ST JOSEPH'S ABBEY, SPENCER MA

When you are weary of praying, and do not receive, consider how often you have heard a poor man calling, and have not listened to him. ST. JOHN CHRYSOSTOM

However much we love mercy and practice loyalty, we are like the heavenly Father. However much we endure poverty, humiliation, rejection, and pain here on earth, we are like the true Son of God. However much we love others and live expensive lives—flowing outward with the abundance of our hearts—and to the extent we give our possessions to the poor and spend our lives serving the sick and the shut-ins, we are like the Holy Spirit. However much we are honest and love peace, and however much we live modest, holy, simple lives, we are like the Holy Trinity. MECHTHILD OF MAGDEBURG The Flowing Light of the Godhead

God says, “I want to be merciful to the world. Mercy is what I do. In my unlimited mercy and love for everyone, I sent the Word, my only-begotten Son. To make this amazing good news clear to you, I showed Him to you in the image of a bridge stretching from heaven to earth. This bridge is the union of my divine nature with your human one. I, the Eternal Father, supreme and everlasting truth, am telling you that by following the Word, my only-begotten Son, you have life.” ST. CATHERINE OF SIENA Dialogue

"The kingdom of heaven may be likened to a man who sowed good seed in his field…” Today we continue with the series of parables to the crowds that Jesus began last week with the Parable of the Sower. Jesus had gone out of the house where he was staying and sat down by the sea. The crowds were so great that he got into a boat and sat down while the whole crowd stood along the shore. God, the sower, scatters the seed widely, across all kinds of surfaces, whether they are suitable for receiving it or not, as if unconcerned aboutwhere it falls. But only the seed that falls on rich soil bears fruit. This is the one, Jesus explains, who hears the word and understands it, who indeed bears fruit and yields a hundred or sixty of thirtyfold.   We must always strive to become the rich soil. In all of his parables, Jesus always demands that the seed that is scattered, the talents that are given, must bear fruit. The kingdom is for those who bear fruit.   This initial parable sets up the c...

Perhaps we don't know what love is. It wouldn't surprise me at all to learn that this is true, sad but true. Love doesn't exist—as we like to think—in the degree to which we are happy. No, love exists in the strength of our determination to try to please God in everything that we do, each and every day. The important thing is not to think much but to love much. ST. TERESA OF JESUS Interior Castle

Reading serves the purpose of the intention with which it is done. If the reader truly seeks God in his reading, everything that he reads tends to promote that end, making the mind surrender in the course of the reading and bring all that is understood into Christ’s service. GILBERT OF HOYLAND Sermon 7.2