Daily Thought

  God's Generosity No one, however weak, is denied a share in the victory of the cross. No one is beyond the help of the prayer of Christ.  St. Leo the Great 

  Cast Your Cares As a camel kneels before his master to have him remove his burden at the end of the day, so kneel each night and let the Master take your burden. Corrie Ten Boom

  Powerful Reflection from The Word Among Us Let’s not get off on the wrong foot with the Pharisee in this parable. He seemed to be doing pretty well spiritually. He was not greedy, dishonest, or adulterous. He fasted twice a week and went so far as to pay tithes on all his income. He prayed at the Temple regularly. That was better than most people. So why did Jesus say he didn’t go home justified? Because the Temple was a place of encounter with God. A holy location where God and his children came together. This Pharisee seemed to be missing that connection with the Lord. Instead of speaking his prayer to God, he prayed “to himself” (Luke 18:11) and itemized his accomplishments. By focusing on his righteous acts, he was not really making himself present to God. He wasn’t inviting God to be present to him either. So he missed the chance to encounter God and receive his mercy and grace. In that sense, the Pharisee left the Temple basically the same way he had entered. The tax collec...

  Ocean of Goodness Let us throw ourselves into the ocean of His goodness, where every failing will be canceled and anxiety turned into love. St. Paul of the Cross

  Simplicity The closer one approaches to God, the simpler one becomes. St. Teresa of Avila

  Character Your true character Is most accurately measured by how you treat those who can do 'Nothing' for you. St. Teresa of Calcutta

 A Hopeful Perspective Consult not your fears but your hopes and your dreams. Think not about your frustrations, but about your unfulfilled potential. Concern yourself not with what you tried and failed in, but with what it is still possible for you to do. St. John XXIII

  Worship & Weakness This appeal to the moral value of spiritual worship should not be interpreted in a merely moralistic way. It is before all else the joy-filled discovery of love at work in the hearts of those who accept the Lord’s gift, abandon themselves to him and thus find true freedom. The moral transformation implicit in the new worship instituted by Christ is a heartfelt yearning to respond to the Lord’s love with one’s whole being, while remaining ever conscious of one’s own weakness. This is clearly reflected in the Gospel story of Zacchaeus (cf. Lk 19:1–10). After welcoming Jesus to his home, the tax collector is completely changed: he decides to give half of his possessions to the poor and to repay fourfold those whom he had defrauded. The moral urgency born of welcoming Jesus into our lives is the fruit of gratitude for having experienced the Lord’s unmerited closeness. Benedict XVI, Sacramentum Caritatis (Vatican City: Libreria Editrice Vaticana, 2007). #82

  Fight The Good Fight As a man dedicated to God, you must aim to be saintly and religious, filled with faith and love, patient and gentle. Fight the good fight of the faith and win for yourself the eternal life to which you were called when you made your profession and spoke up for the truth in front of many witnesses. Now, before God the source of all life and before Christ, who spoke up as a witness for the truth in front of Pontius Pilate, I put to you the duty of doing all that you have been told, with no faults or failures, until the Appearing of our Lord Jesus Christ, who at the due time will be revealed by God, the blessed and only Ruler of all, the King of kings and the Lord of lords, who alone is immortal, whose home is in inaccessible light, whom no man has seen and no man is able to see: to him be honour and everlasting power. Amen. 1 Timothy 6:11-16

  God Will Make A Way 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

  Asking For Angelic Help “Michael: Help us in our battle – each of us has a battle to fight in our lives; Gabriel: Bring us news, bring us the good news of salvation; Raphael: Take us by the hand and lead us forward without taking the wrong turns. Always walking forward, but with your help!” Pope Francis - Homily 9/27/17

  Truth To live in Truth is the basic minimum of human dignity, even if the price to defend the Truth could be costly. You need to always remain faithful to the Truth. Truth can never be betrayed. Blessed   Jerzy Popieluszko

Creativity & The Mission of the Church Lectio Luke 16:1–13 Meditatio “For the children of this world are more prudent in dealing with their own generation than are the children of light.” Setting aside the confusing discussion of what the steward actually did before and after getting fired, let’s look at why Jesus is telling this parable in the first place. The moral is basically that the children of light (that’s us) can learn from the creative problem-solving of the steward, who represents the “children of this world.” Jesus is holding up not the steward’s concrete actions for us to learn from, but the prudence he shows. In current usage, the term “prudence” is mostly associated with cautiousness, but that is not the true meaning of the word. Prudence is the virtue that helps us make sound judgments, a kind of practical wisdom. It’s called a cardinal virtue (remember those?) because it is a hinge for other virtues. (“Cardinal” comes from cardo, the Latin word for hinge.) With pru...

  Living Life Abundantly If you never take risks, you'll never accomplish great things. Everybody dies, but not everyone has lived. C.S. Lewis

  Heaven Begins with Gratitude It's 'Heaven Begun', for the grateful on earth. Blessed Solanus Casey

  The Gift of Discernment Dear brothers and sisters, good morning! We are continuing our reflection on discernment – in this time we will speak every Wednesday about spiritual discernment – and for this it can help us to refer to a specific witness. One of the most instructive examples is offered to us by Saint Ignatius of Loyola, with a decisive episode in his life. Ignatius is at home convalescing, after injuring a leg in battle. To dispel the boredom, he asks for something to read. He loves tales of chivalry, but unfortunately only the lives of saints can be found at home. Somewhat reluctantly he adapts, but in the course of reading he begins to discover another world, a world that conquers him and seems to compete with that of knights. He is fascinated by the figures of Saint Francis and Saint Dominic, and feels the desire to imitate them. But the world of chivalry also continues to exert its fascination on him. And so, within himself he feels within himself this alternation of...

  Trusting In God's Grace We cannot do everything, and there is a sense of liberation in realizing that. This enables us to do something, and to do it very well. It may be incomplete, but it is a beginning, a step along the way, an opportunity for the Lord's grace to enter and do the rest. St. Oscar Romero

Sacred Story Affirmations   I believe the grace of forgiveness opens my heart making my every thought, word and deed bear fruit that endures to eternity. I ask that everything in my life serve Christ's Great Work of Reconciliation.  Fr. Bill Waston, S.J.

  We Can Begin Again! You can't go back and change the beginning, but you can start where you are and change the ending. C.S. Lewis

  A Thwarted Air Raid & Padre Pio During World War II a general at the American base near Bari heard that the Germans had an arms depot somewhere around San Giovanni Rotondo. He planned an air raid to destroy the depot, and he led the squadron on this mission. Nearing the target, he saw a friar ascend into the air with his arms outstretched! Suddenly the controls on the planes no longer responded. So they dropped their bombs in the forest, turned around, and went back to base. The general could not understand. He talked about the incident to the officers and pilots, but no one could come up with a reasonable explanation. Who was this friar who had obstructed their mission and disabled the planes’ communication system? What a mystery! One day, the general overheard someone speaking of Padre Pio, who lived on Mount Gargano and worked miracles. Suspecting that this was the friar who had thwarted the bombardment, he went to San Giovanni Rotondo to see him. The priest came toward hi...