Ave Maria Meditations
Blessed Teresa of Sf. Augustine and Companions (1794)
Blessed Teresa and fifteen other Carmelite nuns were guillotined during the “Reign of Terror” of the French Revolution. Two years earlier they had made an Act of Consecration by which they offered themselves as a holocaust to bring peace to the Church and the country.
When they were arrested Sister Henriette exclaimed, “Let us rejoice in the joy of the Lord, that we shall die for our Holy Religion.” As each Sister ascended the guillotine, her companions sang the Veni Creator Spiritus. The normally noisy crowd was strangely silent, and a witness remarked, “They looked as if they were going to their wedding.” Within ten days of their death, the Reign of Terror ended.
Veni, Creator Spiritus
1. Veni, creator Spiritus mentes tuorum visita, imple superna gratia, quae tu creasti pectora.
I didn’t know that today was the feast of these Carmelite martyrs! Here in my city there is a Carmelite convent, a Carmel as the sisters use to say. I have heard on that martyrdom, but I haven’t yet heard on certain details that you reported here, like the silence of the crowd and the ending of the Terror time after their martydom. Very moving reporting!