God before our eyes

‘I am with you till the consummation of the world’, says our Lord to his Apostles. The Apostles in all the trials they had to endure could well say with truth that the Lord was with them. Being so fervent, so careful in the practice of the presence of God, they considered God constantly before their eyes. Let us endeavor in all our trials to have God before our eyes; the neglect of this practice has been the reason of so many faults.

Let us have God before our eyes day and night and we shall advance in perfection.

--Saint Charles of Mount Argus, C.P.

Kindnesses

"Great persons are able to do great kindnesses."

--Miguel de Cervantes

Given to us

"We give so little when we should give so much--five barley loaves when two hundred pennyworth would not be sufficient--but in the last resort we cannot of ourselves give anything at all because there is nothing at all that we ourselves have not received.  We can give even the barley loaves because they were given to us to give."

--Rev. Gerald Vann, O.P. in The High Green Hill  

All will be well

"To feel that everything is in God's hands, in Love's hands, is to feel convinced that somehow in the end all well be well:  to feel that somehow out of evil good will come in the end, and that in the end beauty will rise from the ashes of ugliness."

--Rev. Gerald Vann O.P. in The High Green Hill

He loves

"He loves, He hopes, He waits. If  He came down on our altars on certain days only, some sinner, on being moved to repentance, might have to look for Him, and not finding Him, might have to wait. Our Lord prefers to wait Himself for the sinner for years rather than keep him waiting one instant."

--Saint Peter Julian Eymard

The measure

"The measure of your holiness is proportionate to the goodness of your will."

--Jan Van Ruysbroeck

Be kind

"Be kind, be kind, and you will be saints."

--Jan Van Ruysbroeck

Christian virtue

"Christian virtue is a question not so much of doing as of being.  When you hear it said of someone "He's a different man since he fell in love" you have a clue what must happen to the Christian.  As you are, so you will act:  love affects one's being, and therefore, in consequence, one's behavior--even though you do the same things you will do them differently--and it is when you can say "I live, now not I"  that you can go on to say "I can do all things";  and you can say the latter because you add, with the docility of a child, "in Him who strengtheneth me."

--Rev. Gerald Vann in The Divine Pity: A Study in the Social Implications of the Beatitudes

They shall be comforted

"But they that mourn, they shall be comforted;  and they shall be comforted, not simply by a subsequent reward, a belated consolation prize for what they have suffered, but because their sorrow itself will be turned into joy even on earth, the sort of joy that gives life and strength and courage and exhilaration."

-- Rev. Gerald Vann, O.P. in The Divine Pity:  A Study in the Social Implications of the Beatitudes

The tower to be built

"...before setting to work for God and to fight against the devil, first calculate your forces; and if you consider yourself well enough equipped to begin, you are a fool, because the tower to be built costs an outrageous price, and the enemy coming out to meet you is an angel, before whom you are of no account. Get to know yourself so well that you cannot contemplate yourself without flinching. Then there will be room for hope. In the sure knowledge that you are obliged to do the impossible in Him who strengthens you, then you are ready for a task which can be performed only through the Cross."

--Jacques Maritain, as quoted by Father Gerald Vann, O.P. in The Seven Swords

Seven swords

It is true, O Lord, that in the work of human redemption Thou didst suffer alone, and that there was not a man who sufficiently pitied Thee; but there was a woman with Thee, and she was Thine own Mother; she suffered in her heart all that Thou didst endure in Thy body."

--Richard of Saint Lawrence


"Over the iron forest
He saw Our Lady stand;
Her eyes were sad withouten art,
And seven swords were in her heart--
But one was in her hand."

--from G. K. Chesterton's "Ballad of the White Horse"

Virgin most sorrowful, pray for us.

You are a Soul

“You don't have a soul. You are a Soul. You have a body.”

--C.S.Lewis

Ash Wednesday

"Grant us, O Lord, to begin with holy fasts the campaign of our Christian warfare:  that, as we do battle with the spirits of evil, we may be protected by the help of self-denial, through Christ our Lord. Amen."

--Prayer recited after the distribution of ashes, from the Mass of Ash Wednesday.

To find her

"A woman’s heart should be so lost in God that a man needs to seek Him in order to find her."

