Daily Thought

Great Prayer From Our Saint For The Day Take, O Lord, and receive my entire liberty, my memory, my understanding and my whole will. All that I am and all that I possess You have given me. I surrender it all to You to be disposed of according to Your will. Give me only Your love and Your grace; with these I will be rich enough, and will desire nothing more. St. Ignatius of Loyola

Faith, Hope, & Love Faith is what gets you started. Hope is what keeps you going. Love is what brings you to the end. Mother Angelica

Praying Constantly You can pray while you work. Work doesn't stop prayer and prayer doesn't stop work. It requires only that small raising of the mind to him: I love you God, I trust you, I believe in you, I need you now. Small things like that. They are wonderful prayers. St. Teresa of Calcutta

Chutes & Ladders People may spend their whole lives climbing the ladder of success only to find, once they reach the top, that the ladder is leaning against the wrong wall. Thomas Merton

The Gift Of Trust You do not need to know precisely what is happening, or exactly where it is all going. What you need is to recognize the possibilities and challenges offered by the present moment, and to embrace them with courage, faith and hope. Thomas Merton

Little Things Make A Difference People say, what is the sense of our small effort? They cannot see that we must lay one brick at a time, take one step at a time. A pebble cast into a pond causes ripples that spread in all directions. Each one of our thoughts, words and deeds is like that. No one has a right to sit down and feel hopeless. There is too much work to do. Dorothy Day

Why Listening Is So Important The beginning of prayer is silence. If we really want to pray we must first learn to listen, for in the silence of the heart God speaks. And to be able to see that silence, to be able to hear God we need a clean heart; for a clean heart can see God, can hear God, can listen to God; and then only from the fullness of our heart can we speak to God. But we cannot speak unless we have listened, unless we have made that connection with God in the silence of our heart. St. Mother Teresa of Calcutta

Pray Without Tiring We must pray without tiring, for the salvation of mankind does not depend on material success; nor on sciences that cloud the intellect. Neither does it depend on arms and human industries, but on Jesus alone. St. Frances Xavier Cabrini, Virgin and Foundress

The Gift of Friendship       After purchasing a house at a sheriff's auction, a Toledo, Ohio, man was understandably excited to move into his new home. When he finally did, however, he was horrified to discover the remains of the previous inhabitant, who had been dead for some time. Apparently, no one had noticed that he was missing or had gone looking for him.        This tragic incident is sadly reflective of our increasingly impersonal society, in which genuine human contact is harder and harder to come by. Such isolation takes its toll. Studies have shown that the fewer human connections we have at home, at work, in the community, and in religious institutions, the more likely we are to get sick, be filled with anxiety, and die prematurely. Conversely, these same studies indicate that the  more  human connections we have, the more likely we are to enjoy a long and healthy life.       We weren't made to li...

Dive Into The Sea of Prayer In the face of so many wounds that hurt us and could lead to a hardness of heart, we are called to dive into the sea of prayer, which is the sea of the boundless love of God, in order to experience his tenderness. Pope Francis

Bloom Wherever You Are Planted You must realise now, more clearly than ever, that God is calling you to serve Him in and from the ordinary, secular and civil activities of human life. He waits for us everyday, in the laboratory, in the operating theatre, in the army barracks, in the university chair, in the factory, in the workshop, in the fields, in the home and in all the immense panorama of work. St. Josemaria Escriva

Great Prayer from A Great Man O Jesus, come back into our society, our family life, our souls and reign there as our peaceful Sovereign. Enlighten with the splendor of faith and the charity of Your tender heart the souls of those who work for the good of the people, for Your poor. Impart to them Your own spirit, a spirit of discipline, order and gentleness, preserving the flame of enthusiasm ever alight in their hearts... May that day come very soon, when we shall see You restored to the center of civic life, borne on the shoulders of Your joyful people. St. John XXIII

The Joy of Discovery Understand this well: there is something holy, something divine hidden in the most ordinary situations, and it is up to each one of you to discover it. St. Josemaría Escrivá

The Divine Gardener Lectio Matthew 13:1–23 Meditatio “A sower went out to sow.” Have you ever planted a garden? I have … with many and varied results! Gardening has given me a great respect for the fragility of the seed and the importance of the weather, the amount of moisture, and sunlight. Then there is the timing! It takes a lot of patience and care to do anything in the garden, but gardening has wonderful rewards. I wonder how God, the Divine Gardener, looks at me, his garden? Surely when God looks at me, he surveys the land with an expert eye. I am in good, capable hands. In fact, I can entrust myself completely to these hands. God knows me through and through. The Divine Gardener knows how much light I need, how much water and sun. My good God is completely solicitous that I should grow in a way that will be fully according to my nature. He is patient enough to walk with me through all the seasons of my life, even when some are more fallow than others. Through it a...

