Clothed in Virtue

  “A Meditation on Detachment" written by St. Thomas More while imprisoned in the Tower of London, 1534. Give me Thy Grace, Good Lord, To set all the world at nought; To set my mind fast upon Thee, And not to hang upon the blast of men's mouths; To be content to be solitary, Not to long for worldly company; Little by little utterly to cast off the world, And rid my mind of all the business thereof; Not to long to hear of any worldly things, But that the hearing of worldly fantasies may be to me unpleasant; Gladly to be thinking of God, Piteously to call for His help; To lean unto to the comfort of God, Busily to labor to love Him; To know my own vileness and wretchedness, To humble and meeken myself under the mighty Hand of God; To bewail my sins passed; For the purging of them, patiently to suffer adversity; Gladly to bear my purgatory here; To be joyful of tribulations; To walk the narrow way that leads to life, To bear the cross with Christ; To have the last thing in rememb...

March 1st, 2020 Lent is a time to prepare for the holiest feast of the Church: Easter. Don't waste this time of preparation.  Don't waste the graces that God wants to give you during this time.   The Tract of today's Mass is about God's protection.  He wants to be there for us.  He will be there for us if we want Him to be. When we are in a state of grace, God dwells in our souls.  It should give us more courage to stand up for our faith and to profess it publicly, and to not be ashamed of the Truth that we have. 1. Why are we on this earth?  What is our purpose? "Be perfect as your Heavenly Father is perfect" -- we are not called to be mediocre.  We are called to do the will of God every single day, not just sometimes.  "What does it profit a man to gain the whole world and lose his soul?" Our soul is the most important thing we possess.  Too often we choose earthly things over our more important souls.  We have the promise of salv...

 January 10th, 2020 Feast of the Holy Family "You are God's chosen people." We can learn a lot of lessons from the example of the Holy Family.  They are an example for every family.  Their first focus, their first goal, the most essential part of their life, was God. Remember that only a few of the events of the first 30 years of Jesus life are recorded.  One of the few is the recording of the Finding in the Temple.  It's an example of how the Holy Family put God first and that God was the most important aspect of their life. They were a family blessed above all other families because Jesus is God.  Nevertheless, we should strive to imitate their example and put God at the center of our lives and of our families. Many events in the lives of the Holy Family can apply to our own life.  They had a great devotion to God: the one essential thing.  They never really put their individual good above the good of the whole family, they were always looking o...

December 25th, 2019 The Feast of the Nativity Noise is distracting.  The devil wants noise because it distracts us.   Humans are most silent in times of war: silence in order to not give away their position, silence to spy on the enemy, silence to listen to orders. Internal silence: not listening to ourselves.  Silence your mind and thoughts and focus on the thoughts of God.  The devil will use your imagination to create worries and distract you from prayer. Why do we need silence? -It helps us focus on God.   -God speaks to us in silence.  We cannot hear God in the busy noise of the world. -The noise of the world distracts us from our conscience.  Only when we are silent does our conscience speak to us about our sins and guide us to God. -Because God is silent.  God is charity.  What is the truest expression of love?  Words always fall short.  Love can be shown in silence.  Silence is the greatest expression of love....

  The spirit of St. Dominic’s poverty: 1. Not being unreasonably attached to material goods. 2. Not giving undue importance to acquiring wealth. 3. Being more interested in material common good of community for which we are responsible than for our own. 4. Working for the advancement of the marginalized, the poor, the destitute, etc. 5. Avoid unnecessary material luxury and ostentation 6. Trust that God will provide 7. Exercise a preference for the poor, especially in the spiritual works of mercy and in our socializing.

  "Lord, I am Yours, and I must belong to no one but You. My soul is Yours, and must live only for You. I must love You as my first cause, since I am from You. I must love You as my end and rest, since I am for You. I must love You more than my own being, since my being subsists by You. I must love You more than myself, since I am all Yours and all in You." - St. Francis De Sales * "My God, if I knew that even one fiber of my heart did not beat for you, I would tear it out at once and throw it far from me." - St. Francis de Sales * “Everything that has no bearing on eternity is mere vanity.” - St. Francis de Sales * "It is a pity to sow vain and foolish affections in our heart's soil. They usurp the place of worthwhile interest and hinder the sap of our soul being used for good inclinations. I do not hold that we can never use these things, but I say that we can never put our affection on them without damage to devotion. When a man's heart is burdened w...

  "To make us appreciate more keenly the necessity to turn our eyes to eternal blessings, God has filled our hearts with desires so vast and so magnificent that nothing in creation is capable of satisfying them. Thus it is that in the hope of finding some pleasure, we attach ourselves to created objects and that we have no sooner possessed and sampled that which we have so ardently desired than we turn to something else, hoping to find what we wanted. We are, then, through our own experience, constrained to admit that it is but useless for us to want to derive our happiness here below from transient things. If we hope to have any consolation in this world, it will only be by despising the things which are passing and which have no lasting value and in striving towards the noble and happy end for which God has created us. Do you want to be happy, my friends? Fix your eyes on Heaven; it is there that your hearts will find that which will satisfy them completely." - St. John Via...