A Trail Of Flowers

Our guardian angels

2012-01-27T00:01:00.003-06:00

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

2012-01-25T00:06:00.001-06:00

"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

2012-01-24T00:53:00.001-06:00

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

2012-01-18T00:07:00.003-06:00

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

--Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

The Gift of Making Friends

2012-01-13T01:18:00.000-06:00

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

2012-01-12T00:12:00.003-06:00

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

2012-01-11T00:01:00.003-06:00

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

2012-01-10T00:21:00.000-06:00

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

2012-01-09T00:49:00.001-06:00

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

2012-01-07T23:23:00.002-06:00

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

Feast of Saint Thomas the Apostle

2011-12-21T00:01:00.003-06:00

For I think that God hath set forth us apostles, the last, as it were men appointed to death: we are made a spectacle to the world, and to angels, and to men. We are fools for Christ's sake, but you are wise in Christ; we are weak, but you are strong; you are honorable, but we without honor.

Even unto this hour we both hunger and thirst, and are naked, and are buffeted, and have no fixed abode; And we labor, working with our own hands: we are reviled, and we bless; we are persecuted, and we suffer it. We are blasphemed, and we entreat; we are made as the refuse of this world, the offscouring of all even until now. I write not these things to confound you; but I admonish you as my dearest children. For if you have ten thousand instructors in Christ, yet not many fathers. For in Christ Jesus, by the gospel, I have begotten you. Wherefore I beseech you, be ye followers of me, as I also am of Christ.

--Saint Paul, 1 Corinthians 4:9-16

Saint Thomas, pray for us.

Saint Thomas Edmund, pray for us.

All the other things in the world

2011-12-20T00:03:00.003-06:00

No one would choose a friendless existence on condition of having all the other things in the world. --Aristotle

The Tree of Life

2011-12-14T00:07:00.000-06:00

"The nuns taught us there were two ways through life,

the way of nature and the way of grace. You have to choose which one you'll follow.
Grace doesn't try to please itself. Accepts being slighted, forgotten, disliked. Accepts insults and injuries. Nature only wants to please itself. Get others to please it too. Likes to lord it over them. To have its own way. It finds reasons to be unhappy when all the world is shining around it. And love is smiling through all things. The nuns taught us that no one who loves the way of grace ever comes to a bad end."

--Mrs. O'Brien in The Tree of Life

Feast of Saint Lucy

2011-12-13T00:13:00.003-06:00

The common eye sees only the outside of things, and judges by that, but the seeing eye pierces through and reads the heart and the soul, finding there capacities which the outside didn't indicate or promise, and which the other kind couldn't detect.

--Mark Twain in Joan of Arc

Saint Lucy, pray for us!
(Happy birthday, Kris!)

Feast of Our Lady of Guadalupe

2011-12-12T00:09:00.000-06:00

Our Lady of Guadalupe, Patroness of the Americas, pray for us!

Gaudete Sunday

2011-12-11T00:07:00.002-06:00

Never neglect any occasion God sends you of doing the good you can. Great charity, like every other great virtue, does not consist in doing extraordinary things, or waiting for extraordinary circumstances; it depends on doing with all our heart the good we have the chance of doing at every moment within our own homes and outside of them.

--Reverend Bernard O'Reilly in The Mirror of True Womanhood

Friendship

2011-12-07T00:56:00.000-06:00

Friendship consists in forgetting what one gives, and remembering what one receives.

--Alexandre Dumas

True Charity

2011-12-06T00:06:00.001-06:00

True charity consists in doing good to those who do us evil, and in thus winning them over.

--Saint Alphonsus Liguori

Messenger

2011-12-01T00:01:00.003-06:00

Love was meant to be also a sign, a symbol, a messenger, a telltale of the Divine. Love is a messenger from God saying that every human affection and and every ecstasy of love are sparks from the great flame of love that is God.

--Archbishop Fulton Sheen

Joy

2011-11-30T00:37:00.002-06:00

Joy is not the same as pleasure or happiness. A wicked and evil man may have pleasure, while any ordinary mortal is capable of being happy. Pleasure generally comes from things, and always through the senses; happiness comes from humans through fellowship. Joy comes from loving God and neighbor. Pleasure is quick and violent, like a flash of lightning. Joy is steady and abiding, like a fixed star. Pleasure depends on external circumstances, such as money, food, travel, etc. Joy is independent of them, for it comes from a good conscience and love of God.

