Nothing is anything more to me; everything is nothing to me, but Jesus: neither things nor persons, neither ideas nor emotions, neither honor nor sufferings. Jesus is for me honor, delight, heart and soul.
-- Saint Bernadette of Lourdes
Thursday, February 11, 2010
Wednesday, February 10, 2010
Saint Quote : Saint Alphonsus Liguori
All holiness and perfection of soul lies in our love for Jesus Christ our God, who is our redeemer and our supreme good.
Has not God in fact won for himself a claim on all our love? From all eternity he has loved us. And it is in this vein that he speaks to us: "O man, consider carefully that I first loved you. You had not yet appeared in the light of day, not did the world yet exist, but already I loved you. From all eternity I have loved you."
Since God knew that man is enticed by favors, he wished to bind him to his love by means of his gifts: I want to catch men with the snares, those chains of love in which they allow themselves to be entrapped, so that they will love me. And all the gifts which he bestowed on man were given to this end. He gave him a soul, made in his likeness. He endowed him with memory, intellect and will; he gave him a body equipped with the senses. It was for him that he created heaven and earth and such an abundance of things. He made all these things out of love for man, so that all creation might serve man, and man in turn might love God our of gratitude for so many gifts.
But he did not wish to give us only beautiful creatures; the truth is that to win for himself our love, he went so far as to bestow upon us the fullness of himself. The eternal Father went so far as to give us his only Son. When he saw that we were all dead through sin and deprived of his grace, what did he do? He sent his beloved Son to make reparation for us and to call us back to a sinless life.
Has not God in fact won for himself a claim on all our love? From all eternity he has loved us. And it is in this vein that he speaks to us: "O man, consider carefully that I first loved you. You had not yet appeared in the light of day, not did the world yet exist, but already I loved you. From all eternity I have loved you."
Since God knew that man is enticed by favors, he wished to bind him to his love by means of his gifts: I want to catch men with the snares, those chains of love in which they allow themselves to be entrapped, so that they will love me. And all the gifts which he bestowed on man were given to this end. He gave him a soul, made in his likeness. He endowed him with memory, intellect and will; he gave him a body equipped with the senses. It was for him that he created heaven and earth and such an abundance of things. He made all these things out of love for man, so that all creation might serve man, and man in turn might love God our of gratitude for so many gifts.
But he did not wish to give us only beautiful creatures; the truth is that to win for himself our love, he went so far as to bestow upon us the fullness of himself. The eternal Father went so far as to give us his only Son. When he saw that we were all dead through sin and deprived of his grace, what did he do? He sent his beloved Son to make reparation for us and to call us back to a sinless life.
-- Saint Alphonsus Liguori from a sermon
Tuesday, February 9, 2010
Saint Quote : Saint Miguel Febres Cordero Muñoz
The heart is rich when it is content, and it is always content when its desires are fixed on God.
-- Saint Miguel Febres Cordero Muñoz
Monday, February 8, 2010
Saint Quote : Saint Jerome Emiliani
I urge you to persevere in your love for Christ and your faithful observance of the law of Christ.
Our Goal is God, the source of all good. As we say in our prayer, we are to place our trust in God and in no one else. In his kindness, our Lord wished to strengthen your faith, for without it, as the evangelist points out, Christ could not have performed many of his miracles. He also wished to listen to your prayer, and so he ordained that you experience poverty, distress, abandonment, weariness and scorn.
God alone knows the reasons for all this, yet we can recognize three causes. In the first place, our blessed Lord is telling you that he desires to include you among his beloved sons, provided that you remain steadfast in his ways, for this is the way he treats his friends and makes them holy.
The second reason is that he is asking you to grow continuously in your confidence in him alone and not in others.
Now there is a third reason. God wishes to test you like gold in the furnace. The dross is consumed by the fire, but the pure gold remains and its value increases. It is in this manner than God acts with his good servant, who puts his hope in him and remains unshaken in times of distress. God raises him up and, in return for the things he has left out of love for God, he repays him a hundredfold in this life and with eternal life hereafter.
If then you remain constant in faith in the face of trial, the Lord will give you peace and rest for a time in this world, and for ever in the next.
-- Saint Jerome Emiliani from a letter to his brothers
Our Goal is God, the source of all good. As we say in our prayer, we are to place our trust in God and in no one else. In his kindness, our Lord wished to strengthen your faith, for without it, as the evangelist points out, Christ could not have performed many of his miracles. He also wished to listen to your prayer, and so he ordained that you experience poverty, distress, abandonment, weariness and scorn.
God alone knows the reasons for all this, yet we can recognize three causes. In the first place, our blessed Lord is telling you that he desires to include you among his beloved sons, provided that you remain steadfast in his ways, for this is the way he treats his friends and makes them holy.
The second reason is that he is asking you to grow continuously in your confidence in him alone and not in others.
Now there is a third reason. God wishes to test you like gold in the furnace. The dross is consumed by the fire, but the pure gold remains and its value increases. It is in this manner than God acts with his good servant, who puts his hope in him and remains unshaken in times of distress. God raises him up and, in return for the things he has left out of love for God, he repays him a hundredfold in this life and with eternal life hereafter.
If then you remain constant in faith in the face of trial, the Lord will give you peace and rest for a time in this world, and for ever in the next.
-- Saint Jerome Emiliani from a letter to his brothers
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