ST JOSEPH'S ABBEY, SPENCER MA

So every day God works with us, calling us to repentance: “Oh that today you would hear his voice: Harden not your hearts…" (Ps 95:7-8). God speaks in various ways. He speaks through his Word, through the people with whom we live, through all sorts of circumstances, joyful and painful. We dread the latter especially. We know all too well that God has something to say to us in affliction, sickness, death or misfortune. If we still sense this fear in our heart, it is because as yet we have eyes only for the wrath of God, and this means we have not yet discovered how, behind the external signs of wrath, his immeasurable love is concealed. ANDRÉ LOUF Tuning Into Grace  

I have noticed that when we are very careful to mortify and humble ourselves in everything, we sometimes become depressed and less ready to serve God. This is a temptation which we can conquer by thinking that God only asks these things of us through love. We should aim at humbling ourselves to please God as a good friend tries to please his friend, or a son his father. There must be no constraint but a holy liberty of spirit, for this liberty is one of the best signs of true love. It is easy to do things which we know will please one whom we love. ST. CLAUDE DE LA COLOMBIÈRE

When the disciples ask him to teach them to pray, Jesus does not offer method or technique. “I like to sit quietly in a deserted place, focus on my breathing, and simply relax…” No. He tells them to say something. Speak. “Say, Our Father…” Jesus the beloved Son teaches us that we are as he is, children of a loving, attentive Father. And if Jesus’ opponents often expressed shock and outrage that he dared to call God his very own Father, thus making himself equal with God. It is perhaps little less shocking that he advises us to pray as he prayed. Jesus places us within his relationship with God, a relationship marked by tenderness and confidence.   And so each morning, at his command and formed by his divine teaching, we dare to say these words, to repeat Jesus’ own words. So accustomed to praying the Our Father, do we believe that we are doing something really daring? The prayer is not a formula but more a “shape, a pattern,” better still a situation. For when we pray the Our Fath...

When you are praying, don't rack your brains to find words. On many occasions the simple, monotonous stammering of children has satisfied their Father who is in heaven. Don't bother to be loquacious less the mind is bewildered in the search for words. The tax-collector gained the Lord's forgiveness with a single sentence, and a single word charged with faith was the salvation of the robber. Loquacity in prayer often fills the head with foolish fancies and provokes distractions. Brevity on the other hand (sometimes only one word is enough), in general favours recollection. JOHN CLIMACUS Stairway to Paradise, 28

Love makes us free if it is selfless, and it is selfless if it is ready to sacrifice pleasure, advantage and independence for the sake of the beloved.   And since no earthly love is initially perfect, it must go through these purifications. Moments and times must come when love is tested through sacrifice,   when it becomes clear whether the enthusiasm of the first encounter was love at all, when the naïve first love—if it really was love—is refined and deepened in the fire of renunciation. HANS URS VON BALTHASAR Prayer, 128

The beginning of the path of life is continually to exercise the intellect in the words of God, and to live in poverty. For when a man waters himself with one, it aids in the perfection of the other. That is to say, to water yourself with the study of the words of God helps you in achieving poverty, while achieving freedom from possessions affords you the time to attain to constant study of the words of God. But the help provided by both of them speedily erects the entire edifice of the virtues. ST. ISAAC THE SYRIAN Ascetical Homilies, 1

Conversion always means a break with the past and an entry upon a new world. In no way does conversion constitute a stopping-place; nor does it bring the repose and satisfaction of a goal attained. Faith is never ready-made and finished. Our knowledge continually needs to be renewed. The life of faith always demands an active fidelity. YVES DE MONTCHEUIL, SJ