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St Enrique (Henry) de Osso y Cervello – January 27 - Carmelite Saints

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Summary:

Enrique was born at Vinebre, Catalonia, Spain, on October 16, 1840, and was ordained a priest on September 21, 1867. He was an apostle to young people in teaching them about their faith and inspired various movements for the teaching of the Gospel. As a spiritual director, he was fascinated by St. Teresa of Jesus, the great teacher in the ways of prayer and Daughter of the Church who is better known in the English-speaking world as St. Teresa of Avila. In the light of her teaching, he founded the Society of St. Teresa of Jesus (1876), dedicated to educating women in the school of the Gospel and following the example of St. Teresa. He gave himself to preaching and the apostolate through the printing press. He underwent many severe trials and sufferings. He died at Gilet, Valencia, Spain, on January 27, 1896. He was canonized on June 16, 1993, in Madrid, by Pope St. John Paul II. Pope St. John Paul II also proclaimed him as the patron saint of catechists on November 6, 1998.

History:

Father Enrique de Osso-Cervello was born in Vinebre, Spain, on October 16, 1840, to Jaime de Osso and Micaela Cervello. Enrique was born into a good Catholic family and said that he had "good parents and holy grandfathers". He was the youngest of three children and, at an early age, felt a call to the priesthood, which his mother supported but his father opposed.

From an early age, Enrique's faith shaped his identity. His spirituality, evident from an early age, continued to grow and guide his actions. By six, he would stop playing to assist the parish priest with the Blessed Sacrament, demonstrating consistent devotion.

Around the age of 12, his father sent him to Quinto de Ebro to learn the family textile trade from his uncle. During this time, Enrique became gravely ill and received his first communion as Viaticum. After recovering, he returned home and detoured to the Shrine of Our Lady of the Pillar to give thanks for his restored health.

His mother died in the 1854 cholera epidemic when he was 14. His father sent him to Reus to apprentice with another textile businessman, hoping he would become a successful businessman. While there, Enrique worried about the negative influence of certain friends he had met. While selling behind the counter, he continued to consider other possibilities for his life.

One day, he left farewell letters and walked up the road to the Monastery of Montserrat.  In a farewell letter to his father, he wrote: “My absence will cause you sadness, but Father, it is the glory of God that motivates me. Your sorrow will be turned to joy if only you remember that we will soon meet again in heaven… Give my clothes and other belongings to the poor… Life is short, and riches serve no purpose unless we use them well.”

There, before our Lady of Monserrat, the Moreneta, he decided his future: "I found my vocation… I promise myself to Jesus forever, to be his minister, his apostle, his missionary of peace and love."  

A few days after Enrique left for Montserrat, his brother Jamie found him and acted as a mediator between Enrique and their father. Eventually, after understanding Enrique’s desire, his father agreed to let him pursue the priesthood. As a result, Enrique was allowed to enter the seminary in 1854.

Shortly after being permitted to attend seminary in 1854, Enrique began his studies at the seminary in Tortosa and later in Barcelona. In both places, he was an example of virtue to his friends, who never used improper language or gestures in his presence.

During his seminary years, Enrique visited the Desert of the Palms, where the Carmelite Fathers had their convent. With the Carmelite community, he spent extended periods in prayer and reflection in the hermitage of St. Teresa—an experience he repeated many times throughout his life.  

Later, he chose a spiritual director, whose advice he always followed. With his director’s approval, he drew up a plan of life which he followed. He prefaced it thus: “As a help to my spiritual formation, I will, with God’s grace, engrave firmly in my mind Saint Teresa’s words: Let the world perish before I offend God because I owe more to God than to anybody else.”

During the spiritual exercises that he made in preparation for his Subdiaconate, he added the following to his plan:

“Learn of me, for I am meek and gentle of heart.”

“Goal: to imitate Jesus in my thoughts and actions so that others can say of me what they used to say of Saint Francis de Sales: This is how Jesus acted.”

“Prayer: Spirit of God, on the eve of Pentecost, I ask for this grace: Since I will soon consecrate myself to God in a special way as his temple and minister forever, fill me with your holy gifts. Grant me the spirit of prayer and zeal like that of the apostles. Fill me especially with the gifts of wisdom and fear of the Lord. Come, Holy Spirit.”

Enrique was ordained on September 21, 1867. He celebrated his first Mass at Montserrat on October 6, 1867, and soon after began teaching mathematics to seminarians in Tortosa.

After ordination, he channeled his passion for God into ministry, becoming a model priest known for serving all social classes—preaching, leading retreats, and teaching religion to the children. He communicated his apostolic zeal wherever he went. His deep faith was reflected in his prayer and in all that he did. His devotion during the celebration of the Eucharist moved many to repentance and to love of God.

