Daily Thought from the Saints
"It is better to be a child of God than king of the whole world!"
— St. Aloysius Gonzaga
Daily Scripture Verse
"Let the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart be acceptable in thy sight, O Lord, my rock and my redeemer."
Psalm 19:14
Daily Meditation
"It is necessary to have an absolutely sure intention in all our actions, so that the generous fulfillment of our daily duties may be directed toward the highest supernatural ideal. Thus, our life, apart from moments of prayer, will be a prayerful life. It is clear that the habit of giving an upward glance to God at the moment of action is a great assistance in aiding us to behave always with a pure intention and in freeing us from our natural impulses and fancies, so, that, retaining our self-mastery, or rather, God becoming the sole Master, all our movements become dependent upon the Holy Spirit. We see in the Gospel that whenever our Lord was about to undertake some important step, He always paused for a moment to raise His eyes to Heaven, and only after this moment of recollection did He take up the work He had to do. 'He lifted up His eyes to Heaven' is a phrase that recurs with significant frequency. And doubtless, when there was no outward sign of this prayer, there was the inward offering. The ideal is the same for us. The constant subjection of self to the guidance of the Holy Spirit is made easier from the fact of His presence in the soul, where He is asked explicitly to preside over all our doings . . . We shall not submit wholeheartedly to the invisible Guest unless He is kept in close proximity to us."
— Raoul Plus, S.J.
Daily Catholic Wisdom
When Christ becomes the rule of life, then his life becomes ours.
—Ven. Fulton J. Sheen
from the book “Through the Year with Fulton Sheen”
Daily Journey with the Pope
"Brothers and sisters, like all mothers, Mary bore life in her womb and thus, she talks to us about our future. But at the same time, she reminds us that, if we truly want the New Year to be good, if we want to reconstruct hope, we need to abandon the language, those actions and those choices inspired by egoism and learn the language of love, which is to take care of. To take care of is a new language that counters these languages of egoism. This is the commitment: to take care of our lives – each one of us needs to take care of our own life – to take care of our time, of our souls; to take care of creation and the environment we live in; and even more, to take care of our neighbor, of those whom the Lord has placed alongside us, as well as our brothers and sisters who are in need and who call for our attention and our compassion. Looking at Our Lady with the Child, there taking care of her Child, let us learn to take care of others, even of ourselves, caring for our interior health, our spiritual life, charity."
Pope Francis
A Prayer
Rev. Stephen Lacroix, C.S.C.
Good and gracious God, when the apostles responded to Jesus’ invitation to come and follow him, they recognized him as the Messiah. Grant each of us the grace to follow Christ, who calls us each by name. We ask this in his holy name. Amen.
The Abbot’s Daily Lectio Divina
Abbot Austin Murphy, O.S.B., St. Procopius Abbey, Lisle, IL
1 John 3:1-3
Reading
The reason the world does not know us is that it did not know him. Beloved, we are God’s children now; what we shall be has not yet been revealed. We do know that when it is revealed we shall be like him, for we shall see him as he is. Everyone who has this hope based on him makes himself pure, as he is pure.
Meditation
In this world, we are caught in the middle. The life of God is within us, planted through the gift of faith in Christ. So, we are children of God. But that life hasn’t reached its full maturation, as it will when we see God “as He is.” So, we are on the way but not there yet. To reach God, we work on being pure in heart and in conduct. And as we do this, the world looks on us as strange. In its eyes, we are absurd and perhaps even threatening.
Prayer
Help me to work on being pure in Your eyes, regardless of what the world thinks. Through Christ our Lord. Amen.
Contemplation…