Finding Joy in the day, Day 361 (Year 3)

Calmer mood

'After fulfilling a commandment expect to be tempted: for love of Christ is tested by adversity.'

St. Mark the Ascetic

Finding Joy in the day, Day 360 (Year 3)

Crying to my dad

'If a man wants to be always in God's company, he must pray regularly and read regularly. When we pray, we talk to God; when we read, God talks to us.'

St. Isidore of Seville

'To obtain the protection of our Blessed Lady in our most urgent wants, it is very useful to say sixty-three times, after the fashion of a Rosary, "Virgin Mary, Mother of God, pray to Jesus for me."'

St. Philip Neri (Interesting I thought, I wonder why 63?)

'Pray for us that Our Lord may enable us to triumph over our enemies so terribly arrayed against us.'

St. Paul of the Cross

Finding Joy in the day, Day 359 (Year 3)

Sleeping in

'Each small task of everyday life is part of the harmony of the universe.'

St. Therese of Lisieux

Finding Joy in the day, Day 358 (Year 3)

Chatting with a friend

'Lord, increase my sufferings, and with them increase Your love in my heart.'

St. Rose of Lima

Finding Joy in the day, Day 357 (Year 3)

Seeing a friend from home

'Never belittle the significance of your thoughts, for not one escapes God's notice.'

St. Mark the Ascetic

Finding Joy in the day, Day 356 (Year 3)

A special gift

'Christ comes as often as a poor man approached you, for He said: "As only as you did it for one of these, the least of my brethren, you did it for me." Therefore, do not let your heart be hardened; extend a coin to Christ, from whom you desire to receive a kingdom.'

St. Caesarius of Arles

Finding Joy in the day, Day 355 (Year 3)

Lots of mail, yay

'Blessed the one who has become fruitful in the Lord, that he may have the holy Angels as guardians, as a fruitful tree has its own husbandman as guardian.'

St. Ephrem of Syria

Finding Joy in the day, Day 354 (Year 3)

Getting some cat naps

'What then did the Lord, the Truth and the Light, accomplish on coming down to the world? He preserved His flesh incorrupt in virginity with which he had adorned it. And so let us too, if we are to come to the likeness of God, endeavor to aspire to the virginity of Christ.'

St. Methodius of Olympus

Finding Joy in the day, Day 353 (Year 3)

Nice visit from my friend

'It is attachment to creatures and to self-satisfaction that weakens the blessings of love in your heart. You must die to all that, if you wish the pure love of God to reign therein.'

St. Margaret Mary Alacoque

Finding Joy in the day, Day 352 (Year 3)

Good talk at a retreat day

'How happy is the soul who detaches herself from all pleasure, from all sentiment, from all self-opinionatedness! You will realize this happiness if you put all your satisfaction in the cross of Jesus; that is, if you die on the cross of your Saviour to all that is not God.'

St. Paul of the Cross

Finding Joy in the day, Day 351 (Year 3)

Sunny warmer day

'Also, it is not less necessary to keep a close guard on thoughts of the mind, since the devil sometimes puts good and holy thoughts in the mind to deceive it under the appearance of virtue, and after that, in order to show what it is, tries and assaults one strongly with the vice which is contrary to this virtue. This the enemy does in order to be able to entice the person into the ditch of desperation.'

St. Catherine of Bologna

'I am come with all My divine power, to heal the wounds which cause you pain.'

The Lord, to St. Mechtilde

Finding Joy in the day, Day 350 (Year 3)

My momma on her birthday

'The sensible man, taking into account the remedial effect of the divine prescriptions, gladly bears the sufferings which they bring upon him, since he is aware that they have no cause other than his own sin. But when the fool, ignorant of the supreme wisdom of God's providence, sins and is corrected, he regards either God or men as responsible for the hardships he suffers.'

St. Maximos the Confessor

Finding Joy in the day, Day 349 (Year 3)

Fitting everything in today

'If you would know whether you have made a good confession, ask yourself if you have resolved to abandon your sins.'

St. Bernard of Clairvaux

Finding Joy in the day, Day 348 (Year 3) Happy St. Valentine's Day and Feasts of Sts Cyril and Methodius

Forgiveness

"We become what we love and who we love shapes what we become. If we love things, we become a thing. If we love nothing, we become nothing. Imitation is not a literal mimicking of Christ, rather it means becoming the image of the beloved, an image disclosed through transformation. This means we are to become vessels of God's compassionate love for others." - Clare of Assisi

'Remember that true holiness is accompanied by pains and tribulations from within and without, by attacks of visible and invisible enemies, by trials of body and mind, by desolations and prolonged aridities; "and all that will live godly in Christ Jesus shall suffer persecution" (2 Tim. iii. 12) - that is to say, all sorts of trials from demons, from men, and from our rebellious flesh.'

