The best preparation I can make for death is to live the reality of the Paschal mystery as fully and as deeply as possible in union with Christ, because Christ will re-live that mystery in me at the hour of my death. If I am following the spirituality of the Paschal mystery, I expect to die and rise again many times in the course of my monastic life, in my daily tasks and duties, in unexpected events and circumstances, and in my life of interior prayer. . .I expect to have to let go and give up again and again, discovering a new richness of life each time. . .I will learn to trust more and more this Father into whose hands I shall one day, freely and gladly, hand over my life. On that day my final act of dying will be inserted irrevocably into the saving death and resurrection of Christ my Lord.

-Father Charles Cummings O.C.S.O.

Lord, Father, all-powerful and ever-living God, I thank you, for even though I am a sinner . . . not because of my worth but in the kindness of your mercy, you have fed me with the precious Body and Blood of your Son, our Lord Jesus Christ. I pray that this Holy Communion may not bring me condemnation . . . but forgiveness and salvation. May it be a helmet of faith and a shield of goodwill. May it purify me from evil ways and put an end to my evil passions. May it bring me charity and patience, humility and obedience, and growth in the power to do good. May it be my strong defense against all my enemies, visible and invisible, and the perfect calming of all my evil impulses, bodily and spiritual. May it unite me more closely to you, the one true God, and lead me safely through death to everlasting happiness with you. And I pray that you will lead me, a sinner, to the banquet where you, with your Son and Holy Spirit are true and perfect light, total fulfillment, everlasting joy, gladness without end, and perfect happiness to your saints. Grant this through Christ our Lord. Amen

– St. Thomas Aquinas

In his will is our peace. The will of the Savior is that we should help him in his work, becoming suffering servants with him. To the degree that we accept and generously live out this vocation, we shall find peace. However, peace exists at different levels and in various ways within us, for we are wounded in our human nature in ways that Jesus never was . . . “Take me, Lord, battered and half-drowned as I am, and use me. I belong to you for your redemptive work through your Church, the sacrament of salvation for the whole world.” This is now our prayer.

– Barbara Dent

In these days, try to keep interiorly occupied with a desire for the coming of the Holy Spirit… and with His continual presence. Let your care and esteem for this be so great that nothing else will matter to you or receive your attention, whether it may concern some affliction or some other disturbing memories. And if there be faults in the house during these days, pass over them for the love of the Holy Spirit and of what you owe to the peace and quietude of the soul in which He is pleased to dwell . . . When something distasteful or unpleasant comes your way, remember Christ crucified and be silent. Live in faith and hope, even though you are in darkness, because it is in these darknesses that God protects the soul.

– St. John of the Cross

Jesus is preeminently the Good Shepherd. . .Each soul can say: Jesus knows me and loves me, not in a general abstract way, but in the concrete aspect of my needs, of my desires, and of my life; for him to know me and to love me is to do me good, to encompass me more and more with his grace, and to sanctify me. Precisely because he loves me, Jesus calls me by name: he calls me when in prayer he opens to me new horizons of the spiritual life, or when he enables me to know my faults and weaknesses better; he calls me when he reprimands me or purifies me by aridity, as well as when he consoles and encourages me by filling me with new fervor; he calls me when he makes me feel the need of greater generosity, and when he asks me for sacrifices or gives me joys, and still more, when he awakens in me a deeper love for him. Hearing his call, my attitude should be that of a loving little sheep who recognizes the voice of its Shepherd and follows him always.

– Father Gabriel of Saint Mary Magdalen, O.C.D.

Being holy means living exactly as our Father in heaven wants us to live. You will say that it is difficult. It is. The ideal is a very high one. And yet it is also easy. It is within our reach. When a person becomes ill, there may be no appropriate medicine. But in supernatural affairs, it is not like that. The medicine is always at hand. It is Jesus Christ, present in the Holy Eucharist, and he also gives us his grace in the other sacraments which he has established. Let us say again, in word and in action: ‘Lord, I trust in you; your ordinary providence, your help each day, is all I need.’ We do not have to ask God to perform great miracles. Rather, we have to beg him to increase our faith, to enlighten our intellect, and strengthen our will.

– St. Josemariá Escrivá

Joy does not depend on acclaim, advancement, promotion, recognition, fame, prestige, or power. Joy can never come from without. It can only come from the Lord who plants it deep within us. If our joy is contingent upon affirmation, success or career, it is planted in sand and will never endure. Actually, our joy should have nothing to do with where we work, what we are doing, or any external reward or recognition we get. It only depends on who we are, not what we do or have. We are beloved of the Father, configured to his Son, alive with his grace, sealed with his promise. Everything else is extra. If we’re counting on anyone or anything outside of the Lord to cause our joy, we’re setting ourselves up for a fall.

Cardinal Timothy Dolan

The dream of creating a ‘new heaven and a new earth’ lives on. It is not determined by my age, my health, or my degrees, but by my heart and the burning desire to act for God, to make God’s love and healing presence visible in a hurting world. I can do something, now, in this time and place. If my eyes and heart are open, I can make a difference, not for the whole world, but for one person or two or twenty. To be in love with God, to follow Christ, means that I must act on behalf of those who need my help. I cannot turn away. I cannot retire. I cannot say, ‘I have done all that I can do.’ As long as I can see, I must look for those who are in need. As long as I can talk, I must speak for those who have no voice. As long as I can move, I must act on behalf of justice for the poor. God has given me this time. It is still my time, my time until I die.

– Sister Regina Rogers

Jesus, in whom the fullness of God dwells, has become our home. By making his home in us, he allows us to make our home in him. By entering into the intimacy of our innermost self, he offers us the opportunity to enter into his own intimacy with God. By choosing us as his preferred dwelling place, he invites us to choose him as our preferred dwelling place. . . To those who are tortured by inner or outer fear, and who desperately look for the house of love where they can find the intimacy their hearts’ desire, Jesus says, ‘You have a home . . . I am your home . . . claim me as your home . . . it is right where you are . . . in your innermost being . . . in your heart.’ The more attentive we are to such words, the more we realize that we do not have to go far to find what we are searching for. The tragedy is that we are so possessed by fear that we do not trust our innermost self as an intimate place but anxiously wander around hoping to find it where we are not. We try to find that intimate place in knowledge, competence, notoriety, success, friends, sensations, pleasure, dreams, or artificially induced states of consciousness. Thus we become strangers to ourselves, people who have an address but are never home and hence can never be addressed by the true voice of love.

– Henri Nouwen

Listen to what it says in the Imitation of Christ: ‘This must be your endeavor, this your prayer, this your preference, that you should manage to be stripped of all possessiveness, and follow in the footsteps of Jesus, naked as he.” And when the Imitation of Christ talks about being stripped of possessiveness, it doesn’t just mean living simply on a small income; it means giving up all ambition, all desire for human praise, all greediness for any kind of comfort, spiritual consolations included. We ought to aim at that, it says. And if we cannot bring ourselves to aim at it, we ought to pray that it may happen to us; and if we can’t bring ourselves to utter that prayer, we ought at least to make it our preference – we should like to be people like that.

– Msgr. Ronald Knox