At times, he seemed transported out of himself. It was not unusual to hear him sigh gently, as though enraptured: My Jesus and my all. To love you or to die. Rather, to live and die loving you above everything else. Do not let me leave this world without having loved you and made you known and loved as much as I can. Give glory, honor, and riches to others, but give me, your servant, only your love, and that will be enough. My Jesus and my all. Praised be Jesus, my love. All for Jesus! Praised be Jesus!

When he became a priest, the political conflicts during the Revolution of 1868, with liberal and anti-Catholic overtones, forced him to seclude himself with the seminarians at the episcopal palace and in various homes. In this way, he was able to continue training them.

During the revolution, the seminary of Tortosa was confiscated and closed, and the seminarians were sent home to their families.  Enrique  spent the whole year in Vinebre.  When the turbulence in Tortosa had passed, the consequences of the revolution were noticeable, above all for the children, who were "like sheep without a shepherd".  They imitated what they had heard and seen during a year without religion.  Hence, the catechesis became a need.  Enrique had to find catechists and provide them with adequate formation.  The bishop assigned Enrique as the general director of the diocese's catechesis. The success of his efforts was glamorous.

To fight this new ideology, Enrique obtained his Bishop's, Dr. Vilamitjana's, permission to organize 12 catechetical centers, which soon enrolled 1,200 children. Ossó was a good strategist; he knew that children could be more persuasive with parents.  He created an association for the teaching of the Catholic doctrine, which he directed, motivated, and planned himself.  He formed teams with other priests, seminarians, and lay people.  They all began their catechesis with the words that would forever be a leading motif in the apostolate of Enrique: All for Jesus! Praised be Jesus!  

His ministry was most effective and extensive. Among others, the following apostolic groups are better known: the Teresian Apostolic Movement (TAM), which he founded to teach children and youth to pray according to the spirituality of Saint Teresa, spread rapidly in Spain. He established it in more than twenty parishes, and the enrollment reached more than 130,000 during his life. Today, it flourishes wherever the Teresian Sisters are. He also founded the Brotherhood of Saint Joseph, a pious association for older men, started in Tortosa, and enlisted some two hundred men from its beginning.

Father Enrique organized a pilgrimage to Rome as an expression of his devotion to the Pope and the Church, bringing 800 pilgrims. He also organized a pilgrimage to Avila, birthplace of Saint Teresa, and to Alba, where she was buried. During this trip, his humility and self-sacrifice stood out, which let him forget himself and disappear at the hour of triumph, though he was the main organizer.

He was also instrumental in establishing a Discalced Carmelite monastery for nuns in Tortosa. These and many other forms of ministry, to which we could not possibly give space here, filled the life of this man who spent himself to make God known and loved.

But Father Enrique’s greatest accomplishment in life was the foundation of the Society of Saint Teresa of Jesus, which he was inspired to found while at prayer during the night of April 2, 1876. With the approval of his spiritual director and the blessing of the Bishop, he established the Society, known as the Teresian Sisters, on June 23 of the same year, at the cost of innumerable sacrifices.

He started the Society with only eight young women. Soon, however, it spread throughout Spain, Portugal, Africa, and North and South America. More than 5,000 Teresians have passed through the Institute's 14 novitiates. Today, it staffs more than one hundred schools around the world, in addition to many missions in Africa, Nicaragua, Mexico, and throughout Central and South America. The Teresians also staff houses of prayer in different parts of the world.

Amid his many duties, Father Enrique consistently contributed to religious publications. His first project was the weekly newspaper The People’s Friend. He edited Saint Teresa’s Magazine until his death. Notable among his many works are: Catechist Manual, Fifteen Minutes of Meditation, Handbook of the Teresian Apostolic Movement, Handbook of the Friends of Jesus, Treasure Chest for Children, novenas to Saint Joseph, the Holy Spirit, and the Immaculate Conception, Spirit of Saint Teresa, Saint Teresa’s Month, and Tribute to Saint Francis de Sales.

He also published textbooks for the schools where the Teresian Sisters taught.

His dynamic life, clear vision, and high ideals went hand in hand with his gentleness, simplicity, and modesty, characteristics that made Enrique de Osso very attractive in his ministry.

During all of this, the daily prayer, the spiritual exercises each summer, the days of spiritual rest in his Monastery of Montserra are for him an interminable source of interior wealth, of God's love, that he had experimented, lived, and expressed in his apostolic works for the growth of the Kingdom.  Only from that prayerful side can his incessant activity and his spiritual depth be explained.  

He died on January 27, 1896, at Gilet, Valencia, of a stroke when he went home to His Father, after having made a fervent retreat in his favorite place of solitude, the Franciscan monastery of Sancti Spiritus in Gilet. He was buried in the Franciscan cemetery in Gilet, where his remains remained until 1908, when they were transferred to the chapel of the novitiate of the Society of Saint Teresa of Jesus in Tortosa, Spain.

