Thursday, December 14th
For on this road there is room only for self denial (as our Savior asserts) and the cross. The cross is a supporting staff and greatly lightens and eases the journey. – St. John of the Cross
Wednesday, December 13th
The recollected soul becomes uncomplicated, transparent and simplified. In a single, unique movement which proceeds often without words, it adores, gives of itself to God, relies on and rests in him. – St. Elizabeth of the Trinity
Tuesday, December 12th
When the spiritual man has been brought to nothing, when his humility is perfect, then will take place the union of the soul with God. This consists not in spiritual refreshment, sweetness and fine sentiments but in the living death of the cross. – St. John of the Cross
Monday, December 11th
Do you know what it means to be truly spiritual? It means becoming the slaves of God. Marked with His brand, which is that of the cross, spiritual persons, because now they have given Him their liberty, can be sold by Him as slaves of everyone as He was. –…
Sunday, December 10th
The dark night becomes the school of all the virtues: it trains one to resignation, to patience, from the moment that one is faithful to the spiritual life without finding consolation and refreshment in it. The soul attains a high degree of love of God, inasmuch as it acts solely…
Sunday, December 10th
I see in each infant a creature justified and within the Church another child capable of giving honor to God. – Bl. Nuno Alvares Pereira, OCD
Saturday, December 9th
To be a child of God, that means to be led by the hand of God, to do the will of God, not one’s own will, to place every care and every hope in the hand of God and not to worry about oneself or one’s future. On this rests…
Friday, December 8th
Seeing the silence which reigns in His creature, observing how it is wholly recollected in its interior solitude, the Creator greatly desires its beauty. He leads it into the immense, infinite solitude, into that spacious place of which the Psalmist sings, which is His very self. ‘I will enter into…
Thursday, December 7th
His blood is the curtain through which we enter into the Holiest of Holies, the Divine Life. In baptism and in the sacrament of reconciliation, his blood cleanses us of our sins, opens our eyes to eternal light, our ears to hearing God’s word. It opens our lips to sing…
Wednesday, December 6th
O you who do not dare draw near to Him, make the test and prove how good and generous is our most loving God! – St. Teresa Margaret Redi