--Archbishop Fulton Sheen

The Light of Glory

2011-11-28T01:04:00.000-06:00

Men seem to overlook the fact that difficulties which are real difficulties to us are no difficulties to God; and that what, in our present state, seems to be hard or even wholly impossible, will appear manifest, clear, and self-evident, so soon as faith gives place to actual vision, and our minds are flooded with the light of glory.

--Monsignor John S. Vaughan in Dangers of the Day

Feast of Saint Catherine of Alexandria

2011-11-25T14:40:00.000-06:00

St. Catherine, pray for us that we may be bold in testifying to our love of Jesus no matter what the cost — whether it be loss of material wealth or loss of our lives.

Amen.

Feast of Saint Cecilia

2011-11-22T11:22:00.003-06:00

Saint Cecilia, pray for us.

Mind the present

2011-11-22T00:02:00.001-06:00

It has been well said that no man ever sank under the burden of the day. It is when tomorrow's burden is added to the burden of today that the weight is more than a man can bear. Never load yourselves so, my friends. If you find yourselves so loaded, at least remember this: it is your own doing, not God's. He begs you to leave the future to Him and mind the present.

--George MacDonald

What God wills

2011-11-20T01:02:00.002-06:00

Finally we should consider the events which are happening to us now and which will happen to us in the future, as coming from the hands of God. Everything we do should be directed to this one end: to do the will of God and to do it solely for the reason that God wills it... Let us will always and ever only what God wills; for so doing, He will press us to His heart.

--Saint Alphonsus de Liguori

Eternity

2011-11-18T01:12:00.000-06:00

Eternity is without succession, a simultaneous possession of all joys. To those who live toward Eternity, it really is not something at the end; it is that which influences every moment of the now.

--Archbishop Fulton J. Sheen

Fear not

2011-11-14T00:32:00.000-06:00

Fear not that thy life shall come to an end, but rather that it shall never have a beginning.

--Saint John Henry Newman

To see the best

2011-11-12T00:15:00.000-06:00

Love, it is said, is blind, but love is not blind. It is an extra eye, which shows us what is most worthy of regard. To see the best is to see most clearly, and it is the lover's privilege.

--J. M. Barrie

The miracle

2011-11-11T00:18:00.001-06:00

This is the miracle that happens every time to those who really love: the more they give, the more they possess.

--Rainer Maria Rilke

Love over all

2011-11-08T00:48:00.000-06:00

God will not conquer evil by crushing it under-foot-any god of man's idea could do that-but by conquest of heart over heart, of life over life, of life over death, of love over all.

--George MacDonald

Feast of All Saints

2011-11-01T00:01:00.001-05:00

"Eye has not seen nor ear heard, nor has it entered into the heart of man, what things God has prepared for those who love Him" (I Cor. 2:9)

Feast of Christ the King

2011-10-30T00:03:00.004-05:00

[Insignia of the Vendeans, France, 1793-1796.]

Real love

2011-10-28T01:57:00.000-05:00

Real love...wills the good of the one loved, but it knows that that good is to be found in loving obedience to the will of God.

--Rev. Gerald Vann

The blessings of heaven

2011-10-26T01:17:00.000-05:00

Never undertake anything for which you wouldn't have the courage to ask the blessings of heaven.

--G.C.Lichtenberg

As the angels give

2011-10-24T00:05:00.000-05:00

If instead of a gem, or even a flower, we should cast the gift of a loving thought into the heart of a friend, that would be giving as the angels give.

--George MacDonald

A single candle

2011-10-23T01:21:00.000-05:00

All the darkness in the world cannot extinguish the light of a single candle.

--Saint Francis of Assisi

A sudden joy

2011-10-14T00:09:00.001-05:00

All of us have had the experience of a sudden joy that came when nothing in the world had forewarned us of its coming - a joy so thrilling that if it was born of misery we remembered even the misery with tenderness.

-Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, Wind, Sand and Stars, 1939, translated from French by Lewis Galantière

Love is never lost

2011-10-12T00:04:00.003-05:00

Love is never lost. If not reciprocated, it will flow back and soften and purify the heart.

--Washington Irving

Remembrance and reflection

2011-10-11T23:53:00.001-05:00

Remembrance and reflection how allied! What thin partition divides sense from thought!

--Alexander Pope

The book of the blind

2011-10-07T00:04:00.000-05:00

The rosary is the book of the blind, where souls see and there enact the greatest drama of love the world
has ever known; it is the book of the simple, which initiates them into mysteries and knowledge more
satisfying than the education of other men; it is the book of the aged, whose eyes close upon the shadow
of this world, and open on the substance of the next. The power of the rosary is beyond description.

- Archbishop Fulton Sheen

Queen of the Holy Rosary, pray for us.

Fruitfulness

2011-10-02T16:53:00.000-05:00

In order to be a fruitful apostle, begin by being a saint--a soul of love. The only fruitfulness is holiness.

--Rev. Jean C. J. D'Elbee

To trust

2011-09-29T01:40:00.000-05:00

It is better to suffer wrong than to do it, and happier to be sometimes cheated than not to trust.

--Samuel Johnson

Goodness

2011-09-27T21:57:00.000-05:00

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

True eyes

2011-09-22T18:40:00.000-05:00

Those true eyes,

Too pure and too honest in aught to disguise

The sweet soul shining through them.

--Edward Robert Bulwer-Lytton

The measure

2011-09-19T00:31:00.000-05:00

We can never have too much hope in God. He gives in the measure we ask.

--Saint Therese of Lisieux

Good nature

2011-09-16T01:21:00.000-05:00

An inexhaustible good nature is one of the most precious gifts of Heaven, spreading itself like oil over the troubled sea of thought, and keeping the mind smooth and equable in the roughest weather.

--Washington Irving

The ordinary way

2011-09-15T00:31:00.000-05:00

There are no short cuts to Heaven, only the ordinary way of ordinary things.

--Rev. Vincent McNabb

Feast of the Most Holy Name of Mary

2011-09-12T01:26:00.000-05:00

"O sweet name, which gives the sinner strength and blessed hope. We pray thee, Our Lady, Star of the Sea, shine upon us in our distress on the sea of life, and lead us to safe harbor and the ineffable joys of eternity."

--Saint Anthony of Padua

Faithful friends

2011-09-10T00:01:00.000-05:00

Words are easy, like the wind;

Faithful friends are hard to find.

--William Shakespeare

Whatever we are

2011-09-08T00:20:00.002-05:00

Whatever we are, we are not what we ought to be.

--Saint Augustine

What does love look like?

2011-09-06T00:03:00.004-05:00

What does love look like? It has the hands to help others. It has the feet to hasten to the poor and needy. It has eyes to see misery and want. It has the ears to hear the sighs and sorrows of men. That is what love looks like.

--Saint Augustine

Happiness and peace

2011-09-04T00:21:00.004-05:00

God cannot give us a happiness and peace apart from Himself, because it is not there. There is no such thing.

--C.S. Lewis

The glory of friendship

2011-09-02T00:47:00.001-05:00

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

These are the gifts

2011-09-01T00:47:00.001-05:00

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

The habit of being happy

2011-08-30T00:01:00.002-05:00

The habit of being happy enables one to be freed, or largely freed, from the domination of outward conditions.

--Robert Louis Stevenson

Duty

2011-08-29T00:23:00.003-05:00

Do your duty in all things. You cannot do more. You should never wish to do less.

--Robert E. Lee

Love is the emblem

2011-08-28T00:22:00.002-05:00

Love is the emblem of eternity; it confounds all notion of time, effaces all memory of a beginning, all fear of an end.
--Anne Louise Germaine de Stael

Forever

2011-08-27T00:33:00.000-05:00

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

Be faithful

2011-08-24T01:21:00.000-05:00

Be faithful in small things because it is in them that your strength lies.

--Mother Teresa

He who prays

2011-08-22T00:16:00.000-05:00

He who prays and labors lifts his heart to God with his hands.
--Saint Bernard of Clairvaux

Sacrifice

2011-08-20T00:02:00.003-05:00

True love grows by sacrifice and the more thoroughly the soul rejects natural satisfaction the stronger and more detached its tenderness becomes.

