He Yearns to Gather Us

He Yearns to Gather Us

Everything about Jesus is to be admired. His words, his gazes, his smile, his thoughts and actions, but most of all his incomparable Heart, center and fount of those allurements! In him are encompassed all virtues and perfections; his holiness and his love. His infinite, ardent, pure, and divine love.

Nothing is more demanding and yet more tender and precious than that Heart in which every holy affection could be seen to radiate. But that which is most admirable in the Heart of Jesus is his serenity in his intimate sufferings, in that interior cross which tortured his soul from the instant of the Incarnation until his death. In his most sacred Heart, Jesus felt the piercing thorns of all our suffering and the bitterness of all our tears….

Ah, this divine love, which cannot be defined nor expressed, but which we experience without understanding it, is in that divine Heart, which suffers deep wounds of love. Which moves, astounds, and fascinates one, driving one crazy with the foolishness of the cross. O delights of divine love that surpass all earthly delights! O most loving and sorrowful Heart of Jesus! May you be blessed!

This divine Heart wants to unite itself to us in an intimate embrace and to fuse our soul into his own. He loves us in order to reveal his secrets to us. To grant us his Spirit. To give us that which is his. To inebriate us with his love and to communicate to us his very life, his heartbeats, his martyrdoms, and his happiness.

Blessed Concepción Cabrera de Armida 

Blessed Concepción “Conchita” († 1937) was a wife, mother, and writer in Mexico.

How to enter the Narrow Gate

How to Enter the Narrow Gate

The first thing should be that God is present in our life. The sums of human life don’t work out if God is left out: all that remains then is nothing but contradiction. So we mustn’t just believe in some theoretical way that God exists: we must consider him to be the most important and real thing in our life. As Scripture says, he must penetrate every layer of our life and fill it completely: our heart must know about him and let itself be moved by him; our soul; the power of our will and decision; our intelligence. He must be everywhere. And our fundamental attitude towards him, our fundamental relationship to him, must be called love. 

Often this can be very difficult…. Often assent to God seems almost impossible. But those who abandon themselves to this rebellion poison their lives. The poison of negation, of anger against God and against the world, eats them away from within. But God wants from us as it were a down-payment of trust. He says to us: “I know you don’t understand me yet. But trust me: believe me when I tell you I am good and dare to live on the basis of this trust. Then you will discover that behind your suffering, behind the difficulties of your life, a love is hiding. Then you will know that precisely in this way I have done something good for you.” There are many examples of saints and great people who have dared to have this trust and who have thus found true happiness—for themselves and for many others—precisely in the greatest darkness.

Pope Benedict XVI

His Holiness Benedict XVI reigned as pope from 2005 to 2013. [From The Yes of Jesus Christ: Exercises in Faith, Hope and Love, Robert Nowell, Tr. © 1991, The Crossroad Publishing Company, New York, NY.]

The Mustard Seed

The Mustard Seed

Searching in heaven and on earth, does he find nothing except the grain of mustard seed by which to indicate the full power of the heavenly Kingdom? That Kingdom is uniquely mighty, blessed with everlasting duration, resplendent in its divinity, spread throughout heaven, and expanded over all the earth. Does he force and insert it within the narrow limits of a grain of mustard seed? Is that the complete hope of those who believe? Is that the highest expectation of the faithful? Is that the happiness which the virgins gain by their long struggles for continence? Is that the glory acquired by the shedding of all the blood of the martyrs? Is that what eye has not seen nor ear heard, nor has it entered into the heart of man? Is that what the Apostle promises has been prepared, through an indescribable mystery, for those who love God?

Let us not be easily troubled over the Lord’s words. For if the foolishness of God is wiser than men, and the weakness of God is stronger than men, this tiniest creature of God is found to be something more magnificent than all the greatness of the world. Oh, if we would only sow this grain of mustard seed in our minds in such a way that it will grow into a great tree of knowledge, and through the full height of understanding be raised toward the sky; that it will spread out into all the branches of the sciences; that it will burn our tingling mouths with the pungent taste of its seed! Thus it will burn for us with all the fire of its seed, and break into flame in our heart, and through the pleasure of taste it gives us take away all the insipidity of our ignorance….

As the text says, the Kingdom of God is like a grain of mustard seed, because the Kingdom is brought by a word from heaven, is received through hearing, is sown by Faith, takes root through belief, grows by hope, is diffused by profession, expands through virtue, and is spread out into branches. To these branches it invites the birds of heaven, that is, the powers of spiritual insight. In those branches it receives them in a peaceful abode.

Saint Peter Chrysologus

Saint Peter Chrysologus († 450), Doctor of the Church, was Archbishop of Ravenna, Italy.

Called

Called

God has created me to do him some definite service; he has committed some work to me which he has not committed to another. I have my mission—I never may know it in this life, but I shall be told it in the next…. I have a part in a great work; I am a link in a chain, a bond of connection between persons. He has not created me for naught. I shall do good, I shall do his work; I shall be an angel of peace, a preacher of truth in my own place, while not intending it, if I do but keep his commandments and serve him in my calling.

Therefore I will trust him. Whatever, wherever I am, I can never be thrown away. If I am in sickness, my sickness may serve him; in perplexity, my perplexity may serve him; if I am in sorrow, my sorrow may serve him. My sickness, or perplexity, or sorrow may be necessary causes of some great end, which is quite beyond us. He does nothing in vain; he may prolong my life, he may shorten it; he knows what he is about. He may take away my friends, he may throw me among strangers, he may make me feel desolate, make my spirits sink, hide the future from me—still he knows what he is about.

Blessed John Henry Newman

Blessed John Henry Newman († 1890), a cardinal, established the Oratory in Birmingham, England, and was a preacher of great eloquence.

Unafraid to seek mercy

Unafraid to Seek Mercy

The best of doctors has begun to cure you, and for him no disease is incurable. Don’t be afraid for your past wickednesses, however frightful, however unbelievable the things you have perhaps committed. They are grave diseases, but the doctor has mastered them. So don’t worry about past sins; in one moment of the sacrament they will be forgiven, and absolutely all of them will be totally forgiven. Listen to what the Apostles said on this point to those who had crucified the Lord: Repent, and be baptized every one of you in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ, and your sins are forgiven you (Acts 2:38). It happened; they were baptized, they believed, they approached the Lord’s Body, they approached to drink the Blood they had shed. To all who have incurred guilt pardon is given by the forgiver of sins, who is not the applauder of sins; who came to call not the just, but sinners….

What’s done is done; you can’t make past deeds not to have been done; but as for future deeds, you do have the power not to do them. So why be seduced by this perverse argument of the devil’s? They are afraid of future sins which they are not yet committing; they aren’t afraid of past sins, which having committed they are lugging around with them. You haven’t done those ones, these ones are already weighing you down. Perhaps you won’t commit those, indeed if you don’t want to you certainly won’t; as for these, if you want to you can eliminate them. “I can’t,” you say. Come to grace. After all, you have received the power to, because it is written, he gave them power to become children of God (Jn 1:12). So start being a child of his…. Where you have begun to be a slave, set your heart on being a son or daughter. Get yourself pardoned for the sins you are lugging around….

But when you have been made new by the forgiveness of sins, with all your past ones forgiven, if you receive here a long stretch of life, so live that good works follow upon your faith. Live up to what you have become, a child in the family of so great a father and householder, one over whom God’s name is invoked.

Saint Augustine 

Saint Augustine († 430) is called the Doctor of Grace.

To Spread the fire

To Spread the Fire

Jesus proclaimed that he had come to bring fire to the earth. By continuing his mission, I keep alive the flame that my hands received from Christ Jesus. Just as a runner descends Mount Olympus carrying the Olympic torch, I want to traverse the entire world in order to transmit the flame of Christ to others.

