I have been playing with this idea for well over a year. The Lord has placed on my heart a love of learning, of seeking wisdom and knowledge primarily from the source of books. And I long to share the moments in time when the proverbial light bulb illuminates my mind, or the well versed verse moves my heart and soul. Welcome to “Quotables,” a page of my website dedicated to those authors who enlighten me on my journey. May their wisdom touch your soul.
“It is our solemn duty as Catholics to be conscious of our duty to America, and to preserve its freedom by preserving its faith in God.”— Venerable Fulton Sheen
"God our Father, giver of life, we entrust the United States of America to your loving care. You are the rock on which this nation was founded. You alone are the true source of our cherished rights to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness".
“Spirituality is the art of transfiguration. We should not force ourselves to change by hammering our lives into any predetermined shape. Rather, we need to practice a new art of attention to the inner rhythm of our days and lives.”
— Anam Cara, A Book Of Celtic Wisdom, John O’Donohue
Iron sharpens iron, and one man sharpens another
— Proverbs 27:17
“Christian fellowship is not just about having a friend who happens to be Catholic…It’s about having others beside you who are running after Christ as a disciple like you are: haverim.
~Into His Likeness, Edward Sri
“There’s a second practice we need to incorporate into our lives that’s absolutely crucial: fellowship with other disciples.”
— Into His Likeness, Edward Sri
“Another way to discern if you have haverim is to consider what you talk about with your friends. Do your conversations remain at the level of office gossip, sports, politics…Or do you talk about the things that matter most in life-God, prayer, virtue, living marriage well, building strong families”
— Into His Likeness, Edward Sri
This week has marked the beginning of my sojourn of relative solitude at the cottage. I have filled part of my days with two books: Into His Likeness (Edward Sri) and Walden (Thoreau). Both books contained the same wisdom advising the reader of the value of reading, not snippets or posts, not watching, not listening, but reading books. I have included the wisdom of the authors for you here.
“My house in the woods was more favorable to both thought and serious reading than a university.
— Henry Thoreau’s Walden (Translated): A 21st Century Modernized Translation, Translated and edited by Kenn Trout
“To read well, that is, to read true books in a true spirit, is a noble exercise, and one that requires more of the reader tha ay exercise that today’s culture admires…Books must be read as deliberately and purposefully as they were written”
— Henry Thoreau’s Walden (Translated): A 21st Century Modernized Translation, Translated and edited by Kenn Trout
“What we put in our mind matters…As Archbishop Charles Shaput has emphasized, “We need to read- above all the Word of God, but also history and biographies and great novels. If we don’t read, we condemn ourselves to chronic stupidity and a conditioning by mass media that have no sympathy for the things we believe.’
— Into His Likeness, Edward Sri
“Consult not your fears but your hopes and your dreams. Think not about your frustrations, but about your unfulfilled potential. Concern yourself not with what you tried and failed in, but with what it is still possible for you to do.” –Pope John XXIII
“Be doers of the word and not merely hearers who deceive themselves”
— James 1:22
“There is no other reason why…unbelievers refuse to embrace our faith than the fact that we deny them with our conduct what we offer them with our words.”
— Bartolome de las Casas
The Rocking Chair Prophet, Matthew Kelly
“You cannot separate a person from his or her future potential. When we do, we are ignoring a huge part of that person, possibly the most important aspects.”
The Rocking Chair Prophet, Matthew Kelly
“Potential is an amazing thing. You are not what has happened to you. You are not what you have accomplished. You are so much more. Even who you are today is only a portion of you who can become.”
“Silence and stillness allow you to connect with your truest self. In this state, you become very clear about your needs, talents, and desires, and the way forward is always found at the intersection of your needs, talents, and desires. When people say they are confused about what to do, it’s rarely true. they are confused about who they are or pretending to be someone they are not.”
