7 October 2021  Sacrament of Penance

My children, we cannot comprehend the goodness of God towards us in instituting this great Sacrament of Penance. If we had had a favor to ask of Our Lord, we should never have thought of asking Him that. But He foresaw our frailty and our inconstancy in well-doing, and His love induced Him to do what we should not have dared to ask. If one said to those poor lost souls that have been so long in Hell, “We are going to place a priest at the gate of Hell: all those who wish to confess have only to go out,” do you think, my children, that a single one would remain? The most guilty would not be afraid of telling their sins, nor even of telling them before all the world. Oh, how soon Hell would be a desert, and how Heaven would be peopled! Well, we have the time and the means, which those poor lost souls have not.

      Saint John Vianney (1786-1859)

6 October 2021  G0d’s Love
 
For, says Scripture, this is how God loved the world: he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him may not perish but have eternal life. Nor did he simply give him, but even to death, death on a cross. . . Have you seen the mighty love of his strength? Have you seen the measureless mercy of his love for humanity? How unsearchable are his mercies and inscrutable his acts of compassion, which he has poured out on us through Jesus Christ our Savior! What may we, poor wretches, say to all this? What may we think? Shall we willingly return to sin? Shall we long for dishonor? Shall we choose corruption and condemnation?
 
      Saint Theodore the Studite (c. 759-826)

5 October 2021  Spiritual Warfare

This is the cause of all evils, the not knowing the Scriptures. We go into battle without arms, and how are we to come off safe?

        Saint John Chrysostom

4 October 2021  Spiritual Dryness

I was far from getting any consolation. Instead, I suffered complete spiritual dryness, almost as if I were quite forsaken… But that doesn’t upset me. It fills me with great joy. It’s true that I am a long way from being a saint, and this attitude of mine proves it. Instead of the lighting in my spiritual aridity, I have to blame my lack of faith and fervor for it. I should be distressed that I drop off the sleep during my prayers and during my thanksgiving after Communion. But I don’t feel at all distressed. I know that children are just as dear to their parents whether they are asleep or awake and I know that doctors put their patients to sleep before they operate. So I just think that God “knows our frame; remembers that we are dust.”

      Saint Therese of Lisieux (1873-1897) 

3 October 2021  On Tomorrow

Who can assure us that we will be alive tomorrow? Let us listen to the voice of our conscience, to the voice of the royal prophet: “Today, if you hear God’s voice, harden not your heart.” Let us not put off from one moment to another (what we should do) because the (next moment) is not yet ours.

        Saint Pio (1887-1968)

2 October 2021  Care of Our Children

Let everything take second place to our care of our children, our bringing them up to the discipline and instruction of the Lord. If from the beginning we teach them to love true wisdom, they will have great wealth and glory than riches can provide. If a child learns a trade, or is highly educated for a lucrative profession, all this is nothing compared to the art of detachment from riches; if you want to make your child rich, teach him this. He is truly rich who does not desire great possessions, or surround himself with wealth, but who requires nothing…Don’t think that only monks need to learn the Bible; Children about to go our into the world stand in greater need of Scriptural knowledge.
 
        Saint John Chrysostom

1 October 2021  The Great Commission

The task of the apostles transcends all human possibilities. How could this little band carry out the Great Commission of Matt. 28:19 and 'make disciples of all nations', 'go into all the world and preach the gospel to the whole creation,' as Mark 16:15 reads? How could they be his witnesses not only in Jerusalem, Judea, and Samaria, but even 'to the ends of the earth' [Acts 1:8]. The impossible task, a commission that goes on without limitations in space and time, became impossible, like the task of the prophets, only through the 'I am with you' [Matt. 28:20]. So they obeyed the call, leaving it to him how he would see to it that the Great Commission was carried out, even after the last eyewitnesses of the Risen Christ would have died.

  

        Hermann Sasse