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“Miss no single opportunity of making some small sacrifice, here by a smiling look, there by a kindly word; always doing the smallest right and doing it all for love.”
— St. Therese of Lisieux
//Catholic Company//
“If we really want to love, we must learn how to forgive.”— St. Mother Teresa of Calcutta
//Catholic Company//
Clare desired to follow Francis’s evangelical way of life and may indeed have done so in the early part of her career. Although she described herself as “la piantacella,” the little plant of Francis, she was clearly no wilting flower. She had a strong, independent spirit and a real desire to join in Francis’ evangelical project. Whereas Francis saw poverty as the means for living authentic gospel life, Clare fought for the “privilege of poverty,” because poverty was the key to Christian life. The Incarnation spoke to her of the “poverty of God” manifested in God’s self-giving love.
— from the book Franciscan Prayerby Ilia Delio, OSF
//Franciscan Media//
“The important thing is not to think much but to love much; and so do that which best stirs you to love.”
— St. Teresa of Avila
//Catholic Company//
“Our Lord’s love shines out just as much through a little soul who yields completely to His Grace as it does through the greatest . . . Just as the sun shines equally on the cedar and the little flower, so the Divine Sun shines equally on everyone, great and small. Everything is ordered for their good, just as in nature the seasons are so ordered that the smallest daisy comes to bloom at its appointed time.”— St. Therese of Lisieux, p. 4-5
“Where there is no obedience there is no virtue, where there is no virtue there is no good, where there is no good there is no love, where there is no love, there is no God, and where there is no God there is no Paradise.”
— St. Padre Pio of Pietrelcina
//Catholic Company//
The things and people we cling to imprison us; the things and people we love free us. The most liberating experience of all is to love something or someone and not at the same time want to control the object of our love. True love allows the other his or her own freedom; yes, even desires that freedom; and in return the lover is free to love more and more selflessly. If I am willing to love you and let you go whenever and wherever you wish, we are both free and our love grows. Otherwise, need and dependence replace love, and we grow tired of what all of this is costing us emotionally. Some learn this basic fact of life, and they become the saints we all know. Others never do learn it, and they are constantly caught in webs of their own making, unable to break loose and enjoy the freedom of the children of God.
— from the book Song of the Sparrow: New Poems and Meditations by Murray Bodo, OFM
//Franciscan Media//
God has called each of us to a special service of love and sharing. Most of the time that service is rendered in our ordinary, everyday living, but somehow we fail to see this fact and are constantly looking elsewhere to find ourselves. We think that our real call from God, our real identity, is just around the next corner, that surely God has something other in mind for us than the commonplace demands of our own families and friends, of our own neighborhood, our own town. And because of this attitude, we miss the real opportunities to discover who we really are, and we fail to grow to the stature in Christ that God intends for us. Jesus grew to manhood and holiness in the carpenter shop at Nazareth learning to live with and to love his parents, relatives and neighbors. We grow in love and holiness in the same way.
— from the book Song of the Sparrow: New Poems and Meditations by Murray Bodo, OFM
//Franciscan Media//
We begin to pray well as soon as we realize that complete detachment is never an accomplished fact. It is never realized completely, nor perhaps should it be. But in the process of trying to be reasonably detached, we pray. And prayer becomes more intense the more aware we are of our entanglements with things and people that distract us from God. This is not to say that things and people are not good. They are. But something has happened somewhere along the line; call it original sin or anything you like. The fact remains that most of our heartaches come from exaggerated attachments. It sounds old-fashioned to use words like “detachment,” but our experience tells us daily that we are not really free and that there must be someone to love who transcends the need to be loved, a lover who invites rather than demands our love.
— from the book Song of the Sparrow: New Poems and Meditations by Murray Bodo, OFM
//Franciscan Media//