Experiencing the Hundredfold

Christian teaching reveals God and his infinite perfection with far greater clarity than is possible by human faculties alone.  Nor is that all.  This same Christian teaching also commands us to honor God by faith, which is of the mind, by hope, which is of the will, by love which is of the heart; and thus the whole man is subjected to the supreme maker and ruler of all things.  The truly remarkable dignity of man as the son of the heavenly Father, in whose image he is formed, and with whom he is destined to live eternal happiness, is also revealed only by the doctrine of Jesus Christ.  From this very dignity, and from man's knowledge of it, Christ showed that men should love one another as brothers, and should live here as children of light, "not of revelry and drunkenness, not in debauchery and wantonness, not in strife and jealousy."  He also bids us to place all our anxiety and care in the hands of God, for he will provide for us; he tells us to help the poor, to do good to those who hate us, and to prefer the eternal welfare of the soul to the temporal goods of this life.  Without wishing to touch on every detail, nevertheless is it not true that the proud man is urged and commanded by the teaching of Christ to strive for humility, the source of true glory?  "Whoever, therefore, humbles himself... he is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven."  From that same teaching we learn prudence of the spirit, and thereby we avoid prudence of the flesh; we learn justice, by which we give to every man his due; fortitude, which prepares us to endure all things and with steadfast heart suffer all things for the sake of God and eternal happiness; and, last of all, temperance through which we cherish even poverty borne out of love for God, nay, we even glory in the cross itself, unmindful of its shame.  In fine, Christian teaching not only bestows on the intellect the light by which it attains truth, but from it our will draws that ardor by which we are raised up to God and joined with him in the practice of virtue.

Saint Pius X

-Saint Pius X (1914) reigned from 1903 to 1914 and was canonized on May 29, 1954.

What the Young Man Refused

How precious is the wisdom by which we know God and despise the world!  The one who has found it is indeed blessed, if he holds fast to it.  What will he give to possess it?  Give obedience as its price, and you will receive wisdom in return.  If you want to be wise, be obedient.  Obedience has no will of its own:  it is at the service of another's will, subject to another's command.  Embrace, I repeat, the blessing of obedience, drawing near by obedience to the light of wisdom.  Draw near, that is, by means of obedience, for there is no approach more direct or secure, and be enlightened by wisdom.

The person who does not know God does not know where he is going, but walks in darkness and dashes his foot against a stone.  Wisdom is light, the true light that shines on every person coming against this world, not the one who is wise with the wisdom of this world, but the one who is not of the world though in the world.  This is the new self of one who has turned away from the sinful and slothful ways of his former self, and strives to walk in the newness of life, knowing that damnation is not for those who walk in the way of the Spirit, but in the way of sinful nature.

As long as you follow your own will, you cannot escape turmoil within you, even though at times you seem to escape turmoil outside you.  This turmoil of self-will cannot end until the desires of your sinful nature have changed, and God becomes for you a source of delight.  Sinners enlightened by wisdom are said to be freed from turmoil because, once they taste the goodness of the Lord, they are freed from their sin: from that time they worship the creator, not the creature, and when they leave self-will behind they are freed from their feverish turmoil.

While at last they get rid of the turmoil of desires and the discord of thoughts, they experience peace in their inmost heart, and God takes up his dwelling within them:  his dwelling-place is in peace.  Where God is, there is joy; where God is, there is calm; where God is, there is happiness.

Saint Bernard of Clairvaux

-Saint Bernard (1153) is considered the last of the Fathers of the Church and is a Doctor of the Church.

