My lips will pour forth praise, because you teach me your statutes.
—Psalm 119:171 (NRSV)
“Someone asked Antony, ‘What must one do in order to please God?’ He replied, ‘Pay attention to what I tell you. Whoever you may be, always have God before your eyes. Whatever you do, do it according to the testimony of the Holy Scriptures. Wherever you live, do not easily leave it. Keep these three precepts and you will be saved.’” —The Wisdom of the Desert Fathers and Mothers
I will practice these three things: keeping God before my eyes, reading the Holy Scriptures, and being steadfast.
And we know that for those who love God all things work together for good, for those who are called according to his purpose.
—Romans 8:28 (ESV)
“God gave me the grace to open my intelligence quite early and to engrave so deeply in my memory the remembrances of my childhood that it seems to me that the things that I’m going to tell about happened yesterday. Without a doubt, Jesus wanted, in His love, to make me know the incomparable mother that He gave me, but whom His Divine hand was hastening to crown in Heaven!” —St. Thérèse of Lisieux
Many of us have been blessed with parents who taught us to love God. Let us give thanks.
For surely I know the plans I have for you, says the LORD, plans for your welfare and not for harm, to give you a future with hope.
—Jeremiah 29:11 (NRSV)
“Everything on earth and in heaven compared with God is nothing, as Jeremiah says in these words: ‘I beheld the earth, and it was empty, and it was nothing; I beheld the heavens, and saw that they had no light. When he looked at the heavens and saw no light in them, he says that all the bright stars in the skies, compared with God, are pure darkness. All created things are nothing and their passions are less than nothing, since they are impediments to transformation in God. The soul that expends its passions on created things will not be able to comprehend God, for until it is cleansed it will not be able to possess God, either on this earth through pure transformation of love, or beyond this earth with a clear vision.’” —St. John of the Cross
My soul rests, and waits, in You.
For this is the message you have heard from the beginning, that we should love one another.
—1 John 3:11 (NRSV)
Christ spoke thus to St. Catherine of Siena: “Love of Me and of one’s neighbor are one and the same thing; and, so far as the soul loves Me, it loves its neighbor, because love toward one’s neighbor issues from Me. This is the means I have given you, so that you may exercise and prove your virtue; because, inasmuch as you can do Me no profit, you should do good to your neighbor. This proves that you possess Me by grace in your soul, producing much fruit for your neighbor and making prayers to Me, as you seek with sweet and loving desire My honor and the salvation of souls.’”
Show me my “neighbor” today, Lord. I promise I will respond.
I kneel before the Father, from whom every family in heaven and on earth is named, that he may grant you in accord with the riches of his glory to be strengthened with power through his Spirit in the inner self, and that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith.
—Ephesians 3:14–17a (NAB)
“The mystic who passes through the moment when there is nothing but God does in some sense behold the beginningless beginnings in which there was really nothing else. He not only appreciates everything but the nothing of which everything was made. In a fashion he endures and answers even the earthquake irony of the Book of Job; in some sense he is there when the foundations of the world are laid, with the morning stars singing together and the sons of God shouting for joy.” —G. K. Chesterton, writing about St. Francis of Assisi
I praise You, Lord God, for the grandeur of Your Creation. Please show it to me in fresh ways today.
[There is only] one body and one Spirit, as you were also called to the one hope of your call; one Lord, one faith, one baptism; one God and Father of all, who is over all and through all and in all.
—Ephesians 4:4–6 (NAB)
“It may seem that to have too much love for each other cannot be wrong, but I do not think anyone who had not witnessed it would believe how much evil and how many imperfections can result from this. The consciences of those who aim at pleasing God in provisional ways seldom observe the devil’s snares. They think they are acting virtuously…. For example, a nun desires to have something to give to her friend or tries to make time for talking to her. Often her object is to tell her how fond she is of her, and other irrelevant things, rather than how much she loves God. But these intimate friendships rarely focus on the love of God…. In our community, we must all be friends with each other, love each other, be fond of each other, and help each other.” —St. Teresa of Avila
Thank You
