Sacrifices for Lent

"A day without mortification is a day lost, because if we have not denied ourselves, we have not lived the holocaust." Josemaria Escriva (Furrow)

Garbage In: Garbage Out: Fulton J. Sheen

"If one puts garbage into the stomachs of children, it will be easy to forecast their health; if moral garbage is put into the minds of children, it is easy to predict how these ideas will become acts."

--Fulton J. Sheen, A Fulton Sheen Reader, speaking of teenagers.

Oh, no--she's awake

Live your life in such a way that when your feet hit the floor in the morning, Satan shudders and says, "Oh, no--
she's awake."

Author unknown.

Capactiy to love corresponds to the capacity to suffer

"Even suffering is part of the truth of our life.
Thus, trying to shield the youngest from every
difficulty and experience of suffering, we risk
creating, despite our good intentions, fragile
persons of little generosity:
The capacity to love, in fact, corresponds to the
capacity to suffer, and to suffer together."

Pope Benedict XVI

Testimony of Hope

Testimony of Hope: The Spiritual Exercises of Pope John Paul II by Francis Xavier Nguyen Van Thuan, Pauline Books and Media, 2000.

". . . only Christian love can change hearts, not weapons, not threats, and not the media.

It is love that prepares the way for the announcement of the Gospel.

Omnia vincit amor, 'love conquers everything.!'

When love is true, it stirs a response of greater love. Then a person loves and is loved in return, and the new commandment of Jesus, 'Love one another as I have loved you' (Jn 15:12), is realized. Reciprocal love is the fulfillment of the art of loving."

Francis Xavier Nguyen Van Thuan

Testimony of Hope

Testimony of Hope: The Spiritual Exercises of Pope John Paul II by Francis Xavier Nguyen Van Thuan, Pauline Books and Media, 2000.

Continuing with the previous posts.

"'I left everything to follow Jesus, because I love the defects of Jesus.'

The fifth defect : Jesus doesn't understand finances or economics.


Recall the parable of the workers in the vineyard. . . . (Mt 20:1-16).


If Jesus were named the administrator of a community or the director of a business, the institution would surely fail and go bankrupt. How can anyone pay someone who began working at 5:00 P.M. the very same wage paid to the person who has been working since early morning? Is this merely an oversight? Is Jesus' accounting wrong? No! He does it on purpose, as he explains, 'Can I not do what I want with what is mine? Or are you jealous because I am generous?' (Mt 20:15)."

Testimony of Hope

Testimony of Hope: The Spiritual Exercises of Pope John Paul II by Francis Xavier Nguyen Van Thuan, Pauline Books and Media, 2000.


Continuing on with the previous post.

"'I left everything to follow Jesus, because I love the defects of Jesus.'

The publicity manager of a company or someone running an election campaign prepares a precise program, which includes many promises.

Nothing of the kind for Jesus! His publicity campaign, judged with a human eye, is doomed to failure.

Jesus promises trials and persecutions for those who follow him.

To his disciples who have left everything for him, he does not guarantee food or lodging, but only a share in his own way of life.

To a scribe who wants to join him as a follower, Jesus responds, 'Foxes have holes, and birds of the air have nests; but the Son of Man has nowhere to lay his head' (Mt. 8:20).  . . .

The disciples had faith in this risk-taker. For 2000 years, and until the end of the world, the multitudes following Jesus will never be exhausted. It is sufficient to look at the saints of every age. Many of them belong to his blessed association of risk-takers--with no address, with no telephone, with no fax machine!"

Praying is more Important than Eating

"Why Praying Is More Important than Eating"

This statement opens Prayer for Beginners by Peter Kreeft.

"Eating keeps your body alive, and prayer keeps your soul alive. Praying is more important than eating because your soul is more important than your body. Your soul is more important than your body because your soul is you, your personality, your self. You will get a new body after death, in the resurrection at the end of the world. But you will not get a new soul; you will only purify and sanctify your old one, because you are your soul. The "you" that will get a new body is your soul."

Peter Kreeft,

Time

 
"Time is the stuff that slips away, never to return. You can't see it or touch it, but you can measure it." Ken Robbins For Good Measure: The Ways We Say How Much, How Far, How Heavy, How Big, How Old

If you are too busy to pray

"If you are too busy to pray, you are too busy."

--Blessed Mother Teresa of Calcutta

Image found on www.motherteresa.org

Quote: William Butler Yeats

"Education is not the filling of a pail, but the lighting of a fire."

--William Butler Yeats

The Most Effecitve Kind of Education

"The most effective kind of education is that a child should play amongst lovely things."

--Plato

The Glories of Mary

"Whosoever loves, resembles the person loved, or endeavors to become like that person."

--St. Alphonsus de Liguori

The Glories of Mary by St. Alphonsus de Liguori

The Glories of Mary

"It was becoming that the Blessed Virgin Mary, by whom our shame was to be blotted out, and by whom the devil was to be conquered, should never, even for a moment, have been under his dominion."

--St. Bonaventure

The Glories of Mary by St. Alphonsus de Liguori

The Glories of Mary

"For as sailors are guided by a star to the port, so are Christians guided to heaven by Mary."

St. Thomas

The Glories of Mary by St. Alphonsus de Liguori

The Glories of Mary

"So many are the reasons that we have for loving this our most loving Queen, that if Mary was praised throughout the world; if in every sermon Mary alone was spoken of; if all men gave their lives for Mary; still all would be little in comparison with the homage and gratitude that we owe her in return for the tender love she bears to men, and even to the most miserable sinners who preserve the slightest spark of devotion for her."

--St. Alphonsus de Liguori

The Glories of Mary by St. Alphonsus de Liguori

The Child Must Know

"The Child must know that he is a miracle, that since the beginning of the world there hasn't been, and until the end of the world there will not be, another child like him."

Pablo Casals

The Glories of Mary

"that Mary knows not how to do otherwise than love those who love her; and that even she does not disdain to serve those who serve her; and in favor of such a one, should he be a sinner, she uses all her power in order to obtain his forgiveness from her Blessed Son. . . . that her benignity and mercy are so great, that no one, however enormous his sins may be, should fear to cast himself at her feet: for she never can reject any one who has recourse to her."

Bl. Raymond Jordano

The Glories of Mary by St. Alphonsus de Liguori

The Glories of Mary

"as a man and a woman cooperated in our ruin, so it was proper that another man and another woman should cooperate in our redemption, and these two were Jesus and his Mother Mary."

St. Bernard

The Glories of Mary by St. Alphonsus de Liguori

The Glories of Mary

"St. Bonaventure says that Mary is called 'the gate of heaven, because no one can enter that blessed kingdom without passing through her.'"

--St. Bonaventure

The Glories of Mary by Alphonsus de Liguori