Franciscan Quote of the Day

 Prayer is the open admission that without Christ we can do nothing. And prayer is the turning away from ourselves to God in the confidence that He will provide the help we need. Prayer humbles us as needy and exalts God as wealthy.

~ John Piper via Little Portion Hermitage.

Prayer raises our minds and hearts to God, and shows us from this elevated point of view the vanity of the goods and pleasures of this world; it fills us with light, strength, and consolation, and gives us a foretaste of the peace and joy of our heavenly country.

~  St. Rose of Viterbo

Consider and see how the day of death approaches. With all respect I beg of you not to forget God amid the many distracting occupations in which your life is spent and do not wander from the way of His Commandments.

~ St Francis of Assisi

For the intellectual mind can never behold the depth of God. Only the heart can enter into the incomprehensible mystery of divine love.

~Ilia Delio, The Humility of God: A Franciscan Perspective

The most certain way of obtaining any grace from God is holy indifference and a complete resignation to His most holy will.

~St Joseph of Cupertino, O.F.M. Conv.

My argument against God was that the universe seemed so cruel and unjust. But how had I got this idea of just and unjust? A man does not call a line crooked unless he has some idea of a straight line. What was I comparing this universe with when I called it unjust?

~C.S. Lewis via Little Portion Hermitage

God will be loved as God; that is to say, with fear, without reserve, in preference to all creatures, and without exception. He will not accept a divided heart, for unless the creature be loved in and for Him, it is like offering Him what the creature has left.

~St. Bernard of Corleone, O.F.M. Cap.

Extend your mercy towards others, so that there can be no one in need whom you meet without helping. For what hope is there for us if God should withdraw His Mercy from us?

~Saint Vincent de Paul via OH……….. FRANCESCO

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.

By definition, authentic God experience is always “too much”! It consoles our True Self only after it has devastated our false self. We must begin to be honest about this instead of dishing out fast-food religion.

~Richard Rohr, Falling Upward: A Spirituality for the Two Halves of Life

‎How necessary it is – both for the lives of individuals and for the serene and peaceful coexistence of all people – to see God as the center of all there is and the center of our personal lives.

~Pope Benedict XVI, Angelus Address, Munich, Germany, 10Sep06 via St. Francis of Assisi – Poverello (Facebook Page)

We should try unceasingly to allow each one of our actions to become a moment of communion with God: not a studied act, but just as it comes from purity and simplicity of heart.

~Brother Lawrence, The Practice of the Presence of God

Day in and day out, both when convenient and inconvenient, in good times and in bad – the Professed Secular Franciscan is to place him/herself at God’s disposal.

~Fr. Richard Trezza, O.F.M., For Up to Now: Foundation Topics for Initial Formation, “Profession and the Secular Franciscan: Theological and Liturgical Foundations”

Without silence, the inward stillness in which God educates and molds us is impossible.

~Evelyn Underhill, via  Gerry Straub’s Blog

Obedience is not an act of coercion, it is letting go, surrendering oneself to the ocean of the goodness of God.”

~Pope Benedict XVI,  General Audience, December 5, 2012 via Look in the Mirror – “Whats wrong with the world? I am.”.

You cannot please both God and the world at the same time. They are utterly opposed to each other in their thoughts, their desires, and their actions.

~St. John Vianney

All this is flashy rhetoric about loving You.
I never had a selfless thought since I was born.
I am mercenary and self-seeking through and through:
I want God, You, all friends, merely to serve my turn.

Peace, re-assurance, pleasure, are the goals I seek,
I cannot crawl one inch outside my proper skin:
I talk of love —a scholar’s parrot may talk Greek—
But, self-imprisoned, always end where I begin.

Only that now You have taught me (but how late) my lack.
I see the chasm. And everything You are was making
My heart into a bridge by which I might get back
From exile, and grow man. And now the bridge is breaking.

For this I bless You as the ruin falls. The pains
You give me are more precious than all other gains.

via Ragamuffin Ramblings…

[His] grandfather believed—or sometimes believed, and always maintained—that every object on Earth was created by God with the capacity to impart to the attentive student some virtue or grace.

~Nick Harkaway, Angelmaker

Peace is not the absence of affliction, but the presence of God.

~Author Unknown