Franciscan Quote of the Day

As our culture drifts even further from the truth that each person is created in God’s image … life will continue to be viewed as a cheap commodity.

— Jim Daly via Tom S.F.O.

In the school of the Eucharist, Jesus trains our eyes how to recognize him not only “in the breaking of the bread,” but also in our daily lives, so that we don’t miss the Lord interacting with us and speaking to us.

~Joe Reciniello, OH……….. FRANCESCO: “When you approach the tabernacle remember that he has been waiting for you for twenty centuries.”.

I live in the Managerial Age, in a world of “Admin.” The greatest evil is not now done in those sordid “dens of crime” that Dickens loved to paint. It is not done even in concentration camps and labour camps. In those we see its final result. But it is conceived and ordered (moved, seconded, carried, and minuted) in clean, carpeted, warmed and well-lighted offices, by quiet men with white collars and cut fingernails and smooth-shaven cheeks who do not need to raise their voices. Hence, naturally enough, my symbol for Hell is something like the bureaucracy of a police state or the office of a thoroughly nasty business concern.

~C.S. Lewis, Introduction to The Screwtape Letters via Tail Feathers

A huge number of Christians don’t believe in anything like the grace and mercy of God (except for themselves and for excusable offenses and minor sins). They believe in salvation by law, force, punishment and politics. One of them frankly appeals to the death penalty as an exercise of raw Power. Does Gosnell belong behind bars? Of course. But thirsting for his blood is simple barbaric vengefulness, not justice tempered by mercy.

A lot of the “prolife” movement is simply another front for the culture of death.  The fact is, there is a strong and persistent correlation between self-identified “prolife conservative Christians” and enthusiastic support for the death penalty and torture.  This demographic doesn’t actually care what the Church teaches about its sacred cows any more than progressive dissenters do.  It just cares what the GOP teaches.

~Mark Shea, Bloodthirsty Prolifers

The surest means of salvation is to do each day of our lives what we should wish to have done at the hour of our death.

~St. Angela Merici

If you don’t pray often, you won’t gain a love for praying. Prayer is work, and therefore it is not very appealing to our natural sensibilities. But the simple rule for prayer is this: Begin praying and your taste for prayer will increase. The more you pray, the more you will acquire the desire for prayer, the energy for prayer, and the sense of purpose in prayer.

~Leslie Ludy, via Little Portion Hermitage

Do not think that
reading is sufficient without fervor,
reflection without devotion,
investigation without admiration,
observation without exultation,
industry without piety,
knowledge without charity,
intelligence without humility,
study without divine grace,
or the reflecting power of a soul without the inspiration of divine wisdom.

~St. Bonaventure, The Soul’s Journey into God, Prologue 4

My wish is that all of us, after these days of grace, will have the courage, yes, the courage, to walk in the presence of the Lord, with the Lord’s Cross; to build the Church on the Lord’s blood which was poured out on the Cross; and to profess the one glory: Christ crucified. And in this way, the Church will go forward.

~The Holy Father Pope Francis,  Homily, Thursday, 14 March 2013

The Serpent is clever and his work subtle. He does not try to make what is evil look overtly attractive. Rather, he works to pervert the human understanding of God and of the Good. He twists the divine image and deconstructs God’s will. Instead of a loving Creator, God is made to seem as a petty and jealous tyrant king, an unjust authority only seeking His own glory by oppressing His creation and putting ridiculous demands on them. Satan becomes the liberator from this perceived divine oppression; Satan presents himself as the Great Humanist, if you will.

~Fr. Charles Irvin, “Our Fall From Grace” via CatholicJournal.US.

A Franciscan’s life, therefore, is to be marked by continual contemplation, reflection, and emulation of the Gospel. The way of life is not about particular tasks, responsibilities, duties or rules (although they certainly exist and rightly so), but about the style of living in whatever context one finds him or herself.

~Francis of Assisi and the Future of Faith by Daniel Horan OFM

Begun by the preceding stages, the formation of the brothers and sisters takes place in a permanent and continuous way. It should be understood as an aid in the conversion of each and everyone and in the fulfillment of their proper mission in the Church and in society.

~General Constitutions of the Secular Franciscan Order (Article 44):

A Christian response to worldly wisdom, to the factors of popular, civil, and political influence on memory, is to question what might at first seem wise and appropriate in order to allow God to illuminate the true wisdom.

~Francis of Assisi and the Future of Faith by Daniel Horan OFM

We do not come to Mass to have a social, an aesthetic, or even a spiritual experience (though sometimes we do, and that’s beautiful); we come to beg for mercy. We come to stand in back of the church, beat our breasts, and realize it is a complete and utter miracle that we are allowed even to be in the same room with the Alpha and the Omega, the Lord of Lords, the King of Kings; the Great Physician, the Great Priest, the Savior of the World, our One, our Only, Friend. That is why it doesn’t matter whether we have any friends at church, whether we know the priest’s name, whether he even speaks our language.

It only matters that we come, in fear, in trembling, in as much purity of heart as we can muster. It matters especially now.

Because we have to prepare for the baby.

~Heather King, Shirt of Flame.

I know this isn’t a quote, but if you want to keep up with what’s going on at the Q, they have set up a website (http://www.quinquennial.org/).

More than 500 Franciscans converge on Chicago July 3-8 for the U.S. Secular Franciscan Order’s Quinquennial Congress. Held every five years to bring Secular Franciscans, friars and sisters together as a family from across the U.S., the Quinquennial this year focuses on gaining insight into the call by St. Francis of Assisi to live the Gospel in one’s everyday life.

A church that doesn’t provoke any crises, a gospel that doesn’t unsettle, a word of God that doesn’t get under anyone’s skin, a word of God that doesn’t touch the real sin of the society in which it is being proclaimed – what gospel is that? Very nice, pious considerations that don’t bother anyone, that’s the way many would like preaching to be. Those preachers who avoid every thorny matter so as not to be harassed, so as not to have conflicts and difficulties, do not light up the world they live in.

~Archbishop Oscar Romero, via Pax Christi USA

“Take up thy cross,” the Savior said,
“If thou wouldst My disciple be;
Deny thyself, the world forsake,
And humbly follow after Me.”

Take up thy cross, let not its weight
Fill thy weak spirit with alarm;
His strength shall bear thy spirit up,
And brace thy heart and nerve thine arm.

Take up thy cross, nor heed the shame,
Nor let thy foolish pride rebel;
Thy Lord for thee the cross endured,
And saved thy soul from death and hell.

Take up thy cross then in His strength,
And calmly sin’s wild deluge brave,
’Twill guide thee to a better home,
It points to glory o’er the grave.

Take up thy cross and follow Christ,
Nor think til death to lay it down;
For only those who bear the cross
May hope to wear the glorious crown.

To Thee, great Lord, the One in Three,
All praise forevermore ascend:
O grant us in our home to see
The heavenly life that knows no end.

~Charles W. Ev­er­est, Vi­sions of Death, and Other Po­ems

Let nothing trouble you. Let nothing frighten you. Everything passes. God never changes. Patience obtains all. Whoever has God wants for nothing. God alone is enough.

~St. Teresa of Jesus via OH……….. FRANCESCO

Much of the social history of the Western world over the past three decades has involved replacing what worked with what sounded good.

~Thomas Sowell as quoted on Execupundit.com

Procrastination is our substitute for immortality, we behave as if we have no shortage of time.

~ Benjamin Kunkel

The worst error is to imagine that a Christian must try to be “sane” like everybody else, that we belong in our kind of society.

~Thomas Merton, Raids on the Unspeakable (via the post “The Real Christian” on the blog A Capuchin Journey.