'O Lord, keep Thy hand this day over Philip, if Thou do not, Philip will betray Thee.'
St. Philip Neri's morning prayer

Why I love letters & writing them '. . .the one thing I cherish most: his letters. Even when they don’t give me as much of him as I long for, at least I know that at those moments he is writing only to me, and I am getting all his attention. When do we ever get all of someone’s attention anymore? A handwritten letter is a small but priceless gift: the envelope is sealed, the stamp applied, the letter dropped into the dark box. When it arrives, I curl up under my blanket with me tea to read it. It is this ritual that keeps us friends.'
Courtney Rogmans in “The Sun”

'It is a shame that we tell our children that they can grow up to be president of the United States when in reality only one or two of us in every generation could possibly succeed and we do not tell them that they can be saints as if it were the most difficult thing in the world when in reality it is open to everyone.'
Unknown priest homily

'To love God is something greater than to know Him.'
St. Thomas Aquinas

'Our greatest duty and our main responsibility is to help others. But please, if you can't help them, would you please not hurt them. '
Dalai Lama

'To reach the port of heaven,
we must sail sometimes with the wind
and sometimes against it,
but we must sail,
and not drift,
nor lie at anchor.'
Oliver Wendell Holmes

'Prayer doesn't need proof, it needs practice.'
Unknown

'I've been walking the streets of New York in a clerical collar every day for more than forty years. And every day the streets are full of thousands of strangers. "Good afternoon, Father," "How ya doin, Father," "Say a prayer for me, Father." This is routine. Routine also is being stopped and asked for advice on something or the other, and it's not unusual to hear a confession on a street corner. ...In any event, wearing the collar is a way of showing the flag for the Church. During the height of the publicity over the sex-abuse crisis a couple of years ago, some priests were saying that they were ashamed to wear the collar in public. Shame on them. As Paul tells Timothy, "We have been given the spirit not of timidity, but the spirit of power and love and self-control."During that troubled time, I regularly had strangers telling me to hang in there and not be discouraged. I remember one fellow on First Avenue and 19th Street who pulled over to the curb and shouted, "Don't let the bastards get you down, Father." (Actually, he had an unprintable adjective for the bastards.) Catholic piety is wonderful.'
Fr. Richard John Neuhaus

A Prayer for the Dying.

May Christ Who was crucified for your sake free you from excruciating pain.
May Christ Who died for you free you from the death that never ends.
May Christ the Son of the living God,set you in the ever green loveliness of His Paradise, and may He, the true Shepherd recognize you as one of His own.
May you see your Redeemer face to face and standing in His presence forever, may you see with joyful eyes truth revealed in all its fullness. Amen.
Unknown.

'But loss is a part of God's plan for us here; without it, we would grow hard of heart and would not love those beautiful but mutable things we should love. With it, we can be moved to love, yet the loss teaches us that the final object of our love, the Selfsame, is not here. We learn to love, and we learn to give away what we love. We learn to die, and so learn to live.'
Anthony Esolen

'There will come a time when you believe everything is finished. That will be the beginning.' Louis L'Amour

'Any time spent before the Eucharistic presence,
be it long or short, is the best-spent time of our lives.'
St. Catherine of Genoa

'The Saints are the sinners who keep on trying.'
Unknown

'Trust the past to God's mercy, the present to God's love and the future to God's providence.'
St. Augustine

'Read some chapter of a devout book.....
It is very easy and most necessary,
for just as you speak to God when at prayer,
God speaks to you when you read.'
St. Vincent de Paul

'God sees me for what I will become.
God accepts me for who I am today.
God forgives for what I have been in the past.'
Victor M. Parachin

'If you put all the love of all the mothers
into one heart it still would not equal the love of the Heart of Mary
for her children.'
Saint Louis Marie de Montfort

'Work as if you were to live a hundred years, pray as if you were to die tomorrow.'
Benjamin Franklin

'If we really want to love we must learn how to forgive.'
Blessed Mother Teresa of Calcutta

'Desire to see God, be fearful of losing Him, and find joy in everything
that can lead to Him. If you act in this way, you will always live in great
peace.'
St. Theresa of Avila

'If you ate only one meal a week would you survive? It is the same for your soul.
Nourish it with the Blessed Sacrament.'
Blessed Brother Andre Bessett

'Everything that the Son asks of the Father is granted.
Likewise, everything that the Mother asks of her Son is also granted.'
St. John Vianney

'I am probably not getting anythingout of the rosary
because I am not putting anything into it.'
Brother Juniper (A. Goukassian)

'We need to find God,
and he cannot be found in noise and restlessness. God is the friend of silence.
See how nature - trees, flowers, grass-
grows in silence;
see the stars, the moon and the sun,
how they move in silence...
We need silence to be able to touch souls.'
Blessed Mother Teresa of Calcutta

'She (Mother Mary) is an echo of God, speaking and repeating only God.
If you say "Mary" she says 'God'.'
Saint Louis Marie de Montfort

'Tell Jesus everything.
If you have some troubles,
if your heart is full of hope....
confide even those worries that
you date not say to anyone.
Tell Jesus everything.'
Blessed James Alberione