The Fire of Burning Love

I want you all to fill your hearts with great love.  Don't imagine that love, to be true and burning, must be extraordinary.  No; what we need in our love is the continuous desire to love the One we love.  To possess God we must allow him to possess our souls.  How poor we would be if God had not given us the power of giving ourselves to him; how rich we are now!  How easy it is to conquer God!  If we give ourselves to him, then God is ours, and there can be nothing more ours than God.  The money with which God repays our surrender is himself.  We become worthy of possessing him when we abandon ourselves completely to him.  Total surrender consists in giving ourselves completely to God.  We must give ourselves fully to God because God has given himself to us.  If God owes nothing to us and is ready to impart to us no less than himself, shall we answer with just a fraction of ourselves?  Should we not rather give ourselves fully to God as a means of receiving God himself?  I for God and God for me.  I live for God and give up my own self, and in this way God lives for me.  To surrender means to offer him my free will, my reason, my own life in pure faith.  My soul may be in darkness.  Trial and suffering are the surest test of my blind surrender.  Surrender is also true love.  The more we surrender, the more we love God and souls.  If we really love souls, we must be ready to take their place, to take their sins upon us and expiate them in us by penance and continual mortification.  We must be living holocausts, for the souls need us as such.  

Blessed Teresa of Calcutta

-Blessed Teresa of Calcutta (1997) won the Nobel Peace Prize and founded the Missionaries of Charity.

Going to Jesus like Little Children

It is in a spiritual fashion that God gives himself, reaching to the deepest depths of the heart with his inspirations and uniting himself so gently with the soul that words cannot express what happens.  The net result is that whoever is thus joined to God becomes one spirit with him.  Let us drown ourselves then in this ocean of holiness, of infinite purity.  If we lose all, we shall thereby gain all.  The divine heart will never fail us, this I tell you for certain, if we do not fail him.  And even if we did, he would not fail us, because his fidelity is greater than our unfaithfulness.  He is not one of those who breaks faith with a person who has broken faith with him and we shall forever find him ready to call us back.  Let us humble ourselves before the grandeur of God.  Let us make ourselves nothing in the presence of this adorable Unknown.  Let us lose ourselves forever with never a thought of finding ourselves again.  Let us plunge into his divine abyss.  If only we could say in utter truth these words:  "My God is my all," we would never find our prayer long or boring.  When boredom descended upon us in prayer, that simple phrase said from the heart would act like a spell to drive away our weariness and disgust.  David declared that God hearkens to the desires of the poor.  This is why it is sufficient in order to make a good prayer, merely to tell God:  "All my desires are before you and my groanings are not hidden from your sight."

Saint Bonaventure offers us this advice for prayer.  "If you wish God to stoop down to reach you, carry the woes of Christ crucified in your heart."

Saint Jane Frances de Chantal

-Saint Jane Frances (1641) co-founded the original community of the Congregation of the Visitation.  

Whoever us Humble is the Greatest

Be recollected; whoever pours himself out on exterior things quickly loses the graces he has acquired.  A full jewel box is always kept closed.  Humility:  Avoid all those words which can draw down on you glory, esteem, or the appreciation of others.  Let us listen unwillingly (without interest or reflection) and with interior reluctance to the words of those who praise or commend us.  It is dangerous to listen to one's own praise in the mouths of others.  It makes one lose his good judgment.  When others praise us let us keep our sins before our eyes.  In this way we shall judge ourselves unworthy of any commendation, and consequently we shall find an occasion for being ashamed of ourselves and for humbling ourselves.  Rejoice when you hear others praised.  Jealousy, attachment to one's own glory, is a defect.  Never do anything so that men may see and esteem you.  Never do anything out of human respect.  Do everything perfectly, because you are working in God's presence, for God and not for men.  In every situation think more about loving than about working.  Don't offer excuses when you make a mistake.  Don't cast the blame on others.  Do not offend by sarcasm those who correct you.  Do not renounce in advance your errors which someone is trying to point out to you.  Practice for a long time and with zeal until you succeed in willing that your defects may not remain hidden any longer, and until you learn how to rejoice when others judge you imperfect.  Do this to make up for your errors.  When you are reproved unjustly, do not excuse yourself.  Cut short all thoughts of pride...  Willingly accept every opportunity for humbling yourself.  Don't be offended at a harsh word, an imperious tone of voice, not being respected as much as you would like to be.  Welcome occasions of being disregarded and humiliated, first with patience, then willingly, without raising any difficulties, and finally with joy.  That will be perfect humility.  Make acts of humility (as also of the other virtues on which you are interiorly examining yourself), beginning with a rather small number of them; then increase these continually, and make more and more progress.  This, in fact, is how one acquires a good habit and makes it grow strong.  Humility is the foundation of the virtues.