~The Rocking Chair Prophet, Matthew Kelly
God’s love heals us. Everybody else, if they come near somebody who is sick, that person is contagious and they get sick. God comes towards us when we are sick and He’s contagious and we get healed…Addictions real, sins real, the chains are real, and the bad habits we’ve gotten ourselves into are real. It takes time and real grace to break them… my eyes are on Jesus. I can walk on water. Walking on water might be saying “no” to porn for you, it might be not picking up the bottle, or raising your hand, it might be forgiving . Whatever the impossible is for you right now, that is your walking on water when you keep your eyes on Jesus.
— Fr. Malachy
“Every moment comes to you pregnant with a divine purpose; time being so precious that God only deals it out second by second. Once it leaves your hands and your power to do with it as you please, it plunges into eternity, to remain forever what you made it.”
— Fulton Sheen
God’s Word doesn’t change, we do. The way God’s Word affects us changes with time as we change…It is good to take note of how one Gospel’s meaning to us has changed from one season to another.— Wednesday Homily talking about how we are revisiting John 3:16 again during the Easter season and we had heard it also during Lent.
“I hungered for the Eucharist with a hunger that would often draw me to tears…I was so grateful for the enduring presence of the Eucharistic Lord on the altar and His fidelity in never leaving us. It didn’t matter if the homily was of poor quality or the music wasn’t very good… The Mass was always good because Jesus was there. And even in the midst of the struggle I was in, that resonated with me. This light was scattering the darkness.”
— Sr. Josephine, Hallow App surrender story talking of time before being called to Religious life.
Fr. Adam Bradley (paraphrased from homily)
When was the last time God awed and amazed you? Where we control our lives, God has no ability to awe and amaze us. If it has been a while since you have been awed and amazed by God, in prayer, ask Him what He would have you let go of so that He can work in your life.
I THIRST FOR YOU.
It is true. I stand at the door of your heart, day and night. Even when you are not listening, even when you doubt it could be Me, I am there: waiting for even the smallest signal of your response, even the smallest suggestion of an invitation that will permit Me to enter.
I want you to know that each time you invite Me, I do come always, without fail. Silent and invisible I come, yet with a power and a love most infinite, bringing the many gifts of My Spirit. I come with My mercy, with My desire to forgive and heal you, with a love for you that goes beyond your comprehension.
A love in each detail, so grand like the love I have received from My Father“I have loved all of you as the Father has loved me…” John 15:10
I come longing to console you and give you strength, to lift you up and bind all your wounds. I bring you My light, to dispel your darkness and all your doubts. I come with My power, that allows me to carry you:
with My grace, to touch your heart and transform your life. I come with My peace, to calm your soul.
I know you like the palm of my hand. I know everything about you. Even the hairs of your head I have counted. Nothing in your life is unimportant to Me. I have followed you through the years and I have always loved you even when you have strayed. I know every one of your problems. I know your needs and your worries and yes, I know all your sins.
But I tell you again that I love you, not for what you have or ceased to do, I love you for you, for the beauty and the dignity My Father gave you by creating you in His own image. It is a dignity you have often forgotten, a beauty you have tarnished by sin. But I love you as you are, and I have shed My Blood to rescue you. If you only ask Me with faith, My grace will touch all that needs changing in your life: I will give you the strength to free yourself from sin and from all its destructive power.
I know what is in your heart, I know your loneliness and all your wounds, the rejections, the judgments, the humiliations, I carried it all before you. And I carried it all for you, so you could share My strength and My victory. I know, above all, your need for love, how much you are thirsting for love and tenderness. Yet, how many times have you desired to satisfy your thirst in vain, seeking that love with selfishness, trying to fill the void within you with passing pleasures, with the even greater emptiness of sin.
Do you thirst for love?
“Come to Me all you who thirst … ” (John 7:37).I will satisfy you and fill you.
Do you thirst to be loved?
I love you more than you can imagine … to the point of dying on a cross for you.
I THIRST FOR YOU. Yes, that is the only way to even begin to describe My love for you.
I THIRST FOR YOU. I thirst to love you and to be loved by you. So precious are you to Me that I THIRST FOR YOU. Come to Me, and I will fill your heart and heal your wounds. I will make you a new creation and give you peace even in your trials.
I THIRST FOR YOU.