Little headaches, little heartaches
Little griefs of every day
Little trials and vexations.
How they throng upon our way.
Yet all life is formed of small things.
Little leaves make up the trees.
Many tiny drops of water blending
Make the mighty seas.
Asking him for grace sufficient
To sustain us through each loss
And to treasure each small suffering
As a splinter from His cross.
(parts taken from MARY'S CALL, p.56)

'Christ comes to visit me in the Holy EucharistI repay the visit by going to find Him in the poor.' Blessed Pier Giorgio Frassati

'I will remember how St. Peter,
at a blast of wind, began to sink because
of his lack of faith,
and I will do as he did:
Call upon Christ and pray to him for help.
And then I trust he will place his holy hand on me and in the stormy seas
hold me up from drowning.'
St. Thomas More

'Cast yourself into the arms of God
and be very sure that if he wants anything of you,
he will fit you for the work and give you strength.'
St. Phillip Neri

'God, my God, because you are mine, I lack nothing.'
St. Gertrude the Great

'The Christ of Bethlehem is the Christ of Galilee, is the Christ of the Crucifixion,
is the Christ of the Resurrection, is the Christ of the Eucharist.'
John Cardinal O'Connor

'Do you know how we should read Holy Scripture? As when a person reads letters that have come from his native country, to see what news we have of heaven.'
St. Augustine

'We should live in such a way that in our last hours we will not regret having loved too little.'
Chiara Lubich, founder of the Focolare movement

'He who has hope lives differently.'
Pope Bendict XVI

'As the family goes, so goes the nation and so goes the whole world in which we live.'
Pope John Paul II

'Peace in society depends upon peace in the family.'
St. Augustine

'Be humble and you will never be disturbed. It is very difficult in practice because we all want to see the result of our work. Leave it to Jesus.'
Mother Teresa

'Have you ever heard someone say, ‘If God wants us to believe in Him, why doesn’t He just reveal Himself?’ It seems like a reasonable request, but it overlooks the fact that he did reveal Himself, and we crucified Him. What else does He need to do? Write a book about Himself? He’s done that. Or maybe establish an authority to pass down His teachings? He’s done that as well, through the Church. Despite these efforts on His part, some people argue that He hasn’t done enough. More often than not, these are the same people who won’t go to the trouble of going online to find the nearest church.'
Jason Evert, Theology of Her Body

'A dead thing goes with the stream. Only a living thing can go against it.'
G. K. Chesterton

'Our brains today are big enough. Could it be that our hearts are too small?'
Bishop Fulton J. Sheen

'When our circumstances change, God's goodness does not.'

Unknown

'Make yourself familiar with the angels, and behold them frequently in spirit; for without being seen, they are present with you.'

Saint Francis de Sales

When the devil wishes to make himself master of a soul, he seeks to make it give up devotion to Mary.'

St. Alphonsus Maria de Liguori

'The One whom we adore … is not some distant power. He has himself knelt down before us to wash our feet. And that gives to our adoration the quality of being unforced, adoration in joy and hope, … because we bow down to enter into a love that does not make slaves of us but transforms us.'

Ratzinger (Pope Benedict XVI), God is Near Us, p. 113

'The cross is something wonderfully great and honorable. It is great because through the cross the many noble acts of Christ found heir consummation -- very many indeed, for both his miracles and his sufferings were fully rewarded with victory. The cross is honorable because it is both the sign of God's suffering and the trophy of his victory. it stands for his suffering because on it he freely suffered unto death. But it is also his trophy because it was the means by which the devil was wounded and death conquered; the barred gates of hell were smashed, and the cross became the one common salvation of the whole world.'

-- From a discourse by St. Andrew of Crete, bishop, in today's Office of Readings.

George Herbert said prayer is 'something understood.' I love that. He doesn't say what is understood. He doesn't attempt to explain what he has seen and what he has heard and what he has learned for 'eye has not seen, nor ear heard what God has prepared for those who love Him.'
When we pray it is like the stable in the final Narnia book. The Church or chapel where we pray is larger on the inside than it is on the outside. Our heart and our world is enlarged. So why don't we pray more? Because we're blind. Satan would have us do anything else but pray. He'd prefer us to be involved in good works, church meetings, planning retreats, anything else but pray.
So let us remember today that in the Christian life we only go forward on our knees.

From Fr. Dwight Longenecker's blog

Here's a beautiful line from William F. Buckley's autobiography of faith, "Nearer, My God."
'To ponder the glory of God is to worship a transcendence that gives us a measure of man, near-infinitely small on the scale of things, but infinitely great, as the complement of divine love. Who are you, buster? I am the man Christ-God died for.'

'The patient and humble endurance of the cross-whatever nature it may be-is the highest work we have to do.'

Saint Katharine Drexel

'Do with your adversities as the merchant does with his merchandise: Make a profit on ever item. Don't allow the loss of the tiniest fragment of the true cross. It may only be the sting of a horsefly or the prick of a pin that annoys you; it may be a neighbor's little eccentricities, some unintended slight, the insignificant loss of a penny, some small restlessness of a soul, a light pain in your limbs. Make a profit on every item as the grocer does, and you'll soon be wealthy in God.'

St. Louis de Montfort

'The obedient are not held captive by Holy Mother Church; it is the disobedient who are held captive by the world! ' "Unity must subsist in Truth!" - Fr. John Corapi

'Remember that the Christian life is one of action, not speech and daydreams. Let there be few words and many deeds, and let them be done well.'

