Daily Dose of Catholicism

[Rusty T]

The miracles wrought by our Lord Jesus Christ are truly divine works, which lead the human mind through visible things to a perception of the Godhead.

God is not the kind of being that can be seen with the eyes, and small account is taken of the miracles by which he rules the entire universe and governs all creation because they recur so regularly. Scarcely anyone bothers to consider God’s marvelous, his amazing artistry in every tiny seed.

And so certain works are excluded from the ordinary course of nature, works which God in his mercy has reserved for himself, so as to perform them at appropriate times. People who hold cheap what they see every day are dumbfounded at the sight of extraordinary works even though they are no more wonderful than the others.

Governing the entire universe is a greater miracle than feeding five thousand people with five loaves of bread, yet no one marvels at it. People marvel at the feeding of the five thousand not because this miracle is greater, but because it is out of the ordinary.

Who is even now providing nourishment for the whole world if not the God who creates a field of wheat from a few seeds? Christ did what God does.

Just as God multiplies a few seeds into a whole field of wheat, so Christ multiplied the five loaves in his hands. For there was power in the hands of Christ.

Those five loaves were like seeds, not because they were cast on the earth but because they were multiplied by the one who made the earth.

This miracle was presented to our senses in order to stimulate our minds; it was put before our eyes in order to engage our understanding, and so make us marvel at the God we do not see because of his works which we do see.

For then, when we have been raised to the level of faith and purified by faith, we shall long to behold, though not with our eyes, the invisible God whom we recognize through what is visible.

This miracle was performed for the multitude to see; it was recorded for us to hear.

Faith does for us what sight did for them. We behold with the mind what our eyes cannot see; and we are preferred to them because of us it was said: Blessed are those who have not seen and yet believe.

When the people saw the sign Jesus had performed they said: Surely this must be a prophet.

He was in fact the Lord of the prophets, the fulfiller of the prophets, the sanctifier of the prophets; yet he was still a prophet, for Moses had been told: I will raise up for them a prophet like yourself.

The Lord is a prophet, and the Lord is the Word of God, and without the Word of God no prophet can prophesy. The Word of God is with the prophets, and the Word of God is a prophet.

People of former times were deemed worthy to have prophets inspired and filled by the Word of God; we have been deemed worthy to have as our prophet the Word of God himself.

St Augustine of Hippo

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But, O what intoxication of light, O what movements of fire! Oh, what swirlings of the flame in me, miserable one that I am, coming from You and Your glory! The glory I know it and I say it is Your Holy Spirit, who has the same nature with You and the same honor, O Word, He is of the same race, of the same glory, of the same essence, He alone with Your Father and with You, O Christ, O God of the universe!…

Like a piscine the Holy Spirit, divine and all luminous, embraces all those who are worthy, all whom He finds inside—how shall I explain, how express worthily these effects? Give me the word, You who have gifted me, O my God, with my soul. Being God, the Divine Spirit refashions completely those whom He receives within Himself. He makes them completely anew. He renews them in an amazing manner. How can He avoid taking on something of the same filth of them? Not any more than fire takes on the black of iron; but on the contrary it gives to it all of its own properties. So likewise the Divine Spirit, incorruptible, gives incorruptibility. Being immortal, He gives immortality. Because He is light that never sets, He transforms all of them into light in whom He comes and dwells. And because He is life, He bestows life to all. As He is of the same nature as Christ, being of the same essence as well as the same in glory, and being united with Him, He forms them absolutely similar to Christ. For the Master is not jealous that mortals should appear equal to Himself by divine grace, that He does not disclaim as unworthy His servants from becoming like to Him. But rather He is happy and He rejoices in seeing all of us, from mere humans to become by grace such as He was and is by nature. For He is our Benefactor and He wishes that all of us become like what He Himself is.

St Symeon the New Theologian

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Notice, at the conclusion of our prayer we never say, “through the Holy Spirit”, but rather, “through Jesus Christ, your Son, our Lord”. Through the mystery of the Incarnation, Jesus Christ became man, the mediator of God and man. He is a priest for ever according to the order of Melchisedech. By shedding his own blood he entered once and for all into the Holy Places. He did not enter a place made by human hands, a mere type of the true one; but, he entered heaven itself, where he is at God’s right hand interceding for us. Quite correctly, the Church continues to reflect this mystery in her prayer.

This mystery of Jesus Christ the high priest is reflected in the apostle Paul’s statement: Through him, then, let us always offer the sacrifice of praise to God, the fruit of lips that profess belief in his name. We were once enemies of the Father, but have been reconciled through the death of Christ. Through him then we offer our sacrifice of praise, our prayer to God. He became our offering to the Father, and through him our offering is now acceptable. It is for this reason that Peter the apostle urges us to be built up as living stones into a spiritual house, a holy priesthood to offer spiritual sacrifices pleasing to God through Jesus Christ.

This then is the reason why we offer prayer to God our Father, but through Jesus Christ our Lord.
When we speak of Christ’s priesthood, what else do we mean than the incarnation? Through this mystery, the Son of God, though himself ever remaining God, became a priest. To him along with the Father, we offer our sacrifice. Yet, through him the sacrifice we now offer is holy, living and pleasing to God. Indeed, if Christ had not sacrificed himself for us, we could not offer any sacrifice. For it is in him that our human nature becomes a redemptive offering. When we offer our prayers through him, our priest, we confess that Christ truly possesses the flesh of our race. Clearly the Apostle refers to this when he says: Every high priest is taken from among men. He is appointed to act on behalf of these same men in their relationship to God; he is to offer gifts and sacrifices to God.

We do not, however, only say “your Son” when we conclude our prayer. We also say, “who lives and reigns with you in the unity of the Holy Spirit”. In this way we commemorate the natural unity of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit. It is clear, then, that the Christ who exercises a priestly role on our behalf is the same Christ who enjoys a natural unity and equality with the Father and the Holy Spirit.

St. Fulgentius of Ruspe (AD 468-533)

[Rusty T]

Fresh from the [baptismal] waters and resplendent in these garments, God’s holy people hasten to the altar of Christ, saying: I will go in to the altar of God, to God who gives joy to my youth. They have sloughed off the old skin of error, their youth renewed like an eagle’s, and they make haste to approach that heavenly banquet. They come and, seeing the sacred altar prepared, cry out: You have prepared a table in my sight. David puts these words into their mouths: The Lord is my shepherd and nothing will be lacking to me. He has set me down there in a place of pasture. He has brought me beside refreshing water. Further on, we read: For though I should walk in the midst of the shadow of death, I shall not be afraid of evils, for you are with me. Your rod and your staff have given me comfort. You have prepared in my sight a table against those who afflict me. You have made my head rich in oil, and your cup, which exhilarates, how excellent it is.

It is wonderful that God rained manna on our fathers and they were fed with daily food from heaven. And so it is written: Man ate the bread of angels. Yet those who ate that bread all died in the desert. But the food that you receive, that living bread which came down from heaven, supplies the very substance of eternal life, and whoever will eat it will never die, for it is the body of Christ.

Consider now which is the more excellent: the bread of angels or the flesh of Christ, which is indeed the body that gives life. The first was manna from heaven, the second is above the heavens. One was of heaven, the other is of the Lord of the heavens; one subject to corruption if it was kept till the morrow, the other free from all corruption, for if anyone tastes of it with reverence he will be incapable of corruption. For our fathers, water flowed from the rock; for you, blood flows from Christ. Water satisfied their thirst for a time; blood cleanses you for ever. The Jew drinks and still thirsts, but when you drink you will be incapable of thirst. What happened in symbol is now fulfilled in reality.

If what you marvel at is a shadow, how great is the reality whose very shadow you marvel at. Listen to this, which shows that what happened in the time of our fathers was but a shadow. They drank, it is written, from the rock that followed them, and the rock was Christ. All this took place as a symbol for us. You know now what is more excellent: light is preferable to its shadow, reality to its symbol, the body of the Giver to the manna he gave from heaven.

