What Jesus Wills

Whosoever fears God and keeps his commandments, is the servant of God. And in this service is not perfection, but the righteousness which leads to adoption. For this cause the prophets also and the apostles, the holy band whom God chose, entrusting to them the apostolic preaching, by the goodness of God the Father became prisoners of Christ Jesus. For Paul says, "Paul, the prisoner of Christ Jesus, called to be an apostle" (Eph 3: 1, Rom 1: 1): so that the written law works with us in a good servitude, until we are able to master every passion, and to become perfect in the good ministry of virtue through the apostolic state.

For if a man draws near to grace, then Jesus will say to him, "I will no longer call you servants, but I will call you my friends and my brothers: for all things that I have heard of my Father I have made known unto you" (Jn 15: 15). For those who have drawn near, and have been taught by the Holy Spirit, have known themselves according to their intellectual substance. And in their knowledge of themselves they have cried out and said, "For we have not received the spirit of bondage again to fear, but the spirit of adoption whereby we cry, Abba, Father" (Rom 8: 15): that we may know what God has given us - "If we are sons, then we are heirs; heirs of God, and joint heirs with the saints" (Rom 8: 17).

My dear bretheren and joint heirs with the saints, not foreign to you are all the virtues, but they are yours, if you are not under guilt from this fleshly life, but are manifest before God. For the Spirit enters not the soul of one whose heart is defiled, nor the body that sins; a holy power it is, removed from all deceit.

Truly, my beloved, I write to you as to reasonable men, who have been able to know yourselves. For he who knows himself, knows God: and he who knows God, is worthy to worship him as is right.

-Saint Anthony

Saint Anthony (356) was a hermit and a great counselor to clergy, monks and lay people.

Why We Can Reform

Our helper is God, and he is such that no one can withstand him. As long as we continue to look to this strong loving helper, we cannot be weakened by the thought of our own frailty. It seems this is what that dear lover Paul saw when he said, "I can do all things in Christ crucified, who is in me and strengthens me." For when Paul felt the annoyance and pricking of the flesh, he found strength not in himself, because he knew he was weak, but in Christ Jesus. It was because of Christ Jesus and that fine strong armor God had given him, his strong freedom, that he could say, "I can do all things." For neither the devil nor anyone else can force me to commit a single deadly sin against my will. We can never be overcome unless we give up this armor and turn it over to the devil by our willing consent. The temptations and wiles of the devil, the flesh, and the world may come shooting poisoned arrows - the flesh with ugly thoughts and sensations, the devil with his assorted temptations and deceit and trickery, the world with its pretentiousness and pride. But unless lady freedom consents to these disordered suggestions, she never sins, because sin is in the will alone. And God has given us this as a favor, not as our due.

-Saint Catherine of Sienna

Saint Catherine of Sienna (1380), Doctor of the Church, was a Dominican, a stigmatist, and papal counselor.

Joy Made Complete

Who thinks it possible to describe the special kind of submission you showed? Who can describe your soul's feelings, O Virgin most blessed? On the one hand, you see a little child born of you, on the other you perceive the immense God! On the one hand, the creature; on the other, the creator; a weak being and the mightiest of beings; one who needs nourishment and one who nourishes; one who dos not speak and one who teaches the angels!

I say again: who is able to draw back the veil from the mystery hidden in your bosom? How did your spirit manage to endure both thoughts when you held in your arms God himself and the Son of man, and now adored your God, now kissed your little son? Who could fail to be dumbstruck by such an indescribable miracle? Who could fail to be speechless?

A young girl gives birth to her creator and the creator of all; a young girl carries him who rules her and everyone! What a marvelous sight! Not only human nature but even the nature of the angels is left astounded!

-Saint Ambrose Autpert

Saint Ambrose Autpert (778) was a Frankish Benedictine monk who became abbot of San Vicenzo in southern Italy.

