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Post by Elizabeth on May 1, 2019 18:34:54 GMT
MAY 1 Forgive-Give
Do you wish to receive? Then give! Do you wish to be forgiven? Then forgive! This is just a brief summary. Hear Christ say in another place, "forgive, and you shall be forgiven." Forgive; give. And you shall be given what you desire-eternal life. - Sermon 64, 5
Prayer. Forgive us, Lord, all these things in which we have been led astray. Help us to resist being led away.
- Punishment and the forgiveness of Sins 2, 4
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Post by Elizabeth on May 2, 2019 16:10:09 GMT
MAY 2 The Following of Christ
Come, follow Me, says the Lord. Do you love? He has hastened on, He has flown on ahead. Look and see where.
O Christian, don't you know where your Lord has gone? I ask you: Don't you wish to follow Him there? Through trials, insults, the cross, and death. Why do you hesitate? Look, the way has been shown you.
- Sermon 345, 6
Prayer. O Lord my God, Thou alone do I love. Thou alone do I follow. Thou alone do I seek. Thou alone am I prepared to serve, for Thou alone justly rule, and under Thy authority I long to be. - Soliloquies 1, 15
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Post by Elizabeth on May 4, 2019 3:03:39 GMT
MAY 3 How To Love God
Unite with the good - whom you will easily find if you are the same yourself - to worship and love God together without recompense. For He Himself will be all our reward, so that in the life to come we may enjoy His goodness and beauty. However, we must love Him not as something we see with our eyes, but as we love wisdom, truth, sanctity, righteousness, charity, and the like, not as they appear in us but as they exist in the very source of incorruptible and unchangeable wisdom. - The Instruction of beginners 27, 55
Prayer. O God, Thou are our only certain delight. - Confessions 8, 5
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Post by Elizabeth on May 5, 2019 2:53:01 GMT
MAY 4 Christian Grief for a Saintly Mother
Gently, I closed my mother's eyes. An immeasurable sorrow flowed up into my heart and would have overflowed in tears. But my eyes, under the mind's strong constraint, held back their flow. As my mother breathed her last, the child Adeodatus broke out into lamentations. We checked him and brought him to silence. -Confessions 9, 12
Prayer. Lord, I know that my mother always forgave others with all her heart. Please forgive her, too. - Confessions 9, 13
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Post by Elizabeth on May 5, 2019 17:02:10 GMT
MAY 5 Solace in God
Little by little,after my mother's death, I began to recover my former feeling about Thy handmaid. I remembered how loving and devout was her conversation with Thee and how pleasant and considerate her conversation with me, of which I was now suddenly deprived. And I found solace in weeping in Thy sight both for her and for myself. - Confession 9, 12
Prayer. Lord, let no one tear my mother, Monica, away from Thy protection. - Confessions 9, 13
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Post by Elizabeth on May 6, 2019 14:12:13 GMT
MAY 6 Prayer from the Heart
If the cry to the Lord uttered by those who pray is made with the sound of the bodily voice without the heart being turned to God, who can doubt that it is made in vain? But if it come from the heart, even if the bodily voice is silent, it can be concealed from everyone else but not from God. Therefore, when we pray - whether aloud as required or silently - to God, our cry must come from the heart.
- Commentary on Psalm 118(29), 1
Prayer. Lord, no heart is so closed as to shut out Thy eye. Let my soul praise Thee that it may love Thee and proclaim Thy mercies. - Confessions 5, 1
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Post by Elizabeth on May 7, 2019 17:22:16 GMT
MAY 7 Withdrawal from God
Remember this. When people choose to withdraw far from a fire, the fire continues to give warmth, but they grow cold. When people choose to withdraw far from light, the light continues to be bright in itself but they are in darkness. This is also the case when people withdraw from God; and this is why those who praise themselves cannot praise God.