Saint Maximilian Kolbe

-Saint Maximilian (1941) was a Polish Conventual Fransciscan priest who was martyred in Auschwitz.

Faith that Moves Mountains

My heart keeps within itself an infinite number of his mercies.  It knows that it doesn't have any thing of value with which to glorify itself before God...  When I ask God what have I done to deserve such consolations, he smiles and says repeatedly that nothing is refused to such an intercessor.  In return he asks me for nothing but love, but do I not perhaps owe him this in gratitude?...  He is so much in love with my heart that he makes me burn with his divine fire, with the fire of his love.  What is this fire that pervades my whole being?...  There are moments when I call to mind the severity of Jesus and am about to feel distressed, but then when I consider his affability I am completely consoled.  I cannot help abandoning myself to this tenderness, this happiness.  What is it that I feel, Father?  I trust Jesus so completely that even if I were to see hell open up before me, and find myself on the brink of the abyss,  I should not lose confidence.  I should not despair but continue to trust in him.  Such is the extent to which his meekness inspires me.  Whenever I reflect on the enormous battles in which by the divine assistance I have overcome the devil, I find them innumerable.  If he had not stretched forth his hand to me, perhaps I might have wavered in my faith, grown weak in hope and charity; perhaps my intelligence would have been darkened if it had not been enlightened by Jesus, the eternal Sun!  I realize that all this has really been the work of his infinite love.  He has never refused me any thing and indeed I must say he has given me more than I asked.  

Saint Pio of Pietrelcina

-Saint Pio of Pietrelcina (1968) was an Italian Capuchin priest who during his lifetime enjoyed a vast reputation for sanctity.  

Beginning the Way of the Cross

The words "Your will be done" must be the rule of the Christian's life in all their fullness.  They must be the principle that regulates his day from morning to night, the course of the year and his whole life.  It then becomes the Christian's only concern.  For all other cares the Lord will make himself responsible; this alone will remain with us as long as we live.  From the objective point of view it is not absolutely certain that we shall always remain in the ways of God.  Just as the first man and woman became estranged from God though they had been his children, so every one of us is always balancing, as it were, on the edge of the knife between nothingness and the fullness of the divine life.  Sooner or later we shall be feeling this also subjectively.  In the infancy of the spiritual life, when we have just begun to surrender ourselves to the guidance of God, we feel his guiding hand very strongly; it is clear as daylight what we have to do and what to avoid.  But it will not remain like this.  If we belong to Christ, we have to live the whole Christ-life.  We must mature into his humanity, we must one day begin the way of the cross to Gethsemane and to Golgotha.  And all sufferings that come from without are as nothing compared with the dark night of the soul, when the divine light no longer shines, and the voice of the Lord no longer speaks.  God is there, but he is hidden and secret.

God became man in order once more to give us a share in his life.  This is the beginning, and this is the last end.  But between these there is something else.  Christ is God and man, and if we would share his life, we must share both in the divine and the human life.  The human nature which he took enabled him to suffer and to die.  The divine nature which he possessed from eternity gave his suffering and death infinite value and redemptive power.  Christ's suffering and death are continued in his mystical body.  

Saint Teresa Benedicta of the Cross

-Saint Teresa Benedicta (Edith Stein; 1942) was a German philosopher and a convert from Judaism who became a Carmelite nun and was put to death at Auschwitz.

