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My Kingdom Is in Your Heart

My Kingdom Is in Your Heart

Letters to the Duchess of Orleans & Meditations on Christian Life

By Mother Mectilde de Bar

194 pp

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About the Book

“Act before God as if everything was lost for you, so that from now on you can say to Him: ‘I am content with You alone. My kingdom is in Your Heart and Yours is in mine.’”

In a century of great saints and spiritual masters, Mother Mectilde de Bar (1614–1698), who stood in their number, founded a new Benedictine institute dedicated to the perpetual adoration of the Blessed Sacrament. In spite of her labors in establishing or ruling monasteries, she made time for an extensive correspondence with nuns in the cloister and great ladies in the world. The “gems” of this correspondence were carefully kept and copied down for centuries by her congregation. In the twentieth century this treasury began to be edited and published for the benefit of Christians everywhere who seek a more profound union with Jesus Christ in His mysteries, ceaselessly renewed in the Church’s worship.

The present volume presents a wide selection of these gems—above all, letters glowing with affection that Mectilde addressed to Marguerite de Lorraine, Duchess of Orléans (1615–1672), whose life was a procession of trials: an unreliable husband, a troublesome stepchild, the death of children, hostility at court, civil strife, chronic ill-health, financial worries. In Mectilde’s spiritual advice, Marguerite found light and strength—and so can we, beset with whatever trials we may be facing.



Praise

“Mectilde’s style is simple, light, and luminous; her mind precise and clear. She goes right to the point she wishes to make; she is direct, without violence. One feels in her a truly peaceful soul, deeply rooted in God. Her tone is gentle, even when demanding; her touch always light and elegant. She has an immense respect for each soul. She is maternal without being too affective, strong without any stiffness.”

—ABBOT XAVIER PERRIN, OSB

 

“The texts help us to understand how the humble and silent presence of Jesus in the Eucharist is a priceless gift for the Church.”

—FR. JACQUES PHILIPPE

 

“Mother Mectilde was so aflame with the love of God that her whole life was a sacrifice to Him. To read her letters is to be filled anew with the desire to give oneself to God.”

—P. EDMUND WALDSTEIN, O.CIST.

 

“You who hold this book in your hands, you will find real life in it. Don’t just read it, live it.”

—MOTHER IMMACULATA FRANKEN, OSBAP

 

“She speaks like a woman in love; her words can ignite a fire in your soul.”

—SR. JULIA MARY DARRENKAMP, FSP



About the Author

Catherine de Bar (1614-1698)--in religion, Mother Mectilde of the Blessed Sacrament--stands out among the luminous spiritual masters of seventeenth-century France as one of the great teachers of the interior life, a woman of the stature of St Gertrude the Great or St Teresa of Avila. Living in a period marked by superstition, sacrilege, and war, Mother Mectilde responded with a call to faithful reparation, self-abandoning adoration, frequent Communion, and total adherence to the Eucharistic Lord. Even while she suffered exile, illness, poverty, dangers, and uncertainties on all sides, she offered counsel and comfort to men and women in every state of life, teaching them how to surrender to Divine Providence and how to become ever more united with Christ.

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