You must never doubt My mercy, My desire to forgive, My longing to bless you and live My life in you, and that I accept you no matter what you have done.
I THIRST FOR YOU.
If you feel of little value before the eyes of the world, it doesn’t matter. There is no one that interests me
in the whole world than you.
I THIRST FOR YOU.
Open up to Me, come to Me, thirst for Me, give me your life. I will prove to you how important you are for My Heart.
Don’t you realize that My Father already has a perfect plan to transform your life, beginning from this moment? Trust in Me. Ask Me every day to enter and take charge of your life and I will. I promise you before My Father in Heaven that I will work miracles in your life. Why would I do this?
Because I THIRST FOR YOU.
~ A letter written by Mother Teresa
My mom and I recently talked about the pain of loving a prodigal, a lost sheep, and how there can be many ways that those we love are lost to us and to God, I shared with her some of the wisdom that I have received in reading, The Saint Monica Club: How to Wait, Hope, and Pray for Your Fallen-Away Loved Ones. I share with you three quotes from what I have read this past week.
Being truly kind requires bravery. Kindness is truth delivered with mercy; service freely given. We cannot be witnessed to our Faith if we fear r3ejection, nor are we to go about using our Faith like a battering ram. Be unfailingly kind on all occasions, to all people, and you will reveal to your prodigal an uncompromising principle of love.
— The Saint Monica Club, Maggie Green
The surrender of our grasp on our children’s future may, in fact, be how our souls are claimed for God, because they rest no longer on their own merit but on God’s grace. Our prodigals may be the means by which we come to love God and trust Him more and ourselves less.
— The Saint Monica Club, Maggie Green
Any love given and received is God’s love; ergo, whatever love you build and strengthen between you and your adult child is a reflection of God’s love for both of you.
— The Saint Monica Club, Maggie Green
~Tammy Peterson
Intimacy with Jesus has fundamentally changed my life. Through this experience I have learned that faith is a practice; prayer is a practice; the rosary is a practice; daily surrender to God is itself a practice. I’ve learned that when life happens and everythibg around us is decimated the only things left are those we’ve practiced. I want to say ‘yes’ to God’s will today, tomorrow, and always.
From my prayer time
[A decision or vow is made in a moment, but a commitment is made moment by moment over a lifetime]
In your spiritual life there will be long and dusty roads, epic mountaintop experiences, moments of fear and trembling in the dark valleys, beautiful mornings filled with hope, and long dark nights drenched with hopelessness…No matter what, just keep showing up. Remember, it is not about what we are doing, it is about what God is doing in us, through us, and with us-when we show up…Imagine if Catholics had applied this wisdom to attending Mass over the past fifty years: Just keep showing up. Show up each Sunday regardless of how you feel or if it is convenient. Just show up and let God work on you.
— 33 Days to Eucharistic Glory (Day 7)
From 33 Days to Eucharistic Glory
Why doesn’t Jesus want us to get comfortable? The reason is simple, profound, and practical: He doesn’t want us to forget that we are just passing through this world. We are pilgrims. When we get comfortable, we start to behave as if we are going to live on this earth forever- and we are not.
— Matthew Kelly
Jesus comforted people in their afflictions, and afflicted people in their comfort. The saints did the same thing. If you sit in the presence of Jesus in the eucharist, you can expect the same. He longs to comfort you in your afflictions and afflict you in your comfort. Trust. Surrender. Believe. Receive.
— Matthew Kelly
If we’re willing to put aside our expectations of what things might look like, what it might feel like, what life might be like. To lay down those great expectations and say, “no”, I reject my expectations, I embrace reality. Then we’ll be free. Then we will be free to accept reality as His will. To say “yes.” Not just to the circumstances, but to say “yes” to Him. Because the beginning of each day, the beginning of the season of Lent, at any point in my life I can’t know what I’m saying “yes” to. But with Jesus, I can know who I’m saying “yes” to.
~Fr. Mike Schmitz, Hallow-Lent Pray 40, Sunday Sermon
“God doesn’t care about the friends we have, but the friend we are to them.”
