Like a Pebble in a Pond

“Dorothy Day, an old acquaintance of mine who worked for decades among New York City’s poor, said that in trying to change the world the biggest obstacle is never other people or institutions, but our own sense of discouragement and futility. “We can change the world, to a certain extent,” she admonished in a newspaper column. “We can throw our pebble in the pond and be confident that its ever-widening ripples will reach around the world.” I am sure that there are more stories of love and forgiveness in the world than there are stories of hatred and revenge. How long will you wait to let yours be heard? When are you going to throw your pebble in the pond and start making ripples?” ~Johann Christoph Arnold, Why Forgive

Stay quiet with God

“If a tiny spark of God’s love already burns within you, do not expose it to the wind, for it may get blown out… Stay quiet with God. Do not spend your time in useless chatter… Do not give yourself to others so completely that you have nothing left for yourself.” ~St. Charles Borromeo

Ash Wednesday

Almighty and everlasting God, who hatest nothing that thou hast made, and dost forgive the sins of all those who are penitent; Create and make in us new and contrite hearts, that we, worthily lamenting our sins and acknowledging our wretchedness, may obtain of thee, the God of all mercy, perfect remission and forgiveness; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen

A Mystical Reality

“When we say that the Mass commemorates Christ’s death, we mean that in a Mysterious Way, Christ really offers Himself as the eternal priest and that His oblation is not only a psychological remembrance but a mystical reality. When we say that the Mass is a memorial of His Resurrection, this too is not merely a mental recollection. After all, the Christ Who is now in heaven and the principal priest at the altar is the risen Savior. His Resurrection is not only an event that took place once, but a continuing fact of salvation history. To call the Mass a memorial of the Resurrection may conjure up the image of a pleasant memory that swiftly crosses the mind. It should rather tell us that in the Mass the risen Lord is present in our midst and bids us unite ourselves, still mortal, with Him Who is our Resurrection.” ~ Fr. John Hardon, SJ, The Catholic Catechism

 

 

The Heart of Education

“Education is based on the knowledge and truth of Christ Jesus. Without Jesus at the heart and center of our school, every educational endeavor that we embark upon will not be as effective as it needs to be. Christ must be the center of all that we do, assisting us in preparing students who will be outstanding leaders during their sojourn on earth and holy, prayerful saints once they reach heaven.” ~Sr. Mary Cecilia, C.K., Principal of St. Joseph Parochial School, Lincoln, NE.

Rejoice in the Lord

O God, who teach us that you abide in hearts that are just and true, grant that we may be so fashioned by your grace as to become a dwelling pleasing 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

Feb 10: Saint Scholastica

Lord God, may we, like Saint Scholastica, serve you with an unsullied love. Then our joy will be full as we receive from your loving hand all that we desire and ask. 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

Saint Scholastica, pray for us.

The Least of These

“Into this world, this demented inn, in which there is absolutely no room for him at all, Christ has come uninvited. But because he cannot be at home in it – because he is out of place in it, and yet must be in it – his place is with those others who do not belong, who are rejected because they are regarded as weak; and with those who are discredited, who are denied the status of persons, and are tortured, exterminated. With those for whom there is no room, Christ is present in this world. He is mysteriously present in those for whom there seems to be nothing but the world at its worst.” ~Thomas Merton

Like a Newborn Babe

“[W]hen a Catholic comes from Confession, he does truly, by definition, step out again into that dawn of his own beginning and look with new eyes across the world…. He believes that in that dim corner, and in that brief ritual, God has really remade him in His own image. He is now a new experiment of the Creator. He is as much a new experiment as he was when he was really only five years old. He stands, as I said, in the white light at the worthy beginning of the life of a man. The accumulations of time can no longer terrify. He may be grey and gouty; but he is only five minutes old.” ~G.K. Chesterton (Autobiography, 229–30)