Sunday, April 27, 2008

Begin Again, Begin Anew

'Consider every day that you are then for the first time beginning; and always act with the same fervor as on the first day you began.'

St. Anthony of Padua

'God, our Father, we are exceedingly frail and indisposed to every virtuous and gallant undertaking. Strengthen our weakness, we beseech you, that we may do valiantly in this spiritual war; help us against our own negligence and cowardice, and defend us from the treachery of our unfaithful hearts; for Jesus Christ's sake.'

Thomas a Kempis

Why not hurry now to Confession, without which to make a new start of a day is all the harder?

At the least make an act of contrition, and then penance so as to start again all the more reconciled with God?

The truth is you neglect to spend both the time and the effort to love God the way He desires. You do not exercise your virtues and the gifts He has given you for that purpose. Stop wasting time! For. . .

'Every moment comes to us pregnant with a command from God, only to pass on and plunge into eternity, there to remain forever what we have made of it.'

St. Francis de Sales

'God desires the least degree of obedience and submissiveness more than all those services you think of rendering him.'

St. John of the Cross

'A little drop of simple obedience is worth a million times more than a whole vase of the choicest contemplation.'

St. Mary Magdalene de Pazzi

'Let us, then, come back from that table like lions breathing out fire, thus becoming terrifying to the Devil, and remaining mindful of our Head and of the love he has shown for us. . . This Blood, when worthily received, drives away demons and puts them at a distance from us, and even summons to us angels and the Lord of angels. . . This Blood, poured out in abundance, has washed the whole world clean. . . This is the price of the world; by it Christ purchased the Church... This thought will check in us unruly passions. How long, in truth, shall we be attached to present things? How long shall we remain asleep? How long shall we not take thought for our own salvation? Let us remember what privileges God has bestowed on us, let us give thanks, let us glorify him, not only by faith, but also by our very works.'

St. John Chrysostom

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