St. Paul teaches that this life of ours is like traveling abroad from our home country. He says, As long as we are in the body, we are traveling away from the Lord (2 Corinthians 5:6). Since we are still traveling in a foreign land, we ought to keep in mind what our home country is – that country to which we must hasten by turning our backs on the attractions and delights of this life. This Homeland toward which we travel is the only place where we can find true rest because God does not wish us to find rest anywhere else. The reason is simple: if God gave us perfect rest while we were still abroad, we would find no pleasure in returning home.

– St Augustine

You must ask for God’s help. Even when you have done so, it may seem to you for a long time that no help, or less help than you need, is being given. Never mind. After each failure, ask forgiveness, pick yourself up and try again. Very often what God first helps us toward is not the virtue itself but just this power of always trying again. For however important chastity, or courage, or truthfulness, or any other virtue may be, this process trains us in habits of the soul which are more important still. It cures our illusions about ourselves and teaches us to depend on God. We learn, on the one hand, that we cannot trust ourselves even in our best moments, and, on the other, that we need not despair even in our worst, for our failures are forgiven.

– C. S. Lewis

Happy Birthday, Padre Pio! (May 25, 1887- Sept. 23, 1968)

In Heaven, everything will be spring as far as beauty is concerned, autumn as far as enjoyment is concerned, summer as far as love is concerned. There will be no winter; but here winter is necessary to exercise self-denial and a thousand other little but beautiful virtues which are exercised at times of sterility.

– St. Pio of Pietrelcina

The duty of the moment is our strategic place. One day at a time. We have this day to open our hearts like doors, and to take in everyone that we can. Today we have to love as God loves us. Our daily work, routine or not, exciting or unexciting, monotonous or not, is part of that faith, hope, and love. This workaday world of ours is the outer shell of a deep inner grace that God gives us.

– Catherine de Heuck Doherty

As Christians, our task is to make daily progress toward God. Our pilgrimage on earth is a school in which God is the only teacher, and it demands good students, not ones who play truant. In this school, we learning something every day. We learn something from the commandments, something from examples and something from the Sacraments. These things are remedies for our wounds and material for our studies.

-St. Augustine

O Lord, what is the trust that I can have in this life, or what is my greatest solace among all things under heaven? Is it not you, my Lord God, whose mercy is without measure? When have things been well with me without you, and when have things not been well with me if you were present? I would rather be poor with you than rich without you. I would rather be with you as a pilgrim in this world, than without you in heaven. Where you are is heaven, and where you are not is both death and hell. You are to me, all that I desire, and therefore it is fitting for me to cry to you and heartily to pray to you. I have nothing save you to trust in that can help me in my necessity, for you are my hope, you are my trust, you are my comfort, and you are my most faithful helper in every need.

– Thomas à Kempis

I will live in the present moment and fill it with love. A straight line is made of millions of little points, one united with the other. My life, too, is made of millions of seconds and minutes united one with the other. If I arrange every single point perfectly, the line will be straight. If I live every minute perfectly, my life will beholy. The road of hope is paved with little steps of hope. The life of hope is made of brief minutes of hope . . .Every minute I want to sing with the whole Church – Glory be to the Father and to the Son and to the Holy Spirit.

– Father Francis Xavier Nguyen Van Thuan

The contemplative life is not a life that offers a few good moments between the many bad ones, but a life that transforms all our time into a window through which the invisible world becomes visible. . . Contemplative prayer requires that we listen, that we let God speak to us when he wants and in the way he wants. This is difficult for us precisely because it means allowing God to say what we might not want to hear. But if we listen long and deeply, God will reveal himself to us as a soft breeze or a still, small voice; he will offer himself to us in gentle compassion. Without this obedience, this listening to the God of our heart, we will remain deaf and our life will grow absurd.

– Henri Nouwen

One of the most important things you can do to improve your spiritual life and your mental health is to fill your mind with uplifting thoughts. If you hold on to hurtful memories, they will only make you sick. You have a choice. You can reject them. Decide firmly that you will not let the past drag you down. Turn to the Lord and ask for help. Pray for the grace to come into the present moment. You don’t have to work endlessly through the toxic effects of the past. Once you decide to change, the process can begin. St. Teresa of Avila used to repeat to herself over and over, ‘Let nothing disturb you. Let nothing cause you fear. God is unchanging. God will suffice.’ With the Lord at your side, you can do all things. Remember the words of Jesus, I have told you all these things that your joy may be full (John 15:11).

– Father John Catoir

God is never absent – it is just our belief system that makes us think that God could not be present when things, according to our judgement, go wrong. The Parable of the Leaven (Mt.13:33) suggests that God is never more present than when things are going wrong. The leaven, symbol of what we regard as evil for us, could be physical, mental or moral disabilities in us or in those we love. Jesus teaches that the Kingdom of God is present there; just how it is present is what we have to figure out. This is the challenge of everyday life. God is always there, but everything in us may say: ‘God can’t be here.’ Or we may ask, ‘If God is all merciful and all powerful, why is he allowing this to happen to me?’. . .What God is looking for is not to change situations that seem horrendously destructive or corrupt. He is hoping to change us. Changing us may sometime require disasters. We have preconceived ideas that have never been challenged, mindsets that we have brought with us from early childhood or picked up along the way. Most, if not all of these values are not those of the Gospel. God invites us to change them; and, if we cannot do it on our own, he provides us with circumstances that may seem to us insurmountable or overwhelming.

– Father Thomas Keating, O.C.S.O.