— Meg Schnell (told to her by her mom, Lyn Braatz, in second grade and repeated to me this past week)
The following quotes are all from Leah Darrow and are taken from the Hallow App, Routines Course, that was launched with the new year.
You see, routines are more than just a series of tasks or habits. They hold the key to unlocking your potential, dare I even say “divine potential”- the potential to live a life of purpose, Kingdom-building-abundance, and deep connection with God.
— Leah Darrow
At the core of our existence is a rhythm- a sequence of patterns that dictate our actions, thoughts, and habits. These rhythms, or routines, are the foundations upon which we build our days.
— Leah Darrow
Let each routine be a step in the dance of life, choreographed by faith and intention and guiding us towards realizing the incredible potential God has sown within each of us. So today, we don’t just plan our time. We commit to a journey of transformation guided by divine wisdom towards a life of profound meaning and joy.
— Leah Darrow
From Fr. Mark homily Friday, January 26, 2024
“With what can we compare the kingdom of God…It is like a grain of mustard seed, which, when sown upon the ground, is the smallest of all the seeds on earth; yet when it is sown it grows up and becomes the greatest of all shrubs…so that the birds of the air can make nests in its shade.”
— Matthew 4:31-32
We are called to be the mustard bush so that “others find refuge in the shade of our faith.”
— Fr. Mark Vandersteeg
The Sacred Romance, Drawing Closer to the Heart of God
Brent Curtis and John Eldredge
“The true story of every person in this world is not the story you see, the external story. The true story of each person is the journey of his or her heart. Jesus himself knew that if people lived only in their outer story, eventually they would lose track of their inner life, the life of their heart he so much desired to redeem.” (Pg 7)
"Oswald Chambers writes, ‘It is by the heart that God is perceived [known] and not by reason…so that is what faith is: God perceived by the heart.’ This is why God tells us in Proverbs 4:23, ‘Above all else, guard your heart, for it is the wellspring of life.’” (Pg 9)
“Let us explore the drama that God has been weaving since before the beginning of time, which he has also placed in our heart. Who are the main players in theis larger story? What is the plot? How do we fit in? As we rediscover the oldest story in the world, one that is forever young, we journey into the heart of God and toward the recovery of our own hearts.” (Pg 46)
“During the life of our Lord Jesus Christ, some people fell to their knees when they witnessed His miracles, His signs and wonders, His great works. Others, however, somehow managed to ignore Him, while still others plotted His murder. It is important for all of us to make a very serious attempt to see what is before our eyes, to notice that sometimes the will of God is being make manifest right in front of us through the lives of HIs holy ones.”— Travelers Along the Way, Benedict J. Groeschel, C.F.R.
The pairing of the present with the future doesn’t seem so extreme when you think about the strong desire we all hae for home, for even a perfect home, or a forever home, no matter how elusive it may be in our own life. That desire for the perfect home is part of the spiritual slight of hand, where God has placed within our hearts the desire for a perfect home, The perfect home: Heaven
Theology of the Home, Finding the Eternal in the Everyday
Theology of Home, Finding Eternal in the Everyday (Gress, Mering, Baile)
Hospitality is rooted in kindness-not a kindness that is mere politeness (though that is important) but a kindness that actively seeks to fulfill a need of another unprompted. It is a great balm taht can heal, soften, and change the course of a conversation or a direction in someone’s life.
Love of God thus becomes the dominant passion of life; like every other worthwhile love, it demands and inspires sacrifice. But love of God and man, as an ideal, has lately been replaced by the new ideal of tolerance which inspires no sacrifice. Why should any human being in the world be merely tolerated? What man has ever made a sacrifice in the name of tolerance? It leads men, instead, to express their own egotism in a book or a lecture that patronizes the downtrodden group. One of the cruelest things that can happen to a human being is to be tolerated. Never once did Our Lord say, ‘Tolerate your enemies!’ But He did say, ‘Love your enemies; do good to them that hate you’ (Mt 5:44). Such love can be achieved only if we deliberately curb our fallen nature’s animosities.
— Fulton Sheen