All this thinking....

“All this endless thinking. It’s very overrated. … I blame the war. Before 1914, nobody thought about anything at all….” (The Dowager Countess of Grantham, Maggie Smith, (Downton Abbey)

O Holy Spirit, beloved of my soul, I adore You.

Enlighten me, guide me, strengthen me, console me.

Tell me what I should do.

 Give me your orders.

I promise to submit myself to all that You desire of me and accept all that You permit to happen to me.

Let me only know Your Will.

Ministers of the Gospel today have to respond to a widespread deafness to the music of faith, and a general weariness that shuns the demands of discipleship. Yet the hunger for God, even if unrecognised, is ever-present in our society, and the preacher's task, as a messenger of hope, is to speak the truth with love, shedding the light of Christ into the darkness of people's lives.

-- Pope Benedict XVI

Above all, we must keep alive the thirst for the Absolute in the world, not allowing a one-dimensional vision of the human person, in which humanity is reduced to that which it produces and consumes, to prevail. This is one of the most dangerous pitfalls of our times.

--Pope Francis

The Holy Spirit is the soul of the Church, with His life-giving and unifying strength. Of many He makes a single body – the mystical Body of Christ. Let us never give in to pessimism, to that bitterness that the devil tempts us with every day. Let us not give into pessimism and let us not be discouraged. We have the certainty that the Holy Spirit gives His Church, with His powerful breath, the courage to persevere, the courage to persevere and to search for new ways to evangelise, to bring the Gospel to the ends of the earth.

-- Pope Francis

“What we would like to do is change the world--make it a little simpler for people to feed, clothe, and shelter themselves as God intended them to do. And, by fighting for better conditions, by crying out unceasingly for the rights of the workers, the poor, of the destitute--the rights of the worthy and the unworthy poor, in other words--we can, to a certain extent, change the world; we can work for the oasis, the little cell of joy and peace in a harried world. We can throw our pebble in the pond and be confident that its ever widening circle will reach around the world. We repeat, there is nothing we can do but love, and, dear God, please enlarge our hearts to love each other, to love our neighbor, to love our enemy as our friend.”

― Dorothy Day

Inexhaustible

Harassed by life, exhausted, we look about us for somewhere to be quiet, to be genuine, a place of refreshment.  We yearn to restore our spirits in God, to simply let go in him and gain new strength to go on living.  But we fail to look for him where he is waiting for us, where he is to be found: in his Son, who is his Word.  Or else we seek for God because there are a thousand things we want to ask him, and imagine that we cannot go on living unless they are answered.  We inundate him with problems, with demands for information, for clues, for an easier path, forgetting that in his Word he has given us the solution to every problem and all the details we are capable of grasping in this life.  We fail to listen where God speaks: where God's Word rang out in the world once for all, sufficient for all ages, inexhaustible.  Or else we think that God's word has been heard on earth for so long that by now it is almost used up, that it is about time for some new word, as if we had the right to demand one.  We fail to see that it is we ourselves who are used up and alientated, whereas the word resounds with the same vitality and freshness as ever; it is just as near to us as it always was.

-- Hans Urs Von Balthasar, Prayer

Our Mission

We still have a mission as a Church — to continue the mission of Jesus Christ. Jesus came to redeem us from our sins and to show us the way to a new life of holiness. We need to carry his message of salvation, conversion and forgiveness to every person. We need to find new ways to evangelize our society — new approaches rooted in humility and the search for holiness, beauty and truth.

We can only change this world if we allow God to change us first. The lives we lead will always be the most credible witness we can give to the Gospel we believe in. People should be able to see “the Catholic difference” — the difference that our Catholic faith makes in our lives.

Our world today needs saints. Not “other-worldly” saints — but saints in our cities, our families, our parishes and schools, our media, our businesses, legislatures and courts.

-- Archbishop José Gomez

Remedy for Facebook Timeline

"The remedy for Timeline is, in fact, real life. Indeed, some would say that real life can be a very fine remedy for Facebook as a whole."
http://news.cnet.com/8301-17852_3-57442141-71/how-facebooks-timeline-is-like-genital-herpes/

In necessariis unitas, in dubiis libertas, in omnibus caritas.