St. Vincent Pallotti

'He who labors as he prays
lifts his heart to God with his hands.'

St. Benedict of Nursia

'If we pray, we will believe;
If we believe, we will love;
If we love, we will serve.'

Bl. Mother Teresa

'Conscience and reputation are two different things.
Your conscience depends on you, whereas your reputation depends on your neighbor's estimation of you.'

St. Augustine

I dreamt death came the other night
And Heaven's gate swung wide.
An Angel with halo bright
Ushered me inside.
And there! To my astonishment,
Stood folks I'd judged and labeled
As "quite unfit": "of little worth",
And "Spiritually disabled".
Indignant words rose to my lips,
But never were set free,
For every face showed stunned surprise -
Not one expected ME!
(unknown author)

'Prayer is not asking for what you think you want but asking to be changed in ways you can't imagine.'

Kathleen Norris

'Without love, nothing is pleasing to God.'

Pope St. Clement 1 of Rome

'When you hear talk about so-called ‘traditionalists', some thinkthat they are a group with a stubborn and nostalgic attachment to thepast. That is not true. In fact, here we find ourselves before adynamic Christian view of the life of faith and devotion, shared by somany families and their children who are attached to those ancientliturgical and devotional forms which have accompanied the Churchthrough centuries of her history and have formed legions of saints.'

Dario Cardinal Castrillon Hoyos, Prefect for the Congregation of the Clergy, in an interview for Il Giornale, May 31, 2004

'AMOR VINCIT OMNIA!' (Love defeats everything!)

St Augustine

'A vocation is God calling beyond our own self understanding because He is calling us toward the person we will become. He knows us better than we know ourselves.This is how He shapes the Kingdom of God in your lives, marriages, and families ... through the faithfulness of love.'

Msgr. Duca

'Leave me here freely all alone, In cell where never sunlight shone, should no one ever speak to me, This golden silence makes me free.'

Part of a poem written by Blessed Titus Brandsma who died as a prisoner at Dachau concentration camp

'Suffering strips away that which is not eternal. It strips the blinders off.'

Father John Libone

'She'd been strangled with a rosary -- not a run-of-the-mill rosary like you might get at a Catholic bookstore where Hail Marys are two for a quarter and indulgences are included on the back flap of the May issue of "Nuns and Roses" magazine, but a fancy heirloom rosary with pearls, rubies, and a solid gold cross, a rosary with attitude, the kind of rosary that said, "Get your Jehovah's Witness butt off my front porch."'

Mark Schweizer, Hopkinsville, KY,
runner up in Detective category of2007 entries in the Bulwer-Lytton contest

'Truth is not determined by a majority vote.'

Cardinal Ratzinger

'Truth means having an openness to reality as it is, not as we would like it to be.'

Bishop O’Donell

(Understand I see my parish priest as a regular confessor, face to face...so we often begin with brief chit-chat before starting the ritual.)
Slightly sheepish about going to reconciliation on Saturday afternoon, the 4th of July, I smile a bit, sit and say "I'm really sorry. Sin doesn't take a holiday."
Not skipping a beat: "Not to worry. Neither does Grace."

from http://www.ironiccatholic.blogspot.com

'What soap is to the body, laughter is to the soul.'

Yiddish proverb

“Am I?” I could not tell if he was amused or apologetic, but his eyes were kind. “The minds of my order are not as yours. We were made for swift intuitive clarity; you, to please God with the intricacy of your intellectual striving. Your powers of reasoning are sufficient for your needs, and you have been given grace enough.”

A conversation between a man and an angel, as told in On the People's Business, a short story by John C. Wright

'If you care about what people think of you, then you should have not become a Catholic.'

St. John Vianney

'More tears are shed over answered prayers than unanswered ones.'

St. Theresa of Avila

'Nothing is politically right which is morally wrong. '

Abraham Lincoln

'Let all our actions be directed to the end that God may be glorified in all things.'

St. Benedict

'I consider that it is obvious to everyone that it is impossible to live virtuously without the aid of prayer.'

St. John Chrysostom

"Mary said, 'You see before you the Lord's servant, let it happen to me as you have said.' And the angel left her" (Luke 1:38). Therefore, though it is God who takes the initiative of coming to dwell in the midst of men, and he is always the main architect of this plan, it is also true that he does not will to carry it out without our active cooperation.

Pope Benedict XVI

I prayed for strength that I might achieve; I was made weak that I might obey. I prayed for health that I might do great things; I was given infirmity that I might do better things. I prayed for riches that I might be happy; I was given poverty that I might be wise. I prayed for power that I might have the praise of others; I was given weakness that I might feel the need of God. I prayed for all things that I might enjoy life; I was given life that I might enjoy all things. I received nothing that I asked for - all that I hoped for; My prayers were answered - I am most blessed.

Unknown

'Maintain the truth lovingly, and always love truthfully'

Pope John Paul II

'Joy is the most infallible sign of the presence of God.'

Leon Bloy

MY FAVORITE OF ALL TIME:

'Let nothing disturb you. Let nothing frighten you. All things are passing. God alone does not change. Patience achieves everything. Whoever has God lacks nothing. God alone suffices.'