With Peter on the Water

Prudent men, those who are schooled in misfortune and purified in the fire like gold, declare, "It is good for me that you have afflicted me, that I might learn your ordinances," for they realize that abasement generates understanding of his ordinances, indeed, they act like Peter, who cried out for help when he was about to go under, and their pain somehow draws them closer to God and through their distress they make him their friend, since a troubled soul is next to God and their need turns them to the one who can provide, him who is even perchance despised for his unstinted generosity.  This is why, my brothers, we should look up to heaven; at all times and before every adversity let us exude good hope; let us relinquish neither anxiety in time of happiness nor confidence in time of sorrow.  Even in fair weather let us not forget the gale, nor in the storm the pilot; yes, let us not lose heart in the midst of afflictions or become wicked servants who acknowledge their master only when he treats them well and repudiate him when he tries to correct them.  Yet there are times when pain is preferable to health, patience to relief, visitation to neglect, punishment to forgiveness.  In a word, we must neither let our troubles lay us low nor a glut of good fortune give us airs.  

Saint Gregory Nazianzen

-Saint Gregory Nazianzen (390) was a monk, a bishop, and a writer of letters, prayers, and poems.  

The Death of John the Baptist

What inexpressible joy a person experiences who was banished from home or led away into captivity, when told that they may return to their own country, to their families and friends!  The same happiness awaits a soul which loves God and languishes in the ardent desire of seeking him in heaven in the midst of the saints, who are our real family and friends.

Death, my friends, is to the just man what sleep is to the tired laborer who is glad of the approach of night, which will bring him rest after the hardships of the day.  Death delivers the just man from the prison of his body, as Saint Paul says:  "Unhappy man that I am, who shall deliver me from the body of this death?"  "Deliver me, my God," said the holy King David, "deliver my soul from the prison of this body.  Who will give me wings like a dove, and I will fly and be at rest?"... 

How happy, then, is a Christian when he follows in the footsteps of the divine master!

But in what consists the life of Jesus Christ?  Listen, my good friends.  It consists of three things - namely: prayer, good deeds, and suffering.  You know that the Redeemer often withdrew from public life to pray and that he was always active in the salvation of souls.  The thought of God should come as natural to us as breathing.  During his life of prayer and good deeds Jesus Christ had to suffer much.  Now, poverty, now persecution, now humiliations, and then all kinds of harsh treatment.  "My life," he says through his prophet, "is wasted with grief: and my years in sighs.  My strength is weakened through poverty" (Ps 30: 2).  Can the life of a good Christian be any other than that of a man who is nailed to the cross with his master?  The righteous man is a crucified man.

Saint John Vianney, The Cure of Ars

-Saint John Vianney (1859) is the patron of parish priests.

How the Righteous Shine

It will be good to notice two things at the start:  (1) love ought to find its expression in deeds more than in words; (2) love consists in mutual communications, i.e., the lover gives and communicates to the beloved whatever the lover has, or something of what the love has or is able to give, and the beloved in turn does the same for the lover.  Thus one who possesses knowledge will give it to the one without it, and similarly the possessor of honor or wealth shares with the one who lacks these, each giving to the other...

To ask for what I want.  Here it will be to ask for interior knowledge of all the good I have received so that acknowledging this with gratitude, I may be able to love and serve his divine majesty in everything.  

Point 1.  This is to bring to memory the benefits received - creation, redemption, and particular gifts - pondering with great affection how much God our Lord has done for me, how much he has given me of what he has: and further, how according to his divine plan, it is the Lord's wish, as far as he is able, to give me himself; then to reflect and consider within myself what, in all reason and justice, I ought for my part to offer and give to his divine majesty, that is to say, everything I have, and myself as well, saying, as one making a gift with great love:  "Take, Lord, and receive all my liberty, my memory, my understanding, and my entire will, all that I have and possess.  You gave it all to me; to you, Lord, I give it all back.  All is yours, dispose of it entirely according to your will.  Give me the grace to love you, for that is enough for me."

Saint Ignatius of Loyola

-Saint Ignatius of Loyola (1556) was the founder of the Society of Jesus.

The Patient Endurance of Joachim and Anne

In time of trial it is of great profit to us patiently to endure for God's sake, for the Lord says:  "By patient endurance you will win life for yourselves."  He did not say by your fasting, or your solitude or silence, or your singing of psalms, although all of these are helpful in saving your soul.  But he said:  "By your patient endurance" in every trial that overtakes you, and in every affliction, whether this be insolent and contemptuous treatment, or any kind of disgrace, either small or great, whether it be bodily weakness, or belligerent attacks of Satan, or any trial whatsoever caused either by other people or by evil spirits.

