Friendship

“The ideal friendship is to feel as one while remaining two.”

--Anne Sophie Swetchine

The Feast of Saints Peter and Paul

"Every character has an inward spring; let Christ be that spring. Every action has a keynote; let Christ be that note, to which your whole life is attuned."

--Henry Drummond

Always Summer

The serene philosophy of the pink rose is steadying.  Its fragrant, delicate petals
open fully and are ready to fall, without regret or disillusion, after only a day
in the sun.  It is so every summer.  One can almost hear their pink, fragrant
murmur as they settle down upon the grass: 'Summer, summer, it will always be summer.'

--Rachel Peden

 

 

The full value of joy

"To get the full value of joy you must have someone to divide it with."

--Mark Twain

O summer day

O summer day beside the joyous sea!
O summer day so wonderful and white,
So full of gladness and so full of pain!
Forever and forever shalt thou be
To some the gravestone of a dead delight,
To some the landmark of a new domain.

--Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

The cure

"The cure for all ills and wrongs, the cares, the sorrows and the crimes of humanity, all lie in the one word 'love.' It is the divine vitality that everywhere produces and restores life."

--Lydia Maria Child

Feast of the Nativity of Saint John the Baptist

"He must increase, but I must decrease."
--the words of Saint John the Baptist, as recorded by Saint John, Ch.3., V. 30 of the Holy Bible

(Happy 12th birthday, Mary!)

Beauty

"Beauty is in the heart of the beholder."

--Al Bernstein

The rose

Busy bees chased the blossom chaste:
though they crawled on her clothes,
her petals unfolded and those held close.
Still ever faithful to the sun is the everpure rose.
Whether her hue is violet or rose,
whether she grows in freedom or rows,
ever to God in waves arose the love perfume
from the heart of the rose.

--Saiom Shriver 

Summer

Then followed that beautiful season... Summer....
Filled was the air with a dreamy and magical light; and the landscape
Lay as if new created in all the freshness of childhood.

--Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

Calm

"But calm, white calm, was born into a swan."

--Elizabeth Coatsworth

A friend

A friend is another self,
as though a part of me I put aside,
almost forgotten,
was suddenly recalled.
And, the missing piece replaced,
I am whole once more.

Winona, Minnesota, 1862

No man ever steps in the same river twice, for it's not the same river and he's not the same man.

--Heraclitus

Off to the Upper Mississippi

"Along the Upper Mississippi every hour brings something new. There are crowds of odd islands, bluffs, prairies, hills, woods and villages--everything one could desire to amuse the children. Few people ever think of going there, however."

--Mark Twain

Light

"Let us not ask of the Lord deceitful riches, nor the good things of this world, nor transitory honors; but let us ask for light."

--Saint Gregory Nazianzen

To love

"To love and be loved is to feel the sun from both sides."

--David Viscott

Give something

"Give something, however small, to the one in need. For it is not small to one who has nothing. Neither is it small to God, if we have given what we could."

--Saint Gregory Nazianzen  
(You may want to visit Food For The Poor to help.) 

Forsake thyself

Forsake thyself, resign thyself, and thou shalt enjoy a great inner peace.  Give all for all;  seek nothing;  call for nothing back;  stand purely and with a full confidence before Me, and thou shalt possess Me.

--from The Following Of Christ

Really love

"We cannot really love anyone with whom we never laugh."
--Agnes Repplier

Feast of the Sacred Heart of Jesus

"Behold the Heart which has so loved men."

--Our Lord's words to Saint Margaret Mary during the Octave of Corpus Christi, 1675

A breath of kindness

"Oh, the comfort, the inexpressible comfort of feeling safe with a person, having neither to weigh thoughts nor measure words, but pouring them all out, just as they are, chaff and grain together, certain that a faithful hand will take and sift them, keep what is worth keeping, and with a breath of kindness blow the rest away."

--Dinah Maria Craik

Flowers

"Brilliant deeds are not for me...How then, shall I prove my love, for love is proved by deeds? By my little actions, and my little sacrifices! The little child will cast her flowers to God."
--words of Saint Therese of Lisieux 

Moonflowers

Dear Readers,
If you'd like to  follow the trail of flowers after hours, here is the way: Moonflowers

Friendship

"The bird--a nest, the spider--a web, man-- friendship."
--William Blake 

Every moment

"I shall spend every moment loving. One who loves does not notice her trials; or perhaps more accurately, she is able to love them."

--from the private notes of Saint Bernadette

The Lark Ascending

"The music soars within the little lark,
And the lark soars."
--Elizabeth Barrett Browning

Listen to Parts 1 and 2 of Ralph Vaughan Williams' The Lark Ascending here:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cL_6FBP48d4
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8R8KAZcLhOs

Love

"Love is the only thing that matters."
--Saint Therese of Lisieux

Corpus Christi

In hac mensa novi Regis,
Novum Pascha novæ legis,
       Phase vetus terminat.
Vetustatem novitas,
Umbram fugat veritas,
       Noctem lux eliminat,
(On this altar of the King
this new Paschal Offering
brings an end to ancient rite.
Shadows flee that truth may stay,
oldness to the new gives way,
and the night's darkness to the light.)
--from Lauda Sion, the Sequence written by Saint Thomas Aquinas for the Mass of Corpus Christi

Sequence Lauda Sion from the Mass of Corpus Christi

Childhood

The childhood shows the man
As morning shows the day.

--John Milton, Paradise Regained

He who loves

"He who loves does not toil;  the toil is loved."
--Saint Augustine