Saint Fulgentius of Ruspe

For the cup we drink is a participation in the blood of Christ, and the bread we break is a participation in the body of Christ. Because there is one loaf, we who are many are one body, since we all share the same bread. And so we pray that, by the same grace which made the Church Christ's body, all its members may remain firm in the unity of that body through the enduring bond of love. 

-- Saint Fulgentius of Ruspe

Saint John Climacus

A man who has embraced poverty offers up prayer that is pure, while a man who loves possessions prays to material images. 

--Saint John Climacus

Saint Bernardine of Siena

There is a general rule concerning all special graces granted to any human being. Whenever the divine favor chooses someone to receive a special grace, or to accept a lofty vocation, God adorns the person chosen with all the gifts of the Spirit needed to fulfill the task at hand. This general rule is especially verified in the case of Saint Joseph, the foster-father of our Lord, and the husband of the Queen of our world, enthroned above the angels. He was chosen by the eternal Father as the trustworthy guardian and protector of his greatest treasures, namely, his divine Son and Mary, Joseph’s wife. He carried out this vocation with complete fidelity until at last God called him, saying “Good and faithful servant, enter into the joy of your Lord.” Remember us, Saint Joseph, and plead for us to your foster child. Ask your most holy bride, the Virgin Mary, to look kindly upon us, since she is the mother of him who with the Father and the Holy Spirit lives and reigns eternally. Amen.

-- Saint Bernardine of Siena from a sermon

Venerable Bishop Fulton Sheen

It is not particularly difficult to find thousands who will spend two or three hours a day in exercising, but if you ask them to bend their knees to God in five minutes of prayer, they protest that it is too long.

-- Venerable Bishop Fulton Sheen

Saint Quodvultdeus On The Holy Innocents

A tiny child is born, who is a great king. Wise men are led to him from afar. They come to adore one who lies in a manger and yet reigns in heaven and on earth. When they tell of one who is born a king, Herod is disturbed. To save his kingdom he resolves to kill him, though if he would have faith in the child, he himself would reign in peace in this life and for ever in the life to come.

Why are you afraid, Herod, when you hear of the birth of a king? He does not come to drive you out, but to conquer the devil. But because you do not understand this you are disturbed and in a rage. To destroy one child whom you seek, you show your cruelty in the death of so many children.

You are not restrained by the love of weeping mothers and fathers mourning the deaths of their sons, nor by the cries and sobs of the children. You destroy those who are tiny in body because fear is destroying your heart. You imagine that if you accomplish your desire you can prolong you own life, though you are seeking to kill Life himself.

The children die for Christ, though they do not know it. The parents mourn for the death of martyrs. The Christ child makes of those as yet unable to speak fit witnesses to himself. But you, Herod, do not know this and are disturbed and furious. While you vent your fury against the child, you are already paying him homage, and do not know it.

To what merits of their own do the children owe this kind of victory? They cannot speak, yet they bear witness to Christ. They cannot use their limbs to engage in battle, yet already they bear off the palm of victory.

-- Saint Quodvultdeus from a sermon about the Holy Innocents

Saint John the Apostle

For God so loved the world, as to give his only begotten Son: that whosoever believeth in him may not perish, but may have life everlasting.

-- Saint John the Apostle from The Gospel of John 3:16

Saint Fulgentius of Ruspe On Saint Stephen the Martyr

Yesterday we celebrated the birth in time of our eternal King. Today we celebrate the triumphant suffering of his soldier. Yesterday our king, clothed in his robe of flesh, left his place in the virgin’s womb and graciously visited the world. Today his soldier leaves the tabernacle of his body and goes triumphantly to heaven.

Our king, despite his exalted majesty, came in humility for our sake; yet he did not come empty-handed. He gave of his bounty, yet without any loss to himself. In a marvelous way he changed into wealth the poverty of his faithful followers while remaining in full possession of his own inexhaustible riches. And so the love that brought Christ from heaven to earth raised Stephen from earth to heaven; shown first in the king, it later shone forth in his soldier. His love of God kept him from yielding to the ferocious mob; his love for his neighbor made him pray for those who were stoning him. Love inspired him to reprove those who erred, to make them amend; love led him to pray for those who stoned him, to save them from punishment.

Love, indeed, is the source of all good things; it is an impregnable defense, and the way that leads to heaven. He who walks in love can neither go astray nor be afraid: love guides him, protects him, and brings him to his journey’s end.

My brothers, Christ made love the stairway that would enable all Christians to climb to heaven. Hold fast to it, therefore, in all sincerity, give one another practical proof of it, and by your progress in it, make your ascent together.

-- Saint Fulgentius of Ruspe from a sermon

Saint Romanos the Melodist

The Virgin today brings into the world the Eternal 
And the earth offers a cave to the Inaccessible.
The angels and shepherds praise him 
And the magi advance with the star, 
For you are born for us, Little Child, God eternal! 

-- Kontakion of Saint Romanos the Melodist

Saint Peter Chrysologus

Now that we are reborn, as I have said, in the likeness of our Lord, and have indeed been adopted by God as his children, let us put on the complete image of our Creator so as to be wholly like him, not in the glory that he alone possesses, but in innocence, simplicity, gentleness, patience, humility, mercy, harmony, those qualities in which he chose to become, and to be, one with us.

-- Saint Peter Chrysologus

Saint Louis Marie de Montfort

Never will anyone who says his Rosary every day become a formal heretic or be led astray by the devil.