The Great Light

In the Holy Scriptures there are many names and titles which are applied to our Lord and Savior, Jesus.  He is said to be the Word; he is called Wisdom, Light and Power; right hand, arm and angel; man and lamb, sheep and priest.  He is the Way, the Truth, and the Life; a vine, Justice and Redemption; bread, a stone and doctor; a fount of living water; peace and judge and door.  Yet, for all these names - which are to help us grasp the nature and range of his power - there is but one and the same Son of God who is our God.

These, then, are his names; but what are the meaning of these names?  He is called the Word, first, to imply that he was begotten of the Father with no more passivity or substantial diminution in the Father than there is in a person who utters a spoken word; second, for the obvious reason that God the Father has always spoken through him both to men and angels.  The name Wisdom tells us that in the beginning all things, through him, were ordered wisely.  He is the Light, because it was he who brought light into the primordial darkness of the world and who, by his coming among men, dissipated the darkness of their minds.  Power is one of his names, since no created thing can ever overcome him.  He is a right hand and arm, for through him all things were made and by him they are all sustained.  He is called an angel of great counsel, because he is the announcer of his Father's will.  He is said to be the Son of man, because on account of us men he deigned to be born a man.  He is called a lamb, because of his perfect innocence; a sheep, to symbolize his passion. 

-Niceta of Remesiana

Niceta of Remesiana (414) was a bishop, a theological author, and a hymn-writer to whom the composition of the Te Deum is attributed.  

Follow Me

From faith springs that obedience to God in his Church and the merit accruing to your souls, for which you can never be sufficiently thankful. This filial obedience to which the apostle exhorts us, "Let us serve, pleasing God with fear and reverence," our Redeemer himself has made the crowning proof of all his disciples; the sure bond of membership with his mystical body, the Church; the witness of union with him who is our head, our life, our salvation. For he has said - and are there any words of the Holy Writ more worthy of being written in letters of gold, or which should be more familiar to Christians? - "If you love me, keep my commandments. He that has my comandments and keeps them, he it is that loves me. And he that loves me shall be loved by my Father, and I will love him, and will manifest myself to him. If any man loves me, he will keep my words and my Father will love him, and we will come to him, and will make an abode with him. He that loves me not, keeps not my words. If you keep my commandments, you will remain in my love; as I also have kept my Father's commandments, and do remain in his love. You are my friends, if you do the things I command you" (Jn 14: 15-24; 15: 10-14).

Such was the language, such were the thoughts of Jesus Christ on that last evening, when as the God-Man turning once more to his heavenly Father with the words "that the world may know that I love the Father, and as the Father has given me commandment, so I do: arise, let me go hence." He bent his steps to the garden of Gethsemane, there to pour forth his prayers, his tears, his blood; and the next day to die on the cross of Calvary. Oh! How profitably may man draw near and with all the powers of his soul attend and learn obedience from an Incarnate God who for our example is obedient unto death, even death of the cross.

-Saint John Neumann

Saint John Neumann (1860) was born in Bohemia. He moved to America, joined the Redemptorists, and was appointed bishop of Philadelphia in 1852.

Beholding the Lamb of God

O Father, the first rule of our dear Savior's life was to do your will. Let his will of the present moment be the first rule of our daily life and work, with no other desire but for its most full and complete accomplishment. Help us to follow it faithfully, so that doing what you wish we will be pleasing to you.

Lord Jesus, who was born for us in a stable, lived for us a life of pain and sorrow and died for us upon a cross; say for us in the hour of death, "Father, forgive," and to your Mother, "Behold your child." Say to us, "This day you shall be with me in paradise." Dear Savior, leave us not, forsake us not. We thirst for you, Fountain of Living Water. Our days pass quickly along, soon all will be consummated for us. To your hands we commend our spirits, now and forever. Amen.

-Saint Elizabeth Ann Bayley Seton

Saint Elizabeth Ann Bayley Seton (1821) founded the American Sisters of Charity and was the first American-born canonized saint.

Joseph the Just Man

Saint Matthew says that because Joseph was a just man, he did not wish to defame Mary but was willing to take upon himself the suffering and to put her away. This is one of the proofs of true justice, which is always accompanied by mercy, as is the justice of God himself. God's own law put the knife in Joseph's hand, but Joseph renounced the right which he had before God. He chose to be merciful rather than rigorous, for he desired to be what he himself would wish God to be...

