Daily Thought from the Saints
"Know that the greatest service that man can offer to God is to help convert souls."
— St. Rose of Lima
Daily Scripture Verse
"Everyone who acknowledges me before others I will acknowledge before my heavenly Father. But whoever denies me before others, I will deny before my heavenly Father."
Matthew 10:32-33
Daily Meditation
"The soul, however, cannot be perfectly purified from these imperfections, any more than from the others, until God shall have led it into the passive purgation of the dark night, of which I shall speak immediately. But it is expedient that the soul, so far as it can, should labor, on its own part, to purify and perfect itself, that it may merit from God to be taken under His divine care, and be healed from those imperfections which of itself it cannot remedy. For, after all the efforts of the soul, it cannot by any exertions of its own actively purify itself so as to be in the slightest degree fit for the divine union of perfection in the love of God, if God Himself does not take it into His own hands and purify it in the fire, dark to the soul."
— St. John of the Cross
Daily Catholic Wisdom
Our life is a pilgrimage toward our fatherland, and if we are walking toward it, this is because we love it. Now when you love, you sing. We must therefore sing and praise the Lord, because singing helps us to overcome the difficulties along the way.
—St. Augustine of Hippo
quoted in the book, “Desire and Unity”
A Prayer from Notre Dame University
Rev. Bryan Williams, C.S.C.
Lord, we know that you are our true hope. Help us to know the sound of your voice and to recognize it in others. In tuning our ear to your sound, may we work to share your life with those whom we meet. Amen.
The Abbot’s Daily Lectio Divina
Abbot Austin Murphy, O.S.B., St. Procopius Abbey, Lisle, IL
John 10:7-10
Reading
So Jesus said again, “Amen, amen, I say to you, I am the gate for the sheep. All who came before me are thieves and robbers, but the sheep did not listen to them. I am the gate. Whoever enters through me will be saved, and will come in and go out and find pasture. A thief comes only to steal and slaughter and destroy; I came so that they might have life and have it more abundantly.”
Meditation
Our lives consist of coming in and going out. We go forth by exerting ourselves in the world about us. We come back to ourselves for repose and rest. Salvation requires doing both movements through and in Christ. By doing them through Him as the gate, we stay in His divine ways, in His fold. And since Christ did both movements (going out to do the Father’s will and back in to rest in the Father’s bosom), we can do them with and in Him.
Prayer
Almighty God, guard my coming and my going, so that I stay in Your fold, where I find my true pasture. Through Christ our Lord. Amen.
Contemplation…