A Look Inside the Walls

We who are genuinely interested in monastic life will be (not 'may be,' but 'will be') interested in the following link.  It provides such a good look at the day to day life inside a monastery that I intend to print out a copy for my own future reference.

Can I live this kind of life in the midst of the world?  No.  Not in its externals.  Nor should I try to.  To make such an attempt would only frustrate me and inhibit my growth in holiness within the call I have been given by God.   

Can I live the spirit of this life?  I think so.  In its 'internals.'

I can, for instance, intend all my actions for God, ask His grace, offer them to Him and accept in advance all the good and pain that will come.  'My God, grant me the grace to perform this action with you and through love of you. I offer you in advance all the good that I may do and accept all the pain and trouble that I may meet therein as coming from your fatherly hand.'  

Like those inside physical cloisters, I can begin every action by embracing Jesus. Through Him, in Him, for Him, with Him.

I hope you will be as inspired as I am by this link....

A Day With the Directory
http://www.toledovisitation.org/a-day-with-the-directory/

Painting:  Carl Gustav Carus


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Have I Opened the Door?

'Prayer is the door to favors as great as those He granted me.  If this door is closed, I don't know how He will grant them.

'For even though He may desire to enter and take delight in a soul and favor it, there is no way of His doing this, for He wants it alone and clean and desirous of receiving His graces.

'If we place stumbling blocks in His path and don't do a thing to remove them, how will He be able to come to us?  And we desire God to grant us great favors!'

St. Teresa of  Avila














Painting:  Alfred Stevens, Hesitation (detail) 

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From the Rooftops

                     'This is no time to be ashamed of the Gospel.
                     It is the time to preach it from the rooftops.
                     Do not be afraid to break out of comfortable and routine
                     modes of living in order to take up the challenge
                     of making Christ known in the modern metropolis.'

                     St. John Paul II

                       Painting:  Vincent van Gogh, Rooftops; in US public domain due to age



 

A Shower of Mercy

 'Saints' image credit 

'Who can say that he is free from sin and does not need God’s mercy? As people of this restless time of ours, wavering between the emptiness of self-exaltation and the humiliation of despair, we have a greater need than ever for a regenerating experience of mercy.' (Pope John Paul II, Regina Caeli message; April 10, 1994)

'Prayer is the raising of the mind to God.  We must remember this.  The actual words matter less.'  (Pope John XXIII)

'I considered this message (of Divine Mercy) my special task. Providence has assigned it to me in the present situation of man, the Church, and the world.' (Pope John Paul II; November 22, 1981) 

              May Sts. John XXIII and John Paul II pray for us! 
          
 






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At Home Everywhere

'As we carry Him within our hearts,
we shall be at home everywhere. 
Daily we can increase our intimacy
with the Divine Guest of our soul
by perfect indifference
as to place, people,
employments and all the rest.
Then, as Saint Paul says,
we shall be conquerors
even in this world,
for to conquer is to
grow in union with Our Lord;
a union that consists not in feeling,
but in perfect conformity
to His adorable Will.' 

(from Fervorinos From Galilee's Hills, compiled by a Religious, Pelligrini, Australia, 1936, pp. 83-84)

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