“For it is our plain duty to preach and defend the truth in a straightforward way. Those who are to stumble must stumble, rather than the heirs of grace should not hear. While we offend and alienate one man, we secure another; if we drive one man further the wrong way, we drive another further the right way. The cause of truth, the heavenly company of saints, gains on the whole more in one way than in the other.” ~Bl. John Henry Newman

“Many have forgotten that unofficial witness-bearing used to be the chief way by which the Good News went around the world. I tell you, and you believe and receive and tell someone else, and he tells others. Frank, vital telling in ordinary language that the Lord Jesus Christ lives and loves, and can save and keep, and can be known like a real friend, and is a Master who gives real orders and strength to carry them out – think of the power that is in that! Can you wonder that the devil detests it?” ~Amy Carmichael, Fragments that Remain

“Consult not your fears but your hopes and your dreams. Think not about your frustrations, but about your unfulfilled potential. Concern yourself not with what you tried and failed in, but with what it is still possible for you to do.” ~Saint John XXIII

St. John, pray for us.

“Grant me, O Lord my God, a mind to know you, a heart to seek you, wisdom to find you, conduct pleasing to you, faithful perseverance in waiting for you, and a hope of finally embracing you.” ~St. Thomas Aquinas

“In everything, whether it is a thing sensed or a thing known, God Himself is hidden within.” ~St. Bonaventure

“What is important for a monk is what he finds in his heart when all the noise of the surrounding world is silenced. There appears to be a consciousness, an understanding that can only surface when we muster the courage to accept our solitude—and to do so in a deeply silent way. A female guest at the abbey expressed it beautifully: “Dans le silence, on n’entend que l’essentiel” (In the silence, one only hears what is essential). First and foremost, the monks taught me the inestimable value of silence. To be (become) a real human being is impossible without moments of silence, without a bit of seclusion, without desert.” ~Bieke Vanderkerckhove, The Taste of Silence: How I Came to Be at Home with Myself

“Do you not know that your bodies are temples of the Holy Spirit, who is in you, whom you have received from God? You are not your own…” (1 Corinthians 6:19)

“Imagine yourself as a living house. God comes in to rebuild that house. At first, perhaps, you can understand what He is doing. He is getting the drains right and stopping the leaks in the roof and so on: you knew that those jobs needed doing and so you are not surprised. But presently he starts knocking the house about in a way that hurts abominably and does not seem to make sense. What on earth is He up to? The explanation is that He is building quite a different house from the one you thought of – throwing out a new wing here, putting on an extra floor there, running up towers, making courtyards. You thought you were going to be made into a decent little cottage but He is building a palace. He intends to come and live in it Himself.” ~C. S. Lewis, Mere Christianity

Lord God, you made Saint Francis of Assisi Christ-like in his poverty and humility. Help us so to walk in his ways that, with joy and love, we may follow Christ your Son, and be united to you. Through our Lord Jesus Christ, your Son, who lives and reigns with you in the unity of the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen