O Supreme Love!

Jesus "knew all of us by name, above all on the day of His Passion, when He offered His tears, His blood and His life for all... 'Father, I take upon Myself all the sins of poor ____  (name). I am ready to undergo torment and death so that he may be freed.'  O supreme love of the heart of Jesus!"

St. Francis de Sales


Painting:Jean Leon Pallière

No Complaint

 

'Oh Jesus,You were led to death like a lamb, like a sheep that does not open its mouth before its shearers. You utter no word of complaint to Your Father Who sent You, nor against the men whose debt You are paying.'  

St. Bernard

Painting: Francisco de Zurbarán, 'Agnus Dei'

Our Souls Spread Before Him

'Let us spread before His feet, not garments of soulless olive branches, which delight the eye for a few hours and then wither, but ourselves clothed in His grace, or rather, clothed completely in Him.  We who have been baptized into Christ must ourselves be the garments that we spread before Him.  Now that the crimson stains of our sins have been washed away in the saving waters of baptism and we have become white as pure wool, let us present the Conqueror of death, not with mere branches of palms but with the real rewards of His victory.

'Let our souls take the place of the welcoming branches as we join today in the children's holy song:  Blessed is He who comes in the name of the Lord.  Blessed is the king of Israel.' 

(St. Andrew of Crete, from Liturgy of the Hours for Palm Sunday, Catholic Book Publishing Co. NY, 1976, pp.419-420)

Painting: Charles Courtney Curran, in US public domain due to age

As Long as We Have That Map

'There's a tremendous satisfaction in having a map. That is what the truth of Christ is like in the Church. We may get off the road; we may get off it by sin; we may get off it by error. But as long as we have that map, we can get back on the road.'

Archbishop Fulton Sheen



















Painting: Julius Sergius Klever, 1908

In That Spiritual Home

'Come, my soul, let us pass beyond our langours, our illnesses, our aridities, our inequalities of humour, our weaknesses of mind, the snares of the devil and of men with their suspicions, jealousies, sinister ideas and prejudices. Let us fly like the eagle above all these clouds...

'Let us live in the higher region of the soul where the will of God produces His eternal operation, ever equal, ever uniform, ever immutable. In that spiritual home... we remain calm even when our senses are the prey of the tempest.'

Jean-Pierre de Caussade

Painting: Peter Vilhelm Ilsted, in US public domain due to age