--Author unknown

One friend

"There is one friend in the life of each of us who seems not a separate person, however dear and beloved, but an expansion, an interpretation, of one's self, the very meaning of one's soul."

--Edith Wharton

"They have taken away the Lord!"

"They have taken away
the Lord...
and we know not
where they have laid him."
--Saint John, Chapter 20, verse 2

Please follow this link:  http://stjohnsvaldosta.blogspot.com/2010/02/outrageous-sacrilegious-another-reason.html  and pray for an end to these sacrileges, these desecrations of the Sacred Body and Blood of Our Lord Jesus Christ.  Holy Mary, Mother of  God, pray for us.  Saint Mary Magdalene, pray for us.

Who so loves

“Who so loves believes the impossible.”

--Elizabeth Barrett Browning

Winter birds

I heard the birds singing

in frozen trees;

and I wondered how

in bitter cold,

with Spring so far away,

such hope could move those tiny hearts

to sing for joy unseen.

(first published on January 6, 2009)

Down these mean streets

“Down these mean streets a man must go who is not himself mean, who is neither tarnished nor afraid. He is the hero, he is everything. He must be a complete man and a common man and yet an unusual man. He must be, to use a rather weathered phrase, a man of honor, by instinct, by inevitability, without thought of it, and certainly without saying it. He must be the best man in his world and a good enough man for any world.”

--Rebecca Harding Davis

Feast of Our Lady of Lourdes

"I do not promise to make you happy in this world, but in the next."

--Words of Our Lady of Lourdes to Bernadette Soubirous on February 18, 1858. 

O Mary, conceived without sin, pray for us who have recourse to thee.

Our Lady of Lourdes, pray for us.

Saint Bernadette, pray for us.

Open door

"Fortune always leaves a door open in adversity so that it can be remedied."

--Miguel de Cervantes in Don Quixote

Happiest

“He is the happiest, be he king or peasant, who finds peace in his home."

--Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

(This is my home:  I call it "Rivendell.")

Lost and Found

I missed him when the sun began to bend;

I found him not when I had lost his rim;

With many tears I went in search of him,

Climbing high mountains which did still ascend,

And gave me echoes when I called my friend;

Through cities vast and charnel-houses grim,

And high cathedrals where the light was dim,

Through books and arts and works without an end,

But found him not--the friend whom I had lost.

And yet I found him--as I found the lark,

A sound in fields I heard but could not mark;

I found him nearest when I missed him most;

I found him in my heart, a life in frost,

A light I knew not till my soul was dark.
 
--George MacDonald

Sunday Snippet

Welcome to all of you who have joined "Sunday Snippets:  A Catholic Carnival and a big "thank you" to RAnn for inviting me to be a part of it.  Here is my contribution, originally posted on Monday, February 1st.  It says what is most important to me, and I hope that you will always remember to Be Swift To Love

Only Now

I've walked the paths laid out for me.

I've worn the letters pinned to me.

I've smiled and nodded pleasantly.

I've borne the cruelties dutifully,

While trying to live honorably.

And only now I start to see

How beautifully it all has worked

To lead me to myself,

Beyond myself

To where I need to be--

To the One who fashioned me.

To live life freely, truly,

To live as humbly as a child:

Only now do I begin to see.
 
(Originally posted on January 14, 2009)

God's gifts

“God's gifts put man's best dreams to shame.”

--Elizabeth Barrett Browning

Relationships

"Man is a knot, a web, a mesh into which relationships are tied. Only those relationships matter."

--Antoine de Saint-Exupery

Hero

“And each man stands with his face in the light of his own drawn sword, ready to do what a hero can.”

--Elizabeth Barrett Browning

Motto

Purificatus non consumptus (Purified, not consumed)

--crest of the Washbourne family, and of Washburn University where I am currently a student in Legal Studies

In Caritate Non Ficta: Novena to Our Lady of Lourdes and Saint Bernadette

In Caritate Non Ficta: Novena to Our Lady of Lourdes and Saint Bernadette

The Purification of the Blessed Virgin Mary (Candlemas Day)

"An old man was carrying a Child;  but the Child was the old man's Lord."

-Saint Augustine, from the Mass of February 2 

Be swift to love

"Life is short and we never have enough time for the hearts of those who travel the way with us. O, be swift to love! Make haste to be kind."

--Henri Frederic Amiel