Daily Thought

Faith, Generosity, & Spiritual Friendship - Themes for The Feast of the Visitation Yet, once again Mary amazes us; her heart is limpid, totally open to God's light. Her soul is without sin, it is not weighed down by pride or selfishness. Elizabeth's words enkindle in her spirit a canticle of praise, which is an authentic and profound "theological" reading of history: a reading that we must continually learn from the one whose faith is without shadow and without wrinkle. "My soul proclaims the greatness of the Lord". Mary recognizes God's greatness. This is the first indispensable sentiment of faith. It is the sentiment that gives security to human creatures and frees from fear, even in the midst of the tempest of history. Going beyond the surface, Mary "sees" the work of God in history with the eyes of faith. This is why she is blessed, because she believed. By faith, in fact, she accepted the Word of the Lord and conceived the Inca...

A Prayer For Divine Assistance Lord, help me to do great things as though they were little, since I do them with your power; And little things as though they were great, since I do them in your name! Blaise Paschal

Keeping Track Of Our Blessings Helps Us Endure Our Afflictions Paul saw the riches of wisdom within himself though he himself was outwardly a corruptible body, which is why he says We have this treasure in earthen vessels. In Job, then, the earthenware vessel felt his gaping sores externally; while this interior treasure remained unchanged. Outwardly he had gaping wounds but that did not stop the treasure of wisdom within him from welling up and uttering these holy and instructive words: If we have received good at the hand of the Lord, shall we not receive evil? By the good he means the good things given by God, both temporal and eternal; by evil he means the blows he is suffering from in the present. Of those evils the Lord says, through the prophet Isaiah, I am the Lord, unrivalled, I form the light and create the dark. I make good fortune and create calamity, it is I, the Lord, who do all this. I form the light, and create the dark, because when the darkness of pain is cre...

Our Mission: To Know Jesus & To Make Him Known      Jesus sent his disciples forth on mission with this command: “Go into all the world and proclaim the good news to the whole creation. The one who believes and is baptized will be saved” (Mk16:15-16). To evangelize means to bring the Good News of salvation to others and to let them know that this Good News is a person: Jesus Christ. When I meet him, when I discover how much I am loved by God and saved by God, I begin to feel not only the desire, but also the need to make God known to others. At the beginning of John’s Gospel we see how Andrew, immediately after he met Jesus, ran off to fetch his brother Simon (cf. 1:40-42). Evangelization always begins with an encounter with the Lord Jesus. Those who come to Jesus and have experienced his love, immediately want to share the beauty of the meeting and the joy born of his friendship. The more we know Christ, the more we want to talk about him. The more we speak with...

The Gift of Friendship God sends us friends to be our firm support in the whirlpool of struggle. In the company of friends we will find strength to attain our sublime ideal. St. Maximilian Kolbe

Serving As Jesus Served   As we seek to imitate the Lord we Christians should be ready to give cheerful service to God and other people without expecting anything in return. We should serve even those who do not appreciate our help. Many will not understand our cheerful attitude of self-denial. We should be content in the knowledge that Christ knows full well the efforts we are making on his behalf. The pride of a Christian is precisely in this dimension: to serve as the Master served. Yet we learn how to serve only when we are close to Jesus.    from  In Conversation with God  by Francis Fernandez Volume 5 p.271   Prayer For Renewed Faith In Jesus Christ        Lord Jesus come into my heart. I desire that You be the Lord of my life so that I may be a Child of the light to know you as my personal Savior – for I know and believe that You died on the cross for my sins. You rose again from the...

Begging Before Jesus Set aside for a minute Peter and John’s arrest and their night in custody. Ignore the leaders’ and elders’ indignation and the bystanders’ wonder and amazement. Consider instead the beggar who was healed. Everyone recognized this man. He routinely begged for alms at the Beautiful Gate of the Temple. For his whole life, he was utterly dependent on other people to get around, to be fed, to be clothed and cared for. All he hoped for from Peter and John was a few coins, a little food, or a cast-off piece of clothing. What this fellow received was not just a physical healing but a whole new life. No longer bound by his disability, he could move on his own. He was no longer powerless or weak, no longer unable to make his way in life. Delivered from hopelessness, he could now rise out of his poverty. Freedom, choices, relief from want and pain—he received so much more than he had asked for or, most likely, so much more than he had imagined he would ever experience. ...