St. Teresa of Avila

'We now record fetal heartbeats at 14 days post-conception. We record fetal brainwaves at 39 days post-conception. And I don’t expect you to answer this, but I do expect you to pay attention to it as you contemplate these big issues. We have this schizophrenic rule of the law where we have defined death as the absence of those, but we refuse to define life as the presence of those.'

Sen.Tom Coburn,

speaking to Supreme Court nominee Judge Sonia Sotomayor,

confirmation hearing,

July 15, 2009

'You can't go from a $2,000-a-night suite at La Mirage to a penitentiary and really understand it and come out a liberal. You can't.'

Robert Downey Jr.

'Christ's insistence on the power of children is very striking. Almost more than anything else in the Gospel it proves that in God's eyes being something comes before doing something. He sets a little child among his apostles as an example of what he loves. ... How consistent it is with the incredible tenderness of God that his Christ, the Immortal Child, should be conceived by the power of the Spirit in the body of a child. That a child should bear a Child, to redeem the world. Our Lady was at the most fourteen when the angel came to her; perhaps she was younger. The whole world trembled on the word of a child, on a child's consent.'

Caryll Houselander

'Do you ever wonder why God values obedience more than sacrifice? ... Because obedience is someone else's idea of what you should sacrifice.'

David Manuel

'Give me a person of prayer, and such a one will be capable of accomplishing anything.'

St. Vincent de Paul

'The love we give away is the only love we keep...'

Elbert Hubbard

'He who trusts himself is lost. He who trusts in God can do all things.'

St. Alphonsus Maria de Liguori

'Humanly speaking, it is possible to understand the Sermon on the Mount in a thousand different ways. But Jesus knows only one possibility: simple surrender and obedience -- not interpreting or applying it, but doing and obeying it. That is the only way to hear his words. He does not mean us to discuss it as an ideal. He realy means for us to get on with it.'

Dietrich Bonhoeffer

'Faith does not imply a closed, but an open mind. Quite the opposite of blindness, faith appreciates the vast spiritual realities that materialists overlook by getting trapped in the purely physical.'

Sir John Templeton

'A man who was entirely careless of spiritual affairs died and went to hell. And he was much missed on earth by his old friends. His business agent went down to the gates of hell to see if there was any chance of bringing him back. But through he pleaded for the gates to be opened, the iron bars never yielded. His priest also went and argued: "He was not really a bad fellow, given time he would have matured. Let him out, please!" The gates remained stubbornly shut against all these voices. Finally, his mother came; she did not beg his release. Quietly, and with a strange catch in her voice, she said to Satan: "Let me in." Immediately the great doors swung open upon their hinges. For love goes down through the gates of hell and there redeems the dead.'

G.K. Chesterton

'Only after discovering Jesus do we realize "this is what I was waiting for ..."'

Pope Benedict XVI

'Being a lover of freedom, when the revolution came in Germany, I looked to the universities to defend it, knowing that they had always boasted of their devotion to the cause of truth; but, no, the universities immediately were silenced. Then I looked to the great editors of the newspapers whose flaming editorials in days gone by had proclaimed their love of freedom; but they, like the universities, were silenced in a few short weeks. . . .Only the Church stood squarely across the path of Hitler's campaign for suppressing truth. I never had any special interest in the Church before, but now I feel a great affection and admiration because the Church alone has had the courage and persistence to stand for intellectual truth and moral freedom. I am forced thus to confess that what I once despised I now praise unreservedly.'

Albert Einstein
Time Magazine, Dec. 23, 1940

'Humility is the only thing that no devil can imitate. If pride made demons out of angels, there is no doubt that humility could make angels out of demons.'

St. John Climaus

'He whose only possession is Jesus is very rich!'

St. Peter Julian Eymard

'Our perfection consists in uniting our will so intimately with God's will, that we will only desire what He wills. He who conforms most perfectly to the will of God will be the most perfect
Christian.'

St. Vincent de Paul

'Laughter need not be cut out of anything, since it improves everything.'

James Thurber

"Dear God, please catch me in your
landing net to take my final sleep;
And then, Oh God, may I be judged as big enough to keep."

Pearl Nodge

'We can believe what we choose.We are answerable for what we choose to believe.'

Ven. John Henry Cardinal Newman

'Stay with me, Lord, for it is necessary to have you present so that I do not forget you.
Stay with me, Lord, because I am weak and I need your strength, that I may not fall so often.........'

Saint Pio of Pietrelcina

'The whole world is indebted to Jesus for His Passion.
Similarly, all of us are indebted to our Lady for her compassion.'

St. Albert the Great

'Everyone, no matter how humble he may be,has angels to watch over him.They are heavenly, pure, and splendidand yet they have been given usto keep us company on our way;they have been given the taskof keeping careful watch over you.'

Pope Pius XII

'Let me get through today, and I shall not fear tomorrow.'

St. Philip Neri

'My God, you have given me all; behold the little that I give You. Give me the strength to give more.'

St. John Vianney, Cure' D'Ars

'The best things are nearest:
breath in your nostrils,
light in your eyes,
flowers at your feet,
duties at your hand,
the path of God just before you. '

Robert Louis Stevenson

'The body dies when the soul departs; but the soul dies when God departs.'