The flame I bear is love, the élan of fervor, the strength of God, destined to inflame and consume sin and to renew all things. But am I really a burning flame or an icy wind? Am I a stove without a flame?… 

To feed this fire I must pour the oil of my daily prayer into others. I will prepare their torches so that the Holy Spirit will set them ablaze, dispelling their darkness and “renewing the face of the earth.”

Venerable Francis Xavier Nguyen Van Thuan

Cardinal Nguyễn Văn Thuận († 2002) was imprisoned by the Vietnamese government for thirteen years.

Light your lamps

“Light your lamps”

Do not be content with anything less than the highest ideals! Do not let yourselves be dispirited by those who are disillusioned with life and have grown deaf to the deepest and most authentic desires of their heart. You are right to be disappointed with hollow entertainment and passing fads, and with aiming at too little in life. If you have an ardent desire for the Lord you will steer clear of the mediocrity and conformism so widespread in our society.

You are the light of the world. For those who first heard Jesus, as for us, the symbol of light evokes the desire for truth and the thirst for the fullness of knowledge which are imprinted deep within every human being. When the light fades or vanishes altogether, we no longer see things as they really are. In the heart of the night we can feel frightened and insecure, and we impatiently await the coming of the light of dawn…. It is up to you to be the watchmen of the morning who announce the coming of the sun who is the Risen Christ!

The light which Jesus speaks of in the Gospel is the light of faith, God’s free gift, which enlightens the heart and clarifies the mind. It is the God who said, “Let light shine out of darkness,” who has shone in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God on the face of Christ (2 Cor 4:6). That is why the words of Jesus explaining his identity and his mission are so important: I am the light of the world; whoever follows me will not walk in darkness, but will have the light of life(Jn 8:12). Our personal encounter with Christ bathes life in new light, sets us on the right path, and sends us out to be his witnesses. This new way of looking at the world and at people, which comes to us from him, leads us more deeply into the mystery of faith, which is not just a collection of theoretical assertions to be accepted and approved by the mind, but an experience to be had, a truth to be lived, the salt and light of all reality…. Let the Gospel be the measure and guide of life’s decisions and plans! Then you will be missionaries in all that you do and say, and wherever you work and live you will be signs of God’s love, credible witnesses to the loving presence of Jesus Christ. Never forget: No one lights a lamp and then puts it under a bushel. 

Saint John Paul II

Saint John Paul II († 2005) reigned as pope from 1978 until 2005.

Pray Always

Pray Always

Why does God, who is love, keep us waiting? Because he is love, and seeks love. Love that does not know how to wait is not love. To love is to give ourselves. Not only for a fraction of a lifetime, nor with a part of its strength: love is, and seeks, the total gift of self.

Love is based on esteem. We love only what we value and admire. We love only the “good.” What is too easily and too quickly come by does not attract deep souls. It becomes a superficial good, which cannot satisfy the rich capacity of their nature…. It is a law that real treasures are deeply buried and carefully hidden; that serious acquisitions call for proportionate efforts….

God is the treasure beyond price. Were he to give himself too easily, even the best would turn their backs upon him. Saint John Climacus gives a similar reason, but with an interesting difference. “Prayer,” he says, “is an activity that develops and enriches enormously. It is a source of merit and satisfaction, and of spiritual progress of every kind.” God imposes repetitions and a certain persistence in prayer in order to increase our merit. Delays in union are not time lost; far from it. God sees very far ahead; he makes wonderful use of what we call evil—of our wanderings, our hesitations and detours, although he does not love them or want them. It is at these moments, above all, that we need confidence and perseverance. The prayer, whether for ourselves or for others, that is not discouraged, which persists and besieges heaven, touches God’s heart; and that is why he tells us to persevere.

Dom Augustin Guillerand, O. Cart.

Dom Augustin Guillerand († 1945) was a French Carthusian monk and a revered spiritual author.

