ST JOSEPH'S ABBEY, SPENCER MA

Neither Holy Scripture nor the Church’s Tradition of faith asserts with certainty of any man that he is actually in hell. Hell is always held before our eyes as a real possibility, one connected with the offer of conversion and life. The Church’s Confession of Faith: A Catholic Catechism For Adults  

In the Trinity, the ultimate depths of the real and the whole mystery of existence are revealed to us. The Trinity is the principal and the origin of creation and redemption. Ultimately all things are borne back to it in the mystery of worship and adoration. Above all else, it is what gives substance to all things: everything else flows from it or tends toward it. In the light of the Trinity, we discover our true selves. For the essential conversion is the one that leads us from the visible world with its external temptations to the invisible world which is at once supremely real, since it constitutes the ultimate basis of all reality, and supremely holy and admirable, since it is the source of all bliss and all joy. JEAN DANIELOU, SJ God’s Life In Us

If only we really knew Jesus we would not be so concerned with putting on a good show and of how others see us. Instead of concealing our insecurities, fears, secret failings even from ourselves, we would accept the reality that we are, tranquil in the certainty that our Lord looks on us with infinite compassion and love. RUTH BURROWS, OCD Love Unknown

This is what often hinders souls of good will from making progress in prayer. In the morning, they make their prayer well, they receive Our Lord in Holy Communion and are very united to him; then they leave the choir, they go for breakfast, they take up their work; they cast a little glance here, they say a word there, and they lose their recollection. And thus during the whole day, they advance and they fall back. You must accustom yourself to make a little sanctuary in your heart where you will always find Our Lord even in the midst of occupations and distractions; and then as soon as you are alone, as soon as you have a few minutes a fire shall flame out. BLESSED COLUMBA MARMION  

By meditation I penetrate the innermost ground of my life, seek the full understanding of God's will for me, of God's mercy to me, of my absolute dependence upon Him. But this penetration must be authentic. It must be something genuinely lived by me. THOMAS MERTON  

Prayer is offered to a person in two ways: first, as to be fulfilled by him, secondly, as to be obtained through him. On the first way we offer prayer to God alone, since all our prayers ought to be directed to the acquisition of grace and glory, which God alone gives…. But in the second way we pray to the saints, whether angels or men, not that God may through them know our petitions, but that our prayers may be effective through their prayers and merits. Hence it is written that "the smoke of the incense”—namely, "the prayers of the saints”—"rose before God." This is also clear from the very style employed by the church in praying: since we beseech the blessed Trinity "to have mercy on us," while we ask any of the saints "to pray for us.” ST. THOMAS AQUINAS Summa Theologiae  

Science alone cannot discover Christ. But Christ satisfies the yearnings that are born in our hearts in the school of science… Science will, in all probability, be increasingly impregnated by mysticism. PIERRE   TEILHARD DE CHARDIN My Universe, 1924, IX, 83

We must learn how to request in prayer, not what we desire, but what God desires. Nevertheless prayer must proceed from a real desire: let it be the desire to be more Christian. To pray to be more Christian means that we are praying to be detached from our own selves. CHARLES NICOLET, SJ

The beginning of love is to let those we love be perfectly themselves, and not to twist them to fit our own image. Otherwise we love only the reflection of ourselves we find in them. THOMAS MERTON

"Above all trust in the slow work of God. Only God could say what this new spirit gradually forming within you will be. Give our Lord the benefit of believing that His hand is leading you, and accept the anxiety of feeling yourself in suspense and incomplete."  PIERRE TEILHARD DE CHARDIN

Christ is baptized, not to be made holy by the water, but to make the water holy, and by his cleansing to purify the waters which he touched. ST. MAXIMUS OF TURIN

"We have only to see how that which makes up the reality of our lives relates to our vocation; we have only to hear the call God makes to us to work with him. Quite often it is not a matter of doing something different, but doing it differently." JEAN DANIELOU

“The truth is, of course, that the curtness of the Ten Commandments is an evidence, not of the gloom and narrowness of a religion, but, on the contrary, of its liberality and humanity. It is shorter to state the things forbidden than the things permitted: precisely because most things are permitted, and only a few things are forbidden.” G.K. CHESTERTON –  Illustrated London News ,  Jan. 3, 1920

Christ was a porter when he opened the door of the ark and closed it again [see Genesis 7:16]. He was a gravedigger when he called fourth Lazarus, already stinking, out of the tomb on the fourth day [see John 11:43-44]. He was a lector when he opened up to the ears of the people the book of the prophet Isaiah in the midst of the synagogue and read, and when he had finished, handed it back to the minister [see Luke 4:16-20]. He was a subdeacon when he poured water into a basin and of his own accord humbly washed the feet of the disciples [see John 13:15]. He was a deacon when he blessed the chalice and gave it to his apostles to drink [see Matthew 26:27-28]. He was a presbyter when he blessed the bread and gave it to them in the same way [see Matthew 26:26]. He was a bishop when, as one having power, he taught the people in the temple about the kingdom of God [see John 7:14]. ANONYMOUS Chronicon Palatinum (6th century)

I run the risk of making a blunder, but I will say it; the Lord loves humility so much that, sometimes, he permits serious sins. Why? In order that those committing these sins may, after repenting, remain humble. One does not feel inclined to think oneself half a saint, half an angel, when one has committed serious faults. POPE JOHN PAUL I L’Osservatore Romano, Sept. 14, 1978  

The dispensation of Almighty God is large. It often happens that those to whom he grants the greater goods are denied the lesser, so that their minds might always have something with which to reproach themselves. Hence, although they long to be perfect, it is not possible for them. They work hard in the areas where they have not been given the gift, and their labor achieves no result. In consequence, they are less likely to have a high opinion of themselves in the areas in which they have been gifted. Because they are not able to be victorious over small vices and excesses, they learn that the greater goods do not derive from themselves. SAINT GREGORY THE GREAT Dialogues

  Jan. 1, 2025 Galations 4:4-7 Luke 2:16-21        Today, the first day of the calendar year, we celebrate the Solemnity of the Mother of God.   This solemn feast is the Octave Day of   Christmas—Christmas, the   day we celebrate Mary's giving birth to Jesus, the Son of God and the Son of Man.   The Holy Spirit, the Lord and Giver of Life, was sent to sanctify the womb of the Virgin Mary and to cause her to conceive the eternal Son of the Father in a humanity drawn from her own.(CCC)   Therefore Mary is rightly called the Mother of God since she is the mother of the eternal Son of God made man, Jesus Christ, who is God himself (CCC).   This title “Mother of God” has been an explicit part of the belief of the Church since about the second century--probably beginning with St. Hippolytus of Rome, who seems to have formulated the title “Mother of God” as a legitimate development of the titles “Mother of my Lord” and “Mother of Jesus” fo...

Just as Eve was led astray by the word of an angel...so did the Virgin Mary by the word of an angel receive the glad tidings that she should bear God, through obedience to his word. If the former disobeyed God, the latter was persuaded to obey God and thus became Eve's advocate. Just as the human race was subjected to death by means of a virgin, so it is rescued by a virgin; the scales were rebalanced when a virginal obedience redressed a virginal disobedience. The coming of the serpent is conquered by the harmlessness of the dove, and the bonds that firmly bound us to death were cut. ST. IRENAEUS Against Heresies