During our fall retreat a couple of weeks ago Father Joseph Mary, CSJ gave several conferences on the Psalms. Drawing from St Elizabeth of the Trinity, he reflected more than once on how the Sacred Liturgy – the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass along with the Liturgy of the Hours – has as its goal to make each of us a laudem gloriae (a praise of glory). What is a praise of glory? Read these powerful words from St Elizabeth…
A praise of glory is a soul that lives in God, that loves Him with a pure and disinterested love, without seeking itself in the sweetness of this love; that loves Him beyond all His gifts and even though it would not have received anything from Him, it desires the good of the Object thus loved. Now how do we effectively desire and will good to God if not in accomplishing His will since this will orders everything for His greater glory? Thus the soul must surrender itself to this will completely, passionately, so as to will nothing else but what God wills. A praise of glory is a soul of silence that remains like a lyre under the mysterious touch of the Holy Spirit so that He may draw from it divine harmonies; it knows that suffering is a string that produces still more beautiful sounds; so it loves to see this string on its instrument that it may more delightfully move the Heart of its God. A praise of glory is a soul that gazes on God in faith and simplicity; it is a reflector of all that He is; it is like a bottomless abyss into which He can flow and expand; it is also like a crystal through which He can radiate and contemplate all His perfections and His own splendor. A soul which thus permits the divine Being to satisfy in itself His need to communicate “all that He is and all that He has,” is in reality the praise of glory of all His gifts. Finally, a praise of glory is one who is always giving thanks. Each of her acts, her movements, her thoughts, her aspirations, at the same time that they are rooting her more deeply in love, are like an echo of the eternal Sanctus. In the Heaven of glory the blessed have no rest “day or night, saying: Holy, holy, holy, is the Lord God Almighty… They fall down and worship Him who lives forever and ever….” In the heaven of her soul, the praise of glory has already begun her work of eternity. Her song is uninterrupted, for she is under the action of the Holy Spirit who effects everything in her; and although she is not always aware of it, for the weakness of nature does not allow her to be established in God without distractions, she always sings, she always adores, for she has, so to speak, wholly passed into praise and love in her passion for the glory of her God. In the heaven of our soul let us be praises of glory of the Holy Trinity, praises of love of our Immaculate Mother. One day the veil will fall, we will be introduced into the eternal courts, and there we will sing in the bosom of infinite Love. And God will give us “the new name promised to the Victor.” What will it be? LAUDEM GLORIAE
Through the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass and the unceasing Sacrifice of Praise offered to God in the Liturgy of the Hours, may we begin our work of eternity and become even now laudem gloriae – a praise of glory.