The harvest is abundant

The Harvest Is Abundant

Just as lands covered thick with produce, and broad and long, require numerous and able laborers; so the whole earth, or rather the company of those about to believe in Christ, being great and innumerable, required not a few teachers, but as many as would suffice for the work. And for this reason Christ appointed those who were to be the allies, so to speak, and assistants of the twelve disciples. They went, therefore, on their mission, being sent two and two to every city and village, crying, as it were, in the words of John the Baptist, prepare ye the way of the Lord….

But inasmuch as it belongs to the supreme God alone to send forth laborers, how was it that Christ appointed them? Is he not, therefore, the Lord of the harvest, and God the Father, by him and with him, the Lord of all? All things, therefore, are his, and there is nothing of all things which are named that belongs to the Father, which is not also the Son’s….

And the wise John also affirms that we all are his, thus saying of him: I indeed baptize you in water: but after me cometh he who is mightier than I; he shall baptize you in the Holy Spirit, and in fire. Whose fan is in his hand, and he will cleanse his floor, and will gather the wheat into his garner, but the chaff he will burn with unquenchable fire.

May it be our lot then as rational wheat, to be carried into God’s treasure house, even into the mansions that are above: that there, in company with the rest of the saints, we may enjoy the blessings which God bestows in Christ; by whom, and with whom, to God the Father be praise and dominion with the Holy Spirit, unto ages of ages. Amen.

Saint Cyril of Alexandria

Saint Cyril of Alexandria († 444) was an eminent figure of ancient Christian literature and a valiant defender of the Faith.

The Wisdom of the Apostles

The Wisdom We Learn through the Apostles

Let us not, then, be insensible to his loving kindness. Certainly, if he were to imitate our way of acting, we should be done for instantly. We must, therefore, prove ourselves his disciples and learn to live like Christians. Assuredly, whoever is called by a name other than this, is not of God. Hence, put away the deteriorated leaven, a leaven stale and sour, and turn to the new leaven, that is, Jesus Christ. Be salted in him to keep any among you from being spoiled, for by your odor you will be tested. 

Now this, dearly beloved…as one who is not your superior, I merely wish to warn you not to yield to the bait of false doctrine, but to believe most steadfastly in the birth, the Passion, and the Resurrection, which took place during the procuratorship of Pontius Pilate. Facts these are, real and established by Jesus Christ, our hope. May God grant that none of you may relinquish it!…

Be zealous, therefore, to stand squarely on the decrees of the Lord and the Apostles, that in all things whatsoever you may prosper, in body and in soul, in faith and in love, in the Son and the Father and the Spirit, in the beginning and the end.

Saint Ignatius of Antioch

Saint Ignatius of Antioch († c. 107) was from Syria and was a bishop and a martyr.

The Lord’s Prayer

Why We Pray the Lord’s Prayer

We have no other guide to eternal life, divine life, beatitude, than the life of Christ, the teaching of Christ, the Passion of Christ, and the prayer of Christ. The imitation of Christ is the way of love and of holiness. 

Thus the Lord’s Prayer, taught us by Christ, is the truest of prayers, the most completely and perfectly true, just and agreeable to God, the prayer whose flame must always burn within us.

There is no prayer, no contemplation, unless Christ be in the soul, and unless an imitation of Christ, a participation in his states and in his life, and in his prayer, what Saint Paul calls a reproduction of his image, be present in the depths of the soul. He himself is also present there, because all the graces received by the soul reach it through the instrument, conjoined to God, that is the humanity of the Savior. 

If it is a question of the particular goods, even the most justly desirable in themselves, for which, in the innumerable occasions of human life, we happen to ask God, but of which we do not know the role in the reverse side of things and the divine economy, we must believe Saint Paul: We know not how we are to pray as we ought; but the Spirit himself pleads in our behalf with unutterable groanings (Rom 8:26). And what then does the Spirit do? He makes us cry, Abba! Father! (Rom 8:15). What is this to say if not that the Spirit, when he makes us pray as we must, reminds us interiorly of the example of Jesus and has us pray, as adopted sons, in the power of the Lord’s Prayer? Every prayer in spirit and in truth, especially infused prayer in all its degrees, proceeds in the power of the Lord’s Prayer.

