Daily Thought

  Open Our Eyes We should strive to keep our hearts open to the sufferings and wretchedness of other people, and pray continually that God may grant us that spirit of compassion which is truly the spirit of God. St. Vincent de Paul

  In Preparation For Mass Tomorrow What have you to do with us, Jesus of Nazareth? (Mark 1:24) Talk about bursting onto the scene! Of course the demon possessing this man couldn’t tolerate being around Jesus. But wouldn’t it have been wiser to slink away rather than draw attention to himself? It happened a lot, in fact. Jesus would show up somewhere or reveal his glory in some way, and his presence would prompt resistance and sometimes even violent outbursts. This wasn’t true just of demons. At the very beginning of his ministry, Jesus’ announcement of the good news enraged enough people that they tried to push him off a cliff (Luke 4:24-30). Then, after only a few weeks of preaching and performing miracles, Jesus upset some Pharisees enough that they began plotting his murder (Mark 3:6). Not even his closest disciples were immune. Jesus’ revelation of God’s plan to save us through his cross upset Peter enough that he rebuked Jesus (Matthew 16:22). In one way or another, we have al...

  Starting Over If one dream should fall and break into a thousand pieces... never be afraid to pick one of those pieces up and begin again. That's the beauty of being alive... We can always start all over again. Enjoy God's amazing opportunities bestowed on us. Have faith in Him always. St. Bernadette Soubirous

  Living By Faith Means Living For God & Others Living by faith includes the call to something greater than cowardly self-preservation. J.R.R. Tolkien

  Tolerance & Education It's an universal law-- intolerance is the first sign of an inadequate education. An ill-educated person behaves with arrogant impatience, whereas truly profound education breeds humility. Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn

  Empowerment When we leave Mass, we ought to go out the way Moses descended Mt Sinai: with his face shining, with his heart brave and strong to face the world's difficulties. St. Oscar Romero

  An Encounter That Completely Changes Our Lives As can be seen, in all these passages Paul never once interprets this moment as an event of conversion. Why? There are many hypotheses, but for me the reason is very clear. This turning point in his life, this transformation of his whole being was not the fruit of a psychological process, of a maturation or intellectual and moral development. Rather it came from the outside: it was not the fruit of his thought but of his encounter with Jesus Christ. In this sense it was not simply a conversion, a development of his "ego", but rather a death and a resurrection for Paul himself. One existence died and another, new one was born with the Risen Christ. There is no other way in which to explain this renewal of Paul. None of the psychological analyses can clarify or solve the problem. This event alone, this powerful encounter with Christ, is the key to understanding what had happened: death and resurrection, renewal on the part of the...

  Wise Words The measure of a life, after all, is not its duration, but its donation. Corrie Ten Boom

Speak Lord, Your Servant is Listening  "I am happy here, in this cell, where white mushrooms are growing on my sleeping mat, because You are here with me, because You want me to live here with You. I have spoken much in my lifetime: now I speak no more. It's Your turn to speak to me, Jesus; I am listening to You". François-Xavier Nguyên Van Thuân

Four Things That Bring Great Peace Christ My child, now I will teach you the way of peace and true freedom. Disciple Do as you say, Lord. This pleases me very much. Christ Try, my child, to do the will of another rather than your own. Always choose to have less rather than more. Always seek to take the last place, and to be subject to everyone. Always desire and pray that the will of God may be perfectly fulfilled in you. You will see that if you are disposed to do this you will find peace and serenity. Disciple Lord, your words have such perfection in them: few words, but so full of meaning and promise. If I would faithfully observe them, I would not be troubled so easily. I realize that whenever I find myself disquieted and disturbed, it is because I have strayed from your teachings. Lord, you who can do all things and always love the good of my soul, increase your grace in me, so that I can put your words into practice and fulfill the work of my salvation. A PRAYER AGAINST EVIL THOU...

