Time

Whether we wake or we sleep,
Whether we carol or weep,
The Sun with his Planets in chime,
Marketh the going of Time.
~Edward Fitzgerald

Anyone can

Anyone can carry his burden, however hard, until nightfall. Anyone can do his work, however hard, for one day. Anyone can live sweetly, patiently, lovingly, purely, till the sun goes down. And this is all life really means.
--Robert Louis Stevenson

Feast of Saint Thomas of Canterbury

"For the Name of Jesus and the protection of the Church I am ready to embrace death."

--dying words of Saint Thomas of Canterbury, also known as Saint Thomas (a) Becket.

Saint Thomas, pray for us.

Feast of the Holy Innocents

Sweet flow’rets of the martyr band,
So early plucked by cruel hand;
Like rosebuds by a tempest torn,
As breaks the light of summer morn.
First victims offered for the Lord,
Ye little knew your high reward,
As, at the very altar, gay
With palms and crowns ye seemed to play.
Ah! what availed King Herod’s wrath?
He could not stay your Savior’s path;
The Child he sought alone went free;
That Child is King eternally.
O Lord, the virgin born, to Thee
Praise, honor, might and glory be,
Whom with the Father we adore
And Holy Ghost forevermore.

--Aurelius Prudentius (348-413); translated by Henry W. Baker.

All you Holy Innocents, pray for us. 

Feast of Saint John

Deus caritas est.

(God is Love.)

--First Letter of Saint John, 4,16.
Saint John, pray for us.

Feast of Saint Stephen

"But the victim of love does not suffer as one suffers who has not given everything. The two are as different as day and night. The victim will always be Love's privileged one. If only you knew the joy with which Jesus fills everything we we have given Him everything!"

--Pere Jean de Coeur de Jesus D'Elbee

Saint Stephen, pray for us.

(Happy feast day, Stephen!)

A Christmas Carol

The Christ-child lay on Mary’s lap,
His hair was like a light.
(O weary, weary were the world,
But here is all aright.)

The Christ-child lay on Mary’s breast
His hair was like a star.
(O stern and cunning are the kings,
But here the true hearts are.)

The Christ-child lay on Mary’s heart,
His hair was like a fire.
(O weary, weary is the world,
But here the world’s desire.)

The Christ-child stood on Mary’s knee,
His hair was like a crown,
And all the flowers looked up at Him,
And all the stars looked down.
--Gilbert Keith Chesterton 


(A blessed Christmastide to you all, dear readers. I thank you for all of your lovely comments and well-wishes and, most especially, for your prayers. And I pray that Almighty God will richly bless you and your dear ones during these twelve joyful days in which we celebrate Our Blessed Savior's holy birth. May Our Lady be near you throughout this sacred season.--KS)

The sleep of sickness

The sleep of sickness is different
from the sleep of health.
It does not refresh
nor restore, but helps us
to endure the weighty pain
which illness brings.
And all that we would do,
were we not ill, is forgotten
in the drowsy spell
of deep and dream-tossed sleep.
How gladly we'd awake
to take our places in the world!
How long must we be patient?
No one can tell. Yet,
such slumber serves to show
what a gift it is to be well.
--Kindred Spirit


(My apologies for my absence, dear readers, but I have been under the influence of a particularly virulent form of influenza. Thanks be to God, it appears that I am on the mend. I send my best wishes to you all, and ask you to pray for my speedy recovery. May Almighty God bless you and Our Lady protect you.) 

God is awake

 

Have courage for the great sorrows of life and patience for the small ones; and when you have laboriously accomplished your daily task, go to sleep in peace. God is awake.
--Victor Hugo

Days

"What very mysterious things days are. Sometimes they fly by, and other times they seem to last forever, yet they are all exactly twenty-four hours. There's quite a lot we don't know about them."

--Melanie Benjamin

Disappointment

"Disappointment to a noble soul is what cold water is to burning metal; it strengthens, tempers, intensifies, but never destroys it." 

--Eliza Tabor

Words

Words which do not give the light of Christ increase the darkness.

--Mother Teresa

Best gifts

“To be rich in admiration and free from envy, to rejoice greatly in the good of others, to love with such generosity of heart that your love is still a dear possession in absence or unkindness - these are the gifts which money cannot buy.”

--Robert Louis Stevenson

Transformation

"In the transformation of the soul in God, it is God who communicates Himself with admirable glory. In this transformation, the two become one, as we would say of the window united with the ray of sunlight, or of the coal with the fire, or of the starlight with the light of the Sun."
--Saint John of the Cross

Feast of Saint Lucy

We walk by faith, not by sight.
--2 Corinthians 5,7.
Saint Lucy, pray for us.

Gaudete Sunday

The art of life consists in taking each event which befalls us with a contented mind, confident of good. ... With this method ... rejoice always, though in the midst of sorrows, and possess all things, though destitute of everything.
--James Freeman Clarke

The road of life

“It is for us to pray not for tasks equal to our powers, but for powers equal to our tasks, to go forward with a great desire forever beating at the door of our hearts as we travel toward our distant goal.”

--Helen Keller

Moments

"There are moments in life when the heart is so full of emotion

That, if by chance, it be shaken, or into its depths like a pebble

Drops some careless word, it overflows; and its secret,

Spilt on the ground like water, can never be gathered together."

--Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

Secret sorrows

“Every man has his secret sorrows which the world knows not; and often times we call a man cold when he is only sad.”

 

--Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

Feast of the Immaculate Conception

"Que soy era Immaculada Concepciou."
--words of Our Lady to Saint Bernadette at Lourdes.
O Mary, conceived without sin, pray for us who have recourse to thee.

I Heard a Bird SIng

"I heard a bird sing
In the dark of December
A magical thing
And sweet to remember.

'We are nearer to Spring
Than we were in September,'
I heard a bird sing
In the dark of December."--Oliver Herford, I Heard a Bird Sing

Feast of Saint Nicholas

“Charity never humiliated him who profited from it, nor ever bound him by the chains of gratitude, since it was not to him but to God that the gift was made.”

 

--Antoine de Saint-Exupery

Saint Nicholas, pray for us.

Prayer

"The Creator of the Universe listens to the prayer of a very little soul to save others who are ransomed, as she is, by the price of all His Blood."
--Saint Therese of Lisieux

The pain of parting

“The pain of parting is nothing to the joy of meeting again.”

 

 --Charles Dickens

The simple truth

“There is nothing so strong or safe in an emergency of life as the simple truth.”

 

--Charles Dickens

Beauty

"Beauty is not in the face; beauty is a light in the heart."

--Kahlil Gibran

Feast of Saint Edmund Campion

The expense is reckoned, the enterprise is begun; it is of God,

it cannot be withstood. So the faith was planted; 

so it must be restored.

--Saint Edmund Campion, martyred at Tyburn on December 1, 1581 at age 41.

Saint Edmund Campion, pray for us.