Shrewd As Serpents — Simple As Doves Lectio Matthew 10:16–23 Meditatio “… like sheep in the midst of wolves … shrewd as serpents and simple as doves.” Any sheep caught in the midst of wolves face grave danger. Jesus warns his apostles of the difficulties they will face in proclaiming the kingdom. But he is our Good Shepherd, so what safety instructions does he give? He uses two additional animal images. First, he says, be shrewd and careful, like a serpent. This may sound odd, since the snake is usually the bad guy in Scripture, on the side of the wolf, not the sheep. For the apostles to become like the serpent would seem to be caving to the pressures of the evil surrounding them. But the second part of the sentence clarifies it—they are to be clever like the serpent, but remain innocent of evil, like a dove. The sheep sent on mission need to be shrewd in order to outsmart the wolves that surround them. Playing with the image a little, we can say they are sent to brin...

Many Are Schooled Few Are Educated One of the greatest problems of our time is that many are schooled but few are educated. St. Thomas More

Sharing The Good News It shouldn’t surprise us that when Jesus sent his apostles out to preach, he told them to go only to “the lost sheep of the house of Israel” (Matthew 10:6). Although Jesus came for all humankind, he held a deep love for Israel—his own people—because they were God’s chosen ones. He knew that every event in Israel’s history had led up to his coming, and he wanted to fulfill all God’s promises to them. Jesus likely had another reason for restricting the apostles to their own people at first. What better way to learn the basics of evangelization than to start with their brothers and sisters in faith? They had grown up with the same rituals and traditions, so they knew where to start. It was probably a good thing that they didn’t have to deal right away with the complexities of pagan religions and philosophies. They could concentrate on the basics of getting out the gospel. Just as the apostles had to start somewhere, so do we. And the best place to begin is at...

He Was Moved With Pity Lectio Matthew 9:32–38 Meditatio “… his heart was moved with pity for them …” Jesus has healed a few other people of different infirmities prior to healing the mute person, also described as a “demoniac.” Immediately after Jesus heals him, the ordinary people proclaim “Nothing like this has ever been seen in Israel.” The Pharisees, instead, claim that Jesus commands devils to leave their victims not by the power of God, but by the power of the devil. The people in the crowd marvel over the fact that neither they nor their ancestors had ever seen anything like this. In other words, they are saying that what Jesus is doing is even greater than the marvels the Lord had done through Moses, who led the Israelites out of Egypt. But then the Pharisees say that Jesus’ power comes from the devil! What a letdown! What dejection this must have caused in the crowd. These poor people—no wonder the Lord has pity on them. Rather, all of these miracles are a direc...

God Is Generous God is very generous and does not deny His grace to anyone. Indeed he gives more than what we ask of Him. Faithfulness to the inspirations of the Holy Spirit-that is the shortest route. Saint Maria Faustina Kowalska

Patient Endurance Out of suffering comes the serious mind; out of salvation, the grateful heart; out of endurance, fortitude; out of deliverance faith. Patient endurance attends to all things. St. Teresa of Avila

Beautiful Testimony “The Spirit of the Lord is upon me because he has anointed me to bring good news to the poor” (Lk 4:18). The great gift of baptism in the Holy Spirit anoints us to do the works of Jesus on this earth. I have seen the poorest of the poor gladly receive baptism in the Holy Spirit and enter a new dimension of living. Luis had no hope. He lived in a shack in the barren hills of Juarez, Mexico. He was unable to work because of TB and his children were starving. Our prayer team shared the Gospel  with Luis and he received Jesus into his heart and was baptized in the Holy Spirit. Luis’s wife and children all experienced baptism in the Holy Spirit. Luis was completely healed of TB, got a job and has worked faithfully for the past 20 years.   Sr. Linda Koontz SNJM