Joseph realized how great was the blessing which God had bestowed upon him, a poor carpenter, in decreeing that from his house and family should come the hope and salvation and remedy of all generations and that he should be guardian and putative father of the Savior and the spouse of his blessed Mother. In addition to all this, the angel revealed the eminent sanctity and excellence of the Virgin and so changed Joseph's mind that he now held in the greatest reverence her whom he had suspected of evil.

When a heart so pure and holy sees itself enclosed and inundated by such mysteries, what must it feel? How astonished and enraptured it must be amidst such marvels and blessings, especially since the Holy Spirit usually gives to the just an experience or taste proportionate to the knowledge which he gives them. Since the Holy Spirit is substantial love proceeding from the Father and the Son, he is as much concerned with the will as with the intellect, and he moves it in conformity with the light which he gives to the intellect. Consequently, as nature does not make members that are out of proportion to each other, so that divine Spirit usually arouses acts of the will which are proportionate to the light in the intellect. This being the case, what must have been the state of Joseph's will when his intellect was enlightened concerning the great marvels and mysteries?

-Venerable Louis of Granada

Venerable Louis of Granada (1588) was a Spanish Dominican priest and a good friend of Saint Charles Borromeo.

United with the Holy Ones of the Genealogy

Chosen soul, living image of God and redeemed by the precious blood of Jesus Christ, God wants you to become holy like him in this life, and glorious like him in the next.

It is certain that growth in holiness of God is your vocation. All your thoughts, words, actions, everything you suffer or undertake must lead you toward that end. Otherwise you are resisting God in not doing the work for which he created you and for which he is even now keeping you in being. What a marvelous transformation is possible! Dust into light, uncleanness into purity, sinfulness into holiness, creature into Creator, man into God! A marvelous work, I repeat, so difficult in itself, and even impossible for a mere creature to bring about, for only God can accomplish it by giving his grace abundantly and in an extraordinary manner. The very creation of the universe is not as great an achievement as this.

Chosen soul, how will you bring this about? What steps will you take to reach the high level to which God is calling you? The means of holiness and salvation are known to everybody, since they are found in the Gospel; the masters of the spiritual life have explained them; the saints have practiced them and shown how essential they are for those who wish to be saved and attain perfection. These means are: sincere humility, unceasing prayer, complete self-denial, abandonment to divine Providence, and obedience to the will of God.

-Saint Louis de Montfort

Saint Louis de Montfort (1716) was a great French missionary preacher especially renowned for fostering devotion to the Blessed Virgin Mary.

Wisdom

Love effects a likeness between the lover and the object loved...  He who loves a creature, then, is as low as that creature, and in some way even lower, because love not only equates, but even subjects the lover to the loved object.  By the mere fact, then, that a man loves something, his soul becomes incapable of pure union and transformation in God...  Until a man is purged of his attachments he will not be equipped to possess God, neither here below through the pure transformation of love, nor in heaven through the beatific vision...  Love causes equality and likeness and even brings the lover lower than the object of his love...  All of the world's wisdom and human ability contrasted with the infinite wisdom of God is pure and utter ignorance...  Anyone, therefore, who values his knowledge and ability as a means of reaching union with the wisdom of God is highly ignorant in God's sight and will be left behind, far away from this wisdom.  Ignorance does not grasp what wisdom is;  and in God's sight those who think they have some wisdom are very ignorant...  Only those who set aside their own knowledge and walk in God's service like unlearned children receive wisdom from God...  Accordingly, a man must advance to union with God's wisdom by unknowing rather than knowing.  

-Saint John of the Cross

Saint John of the Cross (1591) is called the Mystical Doctor.

The Greatness of John

The prayer for purity of mind, "Stir up our hearts, Lord, to make ready the paths of your only-begotten Son, so that by his coming we may be able to serve thee with minds now purified," has its meaning for the Church.