The newly elected Pope St. John Paul II beatified him on October 14, 1979, and then canonized the priest on June 16, 1993, while visiting Madrid at the time. Pope St. John Paul II also proclaimed him the patron saint of catechists on November 6, 1998, in a formal decree issued by the Congregation for Divine Worship and the Discipline of the Sacraments.

Prayer:

Lord God,
in your priest Saint Henry de Ossó
you wonderfully combined
the ideals of the apostolic community:
a life of continual prayer
and of untiring apostolic activity.
By his intercession may we persevere in the love of Christ
and serve your Church by word and deed.

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.

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Bl. Marie-Eugène of the Child Jesus Grialou – February 4 – Carmelite Saints
Summary: Henri Grialou was born in Aubin, in Aveyron (France), on December 2, 1894. After his priestly ordination on February 4, 1922, he was captivated by the doctrine of St. Therese of the Child Jesus and St. John of the Cross and decided to join the Discalced Carmelites. After serving as superior in France, he was elected to serve as a General Definitor of the Order in Rome in 1937. In 1948, he was appointed Apostolic Visitor of the Discalced Carmelite nuns in France and religious assistant to their federations. From 1955, he was able to devote himself full-time to the secular institute Notre Dame de Vie, which he started in 1932. He died in Venasque on March 27th, 1967, the feast day of the institute. He was beatified in 2016 by Pope Francis. History: Henri Grialou was born on December 2, 1894, in Le Gua, southern France, the third of five children to Auguste Grialou, a miner, and Marie Miral, who came from a farming family. 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He served on the front lines as an officer, and for five years, Henri took part in the major campaigns at Argonne, Verdun, and Chemin des Dames. Upon his discharge at the end of the war in 1919, he held the rank of Lieutenant and was decorated as a Chevalier of the French Legion of Honor with the Military Cross. During the war, both he and his men felt the powerful protection of St. Thérèse of Lisieux and took solace in knowing he had a powerful intercessor. In the 1920s, he wrote of her: "It seems to me that the mission of the little Blessed is to spread the divine love in souls in the form which God wills for our times." After distinguishing himself on the front lines, he reentered seminary in 1919 at Rodez, where he said, “I made a definitive choice to become a priest.” As he was on his retreat to prepare to be ordained a sub-deacon, he took along a little book about St John of the Cross that a Carmelite nun had just given him. During his reading on the evening of December 13, 1920, he received a sudden, overwhelming revelation that God wanted him to become a Discalced Carmelite. Though he had never met a Carmelite friar and was unsure whether there were any in France, he knew God had made him a Carmelite. However, numerous difficulties would arise in pursuing this call. He first approached his seminary spiritual director, who told Henri, ‘absolutely not’ and forbade him from speaking about this again. Obediently, Henri said nothing and sat alone with his thoughts of entering Carmel. Time passed, and after his ordination as a subdeacon, he prayed to the Lord, saying, "My spiritual director must bring this up before Easter of this year, or I will know this is not really from you." Lent arrived, followed by Holy Week and the Triduum, yet still no word. On Good Friday, however, his spiritual director approached him in the chapel to ask about his thoughts on entering Carmel. Henri explained how his experience had matured over several months. At the end of their meeting, his director said, "If you were not resolved to go to Carmel, I myself would force you to go!" As the weeks pass, Henri is ordained a deacon and is set to be ordained a priest in only a couple of months. He now must speak to the bishop about this. The bishop, who saw that Henri was a gifted man with great strength of personality, intellect, and heart, as well as an incredible leader, had a plan for Henri to head up a missionary band of priests to go throughout the diocese to bring back the many fallen-away Catholics. As such, upon Henri's request to depart for Carmel, the bishop said, “Absolutely not, you will report to your new assignment after ordination, and that is all.” Henri left the meeting deeply saddened but confident that God would find a way. Several weeks later, the bishop asked the seminary spiritual director how Henri was doing. To which he answered that he submits to the bishop. The bishop then recounted that, since their meeting, he has not had a good night's sleep, cannot get Henri’s request off his mind, and is convinced that God will not let him rest until he lets him go. The bishop then tells the rector that Henri may enter Carmel. The last obstacle was also the greatest and most heart-wrenching: his mother. His mother was a widow who spent the last 10 years working various jobs to pay for Henri’s seminary education. They were very close and shared a deep love for each other. Her one dream was to retire from her arduous daily labor and live with her son at his rectory as a housekeeper and companion, which was not uncommon for a widowed mother or a single sister to do in those days. When Henri told his mom about his desire to enter Carmel, she went into a panic. She believed he was going to hide away in a cloister and never see her again. Henri tried to explain to her that this was a misunderstanding, but she would not listen. She cursed his