The Holy Father's February Prayer Intentions 

Access to Water.  That all peoples may have access to water and other resources needed for daily life.

  

Health Workers.  That the Lord may sustain the efforts of health workers assisting the sick and elderly in the world's poorest regions.

God our Father, you sent your Son Jesus to reveal the great love you have for each one. Look upon the world’s health care workers—doctors, nurses, administrators, and all who serve our brothers and sisters who are sick. They share in your Son’s ministry of healing. May they continue his work with respect for the sacredness of life and with the compassion that filled the Heart of Jesus when he met anyone who was sick.

Amen.

The Mission of My Life

God has created me to do Him some definite service. He has committed some work to me which He has not committed to another. I have my mission. I may never know it in this life, but I shall be told it in the next. I am a link in a chain, a bond of connection between persons. He has not created me for naught. I shall do good; I shall do His work. I shall be an angel of peace, a preacher of truth in my own place, while not intending it if I do but keep His commandments. Therefore, I will trust Him, whatever I am, I can never be thrown away. If I am in sickness, my sickness may serve Him, in perplexity, my perplexity may serve Him. If I am in sorrow, my sorrow may serve Him. He does nothing in vain. He knows what He is about. He may take away my friends. He may throw me among strangers. He may make me feel desolate, make my spirits sink, hide my future from me. Still, He knows what He is about.

John Henry Cardinal Newman

The Great Conversation

Western civilization has been the result of a long, difficult conversation.  When we read the classics and greats of the western world, we join into a Great Conversation which began when God spoke the universe into existence, but we also remind ourselves and the rising generation that the conversation has yet to end, and will not end until all things have been redeemed through the One.

- Brad Birzer (full article here)

The Duty of the Moment

The hard truth is that I don’t have to go to South America to be a saint. I can do that here, among the pots and pans and glowing rectangles of my life, by striving to remain fully awake, fully alive, living each moment in the presence of God. I can strive to love everyone I meet, not with my own love but the love of Christ — a love that isn’t always romantic or thrilling, that sometimes feels like drudgery, but only because its glory is hidden, like the glory of Christ was hidden on earth. Love in action means love where and when you are, not in the dream of some beautiful Elsewhere.

- Steve Gershom

Thomas Aquinas

Grant me the talent

Of being exact in my explanations

And the ability to express myself

With thoroughness and charm. 

There are many kinds of alms the giving of which helps us to obtain pardon for our sins; but none is greater than that by which we forgive from our heart a sin that someone has committed against us.

—St. Augustine

The Holy Father's September Prayer Intentions
Teachers. That all teachers may know how to communicate the love of truth and instill authentic moral and spiritual values.
Church in Asia. That the Christian communities in Asia may proclaim the Gospel with fervor, witnessing to its beauty with the joy of faith.

If you feel that Catholicism or Christianity or religion is not
represented, by detractors or defenders, in ways that honor its
profundity and beauty, live out its profundity and beauty. To do this
is more telling than any argument.

-- Marilynne Robinson

Say only the good things

πᾶς λόγος σαπρὸς ἐκ τοῦ στόματος ὑμῶν μὴ ἐκπορευέσθω, ἀλλὰ εἴ τις ἀγαθὸς πρὸς οἰκοδομὴν τῆς χρείας, ἵνα δῷ χάριν τοῖς ἀκούουσιν.

Let every rotten word not go forth from your mouth, but whatever is good for necessary edification, so that it may give grace to those who hear.

-- Ephesians 4:29

"You may take it, young man, that I am versed in the elements of my business.  This is not a conceivable bone either of a tapir or of any other creature known to zoology.  It belongs to a very large, a very strong, and, by all analogy a very fierce animal which exists upon the face of the earth, but has not yet come under the notice of science.  You are still unconvinced?"

"I am at least deeply interested."

"Then your case is not hopeless.  I feel that there is reason lurking in you somewhere, so we may patiently grope around for it."

Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's The Lost World