”Aloneness with God differs from rugged individualism. Solitude is for the purpose of loving communion with Christ Jesus. Its objective is not to let one’s ego reign supreme. Its goal is not to go it alone, to have no need for people, or to be in control of life. A contemplative’s persistent efforts to be completely autonomous bespeak withdrawal and isolation rather than growth in communion with God and with all creation in God.  The all-embracive receptivity to God essential to the ere­mitic life indeed requires an uncommon degree of self-reliance, self sufficiency, and independence. But those qualities, when they are mature and healthy, balance with a compassionate solidarity with the world, a realistic knowledge of one’s own needs, and an abiding sense of interdependence with all creatures.” ~From Discerning Vocations to the Apostolic Life, the Contemplative Life, and the Eremitic Life by Marie Theresa Coombs and Francis Kelley Nemeck

“When Jesus demands repentance, it is not that he wants to take something from us, to rob us, to make us poorer. No, he rejoices in offering it to us as a gift, which he gives in his great love for our souls. He wants us to repent in order to enrich us, to give us something to fill our souls with joy, and to make us blessed. He is the Physician who has come not for the healthy, but for the sick. He is the Savior who has come to call not the just, but the sinners, to repentance.” ~Eberhard Arnold, “Repentance as Upheaval,” lecture, November 1917

“Nothing teaches us about the preciousness of the Creator as much as when we learn the emptiness of everything else.“ ~Charles Spurgeon

“Remember the devil is a bad spiritual director, and you may always recognise his apparently good suggestions by the disturbances they cause in the soul. Our Lord would never urge you to turn away from a path which is leading you nearer to Himself, nor frighten you with the prospect of future unbearable trials. If they do come, grace will come also and make you abound with joy in all your tribulations.” ~Fr.Willie Doyle

“Does it make sense to pray for guidance about the future if we are not obeying in the thing that lies before us today? How many momentous events in Scripture depended on one person’s seemingly small act of obedience! Rest assured: Do what God tells you to do now, and, depend upon it, you will be shown what to do next.” ~Elisabeth Elliot, Quest for Love

“On the whole, I do not find Christians, outside of the catacombs, sufficiently sensible of conditions. Does anyone have the foggiest idea what sort of power we so blithely invoke? Or, as I suspect, does no one believe a word of it? The churches are children playing on the floor with their chemistry sets, mixing up a batch of TNT to kill a Sunday morning. It is madness to wear straw hats and velvet to church; we should all be wearing crash helmets. Ushers should issue life preservers and signal flares; they should lash us to our pews. For the sleeping God may wake someday and take offense, or the waking God may draw us out to where we can never return.” ~Annie Dillard, excerpt from Teaching a Stone to Talk

O God, by whose gift Saint Elizabeth of Hungary recognized and revered Christ in the poor, grant, through her intercession, that we may serve with unfailing charity the needy and those afflicted. 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

O God, who made Saint Margaret of Scotland wonderful in her outstanding charity towards the poor, grant that through her intercession and example we may reflect among all humanity the image of your divine goodness. 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

O God, who prepared a delightful dwelling for yourself in the heart of the Virgin Saint Gertrude, graciously bring light, through her intercession, to the darkness of our hearts, that we may joyfully experience you present and at work within us. Through our Lord Jesus Christ, your Son, who lives and reigns with you in the unity of the Holy Spirit, one God, forever. Amen