Love

"The soul is made of love and must ever strive
to return to love. Therefore, it can never find
rest nor happiness in other things. It must lose
itself in love. By its very nature it must seek
God, who is love."
--Saint Mechthild of Magdenburg.

Light

When Jesus comes near, the shadows depart.

--Inscription found on a Scottish castle, author unknown,

Nearest to the soul

It is by loving and by being loved that one can come
nearest to the soul of another.
--George McDonald.

Faith and hope

Faith has to do with things that are not seen and hope with things that are not at hand.

--Saint Thomas Aquinas 

Autumn

I saw old autumn in the misty morn
Stand shadowless like silence, listening
To silence.
-- Thomas Hood

The Taming of the Shrew

To see more pictures of my daughter as "the Shrew", click here.

The harvest

“With every deed you are sowing a seed, though the harvest you may not see.”

--Ella Wheeler Wilcox

Blooming alone

"T'is the last rose of summer,
Left blooming alone."
  --Thomas Moore, 1779-1852, The Last Rose of Summer.

Time

This time, like all times, is a very good one, if we but know what to do with it.

--Ralph Waldo Emerson

Remember

Remember that nothing is small in the eyes of God: do all that you do with great love.

--Saint Therese of Lisieux 

Love

Love feels no burden, thinks nothing of trouble, attempts what is above its strength, pleads no excuse of impossibility; for it thinks all things lawful for itself, and all things possible.
--Thomas a Kempis 

Thought

When we yield to discouragement it is usually because we give too much thought to the past and to the future.

--Saint Therese of Lisieux 

Sweet

'Tis sweet to know there is an eye will mark our coming, and look brighter when we come.  --Lord Byron

The arms of love

The arms of love encompass you with your present, your past, your future; the arms of love gather you together.  

--Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, from Southern Mail, 1929

The sweetness of friendship

“In the sweetness of friendship let there be laughter, and sharing of pleasures. For in the dew of little things the heart finds its morning and is refreshed.”

--Kahlil Gibran

Feast of the Exaltation of the Holy Cross

“In the evening of this life, we will be judged on love alone.”

--Saint John of the Cross

My friend

“And when your sorrow is comforted (time soothes all sorrows) you will be content that you have known me. You will always be my friend.”
--Antoine de Saint-Exupery

Feast of the Holy Name of Mary

 "O Lady! thou in whom my hopes have rest!"
--Dante Alighieri in Paradiso

Holy Mary, Mother of God, pray for us now and at the hour of our death. Amen. 

The river flows on

“How could drops of water know themselves to be a river? Yet the river flows on”

--Antoine de Saint-Exupery

The dawn

"However long the night, the dawn will break."

--African proverb

Realization

“Once the realization is accepted that even between the closest human beings infinite distances continue, a wonderful living side by side can grow, if they succeed in loving the distance between them which makes it possible for each to see the other whole against the sky.”

--Rainer Maria Rilke

The Nativity of the Blessed Virgin Mary

"Happy art thou, O holy Virgin Mary, and of all high praise most worthy;  for out of thee hath risen the sun of justice, Christ our God." 
--from the Mass of the Nativity of the Blessed Virgin Mary

September sun

"Happily we bask in this warm September sun,
Which illuminates all creatures..."
-- Henry David Thoreau 

Late summer

"A late summer garden has a tranquility found no other time of the year."
  --William Longgood

Behold

"Behold the birds of the air, for they neither sow, nor do they reap, nor gather into barns: and your heavenly Father feedeth them. Are not you of much more value than they?"

--Saint Matthew, Chapter 6, verse 26

September days

"By all these lovely tokens
September days are here,
With summer’s best of weather
And autumn’s best of cheer."
--Helen Hunt Jackson, September, 1830-1885

So swift

Autumn to winter, winter into spring.
Spring, into summer, summer into fall,
So rolls the changing year, and so we change;
Motion so swift, we know not that we move.
--Dinah Mulock Craik

The paradox

“I have found the paradox, that if you love until it hurts, there can be no more hurt, only more love.”

 --Mother Teresa

Like bread

“Love doesn't just sit there like a stone; it has to be made, like bread, remade all the time, made new.”

--Ursula K. LeGuin