St. Paul of the Cross

Finding Joy in the day, Day 347 (Year 3)

90 min massage
Valentines in the mail
Super deal on a book set

'Do not let the false delights of the deceptive world deceive you.'

St. Clare of Assisi

Finding Joy in the day, Day 346 (Year 3)

Spanish Mass experience

'Among the gifts of grace which the soul receives in Holy Communion, there is one that must be counted among the highest; it is that Holy Communion does not permit the soul to remain long in sin, nor to obstinately persevere in it.'

St. Ignatius of Loyola

Finding Joy in the day, Day 345 (Year 3)

Chatting with my sister

'May the holy name of our Lord be ever blessed; may it be eternally praised by every creature, who has been created and placed in this world only for that end, so just in itself and so lawfully imposed.'

St. Ignatius of Loyola

'I need nothing but God, and to lose myself in the heart of God.'

St. Margaret Mary Alacoque

Finding Joy in the day, Day 344 (Year 3)

Getting a lot of errands run

'God has designedly concealed the happiness of the religious state because, if it were known, all would relinquish the world and fly to religion.'

St. Lawrence Justinian

Finding Joy in the day, Day 343 (Year 3)

Seeing my friend again

'O my Mother, offer me to Jesus. Take my heart and unite it with the heart of my Jesus.'

St. Bernadette Soubirous

Finding Joy in the day, Day 342 (Year 3)

Baby birth

"God regards us as his children, as his reflections. The benefits we have received from him have surpassed all our desires; they surpass even our imaginings; and those benefits that we receive from him every day are without measure and without number...My God, rather than think it, I would believe that the greatest evils are very great goods and that your heaviest blows are very gentle and magnificent caresses." -Saint Claude la Colombiere

Finding Joy in the day, Day 341 (Year 3)

A brave adventure of my own and feeling maybe more than just a little rebellious

'Practice abandonment as regards your body, taking and accepting indifferently sickness or health, work or rest -- abandonment as regards your soul, cherishing dryness, insensibility, desolation, and accepting them with the same thanksgiving as you would sweetness and consolation.'

St. Margaret Mary Alacoque

Finding Joy in the day, Day 340 (Year 3)

A day off from babysitting

'A man ought to set about putting his good resolutions in practice, and not change them lightly.'

St. Philip Neri

Finding Joy in the day, Day 339 (Year 3)

Grateful to sleep in again

'What joy to belong entirely to God, to make one's dwelling in Him, and to lay in Him the basis of one's perfection! In Him the soul enjoys a reign of imperturbable peace, where it beholds the vicissitudes and events of life without being perturbed or disturbed by them, for they vanish like a dream; nevertheless, in proportion as we despise them, the more profitable they will all be.'

St. Margaret Mary Alacoque

"If through weakness I sometimes fall, may your Divine Glance cleanse my soul immediately, consuming all my imperfections!"  St. Therese Of the Little Flower

Finding Joy in the day, Day 338 (Year 3)

Seeing all my sisters and mom

'We should offer ourselves and all we have to God, that He may dispose of us according to His holy will, so that we may be ever ready to leave all and embrace the afflictions that come upon us.'

St. Vincent de Paul

Finding Joy in the day, Day 337 (Year 3)

Family tonight, can't wait

'What a misfortune that there are so few souls who know the hidden treasure contained in prayer and union with God!'

St. Paul of the Cross

Finding Joy in the day, Day 336 (Year 3)

No headache yesterday

'Renew your confidence by a glance at the cross. See that precious blood, those mortal wounds, those hands which have made heaven and earth are still outstretched to poor, repentant sinners who humbly sigh for the embrace of Jesus.'

St. Paul of the Cross

Finding Joy in the day, Day 335 (Year 3)

Looking forward to seeing my family

'One who is repentant cannot be haughty, just as one who sins deliberately cannot be humble-minded.'

St. Mark the Ascetic

Finding Joy in the day, Day 334 (Year 3)

Half the week almost done

'Alas! How men deceive themselves, who, thinking they are spiritual, seek to guide souls!'

St. Ignatius of Loyola

'He wishes your fidelity to be unswerving. Whatever it may cost you, you must persevere, for the Sacred Heart is averse to every sort of inconstancy -- and this is your greatest fault; but it is only you yourself who, with the grace of God, can remedy it by continually doing violence to self.'

St. Margaret Mary Alacoque