The answer to this petition comes to the Church in the Gospel in the figure of the Baptist, a renewed judgement in living form, speaking with the deeply moving force of example, perhaps more persuasively even than the prophesies and warnings to repent.  Before the entire selflessness of the precursor, Church and soul awaken to the glow of their first love, strip off vain pretensions, and lust.  In this way the precursor comes to play his role in the drama of redemption, his living, participating role.  "For the power of John the Baptist goes before us when we prepare to put our faith in Christ," and, we may add, when we prepare with a lively faith to celebrate his coming in the liturgy.  The more we submit ourselves to the judgement of John, the more the Church takes on the form of the precursor.  It too becomes the herald of Christ; because it comes to pass judgment on itself, Christ takes up presence in her, and she must make known what it is she sees.  Sin's shadows fall away, the joy of God's nearness rises:  "Deus manifeste veniet"...  God comes for men to see, the Church.  "I bear him in me; he is here, look at him!"

-Sister Aemiliana Lohr

Sister Aemiliana (1972) was a German Benedictine nun who wrote about the liturgy.

He Comes for the Lost Ones

"I did not come to call the righteous but sinners to repentance."  Those were strong people who taunted Christ's disciples because their master entered the homes of the sick and ate with them.  Why, they asked, does your master eat with tax collectors and sinners?  O you strong ones who do not need the doctor!  Yours is not the strength of health but of madness!  God grant that we may never imitate that kind of strength.  We should dread the possibility of anyone wanting to imitate it.

The teacher of humility, who shared our weakness and gave us a share in his own divinity, came to earth in order to teach us the way, even to be the Way himself.  It was his humility, above all else, that he impressed upon us.  He willingly submitted to baptism at the hands of one of his servants, so that we might learn to confess our own sins and to become weak in order to be truly strong, repeating with the apostle:  "When I am weak, then I am strong."

-Augustine of Hippo

Saint Augustine (430) is called the Doctor of Grace.

Acting on Christ's Words

I long to see you set afire, swallowed up and consumed in his blazing charity, for we know that those who are set afire and consumed in that true charity lose all self-consciousness.  That is what I want you to do.

I am inviting you, in this blazing charity, to plunge into a peaceful sea, a deep sea.  I have just rediscovered the sea - not that the sea is new, but it is new to me in the way my soul experiences it - in the words, "God is love."  And just as a mirror reflects a person's face and as the sun shines its light on the earth, so these words echo within me that everything that is done is simply love, because everything is made entirely of love.  This is why he says, "I am God, Love."

This sheds light on the priceless mystery of the incarnate Word, who, out of sheer love, was given in such humility that it confounds my pride.  It teaches us to look not just at what he did, but at the blazing love his Word has given us.  It says that we should do as a loving person does when a friend comes with a gift: not looking at the friends hands to see what the gift is, but looking with the eyes of love at the friend's loving heart.  And this is what God's supreme, eternal, more tender than tender goodness wants us to do when he visits our soul.  So when he comes to you with his incalculable blessings, let your memory open up at once to receive what your understanding has seen in his divine love, and let your will rise up in blazing desire to receive and gaze upon the burning heart of the giver, the good gentle Jesus.  In this way you will find yourself swallowed up and clothed in the fiery gift of the blood of God's Son.  And you will be freed from all suffering and grief.

-Saint Catherine of Siena

Saint Catherine of Siena (1380), Doctor of the Church, was a Dominican, a stigmatist, and papal advisor.  

Words and a Wisdom

The words that divine Wisdom communicates are not just ordinary, natural, human words; they are divine, "truly the words of God."  They are powerful, touching, piercing words, "sharper than a two-edged sword," words that go from the heart of the one through whom he speaks straight to the heart of the listener.  Solomon is referring to this gift of Wisdom he himself had received when he said that God gave him the grace to speak according to the feelings of his heart.  These are the words which our Lord promised to his apostles, "I will give you an eloquence and a wisdom that none of your adversaries will be able to resist..."  Eternal Wisdom, besides being the object of the eternal Father's delight, and the joy of the angels, is also the source of purest joy and consolation for man who possesses him.  He give to man a relish for everything that comes from God and makes him lose his taste for things created.  He enlightens his mind with the brightness of his own light and pours into his heart an indescribable joy, sweetness, and peace even when he is in the midst of the most harrowing grief and suffering, as Saint Paul bears witness when he exclaims, "I exceedingly abound with joy in all our tribulations" (2 Cor 7:4).

