A MAN in love with the Church

BLESSED FRANCIS PALAU Y QUER

 (1811-1872)

- A life of solitude and busy ministry

The previous Chapter is entitled "Love the Church". The Church is beautiful; it is the living Christ on earth leading all human beings into the intimate life of the Trinity. Once a person has grasped that they begin to live within, and love the Church. One man who had an extraordinary knowing of this was Blessed Francis Palau y Quer. He literally fell in love with the church. He was a Carmelite friar who lived from 1811-1872 and ministered in the Spanish and French regions of Catalunya.

Here I quote in italics from an article in Heralds of the Gospel, March 2018 by Sr. Clarissa Ribeiro de Sena EP about his life.

Sr Clarissa writes: "In 1840, the Spanish anti-clerical political situation had worsened, obliging Fr. Palau to take refuge in France for eleven years, where he lived mainly in secluded grottos. A group of disciples gathered around him, giving rise to a nucleus of hermits, as well as to the beginnings of a female community. These were the first seeds of foundations he would set up in the future.

Returning to Spain in 1851, he went to the Diocese of Barcelona. A period of intense apostolic activity began, marked by concern for the lack of religious instruction among the faithful. He founded the School of Virtue in St. Augustine’s Parish, a permanent catechesis for adults who sought to confront “error with truth, darkness with light, shadows with reality, falsity with authenticity”. He laid great stress on the virtues and their opposing vices.

This was one of his undertakings that bore the greatest influence on society. With time, about two thousand people from all classes, especially workers, were gathering on Sundays to hear his teachings.

The resounding success of the School of Virtue, however, made it the target of malicious calumnies. Based on the false accusation of involvement in the workers’ strikes that erupted in Barcelona, the civil governor closed it in 1854 and exiled Blessed Palau to the Island of Ibiza, where, paradoxically, he found his preferred site for solitude: the little island of Es Vedrà.

He writes “In the Balearic Islands, Providence had prepared for me the solitude which my heart desired,” ⁴ he himself narrates. "Nobody can approach that rugged rock except by boat; and its sheer cliffs rise so abruptly from the water that they can only be scaled by native experts. This is where I withdraw, from time to time, for my solitary life,” to “render accounts to God for my life and to consult the designs of His Providence”.

Mystical union with the Church

The year 1860 held a crucial event for him, one which would give meaning to his life. According to his own commentary, the time of his youth, his entrance into Carmel and the vicissitudes that followed, the periods of isolation, his priestly ministry and the resulting tribulations all amounted to a prolonged search: “I had spent my life in search of the object of my love, until the year of 1860. I knew well that it existed, but how far I was from imagining what it was!” 

It was the month of November, and he was preparing for the last session of the mission he preached in Ciudadela, when he was transported in ecstasy before the throne of God, where a most beautiful woman clothed in glory appeared to him, her face covered by a fine veil. He understood her to be the Church, which the Eternal Father entrusted to him as a daughter.

He expressed the strong impression the scene made on his soul in these terms: “I desired to know this young Woman who came to me wrapped in mystery and hidden under a veil. Nevertheless, although veiled, I had such a sublime infused knowledge of her. I saw in her attitude such grandeur, that my happiness would be if she would accept me as the humblest of her servants and attendants.”

“Holy Church!” he would later exclaim. “For twenty years I sought thee: I was looking at thee but did not know thee, for thou wert hidden beneath the obscure shadows of mystery, of figures and metaphors, and I could only see thee under the form of a being incomprehensible to me; it was thus that I saw thee and loved thee. It is thee, holy Church, my beloved! Thou art the sole object of my love!” 

Thus began a relationship between him and the Church as a mystical person. “I am a reality, a perfectly organized moral body: my head is God made Man; my bones, my flesh, my nerves, my members are all the Angels, Saints and the just destined for glory; my soul, the spirit that vivifies me, is the Holy Spirit,” she would say to him in one of his visions. These became more frequent, culminating in a spiritual espousal, in which Our Lord Jesus Christ gave the Church to him, also, as spouse.

The beautiful lady of the first manifestations was followed by Sarah, Rebecca, Esther, Judith and other women who had prefigured the Church in the Old Testament. In this way she transmitted her sublime mysteries to him and strengthened their bonds of union. At a certain point, the perfect archetype and most pure mirror of the Mystical Bride of Christ appeared to him, the Most Holy Virgin.

At the service of the Mystical Bride of Christ

Such profound heavenly communications made the Church the root principle of his existence: “My mission is simply to proclaim to the people that thou art infinitely beautiful and lovable, and to exhort them to love thee.”  With this zeal, he set out to evangelize in several cities of Spain.

The mystical experiences with the Church were at the root of the foundations he set up. Sensing himself called to unite the active life with the rich contemplative tradition of Carmel, he founded two religious congregations.

In his pastoral work, Blessed Palau also made good use of the pen. As well as several books, he published articles in the weekly publication El Ermitaño (meaning ‘the hermit’). In them he sets forth impressive analyses and predictions regarding ecclesiastical and social events. He also worked as an exorcist.

The future triumph of the Holy Church

In his visions he came to an apex of mystical union with the Church through a series of revelations regarding the internal and external evils assailing the Church and those which, in the future, would befall her. At the same time, Fr. Palau contemplated her immortal glory and definitive victory".

(Fr Brian writes)What does this extraordinary man teach us?

The Church does not authenticate the private revelations of the saints. She only proclaims as Blessed or Saints those whole lives have been examples of great holiness, and who have taught nothing against the teachings of the Church. I offer this outline of Blessed Francis’ life as an example of one who gave a heroic example of intercession. His search for the Mystical Body of Christ was so focused that he actually beheld in deeply personal ways the beautiful Church.

His grasp of the reality of the Communion of Saints which we call Church gives us a glimpse of the beauty of the renewing of Humanity that God is bringing about in our world. From all eternity the love that is Father, Son and Spirit presses down urgently upon the earth. God is calling us with increasing urgency today. Humanity yearns like a restless youth for that love.

A magnet sets off a reaction in iron filings, forming them into a coherent pattern. God’s love is the magnet, the Church is the pattern forming within jumbled humanity. We are being fashioned into the likeness of the Trinity of love which is God. The force we call magnetism is invisible, only detected by its effects. So the re-formation of humanity by the power of the Holy Spirit is only observable in its effects.

People come alive, they change for the better, they find themselves being led into agreement and deep bonding with others, they work for unity with humbleness and life-long dedication. While they themselves are maturing, they experience in their hearts a surprisingly warm conviction that there is a supernatural connectedness of people. All this is gift – it is the Church, the divine economy.