The apostle writes:  "With patient endurance we run the race of faith set before us."  For what has more power than virtue?  What more firmness or strength than patient endurance?  Endurance, that is, for God's sake.  This is the queen of virtues, the foundation of virtue, a haven of tranquility.  It is peace in time of war, calm in rough waters, safety amidst treachery and danger.  It makes those who practice it stronger than steel.  No weapons or brandished bows, no turbulent troops or advancing siege engines, no flying spears or arrows can shake it.  Not even the host of evil spirits, nor the dark array of hostile powers, nor the devil himself standing by with all his armies and devices will have power to injure the man or woman who has acquired this virtue through Christ.

Saint Nilus of Ancyra

-Saint Nilus of Ancyra (430) was a disciple of Saint John Chrysostom and a monastic writer.

How the Apostles Serve

People dedicate themselves to God in the hope that the eyes of their heart will be enlightened.  They withdraw from worldly activities and give themselves up to prayer and supplication, waiting for the Lord to come and reveal himself to them and purify them from their sins.  For they do not rely solely on their own labors and conduct to obtain what they hope for, namely, that the Lord will come and dwell in them with the full experience and energy of the Spirit.  And when they experience the Lord's goodness and delight in the fruits of the Spirit, and when the veil of darkness is lifted and the light of Christ shines upon them to their unspeakable joy, they are completely satisfied because they have the Lord with them in much love; they are like a merchant rejoicing in his gains.  But even so they still have to struggle and they go in fear of the robber spirits of wickedness causing them to grow slack and lose their labor before they obtain the kingdom of heaven, the Jerusalem above.  

Let us too, then, beseech God to strip off our old nature and clothe us in the heavenly Christ even now, so that the joy of being led by him may bring us great tranquility.  For in his desire to fill us with longing for the kingdom the Lord says:  "Without me you can do nothing."

Nevertheless he was able to enlighten many people through the apostles.  In spite of being merely creatures, they fed their fellow servants.  Through their good example and teaching the Lord restored to life minds that were dead and corrupted; for it is possible for one creature to nourish and give life to another:  though only creatures, the clouds, when so commanded, bring seeds of wheat or barely to life.  Like light coming in through a window the sun shedding its radiance over all the world, the prophets were lights to their own house of Israel, but the apostles are suns with rays reaching every corner of the earth.

Saint Macarius

-Saint Macarius (4th - 5th century) probably came to the south of Asia Minor from Mesopotamia and was the abbot of a community of cenobites.

The Better Part

The Spirit of truth shuns those whose love does not reach beyond themselves.  His will is that he, and he alone, should be loved for his own sake.  Not only does he desire to be the sole object of our love, but our love for him must be total.  He will have no rival in love, any more than he can be rivaled in the generosity with which he rewards those who love him.

Yet God desires to be loved by us in such a way that we love everything else together with him, and love nothing apart from him.  As their Creator he is the source of all created things, and every created thing is good simply because he made it.  In loving created things, therefore, we should love their Creator.  We must not love them for their own sake, but for the sake of him who gave them existence.  Anyone who sets his heart on gold or silver, material goods, or possessions of whatever kind for their own sake is a stranger to the Father's love.  It is the Creator we must love in all created things, and all created things in him.  By loving him in this way we love everything else too, yet God is really and truly the sole object of our love.

Blessed Oger of Locedio

-Blessed Oger (1264) was a disciple of Saint Bernard of Clairvaux and an abbot of Locedio in Piedmont, Italy.

"I desire mercy"

A wise man said:  The man who hides his fault cannot be saved, but the Lord has mercy on one who acknowledges his sin and repents.  If you suffer injustice, the world will despise you.  The Lord's heart is set against the proud to humble them, and humility receives mercy forever.  

