify Love!

For those blessed souls who have entered into the unity of life in God, everything is one: rest and activity, looking and acting, silence and speaking, listening and communicating, surrender in loving acceptance and an outpouring of love in grateful songs of praise.

As long as we are still on the way and the farther away from the goal the more intensely we are still subject to temporal laws, and are instructed to actualize in ourselves, one after another and all the members complementing each other mutually, the divine life in all its fullness.

We need hours for listening silently and allowing the Word of God to act on us until it moves us to bear fruit in an offering of praise and an offering of action.

We need to have traditional forms and to participate in public and prescribed worship services so that our interior life will remain vital and on the right track, and so that it will find appropriate expression.

There must be special places on earth for the solemn praise of God, places where this praise is formed into the greatest perfection of which humankind is capable.

From such places it can ascend to heaven for the whole church and have an influence on the church’s members; it can awaken the interior life in them and make them zealous for external unanimity.

But it must be enlivened from within by this means: that here, too, room must be made for silent recollection. Otherwise, it will degenerate into a rigid and lifeless lip service.

And protection from such dangers is provided by those homes for the interior life where souls stand before the face of God in solitude and silence in order to be quickening love in the heart of the church.

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