St Ambrose

[Rusty T]

When we commit sin, we get no help from God; but we are not able to act justly, and to fulfil the law of righteousness in every part, unless we are helped by God. Light does not help our physical eyes to shut out light; rather, light helps our eyes to see, and the eye cannot see at all unless light helps it. Likewise God, Who is the light of the inner self, helps our mental sight, in order that we may do some good, not according to our own righteousness, but according to His. But if we turn away from God , it is our own act; then we are wise according to the flesh, then we consent to the lust of the flesh for unlawful deeds. When we turn to God, therefore, He helps us; when we turn away from Him, He forsakes us. But God even helps us to turn to Him; and this, certainly, is something that light does not do for the eyes of the body.

When, therefore, He commands us in the words, ‘Turn to Me, and I will turn to you’ (Zech.1:3), and we say to Him, ‘Turn us, O God of our salvation’ (Ps.85:4), and again, ‘Turn us, O God of hosts’ (Ps.80:3) — what else do we say but, ‘Give what You command’? When He commands us, saying, ‘Understand now, O simple among the people’ (Ps.94:8), and we say to Him, ‘Give me understanding, that I may learn Thy commandments’ (Ps.119:73) — what else do we say but, ‘Give what You command’? When He commands us, saying, ‘Do not go after your lusts’ (Ecclesiasticus 18:30), and we say to Him, ‘We know that no-one can be chaste, unless God gives it to him’ (Wisdom 8:21) — what else do we say but, ‘Give what You command’? When He commands us, saying, ‘Do justice’ (Isa.56:1), and we say, ‘Teach me Your judgments, O Lord’ (Ps.119:108) — what else do we say but, ‘Give what You command’? Likewise, when He says: ‘Blessed are those who hunger and thirst after righteousness; for they shall be filled’ (Matt.5:6), from whom should we seek the meat and drink of righteousness, but from Him Who promises His fullness to those who hunger and thirst after it?

St Augustine

[Rusty T]

I have told you that we should not act, and I do not wish you to act, like so many foolhardy worldly people who break the commandments of Holy Church. “I am not worthy,” they say. And so they spend long days in mortal sin, refusing the food of their souls. Oh, what absurd humility! Who does not see that you are not worthy? You say you are waiting for the time when you will be worthy. When will that be? Do not wait, because you will not be any more worthy on the last day than you were on the first. Even if all our actions are good, we shall never be worthy. But God is the one who is worthy and who, with His own great worth, makes us worthy. And His worth cannot decrease. But as for us, what should we do? We should prepare ourselves to keep the sweet commandment because, if we do not do so and neglect Communion, then, thinking that we should avoid sin, we shall fall into it. Therefore, to conclude, I do not want to see such folly in you but rather that you dispose yourself, as a faithful Christian, to receive Holy Communion in the manner I have just described.

St Catherine of Siena

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Blessed and holy are those who share in the first resurrection. Christ is the firstfruits of those who have fallen asleep and the first born from the dead. His resurrection, which is the prototype of all others, has guaranteed the rising of our souls in the first resurrection and of our bodies in the second, for he offers his own risen body to our souls as sacrament and to our bodies as exemplar. Even for our souls Christ’s single resurrection has prepared a twofold grace: through the living out of the paschal mystery in our daily lives we rise from the death of sin, and by our joyful celebration of the paschal feast today especially we rouse ourselves from the torpor of sleep. Slothful and halfhearted indeed must that person be who does not feel a thrill of joy, a sense of new life and vigor, at the glad cry: The Lord is risen! For myself, when I looked upon the dead Jesus I was overwhelmed by despairing grief, but in the living God, as Scripture says, my heart and my flesh rejoice. It is with no mean profit to faith, no slight dividend of joy, that Jesus returns to me from the tomb, for I recognize the living God where only a little while ago I mourned a dead man. My heart was sorrowing for him as slain, but now that he is risen, not only my heart but my flesh also rejoices in the confident hope of my own resurrection and immortality.

I slept and I arose, Christ says. Awake then, my sleeping soul, and rise from the dead, and Christ will give you light! As the new sun rises from below, the grace of the resurrection already casts its radiance over the whole world, a radiance reflected in the eyes of those who have watched for him since daybreak, a dawn that ushers in the day of eternity. This is the day that knows no evening, the day whose sun will never set again. Only once has that sun gone down, and now once and for all it has ascended above the heavens, leading death captive in its train.