Raïssa Maritain

Raïssa Maritain († 1960) was born in Russia. She was a convert to Catholicism and the wife of philosopher Jacques Maritain.

Only one thing is necessary

“There is need of only one thing”

Our present life is always something good, for the Creator has endowed it with a blessing he will never cancel, even though sin has complicated things. God saw that it was good, the Book of Genesis tells us. For God, “seeing” means not merely taking note but actually conferring reality. This fundamental goodness of life is also expressed by Jesus: Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothing?

Sometimes, though, it isn’t worry that causes us to focus on the future, but the hope of something better or happier…. The time when things will go better, circumstances will change, life will be more interesting. At present, we tell ourselves, we don’t really have a life, but later we will “live life to the full.”… We may spend our whole lives waiting to live. Thus we risk not fully accepting the reality of our present lives. Yet, what guarantee is there that we won’t be disappointed when the long-awaited time arrives? Meanwhile we don’t put our hearts sufficiently into today, and so miss graces we should be receiving. Let us live each moment to the full….

To live today well we also should remember that God only asks for one thing at a time, never two. It doesn’t matter whether the job we have in hand is sweeping the kitchen floor or giving a speech to forty thousand people. We must put our hearts into it, simply and calmly, and not try to solve more than one problem at a time. Even when what we’re doing is genuinely trifling, it’s a mistake to rush through it as though we felt we were wasting our time. If something, no matter how ordinary, needs to be done and is part of our lives, it’s worth doing for its own sake, and worth putting our hearts into.

Father Jacques Philippe

Father Philippe is a French priest, a member of the Community of the Beatitudes, and a renowned spiritual director.

Increase our faith

Increase Our Faith

Faith is not only the perpetual element of our spiritual life; it is also a most firm element, firmer by far than consolations and extraordinary graces. Saint Peter, after having alluded to the Transfiguration, of which he was a privileged witness, and to that heavenly voice, the voice of the Father, which his own ears heard on the height of Thabor, assures us that, despite everything else, we have something firmer and more secure: And we have the more firm prophetical word (2 Pt 1:19), the revealed word, that is, the faith.

In fact, the faith is something firmer and more secure than would be the appearance of our Lord to us and his speech with us…. Who does not imagine that an apparition would be something most efficacious in the spiritual life? Nevertheless, I repeat that the light of faith is firmer and surer than an apparition…. I recall a person who arrived at a very high degree of prayer by means of this very simple procedure. She said to herself, “If I would see our Lord, how would I react? What would I say to him? How would I comport myself with him?” Then she would vivify her faith and say, “I do not see him with my eyes, but faith assures me that he is present in the tabernacle. Now, if he is here before me, I wish to enact what I should feel and say and do, as I would feel and say and do it if I were seeing him with my bodily eyes.” Thus, she intensified her faith and facilitated her communion with God….

Can we make our prayer with ease? Then let us be transported with it. Is our soul flooded with light? Then let us profit from it, so that our heart may glow. At the present time, however, do we lack all this? Then let us not be disturbed, for faith should suffice us in such a way that we should comport ourselves today as we comported ourselves yesterday. Yesterday we loved God in light and in joy; today let us love him in darkness and spiritual dryness. If we had the surety of his love yesterday, we ought also to have it today. His love does not depend on the changes of our heart, nor does it alter because our sensible dispositions change. His love is everlastingly the same.

Servant of God Luis María Martínez

Archbishop Martínez († 1956) was a spiritual author, and the first official Primate of Mexico.

Why we rejoice

Why We Rejoice

I prayed continuously, asking Jesus to strengthen me and to grant me the power of his Holy Spirit that I might carry out his holy will in all things, because from the beginning I have been aware of my weakness. I know very well what I am of myself, because for this purpose Jesus has opened the eyes of my soul; I am an abyss of misery, and hence I understand that whatever good there is in my soul consists solely of his holy grace. The knowledge of my own misery allows me, at the same time, to know the immensity of your mercy. In my own interior life, I am looking with one eye at the abyss of my misery and baseness, and with the other, at the abyss of your mercy, O God.

