Feast of All Saints

Jesus Christ alone is singly to be loved; for He alone is found faithful above all friends. For His sake, and in Him, let enemies as well as friends be dear to thee; and for all these you must pray to Him, that all may know and love Him.

--from The Following of Christ

Justice

When we attend to the needs of those in want, we give to them what is theirs, not ours.

--Saint Gregory the Great

Friend

Vous m'avez reconnue. Je suis la meme, et pourtant autre.

(You recognized me. I am the same, and yet another.

-Author Unknown

The Divine Maternity Of Our Lady

He who is filled with love is filled with God Himself.

--Saint Augustine

All

All things were given to me from the moment when I no longer sought them.

--Saint John of the Cross

Feast of Saint Therese of Lisieux

What a comfort it is, this way of love! You may stumble on it, you may fail to correspond with grace given, but always love knows how to make the best of everything. . .

--Saint Therese of Lisieux

Dear Little Flower, please pray for us!

In Return

True love begins when nothing is looked for in return.

--Antoine de Saint-Exupery

Three Things

Think well,

Speak well,

Do well.

These three things, through the mercy of God, will make a man go to Heaven.

--St. Camillus de Lellis

 

Peace

Experience will show you that peace,

Which fills your soul with charity,

The love of God, and of your neighbor,

Is the road that leads directly to eternal life.

--Juan de Bonilla

 

Lessons

Do not take yourself too seriously. You have to learn not to be dismayed at making mistakes. No human being can avoid failures.

--Rev. Lawrence Lovasik

Beauty

Beauty awakens the soul to act.

--Dante Alighieri

Happy

I am determined to be cheerful and happy in whatever situation I may find myself. For I have learned that the greater part of our misery or unhappiness is determined not by our circumstance but by our disposition.

--Martha Washington

Perfection

Perfection is achieved, not when there is nothing more to add, but when there is nothing left to take away.

--Antoine de Saint-Exupery

Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary

Signum magnum apparuit in caelo: mulier amicta sole, et luna sub pedibus ejus, et in capite ejus corona stellarum duodecim.

(A great sign appeared in heaven: a woman clothed with the sun, and the moon under her feet, and on her head a crown of twelve stars.)

--from the Introit of the Mass for the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary

Happy feast day, dear friends!

Kind

Only a kind person is able to judge another justly and to make allowances for his weaknesses. A kind eye, while recognizing defects, sees beyond them.

 

--Rev. Lawrence Lovasik

Smile

Nobody needs a smile so much as the one who has none to give. So get used to smiling heart-warming smiles, and you will spread sunshine in a sometimes dreary world. 

--Rev. Lawrence Lovasik

Kindness

No kind action ever stops with itself. One kind action leads to another. Good example is followed. A single act of kindness throws out roots in all directions, and the roots spring up and make new trees. The greatest work that kindness does to others is that it makes them kind themselves.

--Amelia Earhart

Heavenward

Heaven-born, the soul a heavenward course must hold; beyond the world she soars; the wise man, I affirm, can find no rest in that which perishes, nor will he lend his heart to ought that doth upon time depend.

-Michelangelo

Kindnesses

Forget injuries, never forget kindnesses.

--Confucius

Love

Love is not getting, but giving. Not a wild dream of pleasure and a madness of desire--oh, no--love is not that! It is goodness and honor and peace and pure living Yes, love is that and it is the best thing in the world and the thing that lives the longest.

--Henry Van Dyke

Goodness

Goodness is love in action, love with its hand to the plow, love with the burden on its back, love following His footsteps who went about continually doing good.

--James Hamilton

To love and be loved

We have not come into the world to be numbered; we have been created for a purpose; for great things: to love and be loved.

--Mother Teresa

A Good Friend

I have learned that to have a good friend is the purest of all God's gifts, for it is a love that has no exchange of payment.

 --Frances Farmer

Pentecost Sunday

The issue is now quite clear. It is between light and darkness and every one must choose his side.

--Gilbert Keith Chesterton 

Forever

Love is not written on paper, for paper can be erased. Nor is it etched on stone, for stone can be broken. But it is inscribed on a heart and there it shall remain forever.

--Oscar Wilde

The Glory of Friendship

 

The glory of friendship is not the outstretched hand, nor the kindly smile, nor the joy of companionship; it is the spiritual inspiration that comes to one when he discovers that someone else believes in him and is willing to trust him with friendship.