This is the day that the Lord has made; let us rejoice and be glad. And you also, if you watch daily at the threshold of wisdom, fixing your eyes on the doorway and, like the Magdalen, keeping vigil at the entrance to his tomb, you also will find what she found. You will know that what was written of wisdom was written of Christ: She hastens to make herself known to those who desire her. Anyone who rises early to seek her will have no trouble; he will find her sitting at his gates. While it was still dark Mary had come to watch at the tomb, and she found Jesus whom she sought standing there in the flesh. But you must know him now according to the spirit, not according to the flesh, and you can be sure of finding his spiritual presence if you seek him with a desire like hers, and if he observes your persevering prayer. Say then to the Lord Jesus, with Mary’s love and longing: My soul yearns for you in the night; my spirit within me earnestly seeks for you. Make the psalmist’s prayer your own as you say: O God, my God, I watch for you at morning light; my soul thirsts for you. Then see if you do not also find yourselves singing with them both: In the morning fill us with your love; we shall exult and rejoice all our days.

Blessed Guerric of Igny

[Rusty T]

Down in adoration falling,
Lo! the sacred Host we hail,
Lo! oe'r ancient forms departing
Newer rites of grace prevail;
Faith for all defects supplying,
Where the feeble senses fail.
To the everlasting Father,
And the Son Who reigns on high
With the Holy Spirit proceeding
Forth from each eternally,
Be salvation, honor blessing,
Might and endless majesty.
Amen.

St. Thomas Aquinas

[Rusty T]

Sailing thus then without needle, compass or rudder an the ocean of human opinions, you can expect nothing but a miserable shipwreck. Ah! I implore you, while this day lasts, while God presents you the opportunity, throw yourselves into the saving bark of a serious repentance, and take refuge on the happy vessel which is bound under full sail for the port of glory.

If there were nothing else, do you not recognise what advantages and excellences the Catholic doctrine has beyond your opinions? The Catholic doctrine makes more glorious and magnificent the goodness and mercy of God, your opinions lower them. For example, is there not more mercy in establishing the reality of his body for our food than in only giving the figure and commemoration thereof and the eating by faith alone? All seek the things that are their own, not the things that are Jesus Christ’s (Phil. ii. 21). Is it not more honourable to concede to the might of Jesus Christ the Power to make the Blessed Sacrament, as the Church believes it, and to his goodness the will to do so, than the contrary? Without doubt it is more glorious to Our Lord. Yet because our mind cannot comprehend it, in order to uphold our own mind, all seek the things that are their own, not the things that are Jesus Christ’s.

Is it not more, in justifying man, to embellish his soul with grace, than without embellishing it to justify him by a simple toleration (connivence) or non-imputation? Is it not a greater favour to make man and his works agreeable and good than simply to take man as good without his being so in reality? Is it not more to have left seven Sacraments for the justification and sanctification of the sinner than to have left only two, one of which serves for nothing and the other for little? Is it not more to have left the Power of absolving in the Church than to have left it not? Is it not more to have left a Church visible, universal, of striking aspect, perpetual, than to have left it little, secret, scattered and liable to corruption? Is it not to value more the travails of Jesus Christ when we say that a single drop of his blood suffices to ransom the world, than to say that unless he had endured the pains of the damned he would have done nothing? Is not the mercy of God more magnified in giving to his saints the knowledge of what takes place here below, the honour of praying for us, in making himself ready to accept their intercession, in having glorified them as soon as they died, than in making them wait and keeping them in suspense, according to Calvin’s words, until the judgment, in making them deaf to our prayers and remaining himself inexorable to theirs. This will be seen more clearly in our treatment of particular points. Our doctrine [then] makes more admirable the Power of God in the Sacrament of the Eucharist, in justification and inherent justice, in miracles, in the infallible preservation of the Church, in the glory of the Saints.

The Catholic doctrine cannot have its source in any passion, because nobody follows it save on this condition, of captivating his intelligence, under the authority of the pastors. lt is not proud, since it teaches not to believe self but the Church. What shall I say further? Distinguish the voice of the dove from that of the crow. Do you not see this Spouse, who has nought but honey and milk under her tongue, who breathes only the greater glory of her Beloved, his honour and obedience to him?