-- Saint Louis Marie de Montfort

Saint Poemen

To instruct your neighbor is the same thing as reproving him. 

-- Saint Poemen

Pope Blessed John Paul II

While every word of Elizabeth’s greeting is filled with meaning, her final words would seem to have fundamental importance: “And blessed is she who believed that there would be a fulfillment of what was spoken to her from the Lord” (Lk 1:45). These words can be linked with the title “full of grace” of the angel’s greeting. Both of these texts reveal an essential Mariological content, namely the truth about Mary who has become present in the mystery of Christ precisely because she “has believed.” The fullness of grace announced by the angel means the gift of God himself. Mary’s faith, proclaimed by Elizabeth at the Visitation, indicates how the Virgin of Nazareth responded to this gift.

-- Pope Blessed John Paul II

Saint Jerome

That which nature possesses not, which custom uses not, which eclipses reason, which the mind of man is unable to compass, which makes the heavens tremble, and strikes dumb the earth, which amazes every inhabitant of Heaven, all this was divinely announced by Gabriel to Mary, and was fulfilled in Christ.

-- Saint Jerome

Saint Jeanne de Chantal

We should go to prayer with deep humility and an awareness of our nothingness. We must invoke the help of the Holy Spirit and that of our good angel, and then remain still in God's presence, full of faith that He is more in us than we are in ourselves. 

-- Saint Jeanne de Chantal

Saint Madeline Sophie Barat

God does not ask of us the perfection of tomorrow, nor even of tonight, but only of the present moment. 

-- Saint Madeline Sophie Barat

Saint Charles of Sezze

God does not command us to live in hair shirts and chains, or to chastise our flesh with scourges, but to love Him above all things and our neighbor as ourselves. 

-- Saint Charles of Sezze

Saint Augustine of Hippo

God had only One Son without sin, but never one without suffering.

-- Saint Augustine of Hippo

Blessed Mary Frances Schervier

"You are my friends if you do what I command you.... I am giving you these commands so that you may love one another." (John 15:14,17) If we do this faithfully and zealously, we will experience the truth of the words of our father Saint Francis who says that love lightens all difficulties and sweetens all bitterness. We will likewise partake of the blessing which Saint Francis promised to all his children, both present and future, after having admonished them to love one another even as he had loved them and continues to love them. 

-- Blessed Mary Frances Schervier

Saint John of the Cross

It is a matter of real sorrow when God has given those strength to break stronger fetters, those of vanity and sin, that they neglect their own progress and the attainment of such great blessings because they will not detach themselves from trifles. Not only do they not advance, they fall back. For it is well known that on the spiritual road not to go on overcoming self is to go backwards, and not to increase our gain is to lose.As wood can never be transformed into fire if one necessary degree of heat is missing, so the soul that has even one imperfection can never be perfectly transformed in God.

-- Saint John of the Cross

Saint Lucy of Syracuse

No one's body is polluted so as to endanger the soul if it has not pleased the mind. If you were to lift my hand to your idol and so make me offer against my will, I would still be guiltless in the sight of the true God, who judges according to the will and knows all things.

-- Saint Lucy of Syracuse

Saint Francis de Sales

God takes pleasure to see you take your little steps; and like a good father who holds his child by the hand, He will accommodate His steps to yours and will be content to go no faster than you.

-- Saint Francis de Sales

Just A Few Shopping Days Left Until Christmas

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Don't wait too long for the Jingle Bell Java and the Christmas Blend, they are time limited offers, and will be gone before you know it!

Saint John Chrysostom

God assents more when called on by ourselves than by others; and he often delays the giving, not from the wish that we should be utterly perplexed, nor to send us out with empty hands, but in order that he may become the author of greater good things to us.

-- Saint John Chrysostom

Saint John Chrysostom

It is not man that causes the things offered to become the Body and Blood of Christ, but He who was crucified for us, Christ Himself. The priest, in the role of Christ, pronounces these words, but their Power and Grace are God's. This is my body, He says. This word transforms the things offered. 

-- Saint John Chrysostom

Saint Thomas More

Occupy your minds with good thoughts, or the enemy will fill them with bad ones. Unoccupied, they cannot be.

-- Saint Thomas More

Saint Bernard of Clairvaux

Eve was a thorn, wounding, bringing death to all; in Mary we see a rose, soothing everybody's hurts, giving the destiny of salvation back to all. Mary was a rose, white for maidenhood, red for love; white in body, red in soul; white in her seeking after virtue, red in treading down vice; white in cleansing her affections, red in mortifying her flesh; white in her love of God, red in compassion for her neighbor,

-- Saint Bernard of Clairvaux

Saint Ambrose of Milan

He who reads much and understands much, receives his fill. He who is full, refreshes others. So Scripture says: “If the clouds are full, they will pour rain upon the earth.”

-- Saint Ambrose of Milan

Saint Francis de Sales

All of us can attain to Christian virtue and holiness, no matter in what condition of life we live and no matter what our life work may be.

-- Saint Francis de Sales

Saint Philip Neri

Bear the cross and do not make the cross bear you.

-- Saint Philip Neri

Saint John Vianney

When our hands have touched spices, they give fragrance to all they handle. Let us make our prayers pass through the hands of the Blessed Virgin. She will make them fragrant.

-- Saint John Vianney

Saint Francis Xavier

Many, many people hereabouts are not becoming Christians for one reason only: there is nobody to make them Christians. 

-- Saint Francis Xavier