St. Augustine

'Every one should try to have his heart always occupied and filled with God, to love Him and think of Him only, and whether alone or with others never to be out of His presence.'

St. Ignatius of Loyola

A bow breaks if it is bent too much, but the soul is lost if it relaxes itself.'

St. Ignatius of Loyola

I have learned through bitter experience the one supreme lesson: to conserve my anger, and as heat conserved is transmitted into energy, even so our anger controlled can be transmitted into a power that can move the world.

Mahatma Gandhi

Fulfillment does not lie in comfort, ease, and following one's inclinations, but precisely in allowing demands to be made upon you, in taking the harder path. Everything else turns out somehow boring, anyway. Only the person who recognizes an ideal he must satisfy, who takes on real responsibility, will find fulfillment. It is not in taking, not on the path of comfort, that we become right, but only in giving.


Pope Benedict XVI

Making the decision to have a child -- it's momentous. It is to decide forever to have your heart walking around outside your body.

Elizabeth Stone

You must keep your eyes on the risen Christ at all times, or life will seem to be just a bitter joke.

Fr. Benedict Groeschel

Some mothers are kissing mothers and some are scolding mothers, but it is love just the same, and most mothers kiss and scold together.

Pearl S. Buck

“At a Christian table, everyone must be supplied with a weapon. “Any of you who do not have a sword must sell his cloak and buy one,” we are told on Holy Thursday. There is also the arrangement of the table, following rigid hierarchical rules, with a head and foot, and places between these. The head is reserved for the father, and within this hierarchy, those at table pass bowls of food following a formal ritual of “please pass” and “thank you.” The centerpiece is the cooked carcass of a dead animal. After grace, the father carves the meat – not to be served, but to serve – and each person is singled out and given individual recognition.”

From David Bereford’s, “Suppertime” in Gilbert Magazine

“Lay this body anywhere and take no trouble over it. One thing only do I ask of you. That you remember me at the altar of the Lord wherever you may be.”

Saint Monica

That does not mean we shouldn't enjoy ourselves. But rather that the universe has put us here for higher purposes than watching television reruns."

Duane Elgin

“That’s the thing about dogs. There isn’t a human being in the world worthy of a dog’s welcome.”

From Richard Power’s, “The Echo Maker”

"Sometimes we must give up the life we planned in order to live the life we have."

Donna Shaw

'One single day of devotion is preferable to a thousand years of worldly life.'

St. Francis de Sales

'The best preparation for death is a perfect resignation to the will of God, after the example of Jesus Christ, who, in His prayer in Gethsemani prepared Himself with these words, "Father, not as I will, but as Thou wilt."

St. Vincent de Paul

God be in my head, and in my understanding; God be in my eyes, and in my looking; God be in my mouth, and in my speaking; God be in my heart, and in my thinking; God be at my end, and at my departing.

From a Medieval Primer

'If of necessity I had to choose between sin and the torments of hell, I had rather plunge head long into hell, than give sin the mastery over me; I had rather enter hell pure from the stain of sin, than reign in heaven a prey to its pollutions.'

St. Ambrose of Milan

'Without prayer it is impossible to resist temptations and to keep the commandments.'

St. Alphonsus Maria de Liguori

'The plans of men, beginning with mine, tend to be exclusive and close-minded: to reach a peace that sometimes is the peace of a cemetery. The plans of God, instead, ask us to risk and try an adventure. All of us, when we start on a new path, have human plans, natural ones, and even beautiful ones. But we are witnesses that, in carrying out our own plans, we fail. God is enlarging our horizons. However, what we are experiencing now is not a human plan, but rather, we are abandoning ourselves to the plans of God, we are entrusted to him who wants to save his children at any price. There are people who drink at a fountain of immense richness, that is true life, real and true peace, and have security for the future, but they are content to take the water using a tiny glass with which they can never quench their thirst ...'



Mother Elvira Petrozzi





'I was reading recently the story of the famous convert of the 19th century, Hermann Cohen, a brilliant musician, idolized as a the young prodigy of his time in the salons of central Europe: a kind of modern version of the young Francis.After his conversion he wrote to a friend: "I looked for happiness everywhere: in the elegant life of the salons, in the deafening noise of balls and parties, in accumulating money, in the excitement of gambling, in artistic glory, in friendship with famous people, in the pleasures of the senses. Now I have found happiness, I have an overflowing heart and I want to share it with you. ... You say, 'But I don't believe in Jesus Christ.' I say to you, 'Neither did I and that is why I was unhappy.''



Fr. Raniero Cantalamessa





'Art does not reproduce what we see; rather it makes us see.'



Paul Klee





'The power of obedience! The lake of Gennesareth had denied its fishes to Peter's nets. A whole night in vain. Then, obedient, he lowered his net again to the water and they caught "a huge number of fish." Believe me: the miracle is repeated each day.'



St. Josemaria Escriva





'All our difficulties in prayer can be traced to one cause: praying as if God were absent.'



Teresa of Avila



'Yesterday is gone; tomorrow has not yet come. We have only today. Let us begin.'