  Amazing Love! We used to hate and destroy one another and refused to associate with people of another race or country. Now, because of Christ, we live together with such people and pray for our enemies. St. Justin Martyr

  Little Things Mean A Lot Small things done with great love will change the world. St. Teresa of Calcutta

  Seeing Through The Eyes of Faith Lectio Mark 2:23–28 Meditatio “Look.” Isn’t it amazing how several people can look at the same event but see something entirely different? The Gospel recounts a day in the life of Jesus. “Jesus was passing through a field of grain” and “his disciples began to make a path while picking the heads of grain.” Mark’s Gospel places this scene after a series of encounters Jesus has had with sinners and tax collectors. It seems that some of the Pharisees have grown exasperated with Jesus’ “undisciplined behavior” and they let him know it. So the Pharisees speak up again and confront Jesus, “Look, why are they doing what is unlawful on the Sabbath?” Is that all they can see—that the law of the Sabbath is being broken? Is there more to the situation than immediately meets the eye? Can they see that the disciples are accompanied by the Messiah, the Son of God? Can they see the compassion and providence of God who is Father and chooses to provide for his chil...

  The Law of the Spirit We Christians are indeed under the law as other men, but, as I have already said, it is the new law, the law of the Spirit of Christ. We are under grace. That law, which to nature is a grievous bondage, is to those who live under the power of God’s presence, what it was meant to be, a rejoicing. When then we feel reluctant to serve God, when thoughts rise within us as if He were a hard Master, and that His promises are not attractive enough to balance the strictness of His commandments, let us recollect that we, as being Christians, are not in the flesh, but in the Spirit, and let us act upon the conviction of it. Let us go to Him for grace. Let us seek His face. Let us come where He gives grace. Let us come to the ordinances of grace, in which Christ gives His Holy Spirit, to enable us to do that which by nature we cannot do, and to be “the servants of righteousness.” They who pray for His saving help to change their likings and dislikings, their tastes, th...

  Surprised By Hardship Hardship often prepares an ordinary person for an extraordinary destiny. C.S. Lewis

  Prayer Unleashes Amazing Things! The wonderful thing about praying is that you leave a world of not being able to do something, and enter God’s realm where everything is possible. He specializes in the impossible. Nothing is too great for His almighty power. Nothing is too small for His love.  Corrie Ten Boom

  Mirrors of God's Love We must mirror God's love in the midst of a world full of hatred. We are the mirrors of God's love, so we may show Jesus by our lives. Corie Ten Boom

  It Is No Longer I Who Live But Christ Lives In Me Trying to do the Lord's work in your own strength is the most confusing, exhausting, and tedious of all work. But when you are filled with the Holy Spirit, then the ministry of Jesus just flows out of you. Corrie Ten Boom

  Abba! Father! Dear brothers and sisters, let us learn to savour in our prayers the beauty of being friends, indeed children of God, of being able to call on him with the trust that a child has for the parents who love him. Let us open our prayers to the action of the Holy Spirit so that he may cry to God in us: “Abba! Father!”, and so that our prayers may transform and constantly convert our way of thinking and our action to bring us ever more closely into line with Jesus Christ, the Only-Begotten Son of God. Benedict XVI. (2013). General Audiences of Benedict XVI (English). Vatican City: Libreria Editrice Vaticana. (May 23, 2012)

  Victorious Living RECEIVE MY GLORY-STRENGTH. When ongoing problems require you to stick it out over the long haul, your faith sometimes falters. That’s when you resort to grimly gritting your teeth—simply passing time in a negative frame of mind. This is not the way I want you to deal with difficulties. I am sovereign over the circumstances of your life, so there are always opportunities to be found in them. Sometimes those opportunities are so obvious you can’t miss seeing them. At other times—especially when the journey is hard and seems endless—you have to search for hidden treasure. Do not be like the man who hid his master’s talent in the ground because he was disgruntled with his circumstances. He gave up and took the easy way out: blaming his hard situation rather than making the most of his opportunity. The truth is, the more difficult your situation, the more treasure there is for you to discover in it. I gladly give you Glory-strength; it is limitless and freely availab...

