Franciscan Quote of the Day

Happiness is the sense of peace and joy that stems from knowledge of and union with the One Who created us and Who loves us infinitely. We will attain it fully in heaven, but we can achieve it to a significant extent beforehand by battling our desire to remain independent of God, ignoring the voices that label religion boring and unnecessary, and better acquainting ourselves with Truth through study and prayer.

~Mary Anne Marks quoted in “God and Woman at Harvard“

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Imagine for a moment what you could learn about God’s revelation if you would set aside for just one day, even just one hour, your need to be right, your need to be safe, your need to be in charge. Imagine if you set these aside and fully, truly accepted that the Lord would never leave you to destruction, never forsake you to an eternal death. What could you learn? How would you grow? Think for a moment about the locks you put on your trust, on your love, on your hope. How many are there? Can you count them? Do you believe that hoarding the gifts God has given you will earn you compound interest in heaven? Or that a cautious, meager charity will benefit you in the long run? Gifts left unused for the good of your neighbors will eventually atrophy and die, leaving behind a bitter waste, an angry, soured soul. There is nothing child-like about living your life in resentment and disappointment. Our Father will never abandon us. What is there for us to fear? Nothing. Nothing at all.

Fr. Philip Neri Powell, OP, Ph.D., Domine, da mihi hanc aquam!, “Only the child-like”.

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You see, the big thing for me is to love reality and not live in the imagination, not live in what could have been or what should have been or what can be, and somewhere, to love reality and then discover that God is present.

~Jean Vanier, via Pax Christi Facebook Page

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If you really want to love Jesus, first learn to suffer, because suffering teaches you to love.

~St. Gemma Galgani

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Into this universal human situation Jesus comes, saying, “Repent,” which means “change the direction in which you are looking for happiness.” Human happiness is found in the growth of unconditional love. The work of spiritual direction is to help us to become aware of the obstacles to divine love and the free circulation of that love within us. This requires the cultivation of a non-possessive attitude toward ourselves and other people. Gradually we learn that God is the true security, God truly loves us, and with this love, we can make it, even if no one else seems to care.

~ Fr. Thomas Keating, OCSO, via Little Portion Hermitage

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The alarming, effervescent, energizing, and contagious freedom of the saints flows from their having learned this lesson. They no longer gauge their actions or decisions by what other people will think of them. And so they don’t live in fear, instability, and hesitancy. Rather, they have discovered that God’s love for them is as firm as the mountains (as the Psalms tell us). They don’t need to earn it; they just humbly accept it. And once they do, it propels them to echo and reflect it spontaneously and joyfully, regardless of the consequences.

~Fr John Bartunek, LC, STL, “A Question about the Litany of Humility in Lent – How can I be freed from the desire of being loved?”

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Remembrance of wrongs is the consummation of anger, the keeper of sins, hatred of righteousness, ruin of virtues, poison of the soul, worm of the mind, shame of prayer, cessation of supplication, estrangement of love, a nail stuck in the soul, pleasureless feeling cherished in the sweetness of bitterness, continuous sin, unsleeping transgression, hourly malice.

~St. John Climacus, The Ladder of Divine Ascent via Scott’s Catholicism Blog

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Wherever they may be, let all my brothers remember that they have given themselves and abandoned their bodies to the Lord Jesus Christ. For love of him they must make themselves vulnerable to their enemies, both visible and invisible, because the Lord says: Those who want to save their life will lose it, and those who lose their life for my sake will save it in eternal life.

~St. Francis of Assisi, The Earlier Rule

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Everyone says forgiveness is a lovely idea, until they have something to forgive, as we did during World War II. And then, to mention the subject at all is to be greeted with howls of anger. It is not that people think this too high and difficult a virtue; it is that they think it hateful and contemptible. ‘That sort of thing makes me sick.’ they say. And half of you already want to ask me, ‘I wonder how you’d feel about forgiving the Gestapo if you were a Pole or a Jew?’

So do I. I wonder very much. Just as when Christianity tells me that I must not deny my religion even to save myself from death or torture, I wonder very much what I should do when it came to the point. I am not trying to tell you in this book what I could do—I can do precious little—I am telling you what Christianity is. I did not invent it. And there, right in the middle of it, I find, ‘Forgive us our sins as we forgive those who sin against us.’ There is no slightest suggestion that we are offered forgiveness on any other terms. It is made perfectly clear that if we do not forgive we shall not be forgiven. There are no two ways about it.

~ C. S. Lewis, via a post on the Little Portion Hermitage blog.

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Go forth in peace, for you have followed the good road. Go forth without fear, for he who created you has made you holy, has always protected you, and loves you as a mother. Blessed be you, my God, for having created me.

~St. Clare of Assisi

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St. Francis cried out and said: “My Lord Jesus Christ, I thank You for the great love and charity which You are showing me, because it is a sign of great love when the Lord punishes His servant well for all his faults in this world, so that he may not be punished for them in the next world. And I am prepared to endure with joy every pain and every adversity which You, my God, wish to send me for my sins.”

~Little Flowers of St. Francis, “Part II: The Considerations of the Holy Stigmata” (thanks to Portiuncula: the Little Portion)

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