Saturday, August 28, 2010

St. Augustine, Pray for us!

"On Your exceedingly great mercy, and on that alone, rests all my hope."


"Faith is to believe what we do not see; and the reward of this faith is to see what we believe."


"God had one Son on earth without sin, but never one without suffering."


"There is no saint without a past, no sinner without a future."


"To fall in love with God is the greatest romance; to seek him the greatest adventure; to find him, the greatest human achievement."


"Thou hast made us for Thyself, O Lord, and our heart is restless until it finds its rest in Thee."


"God has promised forgiveness to your repentance, but He has not promised tomorrow to your procrastination."


"God loves each of us as if there were only one of us."


"Late have I loved You, O Beauty ever ancient, ever new, late have I loved You! You were within me, but I was outside, and it was there that I searched for You. In my unloveliness I plunged into the lovely things which You created. You were with me, but I was not with You. Created things kept me from You; yet if they had not been in You they would have not been at all. You called, You shouted, and You broke through my deafness. You flashed, You shone, and You dispelled my blindness. You breathed Your fragrance on me; I drew in breath and now I pant for You. I have tasted You, now I hunger and thirst for more. You touched me, and I burned for Your peace."


Go here for more on the life of St. Augustine.

Friday, August 27, 2010

Feast of St. Monica

"Nothing is far from God." 


"Son, nothing in this world now affords me delight. I do not know what there is now for me to do or why I am still here, all my hopes in this world being now fulfilled."
(At the conversion of her son, St. Augustine)




Read here for more on the life of St. Monica, patron of mothers and married women.

Sunday, August 15, 2010

HAPPY FEAST OF THE ASSUMPTION OF THE BLESSED VIRGIN MARY!!!

"Your stainless and wholly immaculate body has not been left on earth; the Queen, the Mistress, the Mother of God who has truly given birth to God has been translated to the royal palaces of Heaven...For just as her virginity remained inviolate while giving birth, when she departed her body was preserved from destruction and only taken to a better and more divine tabernacle..."
~St. John Damascene


“In the bodily and spiritual glory which she possesses in heaven, the Mother of Jesus continues in this present world as the image and first flowering of the Church as she is to be perfected in the world to come. Likewise, Mary shines forth on earth, until the day of the Lord shall come (cf. 2 Peter 3:10), as a sign of certain hope and comfort for the pilgrim People of God” 
~Dogmatic Constitution on the Church

Saturday, August 14, 2010

St. Maximilian Mary Kolbe, Pray for us!

"No one in the world can change Truth. What we can do and and should do is to seek truth and to serve it when we have found it. The real conflict is the inner conflict. Beyond armies of occupation and the hetacombs of extermination camps, there are two irreconcilable enemies in the depth of every soul: good and evil, sin and love. And what use are the victories on the battlefield if we are ourselves are defeated in our innermost personal selves?"


"For Jesus Christ I am prepared to suffer still more."


Go here for more on St. Maximilian Kolbe.

Thursday, August 12, 2010

St. Jeanne Francis de Chantel

"Hold your eyes on God and leave the doing to him. That is all the doing you have to worry about."


"Fidelity toward God consists in being perfectly resigned to his holy will, in enduring everything that his goodness allows in our lives, and in carrying out all our duties, especially that of prayer, with love and for love. In prayer we must converse very familiarly with our Lord, concerning our little needs, telling him what they are, and remaining submissive to anything he may wish to do with us… We should go to prayer with deep humility and an awareness of our nothingness. We must invoke the help of the Holy Spirit and that of our good angel, and then remain still in God’s presence, full of faith that he is more in us than we are in ourselves. There is no danger if our prayer is without words or reflection because the good success of prayer depends neither on words nor on study. It depends upon the simple raising of our minds to God, and the more simple and stripped of feeling it is, the surer it is. We must never dwell on our sins during prayer. Regarding our offenses, a simple humbling of our soul before God, without a thought of this offense or that, is enough…such thoughts act as distractions." 


For more information on St. Francis de Chantel, go here.

Wednesday, August 11, 2010

St. Clare of Assisi, Pray for us!

♥ Love God, serve God; everything is in that. ♥ 


♥ Gaze upon Christ. Consider Him. Contemplate Him and desire to imitate Him. ♥ 


♥ Love totally Him who gave Himself totally for your love. ♥ 


♥ Go forth without fear, for He who created you has made you holy, has always protected you, and loves you.... 


Go here for more on the life of St. Clare.

Monday, August 9, 2010

St. Teresa Benedicta of the Cross - Better Known as Edith Stein




On God's Providence:


"Things were in God's plan which I had not planned at all. I am coming to the living faith and conviction that - from God's point of view - there is no chance and that the whole of my life, down to every detail, has been mapped out in God's divine providence and makes complete and perfect sense in God's all-seeing eyes."

On why she came to Carmel and on the Vocation to Prayer:
"I keep thinking of Queen Esther who was taken away from her people precisely because God wanted her to plead with the king on behalf of her nation. I am a very poor and powerless little Esther, but the King who has chosen me is infinitely great and merciful. This is great comfort."
Commenting on the state of Germany and the oppression of the Nazi's she experienced firsthand during WWII, she said:

"I never knew that people could be like this, neither did I know that my brothers and sisters would have to suffer like this. ... I pray for them every hour. Will God hear my prayers? He will certainly hear them in their distress."

For more information on the life of St. Edith Stein go here

Wednesday, August 4, 2010

Happy Feast Day St. John Mary Vianney!

"My little children, your hearts are small, but prayer stretches them and makes them capable of loving God. Through prayer we receive a foretaste of Heaven and something of Paradise comes down upon us. Prayer never leaves us without sweetness. It is honey that flows into the soul and makes all things sweet. When we pray properly, sorrows disappear like snow before the sun." 


St. John Mary Vianney, Pray for us!