Acts of Kindness

Let acts of kindness be our delight and let us be filled with those foods that will nourish us for eternity. Let us be happy and giving food to the poor whose hunger is satisfied by our gift. Let us be joyful in clothing those whose nakedness we cover with necessary garments. Let our humanity be experienced by those who are sick in bed, the weak who are feeble, exiles in their hardship, orphans who are without resources, and lonely widows in their grief. There is no one who cannot be generous in doing some small thing to help such people. Income is never too small when the heart is large; the measure of kindness and mercy is not dependent on great wealth.

SAINT LEO THE GREAT Lenten Sermons 2.4

Hidden Treasures of Prayer

The great men and women of prayer throughout the centuries were privileged to receive an interior union with the Lord that enabled them to descend into the depths beyond the word. They are therefore able to unlock for us the hidden treasures of prayer. And we may be sure that each of us, along with our totally personal relationship with God, is received into, and sheltered within, this prayer. Again and again, each one of us with his mens, his own spirit, must go out to meet, open himself to, and submit to the guidance of the vox, the word that comes to us from the Son. In this way his own heart will be opened, and each individual will learn the particular way in which the Lord wants to pray with him.

POPE BENEDICT XVI Jesus of Nazareth

The Eucharist

Is there anything He can refuse us in the future, if already in the present He gives Himself to us as our food? The Eucharist is our one happiness on earth.

BLESSED JOSEPH CASSANT, OCSO

Speaking to Jesus

If you are happy, look upon your risen Lord. If you are suffering trials, or are sad, look upon Him on His way to the Garden. Love to speak to Him, not using forms of prayer, but words issuing from the compassion of your heart.

ST. TERESA OF JESUS Way of Perfection

The Weakness of Jesus

There is no heavier cross here below than that state of exhaustion and lassitude produced by the climate and by the life you have to lead. But, believe me, there is nothing that brings about the true divine life within us like union with the weakness of Jesus.

In espousing our nature in the Incarnation, He took upon Himself all our weaknesses, all our powerlessness, all our suffering; He made them His own: "Surely He has borne our iniquities and carried our sorrows.” At the time of the Incarnation the Word did not assume a glorious body, like that of Thabor, not an impassible body like that of the resurrection, but a body made in the likeness of sinful flesh, like to ours in all things, save personal sin. In taking our sins, He uplifted and rendered our weaknesses divine, and thenceforth they cry out in us to the Father, like those of Jesus Christ Himself.

It is by pure faith, by love without any feeling that this is brought about and, in place of our weaknesses we receive the strength of Christ in an immense degree.

BLESSED COLUMBA MARMION

Progress in Freedom

In order to experience our humanity in the full sense, it may be necessary to undergo the temptation of believing that we are sufficient unto ourselves. Once we have undergone this temptation, we will better understand that cleaving closely and inseparably to God represents progress in freedom.

YVES DE MONTCHEUIL

Reading the Scriptures

Read often and learn as much as possible. Let sleep creep upon you as you hold a book, and let the Scriptures catch your head as you nod.

SAINT JEROME