Jesus, you know my longing to become a saint. You know how much I thirst to die a martyr. Help me to prove that I am really in earnest by living this life of martyrdom. O loving Jesus, help me now not to fight any longer against You. I really long to do what You want, but I know my weakness so well and my inconstancy. I have …
Saints
December 29, 2019
Try to get down low and follow out what He Himself taught: “Unless you become as little children.” This will make you more confiding, more trustful and more naturally loving, which sometimes we are not, our love for Him being much too formal and prim. COMMENT: Today is the feast of St John the Apostle, often referred to as “the disciple whom Jesus loved”. There was a particular closeness …
December 27, 2019
21 December: A day I always like because the turning point of the year and from this on the evenings will be longer, the mornings brighter and, best of all, the sun hotter. I can quite understand now why the missioners when preaching to the Eskimos tell them that Hell is the devil and all of a cold place, otherwise every man Jack would just be longing to get there …
December 21, 2019
A want of will is the chief obstacle to our becoming saints. We are not holy because we do not really wish to become so. We would indeed gladly possess the virtues of the saints – their humility and patience, their love of suffering, their penance and zeal. But we are unwilling to embrace all that goes to make a saint and to enter on the narrow path which leads …
December 17, 2019
Avoid worry, anxiety, uneasiness about anything. “The devil’s boiling pot” expresses this state of mind; one trouble ended, another crops up to take its place; the soul never at rest; there is no peace, no calm, and also no real holiness. COMMENT: The saints always tended to be at peace, even in the midst of very real turmoil and suffering. Consider the martyrs like St Thomas More and St Laurence …
December 16, 2019
St John of the Cross, Doctor of the Church Surely you are not right in trying to keep our Lord away from you, or in thinking that He looks upon you with displeasure. When sin in the past is repented for, the poor soul who once strayed from Him has a strange attraction for His gentle Heart. You pain Him intensely if you think He does not love you …
December 14, 2019
St Lucy It is scarcely necessary to state that deliberate sin in any shape or form utterly destroys the interior life. COMMENT: It is a well accepted principle of Catholic spirituality that we must fight against sin. Naturally we must exert all of our will in the battle against deliberate mortal sin, which utterly destroys the life of grace in our soul and puts our salvation in jeopardy. But we …
December 13, 2019
I am sorry to see you suffer and yet glad that the cross is your portion. If I had at this moment the gift of miracles, I would not cure you, I should be afraid – the cross is far too precious to take away from anyone. Do not seek to rid yourself of it, rather love it, embrace it, and will to have it, because God wills …
December 12, 2019
St Maravillas of Jesus I want to be generous with God and to refuse Him nothing. I do not want to say, “I will go just so far and no farther.” COMMENT: Today is the feast of St Maria Maravillas of Jesus, a Discalced Carmelite who died in 1974 and was canonised in 2003, making her canonisation one of the fastest in the Church. Despite this, she is unfortunately little …
December 11, 2019
Let us love silence and recollection. When we are at home with silence we are at home with God. Silence seems impossible to busy people. But “silence of the heart”, interior silence, is always possible. COMMENT: We live in a noisy world. And that “noise” is made all the louder by the ever present reality of smartphones and social media. This is especially problematic for young people whose concentration spans …
December 10, 2019