“Starting in the morning, prepare your heart for peace; take great care throughout the day to call [your heart] back often to that peace and to take your heart again in your hand. If you do something that causes you distress, do not let it scare you, by no means trouble yourself, but, having recognized
“The devil is afraid of us when we pray and make sacrifices. He is also afraid when we are humble and good. He is especially afraid when we love Jesus very much. He runs away when we make the Sign of the Cross.” —St. Anthony, Abbot
“I wish you a young heart and a love in its first bloom for him who loves us unceasingly and as tenderly as if he were just beginning to love us. For all God’s pleasures are ever new and full of variety although he never changes.” —St. Vincent de Paul
“But the one name that contains everything is the one that the Son of God received in his incarnation: JESUS. The divine name may not be spoken by human lips, but by assuming our humanity, the Word of God hands it over to us, and we can invoke it: “Jesus,” “YHWH saves.” The name “Jesus”
“O sweet Child of Bethlehem, grant that we may share with all our hearts in this profound mystery of Christmas. Put into the hearts of men and women this peace for which they sometimes seek so desperately and which you alone can give to them. Help them to know one another better, and to live
O Key of David, Come! Psalm 42:8: By day the Lord commands his steadfast love, and at night his song is with me, a prayer to the God of my life. Fourth Antiphon: O Key of David, come. Unlock what none shall bind, and lock what none shall loose: the captives in the darkness imprisoned,
“The singular grace given to Mary reveals a profound truth about femininity and maternity: a woman’s true beauty is first prepared by God in secret, so that in the secret of her life of bravely offering the beauty of her heart—to her children, to her family, to the souls entrusted to her care—she, too, plays
“We contemplate the humble girl of Nazareth who, by an extraordinary and ineffable privilege, was preserved from the contagion of original sin and from every fault, so that she could be a worthy dwelling-place for the Incarnate Word. In Mary, the New Eve, Mother of the New Adam, the Father’s original, the wondrous plan of
— “We, who know Jesus and walk in the radiance of his love, need this season to reflect on life before the Incarnation. Without the perspective of those four thousand long years of anticipation, we may not truly appreciate the expectant faith, the trust, or the longing with which God’s people awaited the true Light
“In the family women have the opportunity and responsibility to transmit the faith in the early training of their children. They are particularly responsible for the joyful task of leading them to discover the supernatural world. The deep communion uniting her with them allows her to guide them effectively to Christ.” ―Pope St. John Paul
“O God, grant that whatever good things I have, I may share generously with those who have not, and whatever good things I do not have, I may request humbly from those who do. Order me inwardly through a good life, that I might do what is right and what will be meritorious for me
“Look at the mothers who truly love their children: how many sacrifices they make for them. They are ready for everything, even to give their own blood so that their babies grow up good, healthy, and strong.” ―Saint Gianna Molla
“From Mary we learn to surrender to God’s will in all things. From Mary we learn to trust even when all hope seems gone. From Mary we learn to love Christ her son and the son of God.” ―Pope St. John Paul II
“You cannot be half a saint; you must be a whole saint or no saint at all. For me, prayer is a surge of the heart; it is a simple look towards heaven; it is a cry of recognition and of love, embracing both trial and joy.” ―St. Therese of Lisieux.
“The human being is single, unique, and unrepeatable, someone thought of and chosen from eternity, someone called and identified by name.” ―Pope St. John Paul II
“Every believer in this world of ours must be a spark of light, a center of love, a vivifying leaven amidst his fellow men. And he will be this all the more perfectly, the more closely he lives in communion with God in the intimacy of his own soul.” ―Pope John XXIII
“The Most Holy Virgin in these last times in which we live has given a new efficacy to the recitation of the Rosary to such an extent that there is no problem, no matter how difficult it is, whether temporal or above all spiritual, in the personal life of each one of us, of our
“Above all the grace and the gifts that Christ gives to his beloved is that of overcoming self. Start by doing what’s necessary; then do what’s possible; and suddenly you are doing the impossible.” —St. Francis of Assisi
“We should strive to keep our hearts open to the sufferings and wretchedness of other people, and pray continually that God may grant us that spirit of compassion which is truly the spirit of God. . . . He also always blesses humble beginnings much more than those accompanied by a lot of show.” —St.
“It is Jesus in fact that you seek when you dream of happiness; he is waiting for you when nothing else you find satisfies you. Friendship, as has been said, consists in a full commitment of the will to another person with a view to that person’s good. Love between man and woman cannot be
“When a woman is in travail, she has sorrow because her hour has come; but when she is delivered of the child, she no longer remembers the anguish, for joy that a child is born into the world” (Jn 16: 21). The first part of Christ’s words refers to the “pangs of childbirth” which belong