path to Carmel and even threatened to take her own life if he left. These encounters completely broke Henri. He did not know what to do. He was about to be ordained a priest, and his mother said she would have no part in his ordination or his first Mass. Henri knew his mother never went back on her word. He asked God for a miracle; if she comes to the ordination, this will be the last confirmation that this call to Carmel is from God. The days pass, and she will not talk to him. When his ordination arrived, and she was not in the pew. Then, right as the Mass began, Henri spotted her in a corner! The miracle has happened! For two more years, Henri’s relationship with his mother would be strained. However, after much prayer and suffering, his mom became reconciled to her son’s vocation, and the affection they shared would grow stronger as a result of this trial. After ordination, Fr. Henri spent several days in his hometown visiting and celebrating his first Masses before departing for Carmel. Just three weeks after receiving Holy Orders, he boarded a train to Avon, France, where he began his novitiate in the Discalced Carmelites on February 24, 1922, taking the name Fr. Marie-Eugène of the Child Jesus in honor of his devotion to the Little Flower. Upon entry, he declared, "My vocation is certain." He received the Carmelite habit on March 10, 1922. Fr. Marie-Eugene’s life was driven by his devotion to the Carmelite charism and evangelical zeal. His motto was "traditus gratiae Dei" (surrendered to the grace of God). As a priest, he dedicated himself to sharing the teachings of the Carmelite saints. He actively participated in preaching after the beatification and canonization of St. Thérèse of Lisieux in 1923 and 1925, and after the proclamation of St. John of the Cross as a Doctor of the Church in 1926. Bl. Marie-Eugène was also a master of the spiritual life and a renowned spiritual director in his time. He preached that the paths to contemplation and personal holiness were open to all the Christian faithful. He gave himself fully to this apostolate, thereby contributing to the renewal of the Church in France between the two world wars. His two major works - I Want to See God, and I am a Daughter of the Church - are filled with rich and detailed explications of Carmelite thought. They offer a synthesis based on the teachings of St. John of the Cross, St. Teresa of Avila, and other notable Carmelites. From these saints, Bl. Marie-Eugène learned of the grace found in silent prayer. In 1928, he became Prior of the Petit Castelet Monastery in Tarascon. The next year, on Pentecost, three women who ran a private school in Marseille sought Fr. Marie-Eugène's advice; one of them was Marie Pila. From that meeting, he and Pila founded the Secular Institute of Notre-Dame de Vie in Venasque in 1932. This lay institute, which is similar to a Third Order, still exists. He opened its first branch in the Philippines and celebrated the inaugural Mass there on December 25, 1954. The institute's aim was the Carmelite ideal, realized by the prophet Elijah: “To closely join a contemplative and apostolic life in the world, by permeating every apostolate with mental prayer, so as to be the witness through word and life to the living God.” From 1932 to 1936, he was the Prior at Agen, and in 1936, he was appointed Prior in Monaco, which he served for a year. He also sought to revitalize Carmelite monasteries and convents, and, in 1948, Pope Pius XII appointed him an Apostolic Visitor to this end, as a member of the General Council of the Order in Rome, where he remained until 1955, apart from the war years of 1939-1945. More specifically, he was given the responsibility for all the French-speaking Carmelite monasteries. He paid special attention to the persecuted communities. In the order itself, he was the General Definitor from 1937 to 1954 and the Vicar-General from 1954 to 1955; in the latter post, he travelled to various Carmelite monasteries. On returning to France in 1955, he was elected Provincial from 1957 to 1960 and again from 1963 to 1967. He closely observed the upheavals of the 1950s and new apostolic initiatives in the Church. From 1965 onwards, Fr Marie-Eugene's health gradually deteriorated. He focused on the essentials: teaching the fundamentals of the spiritual life and supporting the growing number of people seeking his advice. Devoted to the Holy Spirit and our Blessed Mother, after many months of severe suffering, Fr. Marie-Eugène died on Easter Monday, March 27, 1967, the day on which he enjoyed celebrating the joy of Mary, Mother of Life (Notre-Dame de Vie), the feast day he had previously established for the institute. His final words to those gathered at his bedside were: "As for me, I am on my way to perfect union with the Holy Spirit". On September 27, 1985, Pope St. John Paul II granted him the title Servant of God. On December 19, 2011, he was proclaimed to be Venerable after Pope Benedict XVI acknowledged that Henri had lived a model Christian life of heroic virtue - both cardinal and theological - which the pope deemed Grialou exercised to a favorable degree. He was later beatified in 2016 by Pope Francis. Prayer: God, rich in mercy, you gave Blessed Marie-Eugène of the Child Jesus the grace and light to guide your people along the paths of contemplative prayer and missionary witness toward the fullness of Christ. Grant us through his intercession to grow in submission to the Holy Spirit and to work, in faith, for the coming of your Kingdom. Through Jesus Christ, your Son, our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, God, for ever and ever.
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