Blessed Angela of Foligno Recognise God’s graces to you, and instead of thinking of yourself and your faults, try to do all you can for God, and love Him more. COMMENT: One danger in the spiritual life is that we become self-absorbed with our own sins and weaknesses and progress. Of course, in all things balance is needed. We must be aware of our faults and strive to overcome them, …
Virtues
January 4, 2012
St Giuseppe Maria Tomasi He seems to me to want a year of great devotedness, intense sympathy and passionate love…Even one year of such a life would help a little, would help much to heal the wounds so many and so deep in His tender Heart. We must love Him and make Him loved more and more. He seems chiefly to ask complete abandonment to His pleasure, not lifting a …
January 3, 2012
I can imagine I am a soul in Hell, and God in His mercy is saying to me, “Return to the world for this year and on your manner of life during the year will depend your returning to Hell or not.” What a life I should lead! How little I should think of suffering, of mortification! How I would rejoice in suffering! How perfectly each moment would be …
January 2, 2012
A New Year! What visions of almost boundless good, hidden in the fair bosom of the new-born year, rise up before me. What treasures of grace, what innumerable opportunities of merit are within my grasp if only I seize them.
January 1, 2012
“All our days are spent.” (Psalm 89. 9). The hour will come for each of us when we shall echo these words of the Psalmist, when with anxious eyes we shall watch the last few sands of our life run out for ever. What avail then will be our useless regrets that we have made such little use of those precious days? Will our bitter sorrow and biting remorse …
December 31, 2011
And you, wives and bread-winners, have you no task within the fold, no little flock to tend and guard? Has not God committed to your care the innocent lambs, the little ones of your household? Within the pasture of your own family are you the good shepherd, or the thief and the hireling? . . . Jesus does not ask from His shepherds now the shedding of their life-blood …
December 30, 2011
Reading over my reflections and resolutions on the Third Degree during the Long Retreat, I see now they are little more than empty promises; they have produced no real change in my life. I put before myself “always to choose the hard thing, to go against self in all things.” But have I really done so since? Has my life been more mortified from the time I made this resolution? …
December 22, 2011
There is no rule for vocations, no age-limit for the Call. Innocence attracts the gaze of God, deep-rooted habits of sin, provided they are not persevered in, do not always repel Him. One comes because the world disgusts him, another loves it and leaves it with regret; docility draws down more graces, while resistance often increases the force of the invitation. The little child hears God’s whisperings, while others …
December 20, 2011
Soldiers preparing Christmas dinner at the Front Fr Doyle wrote the following letter to his sister from the trenches on 19th December 1916, 95 years ago today. It gives some insight into the hardship of his life, the humour and humanity with which he greeted these hardships, and the sheer depth of his sanctity. I want to have a little chat with you but you must promise to keep to …
December 19, 2011
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, 2011