Today’s Meditation |
"Suppress Interior Noise - God created your soul silent and keeps it inviolate at baptism. He filled it with Himself, nothing other than Himself. It is later, little by little that the world bursts in. Noise invades, covering the soft voice of God. Since then, the racket amplifies itself. Return to your baptismal silence, my brother! Noise has three generators: memories, curiosity, and worries. Paralyze their action." — An Anonymous Carthusian Monk |
This one hits home today
Proverbs 12:25
25 Anxiety weighs down the heart, but a kind word cheers it up.
On my way to the medical center for vaccines today, I passed a Church that always has interesting statements on its front signage. Today, the Pastor had put up "Jesus did not have to agree with others to still treat them with kindness and respect."
Then I was looking for a good meditation and came across this.
"Let us beware of complaints, resentments, and evil-speaking against those who are ill-disposed to us, discontented with us, or hostile to our plans and arrangements, or who even persecute us with injuries, insults, and calumnies. Rather let us go on treating them as cordially as at first, or more so, as far as possible showing them esteem, always speaking well of them, doing them good, serving them on occasion, even to the point of taking shame and disgrace upon ourselves, if necessary to save their honor. All this ought to be done, first, to overcome evil with good, according to the teaching of the Apostles; and secondly, because they are our allies rather than our adversaries, as they aid us to destroy self-love, which is our greatest foe; and since it is they who give us an opportunity to gain merit, they ought to be considered our dearest friends." —St. Vincent de Paul
"Whoever loves me will keep my word, and my Father will love him, and we will come to him and make our dwelling with him. Whoever does not love me does not keep my words; yet the word you hear is not mine but that of the Father who sent me."
-John 14:23-24
"O give thanks to the Lord, for he is good; for his steadfast love endures forever."
-1 Chronicles 16:34
Thus says the Lord who made the earth, the Lord who formed it to establish it—the Lord is his name: Call to me and I will answer you, and will tell you great and hidden things which you have not known.
-Jeremiah 33: 2-3"You have never begrudged the martyrs their triumph but rather trained them for it. And so I am asking you to be consistent with the lessons you teach them. Just beg for me the courage and endurance not only to speak but also to will what is right, so that I may not only be called a Christian, but prove to be one. For if I prove myself to be a Christian by martyrdom, then people will call me one, and my loyalty to Christ will be apparent when the world sees me no more. Nothing you can see is truly good. For our Lord Jesus Christ, now that he has returned to his Father, has revealed himself more clearly. Our task is not one of producing persuasive propaganda; Christianity shows its greatness when it is hated by the world." —St. Ignatius of Antioch
Today’s Meditation |
"Even if you do not confess, God is not ignorant of the deed, since he knew it before it was committed. Why then do you not speak of it? Does the transgression become heavier by the confession? No, it becomes lighter and less troublesome. And this is why he wants you to confess: not that you should be punished, but that you should be forgiven; not that he may learn your sin—how could that be, since he has seen it?—but that you may learn what favor he bestows. He wishes you to learn the greatness of his grace, so that you may praise him perfectly, that you may be slower to sin, that you may be quicker to virtue. And if you do not confess the greatness of the need, you will not understand the enormous magnitude of his grace." —St. John Chrysostom |
Today’s Meditation |
"What is this brightness—with which God fills the soul of the just—but that clear knowledge of all that is necessary for salvation? He shows them the beauty of virtue and the deformity of vice. He reveals to them the vanity of the world, the treasures of grace, the greatness of eternal glory, and the sweetness of the consolations of the Holy Spirit. He teaches them to apprehend the goodness of God, the malice of the evil one, the shortness of life, and the fatal error of those whose hopes are centered in this world alone. Hence the equanimity of the just. They are neither puffed up by prosperity nor cast down by adversity.'A holy man', says Solomon, 'continueth in wisdom as the sun, but a fool is changed as the moon.' (Ecclus. 27:12). Unmoved by the winds of false doctrine, the just man continues steadfast in Christ, immoveable in charity, unswerving in faith." —Venerable Louis Of Grenada, |
I consider that the sufferings of this present time are as nothing compared with the glory to be revealed for us.
-Romans 8:18
Today’s Meditation |
"The virtue of fortitude always calls for a certain overcoming of human weakness and particularly of fear. Man, indeed, by nature, spontaneously fears danger, affliction and suffering. Therefore, courageous men must be sought not only on battlefields, but also in hospital wards or on a bed of pain. Such men could often be found in concentration camps or in places of deportation. They were real heroes." –Thomas J. Olmsted |
"For those he foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the image of his Son, so that he might be the firstborn among many brothers. And those he predestined he also called; and those he called he also justified; and those he justified he also glorified. What then shall we say to this? If God is for us, who can be against us?"
— Romans 8:29-31