In Company With the Angels

If we deliberately and perseveringly journey through life in company with the angels, in some strange and glorious manner we shall become like them. . . for no one can travel in the presence of his guardian angel without becoming angelic in thought, word, and action.

--Rev. David P. McAstocker, S.J.

Our guardian angels

Our guardian angels are not of the earth; they are from Heaven. Conversation with them leads the soul to a knowledge and appreciation of the things of the spirit, since they themselves are pure spirits and inflamed with love of the Creator.

--David P. McAstocker, S.J.

Mother

"In the love of a brave and faithful man there is always a strain of maternal tenderness; he gives out again those beams of protecting fondness which were shed on him as he lay on his mother's knee."

--George Eliot 

 

[In your charity, dear friends, please pray for the soul of Phyllis, beloved wife, mother, and grandmother. She passed into Eternity early this morning, leaving behind, among others, a brave and faithful son who I am honored to call my friend. Eternal rest grant unto her, O Lord. May her soul, and the souls of all the faithful departed, rest in peace.]   

Tenderness

When death, the great reconciler, has come, it is never our tenderness that we repent of, but our severity.
--T. S. Eliot

However things may seem

However things may seem, no evil thing is success and no good thing is failure.

--Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

The Gift of Making Friends

Blessed are they who have the gift of making friends, for it is one of God's best gifts. It involves many things, but above all, the power of going out of one's self, and appreciating whatever is noble and loving in another.

--Thomas Hughes

Snow

Out of the bosom of the Air, 

Out of the cloud-folds of her garments shaken, 

Over the woodlands brown and bare,

Over the harvest-fields forsaken, 

Silent, and soft, and slow 

Descends the snow. 

--Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

You must learn

You must learn to be strong in the dark as well as in the day, else you will always be only half brave.
--George MacDonald in The Day Boy and the Night Girl

Angels

We are like children, who stand in need of masters to enlighten us and direct us; and God has provided for this, by appointing his angels to be our teachers and guides.
--Saint Thomas Aquinas

It is by loving

It is by loving, and not by being loved, that one can come nearest the soul of another; yea, that, where two love, it is the loving of each other that originates and perfects and assures their blessedness. I know that love gives to him that loveth, power over any soul, even if that soul know him not, bringing him inwardly close to that spirit; a power that cannot be but for good; for in proportion as selfishness intrudes, the love ceases, and the power which springs therefrom dies. Yet all love will, one day, meet with its return.
--George MacDonald in Phantastes

Gently, in the heart

To you, my dear and most patient friends, I offer my sincerest apology for being away for so long. I pray that you have had a blessed Christmastide and that the new year has begun well for all of you. Family and friends have needed me, and there has been little time left over to spend here. I have missed you all very much and I am grateful that you have waited for me to return.

It has been three years since I took the first step on "A Trail of Flowers," and so much has happened since then that it seems as though much more time has passed than that. The seasons have come and gone, though it appears as though Winter weather will not come at all this year to my little corner of the world. I do not miss the bitter cold: in fact, this January reminds me of those youthful days I  spent along the banks of the Mississippi River. It is almost balmy now as it was then, and so I send these warm words to you in the bleakness of Winter, along with the hope that you never forget, dear friends, that I hold you all "gently, in the heart."   

"I'll never forget the days of my youth. When the waves rippled between my toes, taking the pink and silver grains of sand back out to the depths of the sea. There was a peace then; an indescribable feeling of immortality in the ebb and flow of the tide, and the seemingly endless stretch of beach and sky. Now as I gaze out upon those same sparkling waters, I realize that youth is never left behind, but is carried always, gently, in the heart." --Hetty King of Avonlea