Ah! then, gentlemen, be willing to be placed as living stones in the walls of the heavenly Jerusalem. Take yourselves out of the hands of there men who build without a rule, who do not adjust their conceptions to the faith, but the faith to their conceptions. Come and offer yourselves to the Church, who will place you, unless you prevent her, in the heavenly building, according to the true rule and Proportion of faith. For never shall any one have a place there above who has not been worked and laid, according to rule and square, here below.

All the ancient sacrifices of a farinaceous nature were as it were the condiment of the bloody sacrifices. So the Sacrifice of the Eucharist is as it were the condiment of the Sacrifice of the Cross, and with most excellent reason united to it.

The Church is a mountain, heresy a valley; for heretics go down, from the Church that errs not to an erring one, from truth to shadow.

Ismael, who signified the Jewish synagogue (Gal. iv.), was cast out when he would play with Isaac, that is, the Catholic Church. How much more heretics, &c.

That of Isaias (liv. 17) agrees excellently with the Church as against heresy: No weapon that is formed against thee shall prosper; and every tongue that resisteth thee in judgment thou shalt condemn. This is the inheritance of the servants of the Lord, and their justice with Me, saith the Lord.

St Francis de Sales

[furay]

You are pulling out the big guns!

[Rusty T]

Once when Absalom wished to form a faction and division against his good father David, he sat in the way near the gate, and said to each person that went by: “There is no man appointed by the king to hear thee … O that they would make me judge over the land, that all that have business might come to me, that I might do them justice” (2 Kings xv). Thus did he seduce the loyalty of the Israelites. O how many Absaloms have there been in our age, who, to seduce and distort the people of Our Lord from obedience to the Church and her pastors, and to lead away Christian lealty into rebellion and revolt, have cried up and down the ways of Germany and of France: there is no one appointed by God to hear doubts concerning the faith and to answer them ; the Church itself, the rulers of the Church, have no power to determine what we are to hold as to the faith and what we are not; we must seek other judges than the prelates, the Church can err in its decrees and rules.

But what more hurtful and audacious proposition could they make to Christianity than that? If then the Church can err, O Calvin, O Luther, to whom shall I have recourse in my difficulties? To the Scripture, say they. But what shall I, poor man, do, for it is precisely about the Scripture that my difficulty lies. I am not in doubt whether I must believe the Scripture or not; for who knows not that it is the Word of Truth?

What keeps me in anxiety is the understanding of this Scripture, is the conclusions to be drawn from it, which are innumerable and diverse and opposite on the same subject; and everybody takes his view, one this, another that, though out of all there is but one which is sound:—Ah! who will give me to know the good among so many bad? who will tell me the real verity through so many specious and masked vanities. Everybody would embark an the ship of the Holy Spirit; there is but one, and only that one shall reach the port, all the rest are an their way to shipwreck.

Ah! what danger am I in of erring! All shout out their claims with equal assurance and thus deceive the greater part, for all boast that theirs is the ship. Whoever says that our Master has not left us guides in so dangerous and difficult a way, says that he wishes us to perish. Whoever says that he has put us aboard at the mercy of wind and tide, without giving us a skilful pilot able to use properly his compass and chart, says that the Saviour is wanting in foresight. Whoever says that this good Father has seht us into this school of the Church, knowing that error was taught there, says that he intended to foster our vice and our ignorance. Who has ever heard of an academy in which everybody taught, and nobody was a scholar?—such would be the Christian Commonwealth if the Church can err. For if the Church herself err, who shall not err? and if each one in it err, or can err, to whom shall I betake myself for instruction?—to Calvin? but why to him rather than to Luther, or Brentius, or Pacimontanus?

Truly, if I must take my chance of being damned for error, I will be so for my own not for another’s, and will let there wits of mine scatter freely about, and maybe they will find the truth as quickly as anybody else. We should not know then whither to turn in our difficulties if the Church erred. But he who shall consider how perfectly authentic is the testimony which God has given of the Church, will see that to say the Church errs is to say no less than that God errs, or else that he is willing and desirous for us to err; which would be a great blasphemy. For is it not Our Lord who says: “If thy brother shall offend thee … tell the Church, and he will not hear the Church, let him be to thee as tht heathen and the publican” ( Matt. xviii.) Do you see how Our Lord sends us to the Church in our differences, whatever they may be? How much more in more serious offences and differences!