-Saint Louis de Montfort

Saint Louis de Montfort (1716) was a great French missionary preacher especially renowned for fostering devotion to the Blessed Virgin Mary.

What Kept the Widow's Heart Open

We know that even our nearest friends enter into us but partially, and hold intercourse with us only at times; whereas the consciousness of a perfect and enduring Presence, and it alone, keeps the heart open. Withdraw the Object on which it rests, and it will relapse again into its state of confinement and constraint; and in proportion as it is limited, either to certain seasons or to certain affections, the heart is straitened and distressed. If it be not overbold to say it, he who is infinite can alone be its measure; he alone can answer to the mysterious assemblage of feelings and thoughts which it has within it...

Life passes, riches fly away, popularity is fickle, the sense decay, the world changes, friends die. One alone is constant; One alone is true to us; One alone can be true; One alone can be all things to us; One alone can supply our needs; One alone can train us up to our full perfection; One alone can give a meaning to our complex and intricate nature; One alone can give us tune and harmony; One alone can form and possess us.

-Venerable John Henry Newman

Venerable John Henry Newman (1890) established the Oratory in Birmingham, England, and was a preacher of great eloquence.

Why Christ Cleansed the Temple

It is ordained by human and divine law, my brothers and sisters, that we should obey God rather than follow those braggarts who through their loathsome jealousy would plunge us into confusion. We shall incur no common harm, but great danger, if we recklessly deliver ourselves to the whims of people who by rushing into strife and discord try to seduce us from what is right. Let us rather be kind to one another, in harmony with the compassion and sweetness of him who is our Maker.
For Christ belongs to the lowly of heart, not to those who exalt themselves over his flock. He who is the scepter of God's majesty, Jesus Christ our Lord, came not in pompous ostentation or arrogance (though he might well have done so) but humbly even as the Holy Spirit had foretold of him...
You see, dear friends, what a model we have been given. For if the Lord was so humble of heart, what shall be our course, who thanks to him have come under the yoke of his grace?

-Saint Clement of Rome

Saint Clement of Rome (97) was the third successor of Saint Peter.

Saint Cecilia

The catacombs, too, left a deep impression on me. They were exactly as I had imagined them when reading the lives of the martyrs. After having spent part of the afternoon in them, it seemed to me we were there for only a few moments, so sacred did the atmosphere appear to me. We had to carry off some souvenir from the Catacombs; having allowed the precession to pass on a little, Celine and Therese slipped down together to the bottom of the ancient tomb of Saint Cecilia and took some earth which was sanctified by her presence. Before my trip to Rome I didn't have any special devotion to this saint, but when I visited her house transformed into a church, the site of her martyrdom, when learning that she was proclaimed patroness of music not because of her beautiful voice or her talent for music, but in memory of the virginal song she sang to her heavenly Spouse hidden in the depths of her heart, I felt more than devotion for her; it was the real tenderness of a friend. She became my saint of predilection, my intimate confidant. Everything in her thrilled me, especially her abandonment, her limitless confidence that made her capable of virginizing souls who had never desired any other joys but those of the present life. Saint Cecilia is like the bride in the Canticle; in her I see "a choir in an armed camp." Her life was nothing else but a melodious song in the midst of the greatest trials, and this does not surprise me because "the Gospel rested on her heart," and in her heart reposed the Spouse of Virgins!

-Saint Therese of Lisieux

Saint Therese (1897) was declared a Doctor of the Church in 1997.

