Folsom Prison

“The worst prison would be a closed heart.”

~St. John Paul II, Pope

“In designing his Church God worked with such skill that in the fullness of time it would resemble a single great family embracing all men. It can be identified, as we know, by certain distinctive characteristics, notably its universality and unity.

“Christ the Lord passed on to his apostles the task he had received from the Father: I have been given all authority in heaven and on earth. Go, therefore, and make disciples of all nations. He wanted the apostles as a body to be intimately bound together, first by the inner tie of the same faith and love which flows into our hearts through the Holy Spirit, and, second, by the external tie of authority exercised by one apostle over the others. For this he assigned the primacy to Peter, the source and visible basis of their unity for all time. So that the unity and agreement among them would endure, God wisely stamped them, one might say, with the mark of holiness and martyrdom.

“Both these distinctions fell to Josaphat, archbishop of Polock of the Slavonic rite of the Eastern Church. He is rightly looked upon as the great glory and strength of the Eastern Rite Slavs. Few have brought them greater honor or contributed more to their spiritual welfare than Josaphat, their pastor and apostle, especially when he gave his life as a martyr for the unity of the Church. He felt, in fact, that God had inspired him to restore world-wide unity to the Church and he realized that his greatest chance of success lay in preserving the Slavonic rite and Saint Basil’s rule of monastic life within the one universal Church.

“Concerned mainly with seeing his own people reunited to the See of Peter, he sought out every available argument which would foster and maintain Church unity. His best arguments were drawn from liturgical books, sanctioned by the Fathers of the Church, which were in common use among Eastern Christians, including the dissidents. Thus thoroughly prepared, he set out to restore the unity of the Church. A forceful man of fine sensibilities, he met with such success that his opponents dubbed him “the thief of souls.” ~ Pope Pius XI’s encyclical “Ecclesiam Dei”

Interior of the Basilica of St. John Lateran

“God himself in his loving mercy saw fit to make of us his own home. My fellow Christians, do we wish to celebrate joyfully the birth of this temple? Then let us not destroy the living temples of God in ourselves by works of evil. I shall speak clearly, so that all can understand. Whenever we come to church, we must prepare our hearts to be as beautiful as we expect this church to be. Do you wish to find this basilica immaculately clean? Then do not soil your soul with the filth of sins. Do you wish this basilica to be full of light? God too wishes that your soul be not in darkness, but that the light of good works shine in us, so that he who dwells in the heavens will be glorified. Just as you enter this church building, so God wishes to enter into your soul, for he promised: I shall live in them, I shall walk through their hearts. ~From a sermon by St Caesarius of Arles

“Saint Francis of Assisi’s most beautiful ideal of perfection and the ardor of the Seraphic Spirit are embedded in the work of Scotus and inflame it, for he ever holds virtue of greater value than learning. Teaching as he does the pre-eminence of love over knowledge, the universal primacy of Christ, who was the greatest of God’s works, the magnifier of the Holy Trinity and Redeemer of the human race, King in both the natural and supernatural orders, with the Queen of the world, Immaculate Mary, standing beside him, resplendent in her untarnished beauty, he develops to its full height every point of the revealed Gospel truth which Saint John the Evangelist and Saint Paul understood to be pre-eminent in the divine plan of salvation.”~Blessed Pope Paul VI

“True and perfect joy means enduring even painful circumstances, failure, and rejection with patience and love, without losing heart. This has been the lesson of Christian spiritual teachers from the apostles onward. The ground of this joy-inducing love remains what it always has been: Jesus alone, to whom we must look with attentiveness, gladness, and hope.” ~David Rensberger

Baby Under Towel

“No one can grow if he does not accept his smallness.” ~Pope Francis

“It will not be very long before governments take over from cradle to grave all that we call corporal works of mercy.  This has already happened in several countries. I call it the “ice age” because the corporal works of mercy should be done with great love, gentleness, understanding, compassion, and delicacy. True, they haven’t always been so performed, but in many instances they were. In the near future, however, all the above nouns will be encompassed by one word: efficiency.

…we must get ready by prayer and fasting by a self-emptying, to acquire pure and childlike hearts, hearts that are able to see God and thus able to enter this coming ice age.  We must become harbingers and carriers of the fire of the Holy Spirit, for it is fire that melts ice.  That will be our role in the near future.” ~Catherine Doherty, Poustina

Saint Charles Borromeo

“Christ summons the Church, as she goes her pilgrim way, to that continual reformation of which she always has need, insofar as she is an institution of men here on earth. Consequently, if, in various times and circumstances, there have been deficiencies in moral conduct or in Church discipline, or even in the way that Church teaching has been formulated—to be carefully distinguished from the deposit of faith itself—these should be set right at the opportune moment and in the proper way” (Flannery, Austin, ed. Vatican Council II: Constitutions, Decrees, Declarations. Northport, NY: Costello Publishing Co., 1996).

King of heaven and earth, Lord God,
rule over our hearts and bodies this day.
Sanctify us,
and guide our every thought, word and deed
according to the commandments of your law,
so that now and for ever
your grace may free and save us.
Through our Lord Jesus Christ, your Son,
who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit,
one God, for ever and ever.

Amen.