Recent Posts

'. . . in the early days of the faith few indeed -- but they were very upright -- were regarded as monks, and they had received that form of life from the evangelist Mark of blessed memory, who was the first to rule as bishop over the city of Alexandria. They not only retained then those magnificent qualities that we read in the Acts of the Apostles were originally cultivated by the Church and by the throngs of believers but to these they even added things far more lofty. . . they went off to quite secluded places on the outskirts of the city and led a strict life of such rigorous abstinence that even those who did not share their religion were astonished at the arduous profession of their way of life. For day and night they gave themselves over to the reading of Holy Scripture, to prayer, and to manual labor with such fervor that the very appetite for and memory of food only disturbed them every second or third day, when their bodies felt hunger, and they would take food and drink not so much out of desire as out of necessity. Indeed, they would not do this before sunset, so as to link the daytime with the pursuit of spiritual meditation but the care of the body with the night. And other things they did that were far more lofty than these. . .'

St. John Cassian

'By wishing to do too much, we often spoil everything, constraining our Lord to leave us to act alone and withdraw from us in sorrow.'

St. Margaret Mary Alacoque

This is a prayer I have said for a neighbor who has leg sores that are being treated by a nurse. I think he has pellagra.  I pray but he does not not want to discuss his illness.  St. Rocco (also known as St. Roch) was said to have been miraculously healed of the sores on his leg. I realize my neighbor is under a doctor's care and has an at home nurse visit him twice a week.  However loving and prayerful intervention is always an act of charity. 

Here is the prayer:

O Great Saint Rocco, deliver us, we beeech thee, from contagious diseases and the contagion of sine.  Obtain for us a purity of heart which will assist us to make good use of health and to bear sufferings with patience.  Teach us to follow your example in the practice of penance and charity, so that we may one day enjoy the happiness of being with Christ our Savior, in Heaven.

King David is attributed as the author of Psalm 35.

The dictionary of Delaney lists St Gothard as aka Godehard, born in 962 in Bavaria, and taken to Rome by Archbishop of Salzburg, who made him Provost of Canons in 981, when he was just 19.  He was ordained in 990 and became a monk at Nieder Altaich when the Benedictine rule was restored there, where he was named Abbot.  In 1022 he was named by Emperor Henrey II Bishop of Hildesheim, where he imposed strict discipline and built churches, schools and a hospice.
St Godhard, pray for us to understand and follow God's Will.

'The best perfection is to do ordinary things in a perfect manner. Constant fidelity in little things is a great and heroic virtue.'

St. Bonaventure

'I therefore, yet not I, but the love of Jesus Christ, entreat you that you use Christian nourishment only, and abstain from herbage of a different kind; I mean heresy. For those [that are given to this] mix up Jesus Christ with their own poison, speaking things which are unworthy of credit, like those who administer a deadly drug in sweet wine, which he who is ignorant of does greadily take, with a fatal pleasure leading to his own death.'

St. Ignatius of Antioch

Justin's grandfather Bacchius had a Greek name. His father Priscus bore a Latin name.

'If someone shuts a snake and a scorpion up in a bottle, in time, they will be completely destroyed. So it is with evil thoughts: they are suggested by the demons; they disappear through patience.'

St. Poemen

'Love the Sacred Heart ardently and It will help you to overcome yourself, to humble yourself, and to detach yourself from creatures and from self.'

St. Margaret Mary Alacoque