--Saint Therese of Lisieux

At the center

2011-08-19T00:03:00.004-05:00

God is at the center of our souls and there He waits to converse as a friend with us.
--Father Yves le Roux

(Happy birthday, dear Emilie!)

God is awake

2011-08-18T01:19:00.000-05:00

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

Truth

2011-08-16T00:01:00.001-05:00

We know the truth, not only by the reason, but also by the heart.

--Blaise Pascal

Peace

2011-08-12T00:26:00.000-05:00

Peace is the first thing the angels sang. Peace is the mark of the sons of God. Peace is the nurse of love. Peace is the mother of unity. Peace is the rest of blessed souls. Peace is the dwelling place of eternity.
--Pope Saint Leo the Great

In the light

2011-08-05T00:05:00.002-05:00

To him who waits all things reveal themselves, provided that he has the courage not to deny in the darkness what he has seen in the light.
--Coventry Patmore

Kindness

2011-08-02T20:04:00.000-05:00

Wherever there is a human being, there is an opportunity for kindness.
--Seneca

When the heart is pure

2011-07-31T00:25:00.001-05:00

When the heart is pure it cannot help loving, because it has discovered the source of love which is God.
--Saint John Vianney

God's gifts

2011-07-30T09:10:00.000-05:00

God's gifts put man's best dreams to shame.
--Elizabeth Barrett Browning

God alone

2011-07-23T10:44:00.000-05:00

He who has the right confidence in God knows that his prayer is never condemned by God, Whose merciful glance is always turned toward us; but he also knows that God alone can judge what profits us best and that, therefore, His answer is always the answer of omniscient charity.
-- Dietrich von Hildebrand in Transformation in Christ

True confidence in God

2011-07-20T00:23:00.000-05:00

He who is filled with true confidence in God clings, in the presence of all things that by themselves justly arouse his anxiety, to the supreme reality and the omnipotent love and mercy of God.

--Dietrich von Hildebrand in Transformation in Christ

To the house of thy friend

2011-07-15T00:04:00.000-05:00

Go often to the house of thy friend, for weeds choke the unused path.
--Author unknown

Not a single beauty

2011-07-14T00:43:00.000-05:00

There is not a single beauty in the million-million shades which embellish the flowers of grove or garden or field, or clothe, at dawn or noontide or sunset, the face of earth and heaven, which is not a creation of glorious light, the visible image of His divine countenance in Whom is the source of all splendor and life and beauty.
--Rev. Bernard O'Reilly in The Mirror of True Womanhood

Not the cry

2011-07-12T00:01:00.000-05:00

Not the cry, but the flight of the wild bird leads the flock to fly and to follow."
--Chinese proverb

To wish him well

2011-07-09T12:27:00.000-05:00

What is meant by love? To love a person is to wish him well.
--Right Rev. Msgr. John S. Vaughan

Love

2011-07-07T00:04:00.002-05:00

We must begin with love, continue with love, and end with love.
--Saint Francis de Sales

Courage

2011-07-06T00:02:00.000-05:00

Courage is not simply one of the virtues, but the form of every virtue at the testing point.

--C.S. Lewis

Against the current

2011-07-04T10:51:00.000-05:00

We who, by the Grace of God, have been blessed with the protection of the Church’s law and authority, can never quite understand why any one can ever think that obedience to that law and authority is enslaving. On the contrary, it is positively romantic. The laws and doctrines of the Church are not dams which stop up the river of Thought; they are levees which prevent that river from overflowing the countryside. They are not wrenches thrown into the machinery of life, but oils which make it run more smoothly. It is easy to fall into the excesses of the modern world, just as it is easy to fall off a log. It is easy to float down stream with the popular fancies – even dead bodies can float down stream. But it is exhilarating to fight against the current.

