January 9
"What are our real trials? By what name shall we call them? One cuts herself out a cross of pride; another, one of causeless discontent; another, one of restless impatience or peevish fretfulness. Yet we know certainly that our God calls us to a holy life, that he gives us every grace, every abundant grace; and though we are weak of ourselves, this grace is able to carry us through every obstacle and difficulty.”
-From a conference by St. Elizabeth Ann Seton
January 8
"The sweet fragrance of Christ noticed among men [is] not in a sudden burst of flame, but in the constant red-hot embers of virtues such as justice, loyalty, faithfulness, understanding, and cheerfulness."
–St. Josemaría Escrivá, Christ is Passing By
January 7
“What we mean, in the last resort, by ‘an answer to prayer,’ is that from the beginning of time, before He set about the building of the worlds, God foreknew every prayer that human lips would breathe, and took it into account. That, and nothing less, is the staggering claim which we make every time we say the 'Our Father.'”
- Monsignor Ronald Knox
January 6
“The Creator of the universe awaits the prayer of one poor little soul to save a multitude of others, redeemed like her at the price of His Blood.”
-St. Therese of Lisieux
January 5
“Prayer is not only the mutual presence of God and the soul. It is also a relationship between them, a relationship of intimacy, exchange, activity, and life indeed, it is the highest kind of life there is, the life of love, divine love.”
-Canon Jacques Leclercq
January 4
“Prayer gives us strength for great ideals, for keeping up our faith, charity, purity, generosity; prayer gives us strength to rise up from indifference and guilt, if we have had the misfortune to give in to temptation and weakness. Prayer gives us light by which to see and to judge from God’s perspective and from eternity. That is why you must not give up on praying!”
-St. Pope John Paul II
January 3
“A person’s prayer often keeps step with his moral life. The closer our behavior corresponds to the Divine Will, the easier it is to pray; the more our conduct is out of joint with Divinity, the harder it is to pray.”
-Venerable Fulton J. Sheen
January 2
“When prayer is humble, trusting, and persevering, it obtains for us a more lively faith, a firmer hope, a more ardent charity. Thereby we see how fruitful mental prayer can be; how it draws God strongly toward us that He may give Himself intimately to us and that we may give ourselves to Him.”
Reginald Garrigou-Lagrange, O.P.
January 1
"We never give more honour to Jesus than when we honour his Mother, and we honour her simply and solely to honour him all the more perfectly. We go to her only as a way leading to the goal we seek - Jesus, her Son."
--Saint Louis Marie de Montfort
December 2
“Into this world, this demented inn in which there is absolutely no room for him at all, Christ comes uninvited.”
-Thomas Merton
