"When we are before the Blessed Sacrament, instead of looking about us, let us close our eyes and open our hearts. The good God will open His. We will go to Him. He will come to us, the one to give, the other to receive." Source: St. John Vianney, The Meditations of the Curé [...]
"Being Christian is not the result of an ethical choice or a lofty idea, but the encounter with an event, a person, which gives life a new horizon and a decisive direction. Saint John’s Gospel describes that event in these words: 'God so loved the world he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in [...]
"Jesus has always many who love His heavenly kingdom, but few who bear His cross. He has many who desire consolation, but few who care for trial. He finds many to share His table, but few to take part in His fasting. All desire to be happy with Him; few wish to suffer anything for [...]
"The Eucharist is the most perfect Sacrament of this union. By celebrating and also partaking of the Eucharist we unite ourselves with Christ on earth and in heaven who intercedes for us with the Father but we always do so through the redeeming act of his Sacrifice, through which he has redeemed us, so that [...]
"If the piety of our days is so languishing, so shallow, it is because people attach themselves too much to its practices, neglecting the principle. They warm the sentiments, they set the imagination boiling. They do not force themselves to reflect sufficiently, to study, to fathom, and so they fall into the piety of routine." [...]
"So, then, this sacrament benefits recipients by way both of sacrament and of sacrifice, because it is offered for all who partake of it… But to others who do not receive it, it is beneficial by way of sacrifice, inasmuch as it is offered for their salvation… And our Lord expressed both ways, saying (Mat. [...]
"Joseph was only too happy when, as the sacred Scripture tells us, God descended by His grace into his prison to comfort him: 'She went down with him into the pit, and in bands she left him not' (Wisd. x. 13). But we are yet more highly favoured; for we have always with us in [...]
"Because when a person regards the height of goodness in his mind, he then builds a high wall of faith by virtue of the work of God. Then he ascends above that rational faith, which shows him God in the power of His Divinity, and on it he builds bulwarks of virtue higher than the [...]