Fat & Holy      Society tells us we are a product of our environment, our background, and I suppose we are in a way. But I think this sometimes keeps us from holiness. St. Francis Borgia came out of one of the most rotten families in Italy: the Borgias. His great-grandfather was Pope Alexander VI, an evil man.      Francis is a great consolation to me. First of all, he was big and fat, and I have a little weight problem. Francis Borgia was so fat they had to cut a hole in the table so he could reach his food. St. Thomas Aquinas was also rotund. He would get nervous and all he did was eat, eat, eat. And don't believe those skinny statues of St. Anthony you've seen. He was no slim Jim either. He was fat, real fat.       I love to pick the saints apart, but I fear there'll have to be a solitary confinement in heaven, just for me. I've been telling the truth about the saints for so many years, nobody will want to talk to me when I get u...

Live Today Well I recommend to you holy simplicity. Look straight in front of you and not at those dangers you see in the distance. As you say, to you they look like armies, but they are only willow branches; and while you are looking at them you may take a false step. Let us be firmly resolved to serve God with our whole heart and life. Beyond that, let us have no care about tomorrow. Let us think only of living today well, and when tomorrow comes, it also will be today and we can think about it then. In all this we must trust and be resigned to God’s providence. We must make provision for enough manna for the day, and no more. Let us not doubt that God will provide more for us tomorrow, and the day after tomorrow, and all the day of our pilgrimage.   Let us not waste time in willing and wishing for things, but let God arrange them. We should “cast all our care upon him, since he cares for us,’ as the apostle Peter says. And note that he says: “all our care,” that is, a...

Trust During Trials      Joseph in the Old Testament had a tremendous amount of trust in God. He is removed from his family, gets a job with Pharaoh, then he lands in jail for years! God finally gets him out by sending Pharaoh a dream.      Look at all the trust Jospeh had, all the waiting and not knowing. We have got to learn from this. Don't be discouraged at those times when you question, when you doubt, when you don't understand. There is a darkness in faith. There is that uncertainty, and insecurity in trusting God. Yet, He demands that we believe without seeing; we don't know why things are happening and we certainly don't know what's going to happen. But you must know that the darkness you experience and the anxiety you experience are not a lack of trust; they're part of trust. You've got to let yourself go and persevere in faith.  Mother Angelica from Mother Angelica's Little Book of Life Lessons and Everyday Spirituality edited and ...

Independence Day Prayer Lord, we stand today as our forefathers have stood before You in times gone by, Celebrating our history and revelling in all the great things that our country has achieved. On this day we rejoice in the favor You have graciously given us. We thank You for the blessings of liberty, for this generation and for the generations to come. We thank You for our independence, peace and for all those who have bravely given their lives in the defence of freedom and justice. We thank You that Your gracious and provident hand has given us so much. Yet as a nation and people we have not always chosen the right way. We ask You to forgive us for these times. On this day we commit ourselves to wholeheartedly honoring and serving You. With everything that we are, we lay our lives before You. Make us a generous people, A holy nation, A people set aside to love You forever, For the sake of the land of the brave and free,  And the peoples and nations of this world. Today, we d...

Walk In Confidence Try to nourish within yourself the spirit of gentleness, of holy joy and humility, which is the most apt path toward union with God. Do not get upset about this or that but walk in the way of union with great confidence in the mercy of God, Who will lead you by the hand right to your heavenly home. In the meantime, keep well clear of arguments and avoidable disputes. St. Francis De Sales 

No Worries! Trust In God Lectio Matthew 6:24–34 Meditatio “All these things the pagans seek.”   The world of Jesus was not that different from our own. Taxes and financial pressures, inflation and recession, unemployment—all these realities mirror the insecurity and scarcity experienced by an oppressed people. Thus, Jesus’ words about putting God, not wealth, first in our lives, would have hit his hearers as hard as they hit us today. So how do we detach ourselves from the fear that drives us to anxiously strive for security in wealth? Jesus says that the pagans worry about security: what they will wear and eat, their jobs, how to pay the rent. Jesus is not saying we shouldn’t have concern for these things, but that we shouldn’t worry about them. He wants to free us from the weariness that comes from constant straining to achieve a goal by ourselves. Disciples of Jesus, instead, are invited to trust. Put God and his will in first place, and everything else will be pr...