I think the world belongs in its fulness only to the sympathetic.
-- Rev. Joseph Farrell
Friday, February 29, 2008
Thursday, February 28, 2008
Rare gift
Do not fail to cultivate God's rare gift to you of humor; so that many hearts far and near may learn to smile toward heaven while their tears fall earthward.
-- Rev. Laurence J. Kenny, SJ
-- Rev. Laurence J. Kenny, SJ
Wednesday, February 27, 2008
Today
Live the true life of a man today. Not yesterday's life only, lest you become a murmurer, nor tomorrow's, lest you become a visionary; but the life of today, with happy yesterdays and confident tomorrows.
-- Father Faber
-- Father Faber
Tuesday, February 26, 2008
Contentment
Contentment is a pearl of great price, and whoever purchases it, at the expense of ten thousand desires, makes a wise and happy purchase.
-- Balguy
Some people are always grumbling because roses have thorns. I am thankful that thorns have roses.
-- Karr
-- Balguy
Some people are always grumbling because roses have thorns. I am thankful that thorns have roses.
-- Karr
Monday, February 25, 2008
Progress
To conform our will to the will of God is what we should desire above all else. In this consists the highest perfection. He who renounces himself most, and most perfectly follows the will of God, will receive the greatest gifts, and make most progress in an interior life.
-- St. Teresa
-- St. Teresa
Sunday, February 24, 2008
God is our friend
It requires an act of faith, and not a little act, to say so. But so it is; the Infinite, the Omnipotent, the All-Holy is our bosom friend . . . There is no real friend but God. He is in His own world almost the solitary example of the beauty of fidelity . . . He forgives offences as fast as we commit them, and appears to forget as soon as He has forgiven.
-- Father Faber
How many who go out a latere Jesu in the morning bright and peaceful, have come back at night downcast and sad, with many memories unworthy a servant and friend. Still He is always the same. We vary and change, and are overcast and lose our morning light. A blight and tarnish fall upon us. But He is unchangeable in love, pity, and forgiveness.
-- Cardinal Manning
-- Father Faber
How many who go out a latere Jesu in the morning bright and peaceful, have come back at night downcast and sad, with many memories unworthy a servant and friend. Still He is always the same. We vary and change, and are overcast and lose our morning light. A blight and tarnish fall upon us. But He is unchangeable in love, pity, and forgiveness.
-- Cardinal Manning
Saturday, February 23, 2008
Familiarity and Reverence
Truly no people have their God so near as we chosen ones, who have been admitted to His special familiarity. Day and night Jesus dwells with us under the same roof; we are daily present when during the holy Mass heaven opens and He descends upon the altar; we appear before His tabernacle several times a week. He enters our heart in holy communion . . .
Yet, is not this familiar intercourse an incentive to irreverence toward God? Is my attitude when I kneel before the tabernacle always a worthy and edifying one? How are my preparation and thanksgiving when I receive holy communion? . . . How do I converse with God, how speak of God? . . . [I]f I must reproach myself in all these points, the cause is this, that Thy holy fear does not penetrate me, daily intercourse makes me forget that Thou art the God of majesty and holiness, who is honored by familiarity, but dishonored by irreverence . . .
Holy angels, obtain for us that holy fear which does not exclude familiarity, but increases love.
-- Rev. Henry C. Semple, SJ, Meditations for Monthly Retreats
Yet, is not this familiar intercourse an incentive to irreverence toward God? Is my attitude when I kneel before the tabernacle always a worthy and edifying one? How are my preparation and thanksgiving when I receive holy communion? . . . How do I converse with God, how speak of God? . . . [I]f I must reproach myself in all these points, the cause is this, that Thy holy fear does not penetrate me, daily intercourse makes me forget that Thou art the God of majesty and holiness, who is honored by familiarity, but dishonored by irreverence . . .
Holy angels, obtain for us that holy fear which does not exclude familiarity, but increases love.
-- Rev. Henry C. Semple, SJ, Meditations for Monthly Retreats
Friday, February 22, 2008
The Gift of Fear
Fear, insofar as it is one of the gifts of the Holy Spirit, has nothing in common either with the fear which seizes us in the presence of danger, or with the apprehension of sin which torments the scrupulous soul, or even with the Christian fear of the torments of hell. The fear of which we speak is a gentle fear, inspired by love and reverence for the eyes of God which are fixed upon us. For the sole reason that we love God, we are afraid, but without being troubled by it, that something may displease Him . . . This fear fills it [the soul] in prayer with a deep piety which banishes from it all languor and all pusillanimity, and which fixes the frivolity of mind in a state of recollection.
-- Hamon, Meditations
-- Hamon, Meditations
Thursday, February 21, 2008
God's Presence
[T]here is no more powerful means for bridling the passions and overcoming temptations than the thought of God's holy presence. St. Thomas says: "If at all times we were mindful of the presence of God we would displease Him very seldom." And St. Jerome remarks that the thought of the presence of God closes the door to sin. St. Teresa says that all our faults arise from not thinking of God as present to us, but imagining Him far away.
Wednesday, February 20, 2008
Without Concern
Cheered by the presence of God, I will do at each moment, without anxiety, according to the strength which He shall give me, the work that His providence assigns me. I will leave the rest without concern . . .
-- Archbishop Fénélon
-- Archbishop Fénélon