- Sermon 170, 11
Prayer. The human being is one of Thy creatures, Lord, and its instinct is to praise Thee. - Confessions 1, 1
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Post by Elizabeth on May 9, 2019 1:37:31 GMT
MAY 8 Spiritual Progress Draws Detractors
People who change their way of life and begin to think about making spiritual progress also begin to suffer from the tongues of detractors. Whoever has not yet suffered this trial has not yet made progress, and whoever is not ready to suffer it does not even endeavor to progress. - Commentary on Psalm 119, 3
Prayer. Come to my aid, O God, the one eternal, true reality! In Thee there is no strife, no disorder, no change, no need, and no death; only supreme clarity, supreme permanence, supreme fullness, and supreme life. - Soliloquies 1, 1
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Post by Elizabeth on May 9, 2019 14:51:50 GMT
MAY 9 Love the Church-Receive the Spirit
Accordingly, we too receive the Holy Ghost if we love the Church, if we are bound together by love, and if we rejoice in the Catholic name and faith.
Let us believe it, brothers ans sisters: we will have the Holy Ghost in the same measure that we love the Church of Christ. Moreover, we love the Church when we stand fast in her membership and love. - Sermon on John 32, 8
Prayer. Lord, I shall hear Thy voice and make haste to clasp Thee to myself. Do not hide Thy face from me.
- Confessions 1, 5
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Post by Elizabeth on May 10, 2019 22:06:56 GMT
MAY 10 Possessing the Scriptures
When you understand anything in the Scriptures, it is love that is manifesting itself to you; when you fail to understand, it is love that is hiding itself from you. Those, therefore, who possess charity possess both what is manifest in the divine words and what is hidden in them.
- Sermon 350, 2
Prayer. Lord, increase my faith, hope, and love! How wonderful and unmatched is Thy goodness! - Soliloquies 1, 1
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Post by Elizabeth on May 11, 2019 23:47:19 GMT
MAY 11 Love Your Neighbor-Receive the Spirit
How do we come to know that we have received the Holy Ghost? We must question our own heart. If we love our neighbor, the Spirit of God dwells in us. We must put ourselves to the test before God by seeing if there is in us love for peace and unity and love for the Church spread throughout the world.
- Sermon on 1 John 6, 10
Prayer. O Lord my God, let my soul praise Thee that it may love Thee. And let it recount to Thee Thy mercies that it may praise Thee for them all. - Confessions 5, 11
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Post by Elizabeth on May 13, 2019 2:17:00 GMT
MAY 12 A Foretaste of Heavenly Beauty
Envision the extraordinary brilliance and effects of the light in sun and moon and stars, in the dark shades of a glade, in the colors and scents of flowers. Then there is the grandeur of the spectacle of the sea at it slips on and off its many colors like robes. All these are mere consolations for us, not the rewards of the blessed. What can such rewards be like, then, if such things here are so many, so great, and of such quality? - City of God 22, 24
Prayer. Look at the heavens and the earth: in their steady change alteration they proclaim that they were made, and their very existence is itself the voice with which they speak. It was Thee, O Lord, Who created them. - Confessions 9, 4
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Post by Elizabeth on May 14, 2019 2:11:26 GMT
MAY 13The Way of Charity Obviously, those who claim to abide in Christ ought to walk as He walked. Should we then walk on water? That is beyond us! What we must do is walk in the way of righteousness. In what way? I have already mentioned it. He was fixed upon the cross, and yet He was walking in this very way-the way of charity: “Father, forgive them; they do not know what they are doing.” If, therefore, you have learned to pray for your enemy, you are walking in the way of the Lord. - Sermon on John 1, 9Prayer. Lord, show me the road I must travel that I may see Thee.- Soliloquies 1, 1
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Post by Elizabeth on May 15, 2019 2:59:24 GMT
MAY 14Sign of Love Know that those who have love are born of God; those who do not have it are not born of God. This is the distinctive sign par excellence. No matter what else you might have, if you lack this, it profits you nothing. And no matter what else you lack, if you have this you have fulfilled the law. - Sermon on John 5, 7Prayer. O God, be my inheritance, for I love Thee totally. With all my heart, with all my mind, I love Thee.- Sermon 334, 3
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Post by Elizabeth on May 15, 2019 23:07:42 GMT
MAY 15Studying the Scriptures with Humility My ambition as a youth was to apply to the study of the Holy Scriptures all the refinement of dialects. I did so, but without the humility of the true searcher. I was supposed to knock at the door so that it would open for me. Instead I was pushing it closed, trying to understand in pride what is only learned in humility. However, the all-merciful Lord lifted me up and kept me safe. - Sermon 51, 6Prayer. O God, my Father, I am seeking Thee, not making statements about Thee. Help me and guide me.
- Confessions 9, 17
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