Certainly if by the order of fraternal correction I am obliged to go to the Church to effect the amendment of some evil person who has offended me, how much more shall I be obliged to denounce him who calls the whole Church Babylon, adulterous, idolatrous, perjured? And so much the more because with this evil-mindedness of his he can seduce and infect a whole province; the vice of heresy being so contagious that “it spreadeth like a cancer” (2 Tim. ii. 17) for a time. When, therefore, I see some one who says that all our fathers, grandfathers, and great-grandfathers have fallen into idolatry, have corrupted the Gospel, and committed all the iniquities which follow upon the fall of religion, I will address myself to the Church, whose judgment every one must submit to.

But if she can err, then it is no longer I, or man, who will keep error in the world; it will be our God himself who will authorise it and give it credit, since he commands us to go to this tribunal to hear and receive justice. Either he does not know what is done there, or he wishes to deceive us, or true justice is really done there; and the judgements are irrevocable. The Church has condemned Berengarius; if any one would further discuss this matter, I hold him as a heathen and a publican, in order to obey my Saviour, who leaves me no choice herein, but gives me this order: Let him be to thee as a heathen and a publican.

It is the same as S. Paul teaches when he calls the Church “the pillar and ground of truth” ( 1 Tim. iii. 15). Is not this to say that truth is solidly upheld in the Church? Elsewhere truth is only maintained at intervals, it falls often, but in the Church it is without vicissitude, unmovable, unshaken, in a word steadfast and perpetual. To answer that S. Paul’s meaning is that Scripture has been put under the guardianship of the Church, and no more, is to weaken the proposed similitude too much. For to uphold the truth is a very different thing from guarding the Scripture. The Jews guard a part of the Scriptures, and so do many heretics; but they are not an that account a column and ground of truth. The bark of the letter is neither truth nor falsehood, but according to the sense that we give it is it true or false. The truth consists in the sense, which is, as it were, the marrow. And therefore if the Church were guardian of the truth,the sense of the Scripture would have been entrusted to her care, and it would be necessary to seek it with her, and not in the brain of Luther or Calvin or any private person. Therefore she cannot err, ever having the sense of the Scriptures. And in fact to place with this sacred depository the letter without the sense, would be to place therein the purse without the gold, the shell without the kernel, the scabbard without the sword, the box without the ointment, the leaves without the fruit, the shadow without the Body….

This is enough, but the absurdity of absurdities, and the most horrible unreason of all is this: that while holding that the whole Church may have erred for a thousand years in the understanding of the Word of God, Luther, Zwingli, Calvin can guarantee that they understand it aright: this absurdity is greater when a mere wretched minister, while preaching as a word of God that all the visible Church has erred, that Calvin and all men can err, dares to pick and choose amongst the interpretations of the Scripture that one which pleases him, and to certify and maintain it as the Word of God: and you yourselves carry the absurdity still further when, having heard that everybody may err in matter of religion—even the whole Church—without trying to find for yourselves some other religion amongst a thousand sects, which all boast of rightly understanding the Word of God, and rightly preaching it, you believe so obstinately in the minister who preaches to you, that you will hear no more? If everybody can err in the understanding of the Scripture, why not you and your minister? I wonder that you do not always walk trembling and shaking: I wonder how you can live with so much assurance in the doctrine which you follow, as if you could not err, and yet you hold as certain that every one has erred and can err.

St Francis de Sales

[Rusty T]

If Christ Jesus dwells in a man as his friend and noble leader, that man can endure all things, for Christ helps and strengthens us and never abandons us. He is a true friend. And I clearly see that if we expect to please him and receive an abundance of his graces, God desires that these graces must come to us from the hands of Christ, through his most sacred humanity, in which God takes delight.

Many, many times I have perceived this through experience. The Lord has told it to me. I have definitely seen that we must enter by this gate if we wish his Sovereign Majesty to reveal to us great and hidden mysteries. A person should desire no other path, even if he is at the summit of contemplation; on this road he walks safely. All blessings come to us through our Lord. He will teach us, for in beholding his life we find that he is the best example.

