Believe that Nothing is Impossible with God
“If God should choose a soul in which to accomplish an extraordinary work, He is in no way bound to enlighten the soul so that it may understand the means whereby the work will be accomplished. But He does condescend to ask that soul’s generous correspondence with Him...”
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Let God’s Favors Lead You Closer to Him
“The sacraments, those masterpieces of divine ingenuity, were instituted not only to dower our souls with the riches of Heaven, but also to smooth for us the path of Christian righteousness so that we might run the way of God’s commandments with enlarged hearts and with a joy that earth knows not.”
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Do Not Hunger for Special Graces
“It is the most cogent proof of our overweening pride to think that God gives us His best gifts just because we hanker after them. Humility is the price of God’s most precious favors. ‘Every proud man is an abomination to the Lord’ (Prov. 16:5). ‘God resisteth the proud and giveth grace to the humble’ (James 4:6).”
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March 4
Walk By the Light of Divine Faith
“A life of strong, living faith is a life of unwavering submission to Divine Providence. Convinced of this truth, we will never permit the dictates of human prudence to enter into the equation of our conformity to the divine will.”
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March 3
Love God Above All Else
“Great souls who live for God alone are usually silent and solitary even in the midst of the maddening crowd’s ignoble strife. They are in the world, but not of the world. Fully dedicated to the service of God, they are dead to the world and dead to themselves.”
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March 2
Learn to Use the Grace God Gives You
“Mary’s surpassing sanctity flowed from the permanent dedication of herself to God at the moment of reason and her constant correspondence with actual grace thereafter.”
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March 1
Commend Yourself to Mary’s Care
“With Mary’s aid, we will be ever on our guard against the treacherous cunning of all the enemies of our soul. We will meet their full assaults with intrepid determination and their hostile charges with fearless courage. We will be devoted to the service of God.”
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“It is Jesus who stirs in you the desire to do something great with your lives, the will to follow an ideal, the refusal to allow yourselves to be ground down by mediocrity, the courage to commit yourselves humbly and patiently to improving yourselves and society, making the world more human and more fraternal.”
-St. John Paul the Great
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February 28
By virtue of our baptism, all of us are called to mission that has both an exterior and an interior quality. God intends for us to be the salt of the earth and the light of the world. We are to bring His word, His love, His healing to His people. Each of us is called to be a conduit of the Divine Life in the world in which we live. That is the exterior mission we have been given.
But, in order to accomplish this holy task, we need to bring everything within us into conformity with the Father’s will. Our words, our deeds, our actions, our attitudes, our hopes, our dreams -- everything needs to be brought into right order according to God’s holy plan for mankind. Our fundamental vocation as baptized Christians is to holiness of life. And, as Our Lord Himself shows us, this comes about through union with God. If He who was perfect went into the desert to be prepared for His mission of redemption, then how much more do we, who are imperfect, need this time of preparation as we seek to fulfill our mission as the sons and daughters of God?
Few of us will be called to spend forty days and forty nights in the desert. And most likely none of us will be called to the rigorous asceticism of the desert fathers. But, through the liturgical season of Lent, all of us are called to a desert experience.
In her wisdom, Holy Mother Church offers us this season to spiritually retreat from the distractions of the world and focus our attention on the great gift of our life in Christ Jesus. It is a time for each member of the Mystical Body to consider our holy union with Christ in the Father. It is a time to nurture our relationship with God even as we consider the treasure of our redemption.
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February 27
This first withdrawal of Jesus to a place of stillness was but the beginning of a life-long habit. At key moments throughout His life, the Son of Man retreated into the solitude (cf. Mt. 14:23-24; Mt. 26:36, 42, 44; Mk. 1:35; Lk. 6:12; Lk. 9:28); there in the stillness of the wilderness, He communed with His Heavenly Father, and drew from Him the strength and the fortitude needed to fulfill His mission. In so doing, Our Lord teaches us much about conforming our lives to the Father’s will.
In the early centuries of Church history, many holy men followed the pattern set by Jesus. For weeks or years -- a special few for a lifetime -- they went to the wilderness to detach themselves from the distractions of the world and enter the solitude of the heart. In the austere silence of the desert and amplified stillness of the soul, they sought communion with God: a continuous awareness of His presence about them, among them, and in them. Through this union, they yearned to make the whole of their being a conduit of the Father’s love, a receptive channel through which divine charity could flow into the lives of others.
The “desert fathers,” as they came to be known, knew that the call to the desert was a radical call. The desert would allow for no pretense or disguise, no haughtiness or pride, no shortcut or delusion. It was a call to radical simplicity and radical integrity. It was a call to hard living, self- restraint, and unyielding mortification. It was a call to fortitude and steadfastness, perseverance and strength. It was a call to vigilance, and a call to honesty, truth, and humility. The wilderness offered no hiding place. All lay bare and exposed in the barren desert.
For the desert dwellers, the external perils of the wilderness were mirrors of their interior struggles. The barren environment represented man’s impoverished condition and need for a savior. The wild beasts were reminders of unbridled passions and heinous sin. And the restless spirits who roamed the arid wasteland were Satan’s pawns, tormenting and tempting the beleaguered and the unaware.
Yes, the desert offered countless opportunities to develop virtue while wresting vice. And, when God’s grace met with man’s cooperation, the desert became the furnace in which fire-tried holiness was forged.
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