You are currently browsing the monthly archive for December 2016.
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“Perseverance is a key to making any long-lasting change in life. Most New Year’s resolutions last only a few weeks. How can you persevere in your devotion to the Blessed Sacrament in the year ahead? Make a plan for daily prayer, and ask Jesus for help to stick with it.”
-from A Eucharistic Christmas
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“For prayer is nothing else than being on terms of friendship with God.”
— St. Teresa of Avila
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“While other martyrs suffered by sacrificing their own lives, the Blessed Virgin suffered by sacrificing her Son’s life—a life that she loved far more than her own. So she not only suffered in her soul all that her Son endured in his body. In addition, the sight of her Son’s torments brought more grief to her heart than if she had endured them all in her own person. No one can doubt that Mary suffered in her heart all the outrages that she saw inflicted on her beloved Jesus. Anyone can understand that the sufferings of children are also those of their mothers who witness them.”
— St. Alphonsus Liguori
On the 6th day of Christmas we celebrate the feast of the Holy Family!
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“When we serve the poor and the sick we serve Jesus. We must not fail to help our neighbors, because in them we serve Jesus.”
— St. Rose of Lima
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“If you would suffer with patience the adversities and miseries of this life, be a man of prayer. If you would obtain courage and strength to conquer the temptations of the enemy, be a man of prayer. If you would mortify your own will with all its inclinations and appetites, be a man of prayer. If you would know the wiles of Satan and unmask his deceits, be a man of prayer. If you would live in joy and walk pleasantly in the ways of penance, be a man of prayer. If you would banish from you soul the troublesome flies of vain thoughts and cares, be a man of prayer. If you woudl nourish your soul with the very sap of devotion, and keep it always full of good thoughts and good desires, be a man of prayer. If you would strengthen and keep up your courage in the ways of God, be a man of prayer. In fine, if you would uproot all vices from your soul and plant all virtues in their place, be a man of prayer. It is in prayer that we receive the unction and grace of the Holy Ghost, who teaches all things.”
— St. Bonaventure
St. Thomas Becket, English martyr, pray for us!
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“Oh Jesus, I am full of gratitude that you have taught me about your real presence and the joy that comes from spending time with you. Give me the grace to be faithful, because the most important thing in my life is to surrender to you and know you better. Teach me to serve others—to give my time and resources to those in need. Let me lose myself and find you.”
-from A Eucharistic Christmas
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“The human soul has so much likeness to God its creator that I surely know of no other way by which one can more easily mount to a knowledge of God than from reflection on one’s own soul.”
— St. Robert Bellarmine
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“Since we are all one in Christ, we must maintain fraternal charity, which binds us together in peace, and work in harmony for the common good. We are all members of Christ, reborn in baptism by the grace of the Holy Spirit, redeemed by the Passion of Christ, cleansed by the blood of Christ, and nourished by the body of Christ. Furthermore, we are instructed by the words of Christ, confirmed by the miracles of Christ, and guided by the examples of Christ. My brothers, why then would you wish to hurt one another? Whoever injures another, by word or deed, also offends Christ, who will avenge and punish the evil done unless the guilty one quickly amends his ways.”
— Thomas à Kempis
Today we celebrate the Feast of the Holy Innocents, those first children who were sacrificed for the sake of Christ. May we pray for them and for all children whose lives are violently taken today!
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“Oh, Jesus, with joy in my heart and in a spirit of gratitude, I thank you for your great blessings in my life. Thank you for the celebration of your birth. Thank you for restoring my hope of eternal life with you. Thank you for all the gifts I have received from your generous hand.”
-from A Eucharistic Christmas
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“We must always remember that God does everything well, although we may not see the reason of what He does.”
— St. Philip Neri
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“Prayers are God-filled words in which our love and God’s love are joined. That love embraces the people for whom we are praying, and love always changes people and situations. This doesn’t mean that we will always get what we want, but Jesus does promise that we will get what we need.”
— Rev. Jude Winkler
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“Know that God speaks to you, and that when God does, your assigned task, whatever it is, regardless of how modest it appears in the eyes of the world, takes on eternal importance.”
-from Perfect Joy
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“O Holy Family—the Family so closely united to the mystery which we contemplate on the day of the Lord’s Birth—guide with your example the families of the whole earth!”
— Pope St. John Paul II
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“Love is an excellent thing, a great good indeed, which alone maketh light all that is burdensome and equally bears all that is unequal. For it carries a burden without being burdened and makes all that which is bitter sweet and savory. The love of Jesus is noble and generous; it spurs us on to do great things and excites us to desire always that which is most perfect.”
— Thomas à Kempis
Happy Feast Day of St. Stephen!
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“Holy Eucharist is the sacrament that renews the earth. Asking what you can do for your country? Make a good Communion. Make a visit to the tabernacle. Much more will follow. God will make limitless poetry out of the prose of your life, and he will renew the face of the earth, beginning with your little corner.”
-from A Eucharistic Christmas
“In a world gone astray from God there is no peace, but it also lacks charity, which is true and perfect love… Nothing is more beautiful than love. Indeed, faith and hope will end when we die, whereas love, that is, charity, will last for eternity.”
— Blessed Pier Giorgio Frassati
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“We might say the whole mystery of our redemption in Christ, by his incarnation, his death and his resurrection, consists of this marvelous exchange: in the heart of Christ, God has loved us humanly, so as to render our human hearts capable of loving divinely. God became man so that man might become God—might love as only God is capable of loving, with the purity, intensity, power, tenderness, and inexhaustible patience that belong to the divine love. It is an extraordinary source of hope and a great consolation to know that, by virtue of God’s grace working in us (if we remain open to it by persevering in faith, prayer, and the sacraments), the Holy Spirit will transform and expand our hearts to the point of one day making them capable of loving as God loves.”
— Fr. Jacques Philippe
Windows Toward the World 
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