How Mary Was Presented in the Temple

God inspired in the heart of the pure Virgin Mary his own intense love for humility, and abhorrence of pride. She possessed, even from her infancy, a far greater horror of pride and ambition, and a far deeper love for humility than did all the saints together. It was the first virtue that she practiced. She abased and humbled herself before all. She esteemed herself, and would have been happy to be treated by others, as the last of all creatures. By the marvelous radiance of her Immaculate Conception, she beheld herself susceptible to the guilt of the children of Adam, except that God miraculously preserved her, and she considered that she might have been capable of all the sins in the world, whose source is original sin. It was this humility which attracted to her the countless graces which rendered her worthy to be the Mother of God, Queen of heaven and earth. Give thanks to Almighty God who resists the proud and gives grace to the humble, and offer him all the glory that this Maiden accorded to his majesty by her practice of richest humility during her childhood and throughout the rest of her life.

Saint John Eudes

-Saint John Eudes (1680) is largely responsible for initiating and popularizing devotion to the Immaculate Heart of Mary.

"I shall give to the poor"

Entreaty for sins has the greatest efficacy when accompanied by alms and fasting. Prayer rises up quickly to the ears of God when lifted up by the recommendations of these. Since, as it has been written, "the merciful man benefits his own soul," nothing belongs to each individual more than what has been spent on one's neighbor. Part of those physical resources which are used to help the poor become transformed into eternal riches. Born from this generosity are funds which will not be able to be diminished through use nor damaged through decay. "Blessed are the merciful, for God will have mercy on them." He who constitutes the very exemplar of this precept will also be the sum of their reward...

Be steady then, Christian giver. Give what you receive, sow what you reap, scatter what you collect. Do not fear the cost, do not long after the dubious income. Your property increases by being well spent. Long for the lawful reward of mercy, and pursue the business of the eternal profit. Your benefactor wants you to be the beneficient, and he who gives so that you might have, entrusts it so that you might distribute it, saying: "Give and it will be given to you." You must embrace the condition of this promise and show your gratitude.

Saint Leo the Great

-Saint Leo the Great (461) reigned as pope from 440 to 461. He is a Doctor of the Church.

Why Our Faith Saves Us

Our faith is not founded upon empty words; nor are we carried away by mere caprice or beguiled by specious arguments. On the contrary, we put our faith in words spoken by hte power of God, spoken by the Word himself at God's command. God wished to win us back from disobedience, not by using force to reduce us to slavery, but by addressing to our free will a call to liberty.

The Word spoke first of all through the prophets, but because the message was couched in such obscure language that it could only dimly be apprehended, in the last days the Father sent the Word in person, commanding him to show himself openly so that the world could see him and be saved.

We know that by taking a body from the Virgin he refashioned our fallen nature. We know that his humanity was of the same clay as our own; if this were not so, he would hardly have been a teacher who could expect to be imitated. If he were of a different substance from me, he would surely not have ordered me to do as he did, when by my very nature I am so weak. Such a demand could not be reconciled with his goodness and justice.

Saint Hippolytus

-Saint Hippolytus (236) was a Roman priest who died as a martyr.

Perseverance

We find no pleasure except in Christ; we neither value nor want to know anything but Christ crucified.  We even say, "I find my pleasure and want to glory in my Lord Jesus Christ, for whose love the world despises me and I the world."

Up then!  Since this holy cross is so sweet that is relieves all bitterness, pick it up for your journey along this road.  For we pilgrim travelers need this holy wood for support until we have reached our destination, where our soul is at rest in our final home.  How sweet to us now are the burdens we have carried along the way!  What peace, what calm, what sweetness our soul receives and enjoys once we have come home to port and have found the slain Lamb whom we had sought on the cross and who is now our table, our food, and our servant!  And we find that the divine Being is a bed where we now rest and sleep - I mean we have finally put an end to the perverse law that had been in constant rebellion against our Creator while we were journeying.  So let's happily and joyfully, with flaming, blazing desire take up the true standard of the most holy cross, never fearing that we will not be able to persevere in the life we have begun.  Let us rather say, "Through Christ crucified I will be able to do and endure all things, even to the point of death."

Saint Catherine of Siena

-Saint Catherine of Siena (1380), Doctor of the Church, was a Dominican, a stigmatist, and a papal counselor.