  Striking The Nail On The Head As we come to know the seriousness of the situation, the war, the racism, the poverty in our world, we come to realize that things will not be changed simply by words or demonstrations. Rather, it's a question of living one's life in a drastically different way. Servant of God Dorothy Day

A Breakthrough We go along, taking for granted that tomorrow will be very much like today, comfortable in the world we have created for ourselves, secure in the established order we have learned to live with, however imperfect it may be, and give little thought to God at all. Somehow, then, God must contrive to break through those routines of ours and remind us once again, like Israel, that we are ultimately dependent only upon him, that he has made us and destined us for life with him through all eternity, that the things of this world and this world itself are not our lasting city, that his we are and that we must look to him and turn to him in everything. Then it is, perhaps, that he must allow our whole world to be turned upside down in order to remind us it is not our permanent abode or final destiny, to bring us to our senses and restore our sense of values, to turn our thoughts once more to him—even if at first our thoughts are questioning and full of reproaches. Then it is that...

 Saint Catherine’s Prayer for the Whole World and the Holy Church This soul, seeing by the light of faith the truth and excellence of obedience, and lovingly hearing and tasting it with an ecstatic desire, turns gratefully toward God’s majesty, saying, “Thank you, eternal Father, for not despising me, the work of your hands, for not turning your face from me, nor disregarding my desires. You, pure light, have not paid attention to my darkness. You, true life, have not shunned my living death. You, the physician, have not been repulsed by my serious illness. You, eternal purity, have not paid attention to my miserable state. You, the infinite, have not considered that I am finite. You, eternal wisdom, have not seen my foolishness. “Your wisdom, goodness, and mercy have simply overlooked my many faults and sins. Because of your merciful forgiveness, I have made your charity and love of neighbor my own. Have I been coerced? Not by my own virtues, but by your love. I pray that that sam...

  Invite Jesus Into Your Boat Why does Mark say that the disciples “had not understood the incident of the loaves” (6:52)? They were with him when he multiplied the bread and the fishes. They even had a hand in the miracle! Apparently it was because they hadn’t yet realized the significance of this event. Jesus could do things like this because he was the Son of God and because he wanted to feed and care for his flock. Still, despite their lack of understanding, Jesus didn’t give up on them. He made that clear when he walked across the stormy sea, “got into the boat with them,” and saved them from drowning (Mark 6:51). That second miracle must have illuminated their minds and helped them to comprend better Jesus’ divine power and intentions. Sometimes we are like those disciples: we don’t understand what God is doing or why. Maybe we don’t notice him working in a situation, and we start to doubt whether we can count on him. Or perhaps we don’t realize how much we need him when...

  Walk In Confidence You have experienced how I answer you whenever you come to Me with your questions and difficulties. I am, at every moment, available to you and attentive to your prayers. Speak to Me freely of all the things that preoccupy you and weigh down upon your heart. Ask Me whatever questions you feel are necessary and seek My gentle guidance in all things. If I delay in answering you, it is so that you will trust Me to reveal the answer you seek in the persons who surround you or communicate with you, in events, in circumstances, and in those barely perceptible signs of My providence by which I communicate My love to little souls. Never refrain from conversation with Me. Every conversation includes both questions and answers. Speak to Me confidently and without fear of being misunderstood or judged. I know your inmost thoughts, and the questions you bring to Me in the Sacrament of My love are clearly known to Me. Nonetheless, I desire to hold conversation with you beca...

  From Our Saint For The Day Cheerfulness prepares a glorious mind for all the noblest acts. St. Elizabeth Ann Seton

  Salvation for All People  The loving providence of God determined that in the last days he would aid the world, set on its course to destruction. He decreed that all nations should be saved in Christ.   A promise had been made to the holy patriarch Abraham in regard to these nations. He was to have a countless progeny, born not from his body but from the seed of faith. His descendants are therefore compared with the array of the stars. The father of all nations was to hope not in an earthly progeny but in a progeny from above.   Let the full number of the nations now take their place in the family of the patriarchs. Let the children of the promise now receive the blessing in the seed of Abraham, the blessing renounced by the children of his flesh. In the persons of the Magi let all people adore the Creator of the universe; let God be known, not in Judaea only, but in the whole world, so that his name may be great in all Israel.   Dear friends, now that we have...

  I Need To Remember This! A judicious silence is always better than truth spoken without charity. St. Francis de Sales