--Archbishop Fulton Sheen

A good book

2011-07-03T09:47:00.000-05:00

A good book is indeed a faithful friend, that will give us counsel without cowardice or flattery, on the one hand, and without any personal bitterness, on the other.
--Rev. Michael Mueller

Better and happier

2011-07-02T00:27:00.000-05:00

Let no one come to you without leaving better and happier.
--Mother Teresa

Most Sacred Heart of Jesus

2011-07-01T00:01:00.014-05:00

Build yourself a cell in your heart and retire there to pray.
--Saint Catherine of Siena

Most Sacred Heart of Jesus, burning with love for mankind, have mercy on us!

His own love

2011-06-29T09:03:00.000-05:00

For the victims of love, it seems to me that there will be no judgment, but rather that God will hasten to reward with eternal delights His own love, which He will see burning in their hearts.
--Saint Therese of Lisieux

Feast of Our Lady of Perpetual Help

2011-06-27T13:06:00.002-05:00

Dear Mother of Perpetual Help, pray for us.

Meekness

2011-06-26T00:01:00.001-05:00

Meekness is properly of the heart. It is the safety valve of anger; it keeps the hot blood of the heart at a normal temperature.
--Reverend Francis P. Donnelly, S.J.

Friends

2011-06-25T11:51:00.000-05:00

Friends are the family we choose for ourselves.
--Edna Buchan

The Nativity of Saint John the Baptist

2011-06-24T07:26:00.000-05:00

Prepare ye the way of the Lord.
--Holy Scripture

Saint John the Baptist, pray for us.

(Happy 13th birthday, Mary!)

A book is like a garden

2011-06-24T00:24:00.000-05:00

A book is like a garden carried in the pocket.

--Edna Buchan

Feast of Corpus Christi

2011-06-23T02:13:00.000-05:00

"I will not leave you orphans, I will come to you."
--Words of Our Blessed Lord, Saint John 14, 18.

Dream

2011-06-22T00:02:00.002-05:00

Keep some souvenir of your past, or how will you ever prove that it wasn't all a dream?
--Ashleigh Brilliant

Friends

2011-06-21T00:03:00.004-05:00

Friends are those rare people who ask how we are and then wait to hear the answer.
--Ed Cunningham

Grateful

2011-06-20T00:01:00.002-05:00

Let us be grateful for the people who make us happy. They are the charming gardeners who make our souls blossom.
--Marcel Proust

Leisure

2011-06-18T18:15:00.000-05:00

Leisure is a form of silence, not noiselessness. It is the silence of contemplation such as occurs when we let our minds rest on a rosebud, a child at play, a Divine mystery, or a waterfall.
--Rev. Fulton J. Sheen

Confidence

2011-06-16T00:04:00.002-05:00

It is confidence, and confidence alone, that must lead us to Love.
--St. Therese of Lisieux

Forgiveness

2011-06-15T00:38:00.001-05:00

Forgiveness is the giving, and so the receiving, of life.

--George MacDonald

Trust

2011-06-13T01:28:00.000-05:00

We may trust God with our past as heartily as with our future.

--George MacDonald

Feast of Saint Anthony of Padua

2011-06-13T00:13:00.004-05:00

Someone may ask how the Virgin gave birth to the Savior. She begot Him as a blossom emanates perfume. The blossom of the vine remains incorrupt after it has given off its perfume, and so likewise, faith leads us to believe that the modesty of the Virgin—the modesty with which She gave birth to the Savior—was not violated.

--words of Saint Anthony of Padua

Saint Anthony, pray for us.

Time is but a shadow

2011-06-09T00:16:00.001-05:00

Time is but a shadow, a dream; already God sees us in glory and takes joy in our eternal beatitude.
--Saint Therese of Lisieux

The friend of her husband

2011-06-07T00:24:00.000-05:00

The first duty of the wife is to study to be in every way she can the companion, the help, and the friend of her husband.

--Reverend Bernard O'Reilly in The Mirror of True Womanhood

Holy Communion

2011-06-06T00:03:00.001-05:00

When we have been to Holy Communion, the balm of love envelops the soul as the flower envelops the bee.
--Saint Jean Vianney

The marvel of divine charity

2011-06-05T10:22:00.001-05:00

There precisely is the marvel of divine charity: God loves us first in Jesus Christ, and enables us to love Him in return in Jesus Christ; so that charity is God's gift calling forth man's gift.
--Jean Mouroux