Mother Teresa



'"Prayer" according to one ancient definition, "is keeping company with God." And that really throws us right in at the deep end. Prayer is not another part for us to act, another subject to study for examination: it is a relationship, and a relationship with God. And even in this age of computerized dating, man can only learn to keep company with someone by keeping company with them and accepting the consequences. Any relationship except the most superficial affects and changes us; it challenges us to respect the freedom, the mystery, the otherness of the other, and, perhaps even more disturbing, it will sooner or later bring to light our own freedom, the mystery of ourselves, the unknownness and unpredictability of ourselves. How we respond to such a challenge, to such a bringing to light, will in very large measure decide whether we grow and mature in life, or whether we shrivel up. And it surely is a fact that, while some people are genuinely afraid of the dark, all of us are rather afraid of the light. As the archbishop says in T.S. Eliot's play, Murder in the Cathedral, "Humankind cannot bear very much reality."Yet God is truth and his light is infinite. To keep company with him allows finally of no hankering after that safe world of blurred edges and comfortable anonymity. We who have been baptized into the death of Jesus have been taken out of darkness and brought into the light; we have been named. It does not matter very much if, for the moment, our eyes are dazzled, our brains reeling and bewildered, and our hearts thumping with terror. The question is: will we turn and bolt? Or will we give it a try, and make the attempt to be children of the light? If we choose to give it a try, then we have already embarked on the adventure of keeping company with God, the adventure of true prayer.'

Fr. Simon Tugwell, O.P.

'When God inspires someone to pray, the desire to pray is itself due to God. But in prayer itself God works more extensively and more profoundly. What led him to pray was something external, a shell; now comes the inner content, the reality, which is the transformation of the one praying into the person God desires. Initially God takes him just as he is: with his ignorance, hesitations and doubts, his more or less good will, with what he offers and with what he withholds. Then gradually, in a timescale which man cannot calculate, God begins to fill and complete him. The man tries to separate himself from whatever prevents him coming to God, and God takes over every empty space thus made available, filling it with his grace and will. The more a man is to be filled by God, the more he needs to have emptied himself and to have died to all that is not of God, so that the life of God can pour forth and take the place of his dying. God's fullness can express itself in such a way that the person never again lapses from the attitude of prayer. He remains constantly attentive to God, endeavoring to do his will, remaining within God's purposes, trying to perform in a spirit of surrender whatever God shows him and asks of him, in the virtue of the inspiration and strength which he gives him. When God takes things away he does not leave a wasteland behind. Right at the beginning of his prayer-life a man can see in detail how God replaces what he sacrifices to him with something better, something divine. He discovers that what it sterile in him is supplanted by God's fruitfulness, an experience that contains the germ of true humility: he sees that he can do nothing of himself and that God does everything.'

Adrienne von Speyr

'Laughter need not be cut out of anything, since it improves everything.'

James Thurber

Why Go To Daily Mass?
1. It's kind of like facebook with God, the angels, and the saints
2. Breaking in the day to pray tames the craziness better than your Blackberry
3. The local Caf still serves lunch at 12:37pm. No lines either
4. A miracle occurs every. single. time.
5. God wants to hear about your romantic woes more than your Twitter audience
6.Actually, God wants to teach you something about Romance. Think of it as going on a spiritual date
7. Under the (affectionately offered) "if you would just shut up, you could hear God's voice" advice: lots of precious, rare, ear-opening silence
8. It's not for the perfect--that's actually part of the point
9. Did the sun rise this morning? Did you have a good breakfast? Did you get to dress warmly and well? Did you think about giving thanks for all that?
10. Because Jesus is present to us in a particular way--the way he chose as the perfect way--in the sacrament of the altar. (Want to meet him?)
11. Life is mysterious. But being present at this Mystery will make the mystery of your life much more clear
12. Because this act “identifies us with his Heart, sustains our strength along the pilgrimage of this life, makes us long for eternal life, and unites us even now to the Church in heaven, the Blessed Virgin Mary, and all the saints.” (CCC #1419)
(...even at your imperfect parish)

from The Ironic Catholic blog

'Easter says you can put truth in a grave, but it won't stay there.'

Clarence W. Hall

'When the stomach is full, it is easy to talk of fasting.'

St. Jerome

'Seriousness is the only refuge of the shallow.'

Oscar Wilde

'There is all the knowledge we lost with information?'

T.S. Eliot

'Always do right. This will gratify some people and astonish the rest.'

Mark Twain

St. Patrick's Breastplate "Faeth Fiada" (Lorica)

I arise today through
God's strength to pilot me,
God's might to uphold me,
God's wisdom to guide me,
God's eye to see before me,
God's ear to hear me,
God's word to speak for me,
God's hand to guard me,
God's way to lie before me,
God's shield to protect me,
God's host to secure me,
against snares of devils,
against temptations and vices,
against inclinations of nature,
against everyone who shall wish me
ill, afar and anear,
alone and in a crowd. . .

Christ be with me, Christ before me,
Christ behind me,
Christ in me, Christ beneath me,
Christ above me,
Christ on my right, Christ on my left,
Christ where I lie, Christ where I sit,
Christ where I arise,
Christ in the heart of every man who thinks of me,
Christ in the mouth of every man who speaks of me,
Christ in every eye that sees me,
Christ in every ear that hears me.

Salvation is of the Lord.
Salvation is of the Lord,
Salvation is of the Christ.
May your salvation, O Lord, be ever with us.