O my Jesus, you are the life of my life. You know only too well that I long for nothing but the glory of your Name and that souls come to know your goodness. Why do souls avoid you, Jesus?—I don’t understand that. Oh, if I could only cut my heart into tiny pieces and in this way offer to you, O Jesus, each piece as a heart whole and entire, to make up in part for the hearts that do not love you! I love you, Jesus, with every drop of my blood, and I would gladly shed my blood for you to give you a proof of the sincerity of my love, O God, the more I know you the less I can comprehend you [but] it is this impossibility of comprehending you which enflames my heart anew for you, O Lord. From the moment when you let me fix the eyes of my soul on you, O Jesus, I have been at peace and desired nothing else, I found my destiny at the moment when my soul lost itself in you, the only object of my love. In comparison with you, everything is nothing. Sufferings, adversities, humiliations, failures, and suspicions that have come my way are splinters that keep alive the fire of my love for you, O Jesus….

I want never to be rewarded for my efforts and my good actions. You yourself, Jesus, are my only reward; you are enough, O Treasure of my heart!

Saint Maria Faustina Kowalska

From Divine Mercy in My Soul, Diary of Saint Maria Faustina Kowalska († 1938), a Polish Sister of Our Lady of Mercy. She was canonized in 2000.

The true way to be exalted

The True Way to Be Exalted

Father, 

remember your sons who, as you know,

are threatened with grave dangers

and find it very hard

to follow in your footsteps.

Give them the strength to hold out;

purify them so that they may become shining

examples;

give them joy

so that they may bear fruit;

invoke the Spirit of grace

and prayer for them,

so that they may possess the true humility

that you had,

that they may love poverty

as you did,

that they may become worthy of the love

with which you loved

Christ crucified.

Saint Francis of Assisi

Saint Francis of Assisi († 1226) was a deacon, father to the poor, missionary, and religious founder.

Laboring for the abundant harvest

Laboring for the Abundant Harvest

Ah, Catholic Church, how utterly I share with you in my own way your passion for the universe. This thirst for action, this compassion that has become a passion in the hearts of so many noble women, educators, and missionaries, this need for order, meaning, purity, and response all around us, this way of intimately embracing the sinner in order to transform him, this craving for understanding and enlightenment that torments…so many students, all this is related to that hunger on the part of the Savior that he communicated to his Church: Where is my guest room, where I am to eat the Passover with my disciples? (Mk 14:14).

All that the Church does, we do with her. With her help we are enabled, within the limits of our humble powers, to take the world in our hands and offer it to God—and even to take God himself in our hands and offer him to the world.

Paul Claudel

Paul Claudel († 1955) was a poet, playwright, diplomat, and member of the French Academy.

The greatness of the guardian angels

The Greatness of the Guardian Angels

One can grow in love of God by loving him, that is, by multiplying day and night aspirations of love for him. Every act of love is like wood placed on the fire; it ignites, inflames, increases the flame of our love.

We must often recall the state of our soul and examine to what point holy love dominates it, to see if it truly is the motive of our actions and our sentiments, and, after this examination, we must conceive a great desire to love God even more, begging him for the grace to do so and to know how to love him with all the strength of our soul.

We should imitate our good Guardian Angel: in church, his profound worship before the Tabernacle; in prayer, his recollection and his piety; in our affairs, his union with God; in our temptations, his glorious battles against the devil; in the practice of charity, his patience in bearing the mistakes and defects of his neighbor, his gentleness, his generosity, his assistance; in short, his conformity to God’s good pleasure in all things, the uprightness of his intentions and his pure and innocent life.

Blessed Clelia Merloni

Blessed Clelia Merloni († 1930) founded the Congregation of the Apostles of the Sacred Heart.