Blessed Celeste's Seven Keys of Thanksgiving

 

November is the month we celebrate Thanksgiving; the time of year when we count our blessings. Our Foundress Blessed Maria Celeste Crostarosa was a person deeply aware of all the blessings she received from God, her Beloved: the supernatural as well as the mundane. 

You see, she was a mystic: one who was so imbued with the knowledge of her symbiotic relationship with her Maker and Redeemer working in her life and in creation that her only recourse was to give humble thanks.  Here in her writings are the Seven Keys she offers us to unlock the door to giving thanks.

FORGETFULNESS OF SELF Believe in the graces you know that I give to my friends and you will participate, by benevolence, in the good things which are theirs, and it will be pleasing to Me that you will thank Me for them as though you had received them for yourself. 

HOPE   I thank you, my faithful Lover, for the great love you have for me. O my beloved Spouse, I, to please you, desire to be newly dressed with an angelic and divine purity, because I know that it is this purity which is pleasing to you.  But I see myself as full of ingratitude and imperfections. What shall I do, my Lord?  I come to You, my safe Refuge, that You may cause everything in me to be pure.

PURE FAITH    You, who are my whole Good, gives Himself to me sacramentally in a morsel of bread; there I receive the gift of pure faith; there I receive healing and am strengthened. And when I hear your sweet Word, my spirit melts with love, because You, God, live now in me, having come down into my heart to give new life to my flesh by the life of the Spirit you breathed into me.   Love of my heart, how can I thank you!

THE GIFTS OF MERCY AND LOVE:   

Beloved daughter, remember that My Divine Son would be with you to the end of the world because He would be the food of your life and soul in the Most Holy Sacrament of the Eucharist.  My Mercy has been the greatest gift.   Because of this Sacrament, you are filled to overflowing with a torrent of love, especially love of your neighbor, for you have become immersed in God.  See now, daughter, what dignity this Sacrament gives you, hence your whole life should be a continual preparation for and thanksgiving for My Mercy and Love.

HUMILITY   O Sweetness of my soul, you gave me three jewels: the one on my right hand was self-emptying; the second on my left hand was love of the cross and the third on the heart was pure love.  These three jewels were impressed upon me like three pledges of Your love in my soul, a love that would last unto eternity. Clothed with these jewels you have made me a beautiful image of You.   O my Goodness, how shall I thank You for this great love which You have shown me, so lowly a creature?   

PRAYER       And how can I describe the peace, the contentment and the security that the soul enjoys in prayer?  She reposes in a secure Refuge under these divine wings: there she hides herself in a passive giving of herself over as a gift, totally dependent on her Beloved. There she puts all her hopes; there she hides all her miseries; there she finds rest from all her crosses; there she places all her desires; there she is content. I bless and I thank You because, without any merit on my part, You heaped upon me all sorts of blessings and graces.

DIVINE LOVE    O God, my Lover, I give you infinite thanks because You deigned to speak to my heart with these most sweet words so full of goodness, "to you I will give the keys of the Kingdom of Heaven," meaning that You have given me the keys of Your Divine Love since You gave me Your Divine Son so that He might live His life in my heart and that I might live in Your Divine Heart… What kind of thanks can I give You, only Lover of my heart?!