--Ralph Waldo Emerson

The Eternal Present

To share in the life of God is . . . to have, under all the pain that time inflicts, a deep sense of the abidingness of things, because it is to live, with God, in the eternal present.  

--Reverend Gerald Vann in The Divine Pity

Thoughts and Prayers

There are thoughts which are prayers. There are moments when, whatever the posture of the body, the soul is on its knees.

--Victor Hugo

Patches of Time

Much may be done in those little shreds and patches of time which every day produces, and which most men throw away.

--Charles Caleb Colton

In Silence

God cannot be found in noise and restlessness. God is the friend of silence. See how nature - trees, flowers, grass- grows in silence; see the stars, the moon and the sun, how they move in silence... We need silence to be able to touch souls.

--Mother Teresa

The Beams of Love

And we are put on earth a little space,
That we may learn to bear the beams of love."
--William Blake

Good Shepherd Sunday

For he hears the lamb's innocent call.
And he hears the ewe's tender reply.
He is watchful while they are in peace.
For they know when their Shepherd is nigh.

--William Blake

The simple truth

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

--Charles Dickens

A kind word

A kind word is like a Spring day.  

--Russian Proverb

To a Robin in the Roses

Bearing His cross, while Christ passed forth forlorn,

His God-like forehead by the mock crown torn,

A little bird took from that crown one thorn.

To soothe the dear Redeemer's throbbing head,

That bird did what she could; His blood, 'tis said,

Down dropping, dyed her tender bosom red.

Since then no wanton boy disturbs her nest;

Weasel nor wild cat will her young molest;

All sacred deem the bird of ruddy breast.

--from The Redbreast--A Breton Legend, in "English Lyrics"

Easter Friday

Where there is great love, there are always miracles.

--Willa Sibert Cather

Easter Joy

The excursion is the same when you go looking for your sorrow as when you go looking for your joy.

--Eudora Welty

Easter Monday

O death, where is thy victory? O death where is thy sting?

1 Corinthians, 15:55

Our Lady of Sorrows

Sorrow is a fruit. God does not make it grow on limbs too weak to bear it.

--Victor Hugo

Real Blessings

Our real blessings often appear to us in the shape of pains, losses and disappointments; but let us have patience and we soon shall see them in their proper figures.

--Joseph Addison

For Love Of Him

Nothing seems tiresome or painful when you are working for a Master who pays well; who rewards even a cup of cold water given for love of Him. 

-- St. Dominic Savio

Passion Sunday

Passio Christi, conforta me.

[Passion of Christ, comfort me.]

And so begins the journey of Our Blessed Lord along the royal road of the Cross . . .

Sounds of Spring

When the green woods laugh with the voice of joy, 

And the dimpling stream runs laughing by; 

When the air does laugh with our merry wit, 

And the green hill laughs with the noise of it.

--William Blake

Never Cease Loving

Never cease loving a person, and never give up hope for him, for even the prodigal son who had fallen most low, could still be saved; the bitterest enemy and also he who was your friend could again be your friend; love that has grown cold can kindle.
--Soren Kierkegaard 

(Happy 25th birthday, Kollin.)

The Strength of Love

There is a comfort in the strength of love: 'Twill make a thing endurable, which else would overset the brain, or break the heart.

                                                               --William Wordsworth

A Man's Character

Nothing shows a man's character more than what he laughs at.
--Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe

Enough happiness

Man is fond of counting his troubles, but he does not count his joys.  If he counted them up as he ought to, he would see that every lot has enough happiness provided for it.  

--Fyodor Dostoevsky

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

Saint Thomas Aquinas, pray for us.

Eternal Crown

When a child is given to his parents, a crown is made for that child in Heaven, and woe to the parents who raise a child without consciousness of that eternal crown!

                              --Archbishop Fulton J. Sheen

Love demands it

"We must be willing to choose discomfort when Love demands it.  And of course Love does demand it, first of all because the self-seeking which is so deeply rooted in us is an offense against love."

--Rev. Gerald Vann in The Divine Pity

(The image is entitled "The Mystical Wine Press.")
[This is a re-post from 2010.]

Hope

Hope is patience with the lamp lit.

--Tertullian