If you take a humble role in all human affairs you will raise yourself above the rulers of the world.  Let everyone see that you are really humble, and bow to others first as if they were the important ones.  He who is renowned for his wisdom is humble among men, in spite of his wisdom and learning, and is wise in what he finds in his spirit.  Blessed is he who offers himself in everything he does, for he is raised above all.  

Those who make themselves humble for the Lord's sake, and diminish themselves to the Lord, praise the Lord; and those who endure hunger and thirst for the Lord's sake he will honor with suitable gifts.  Those who comfort others for his sake he will clothe in splendid garments, and those who are poor and in distress for his sake he will comfort with true riches...

The eyes of the Lord are on the humble:  the prayers of the humble are heard as soon as they are spoken.  Service and humility turn a human being into God on earth.  Faith and mercy quickly lead to wisdom.

Blessed are those who for love of the Lord plunge headlong into trials and troubles without anger or sadness; when they escape they soon reach safety in the harbor of the divinity, and through their good works come to God's home and have rest from their troubles, rejoicing in their hope.  Those who run the race of life in hope are not frightened by the trials on the way, nor do they cease from following it; on reaching the end of their course they see the Lord, and praise him for having saved them from perdition and from the many adversities they suffered in their ignorance.  

John Moschus

-John Moschus (619) was a Byzantine monk and spiritual writer.

The Lord Under Our Roof

Who can speak of God's being, of how he is everywhere present though not invisible, of how he fills heaven and earth and every creature, according to the text:  "Do I not fill heaven and earth?  says the Lord"; and elsewhere, as the prophet says:  "The Spirit of God has filled the whole world"; and again:  "Heaven is my throne and earth is my footstool"?  God, then, is everywhere, utterly immense, and everywhere close at hand, according to his own testimony about himself:  "I am a God who draws near, he says, and not a distant God."

Therefore, it is not a God dwelling far away from us that we seek, since if we are worthy we have him within us.  He dwells in us like the soul in the body, provided that we are his healthy members, that we are not dead through sin, that we are free from the taint of a depraved will.  Then he truly lives in us who said:  "And I will live in them and walk among them."  And if we are worthy to have him within us, then we are really brought to life by him as his living members, for as the apostle says:  "In him we live and move and have our being."

Who, I say, can investigate the sublimity of this unutterable and incomprehensible being?  Who can examine the depths of God?  Who would dare to treat of the eternal source of the universe?  Who could boast of knowing the infinite God who fills and surrounds all things, who penetrates and surpasses all things, who embraces and eludes all things, whom no one has ever seen as he is?  Who he is and how great he is, he alone knows, but since he is our God, though we cannot see him, we must seek him, seek him continually.  We must always hold fast to God, to the deep, immense, hidden, sublime, and omnipotent God, and beseech him, by the merits and intercession of his saints, to shed at least a ray of his light upon our darkness to shine on us, dull and ignorant as we are, on the dark road of this world, and lead us to himself by the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ to whom, with the Father and the Holy Spirit, belongs glory throughout all ages.  Amen.

Saint Columban

-Saint Columban (615) was born in Leinster, Ireland, and was the founder of several European monasteries.

How Christ Does the Father's Will

"Could not God make people perfect right at the beginning?"  someone may ask.  Take the example of a very small child.  The mother can give her baby grown-up food, but the baby is still unable to take adult nourishment.  Similarly, God could have given humanity perfection right at the beginning, but humanity could not have received it because it was only a child. 

For that reason our Lord, who sums up all things in himself, when he came on earth in these last days, came not in full glorly which he could have done, but in the form we could see.  Certainly, he could have come in his imperishable glory, but we should not have been able to bear the greatness of his majesty.  

Therefore, like giving milk to infants, the perfect Bread of the Father revealed himself to us on earth in human form, so that we might be nourished by his Word like babes at the breast and so by degrees become strong enough to digest the whole Word of God.

Saint Irenaeus of Lyons

-Saint Irenaeus (early third century) was a pastor, missionary, and a heroic writer in defense of the Church.