Confidence In God Be as delicate as you can with our Lord. Watch your conduct most carefully to avoid all venial sins. But, for the love of God, do this without losing confidence and peace. I recommend this counsel to such a degree that, if it were necessary to lose these two goods, confidence and peace, in order to arrive at this exquisite delicacy, I maintain that it would be preferable to restrain one’s efforts for a while. For peace of soul and confidence in God are more necessary goods, so they should be preferred.… No doubt someone will say: How is it possible to feel that keen grief for one’s offense against God, yet have the confidence necessary to cast oneself into the arms of our Lord, without any misgivings or reserve? I will try to explain. The foundation of our confidence does not rest in us, but in God. Hence we trust in our Lord and we draw near to him, tranquil and sure, not because of what we are, but because of what he is. We can be miserable sinners, wayward an...

May The Holy Spirit Give Us Confidence Start being brave about everything. Drive out darkness and spread light. Don’ look at your weaknesses. Realize instead that in Christ crucified you can do everything. St. Catherine of Siena

Prayer of St. Thomas More For Good Humor Grant me, O Lord, good digestion, and also something to digest. Grant me a healthy body, and the necessary good humor to maintain it. Grant me a simple soul that knows to treasure all that is good and that doesn’t frighten easily at the sight of evil, but rather finds the means to put things back in their place. Give me a soul that knows not boredom, grumblings, sighs and laments, nor excess of stress, because of that obstructing thing called “I.” Grant me, O Lord, a sense of good humor. Allow me the grace to be able to take a joke to discover in life a bit of joy, and to be able to share it with others. St. Thomas More

Do The Best You Can When we accept what happens to us and make the best of it, we are praising God. St. Teresa of Avila

Another Version of Hebrews 3:13 A really great person is the person who makes every person feel great. G. K. Chesterton

A Simple But Great Prayer To Start The Day Dear Lord...shine through me, and be so in me that every soul I come in contact with may feel Your presence in my soul...Let me thus praise You in the way You love best, by shining on those around me. Blessed John Henry Newman

True Discipleship When God created the world, he commanded each tree to bear its own specific fruit (cf. Gn 1:12); and likewise he bids Christians, the living trees of his Church, to bring forth fruits of loyal discipleship, each one according to his circumstances and vocation. A different exercise of discipleship is required of all, and this discipleship must be adapted to the strength, the occupation, and the duties of each individual. I ask you, would it be fitting that a bishop should seek to lead the solitary life of a monk? What if the father of a family were as unconcerned in making material provision for the family’s future as a vowed religious. Or if workers spent all day in church. Would not such practices be exaggerated and impossible to carry out? Yet such a mistake is often made, and the world, which cannot or will not distinguish between real discipleship and the indiscretion of those who consider themselves devout, grumbles and finds fault with a disciple’s life, whic...

Remembering in Moments of Desolation In the depth of our soul, there always remains the tendency to measure divine things by our human standard. Hence, with each new revelation of our misery, our confusion increases, and we would gladly close our eyes in order not to see—just as certain sick people do not wish to know of their illness because they feel that not to know it is not to have it, as though the knowledge of one’s malady were not in itself the beginning of a serious cure. For this reason souls become dismayed at temptations, desolations, aridities, faults—in a word, at everything that gives them the impression they are falling lower. They wish to ascend, because they desire to arrive at the summit, because they burn to be united with God. Therefore, in perceiving that they are apparently descending under the impact of temptations, the weight of their faults, and the void in their souls caused by desolations, they grow confused and grieve because they forget the divine ...

What The Dismissal At Mass Is Really About The minute you walk outside of your church on Sunday you're in mission territory. Bishop Robert Barron

The Joy of Encountering God's Mercy! What great joy and consolation are offered us by the words of Saint John that we just heard: God so loves us that that he has made us his children, and, when we see him face-to-face, we shall discover all the more the greatness of his love (cf. 1 Jn 3:1-10.19-22). Not only that. The love of God is always greater than anything we can imagine; it even reaches beyond any sin with which our conscience may charge us. His is an infinite love, one that knows no bounds. It is free of all those obstacles that we, for our part, tend to set in front of others, out of fear that they may strip us of our freedom. We know that the state of sin distances us from God. But in fact, sin is the way that we distance ourselves from him. Yet that does not mean that God distances himself from us. The state of weakness and confusion that results from sin is one more reason for God to remain close to us. The certainty of this should accompany us throughout our live...

He Came To Heal & Relate God's Love To Us The Lord did not come to make a display. He came to heal and to teach suffering men. For one who wanted to make a display the thing would have been just to appear and dazzle the beholders. But for Him Who came to heal and to teach the way was not merely to dwell here, but to put Himself at the disposal of those who needed Him, and to be manifested according as they could bear it, not vitiating the value of the Divine appearing by exceeding their capacity to receive it. Saint Athanasius of Alexandria

Do Not Despise Small Beginnings We cultivate a very small field for Christ, but we love it, knowing that God does not require great achievements but a heart that holds back nothing for self. St. Rose Philippine Duchesne