Prayer for Light and Help by St. Claude la Colombiere

Jesus,I feel within me a great desire to please you but, at the same time, I feel totally incapable of doing this without your special light andhelp, which I can expect only from you. Accomplish your will in me -even in spite of me.


Recite the Salve Regina and Meditate on Death Every Day

"Father, I'd like to straighten out my life. But the temptations are too strong, much stronger than my own self." Saint Philip Neri looked at this young man of good will and softly encouraged him: "Be brave, my child. I recommend to you only two practices: recite the Salve Regina and meditate on death every day. Imagine that your body is buried deep in the ground, half decomposed, both eyes hollowed out, and eaten up by worms. Then ask yourself this question: Is this the reason why I'm chasing after the pleasures of the flesh and wasting my chance to go to Heaven?" Obeying the priest's double-barreled advice, the young man prayed to the Blessed Virgin of mercy, hope and life, and meditated on death each and every day. With the help of God's grace, he succeeded in fighting off his temptations till the very end.

From: 365 Days of Hope with Francis Xavier Nguyen Van Thuan (Ed. du Jubilé)

'Leave sadness to those in the world. We who work for God should be lighthearted.'

St. Leonard of Port Maurice

When you find your intellect occupied pleasurably withmaterial things and becoming fondly attached to its conceptual imagesof them, you may be sure that you love these things more than God. 'Forwhere your treasure is, there will your heart be also' (Matt. 6:21).'

St. Maximos the Confessor

'Everything is the Father's will: homeland, fortune, happiness, work, food, life, Jesus' death. Let His will be mine.'

St. Bernadette Soubirous

IF I HAD MY LIFE TO LIVE OVER - by Erma Bombeck (written after she found out she was dying from cancer). I would have gone to bed when I was sick instead of pretending the earth would go into a holding pattern if I weren't there for the day. I would have burned the pink candle sculpted like a rose before it melted in storage. I would have talked less and listened more.I would have invited friends over to dinner even if the carpet was stained, or the sofa faded.I would have eaten the popcorn in the 'good' living room and worried much less about the dirt when someone wanted to light a fire in the fireplace. I would have taken the time to listen to my grandfather ramble about his youth.I would have shared more of the responsibility carried by my husband. I would never have insisted the car windows be rolled up on a summer day because my hair had just been teased and sprayed. I would have sat on the lawn with my grass stains. I would have cried and laughed less while watching television and more while watching life. I would never have bought anything just because it was practical, wouldn't show soil, or was guaranteed to last a lifetime. Instead of wishing away nine months of pregnancy, I'd have cherished every moment and realized that the wonderment growing inside me was the only chance in life to assist God in a miracle. When my kids kissed me impetuously, I would never have said, 'Later. Now go get washed up for dinner.' There would have been more 'I love you's' More 'I'm sorry's. 'But mostly, given another shot at life, I would seize every minute. Look at it and really see it. Live it and never give it back. STOP SWEATING THE SMALL STUFF!!! Don't worry about who doesn't like you, who has more, or who's doing what. Instead, let's cherish the relationships we have with those who do love us.

'We should express ourselves in few words ; the truth
is all its simplicity suffices. We should guard against enlarging on
the consequences; truth in itself always carries conviction; too many
ornaments but weaken and over-weight it in its struggle with error.'

St. Ignatius of Loyola

'There are more tears shed over answered prayers than over unanswered prayers.'

Saint Therese of Lisieux

Even Your Protection is Beyond Our Grasp

Who else, beside your Son, is concerned like you about the fate of the human race? Who defends us, time and time again, in our tribulations? Who delivers us promptly from the temptations that assail us? Who takes so much pain to plead in favor of sinners? Who takes their defense to excuse them in desperate circumstances? By virtue of the frankness and the power with your Son that your motherhood brought you, although our crimes condemn us and we dare not look again toward the heavens, you save us from the eternal punishments by your supplications and intercessions. This is why the afflicted seek solace with you. Those who have suffered injustice run to you. The severely ill invoke your assistance. All that is yours is wonderful, Mother of God. Everything about you is bigger than life, way beyond our understanding and our power. Even your protection is beyond our grasp.


Saint Germanus of Constantinople

'I will go peaceably and firmly to the Catholic Church: for if Faith is so important to our salvation, I will seek it where true Faith first began, seek it among those who received it from God Himself.'

St. Elizabeth Ann Seton

The Miracle Prayer
(Say this prayer and when you come to the point where you sincerely mean every word of it, something spiritual will occur to you.)

Lord Jesus, I come before you,just as I am. I am sorry for my sins. I repent of my sins. Please forgive me. In Your Name, I forgive all others for what they have done against me. I renounce Satan, the evil spirits and all their works. Igive you my entire self. Lord Jesus, now and forever, I invite you into my life. I accept you as my Lord, God and Savior. Heal me, change me, strengthen me in body, soul and spirit. Come, Lord Jesus, cover me with your Precious Blood, and fill me with your Holy Spirit. I love you Lord Jesus. I praise you Jesus. I thank you Jesus. I shall follow you everyday of my life. Amen. Blessed Virgin Mary, help me. Amen. In union withthe Angels that surround the Tabernacle, I adore You, O Blood of Jesus.

'The reason why sometimes you have asked and not
received, is because you have asked amiss, either inconsistently, or
lightly, or because you have asked for what was not good for you, or
because you have ceased asking.'