What more do we desire from such a good friend at our side? Unlike our friends in the world, he will never abandon us when we are troubled or distressed. Blessed is the one who truly loves him and always keeps him near. Let us consider the glorious Saint Paul: it seems that no other name fell from his lips than that of Jesus, because the name of Jesus was fixed and embedded in his heart. Once I had come to understand this truth, I carefully considered the lives of some of the saints, the great contemplatives, and found that they took no other path: Francis, Anthony of Padua, Bernard, Catherine of Siena. A person must walk along this path in freedom, placing himself in God’s hands. If God should desire to raise us to the position of one who is an intimate and shares his secrets, we ought to accept this gladly.

Whenever we think of Christ we should recall the love that led him to bestow on us so many graces and favours, and also the great love God showed in giving us in Christ a pledge of his love; for love calls for love in return. Let us strive to keep this always before our eyes and to rouse ourselves to love him. For if at some time the Lord should grant us the grace of impressing his love on our hearts, all will become easy for us and we shall accomplish great things quickly and without effort.

St Teresa of Avila

[Rusty T]

Insignificant man, rise up! Flee your preoccupations for a little while. Hide yourself for a time from your turbulent thoughts. Cast aside, now, your heavy responsibilities and put off your burdensome business. Make a little space free for God; and rest for a little time in him.

Enter the inner chamber of your mind; shut out all thoughts. Keep only thought of God, and thoughts that can aid you in seeking him. Close your door and seek him. Speak now, my whole heart! Speak now to God, saying, I seek your face; your face, Lord, will I seek.

And come you now, O Lord my God, teach my heart where and how it may seek you, where and how it may find you.

Lord, if you are not here, where shall I seek you when you are absent? But if you are everywhere, why do I not see you present? Truly you dwell in unapproachable light. But where is unapproachable light, or how shall I come to it? Or who shall lead me to that light and into it, that I may see you in it? Again, by what signs, under what form, shall I seek you? I have never seen you, O Lord, my God; I do not know your face.

What, O most high Lord, shall this man do, an exile far from you? What shall your servant do, anxious in his love of you, and cast out far from your presence? He is breathless with desire to see you, and your face is too far from him. He longs to come to you, and your dwelling-place is inaccessible. He is eager to find you, but does not know where. He desires to seek you, and does not know your face.

Lord, you are my God, and you are my Lord, and never have I seen you. You have made me and renewed me, you have given me all the good things that I have, and I have not yet met you. I was created to see you, and I have not yet done the thing for which I was made.

And as for you, Lord, how long? How long, O Lord, do you forget us; how long do you turn your face from us? When will you look upon us, and hear us? When will you enlighten our eyes, and show us your face? When will you restore yourself to us?

Look upon us, Lord; hear us, enlighten us, reveal yourself to us. Restore yourself to us, that it may be well with us, yourself, without whom it is so ill with us. Pity our toilings and strivings toward you since we can do nothing without you.

Teach me to seek you, and reveal yourself to me when I seek you, for I cannot seek you unless you teach me, nor find you unless you reveal yourself. Let me seek you in longing, let me long for you in seeking; let me find you by loving you and love you in the act of finding you.

St Anselm

[furay]

We mustn't have you overworked as the only contributor to this thread. This is from the life of St Brigid:

“One evening, as the sun went down, Brigid sat with Sister Dara, a holy nun who was blind, and they talked of the love of Jesus Christ and the joys of Paradise.… Then the sun came up from behind the Wicklow Mountains, and the pure white light made the face of earth bright and gay. Then Brigid sighed when she saw how lovely were earth and sky, and knew that Dara's eyes were closed to all this beauty.” “So Brigid prayed to God, and then touched the sightless eyes of Sister Dara. Dara was cured, and was able to look at the sun, the trees and flowers `glittering with dew in the morning light.'”
Sister Dara looked on for a while, charmed by the vision. But then she turned to the abbess and said, “Close my eyes again, dear Mother, for when the world is so visible to the eyes, God is seen less clearly to the soul.”

[furay]

"Purification! You and I surely do need purification! —Atonement, and more than atonement, Love. —Love as a searing iron to cauterize our souls' uncleanness, and as a fire to kindle with divine flames the wretched tinder of our hearts."

-St Josemaria Escriva