St. Basil the Great

'The Christian ideal has not been tried and found wanting; it has been found difficult and left untried.'

G.K. Chesterton

'A man is only as good as what he loves.'

Saul Bellow, "Seize the Day"

'In order to bear our afflictions with patience, it isvery useful to read the lives and legends of the saints who endured great torments for Jesus Christ.'

St. Teresa of Jesus

'To a certain extent Christianity is always going to be counter-cultural. It cannot become a religious apology for what contemporary culture happens to believe at any moment in time. But at the same time we have to translate the realities of the Gospel in ways that can be understood by modern culture, and restructure the Christian narrative in ways that are more accessible to people today, without diluting the Christian message. In other words, we need new evangelization.'

Fr. Allan White, O.P., assistant to the master of the Order of Preachers in Rome.

Sundial: Make the most out of my lightTaken by Barcelona Photoblog

'If you don't read the newspaper, you are uninformed. If you do read the newspaper, you are misinformed.'

Mark Twain

'My argument is not that we create, because that is in our nature. My argument is that unlike God, we're not willing to die for our handiwork.'

The travel diaries of Father Heidler from Mask of the Ferret

'God is our origin and our destination, and Jesus the way. The path of that journey twists and turns -- just a it did for our saints -- through the joys and trials of ordinary, everyday life.'

Pope Benedict XVI

'The current state of moral degeneration, social disintegration, and cultural rot is precisely the result of too much - and above all erroneous and misconceived - tolerance.'

Hans Hermann-Hoppe

'Be comforted with this divine thought that your spiritual and physical pains are the test of the Divine Will.'

St. Padre Pio

'Whether we will or no, we must suffer. There are some who suffer like the good thief, and others like the bad thief.'

St. Jean Marie Baptiste Vianney, the Cure' of Ars

'Pride is concerned with who is right...Humility is concerned with what is right.'

Ezra Taft Benson

'A persons greatest accomplishment develops at the point where they overcome their greatest weakness'

Unknown.

'Life is a journey, not a destination.'

Ralph Waldo Emerson

'If we confide in God's providence and resign ourselves entirely into His hands, and renounce our individual pleasure, He is pleased to reward us with great peace and interior consolation, and all the more so if we seek ourselves less, and more purely desire the Divine glory and God's good pleasure.'

St. Ignatius of Loyola

'God be in my head, and in my understanding; God be in my eyes, and in my looking; God be in my mouth, and in my speaking; God be in my heart, and in my thinking; God be at my end, and at my departing.'

from a Medieval Primer

'Those who tell the Truth love you. Those who tell you what you want to hear love themselves.'

Mother Angelica

'Perfection consists in renouncing ourselves, in
carrying our cross, and in following Jesus Christ. Now, he who renounces himself most perfectly carries his cross the best and follows nearest to Jesus Christ is he who never does his own will, but always that of God.'

St. Vincent de Paul

'Everything has its wonders, even darkness and silence, and I learn, whatever state I may be in, therein to be content.'

Helen Keller

'Having resentment is like taking poison and waiting for the other person to die.'

Malachy MCourt

'If you find God with great ease, perhaps it is not God that you have found.'

Thomas Merton

'Be proud that you are helping God to bear the Cross, and don't grasp at comforts. It is only mercenaries who expect to be paid by the day. Serve him without pay.'

St. Theresa of Avila

'Religious life, like married life, begins again every day. Religious life, like married life, is the life of love. And love never stops still. The expression of any kind of life which is founded on love is inevitably that of sacrifice. Love of God, love of a person, love of an ideal: each involves immolation. The terms of love are unconditional surrender -- constantly repeated.'

Dom Hubert van Zeller, OSB

'Our faith is not born from a myth or an idea, but from an encounter with the Risen One, in the life of the Church.'

Pope Benedict XVI

'Humility is a fortified town; it repels all attacks. The sight of it obliges the enemy to turn and flee.'

Ven. Louis de Granada

'If I had to advise parents, I should tell them totake great care about the people with whom their children associate . .. Much harm may result from bad company, and we are inclined by natureto follow what is worse than what is better.'

St. Elizabeth Ann Seton

'There is no affliction, trial, or labour difficult to endure, when we consider the torments and sufferings which Our Lord Jesus Christ endured for us.'

St. Teresa of Jesus

It is better to be the child of God than king of the whole world.
St. Aloysius Gonzaga

Want to start capturing great quotes, sayings -- here it goes; enjoy

'Nonne bic est fabri filius? Nonne bic est faber filius Mariae? - "Is not this the carpenter's son? Is not this the carpenter, the son of Mary?" This, said of Jesus, may very well be said of you, with a bit of amazement and a bit of mockery, when you really decide to carry out the will of God, to be an instrument: "But isn't this the one. . . ?" Say nothing, and let your works confirm your mission.'

St. Josemaria Escriva

'If there is anyone who is not enlightened by this sublime magnificence of created things, he is blind. If there is anyone who, seeing all these works of God, does not praise Him, he is dumb; if there is anyone who, from so many signs, cannot perceive God, that man is foolish. . . In everything, whether it is a thing sensed or a thing known, God Himself is hidden within.'

St. Bonaventure

Send yours.