Breath of Life
“I assure you that God is much better than you believe. He is content with a glance, a sigh of love."
– St Therese of Lisieux –
“Look to Him as risen. Just imagining how He rose from the tomb will bring you joy. The brilliance! The beauty! The majesty! How victorious! How joyful! And all of that, plus Himself, He desires for you!”– St Teresa of Avila –
“In his aloneness on the cross – ‘My God, why…?’ – the Son of God included in his relationship with his Father all our dryness, confusion, incapacity, before the divine mystery. He consecrated it, folded it into his return to the Father’s house. Those bewildered by a Father who is not just at their disposal are accompanied by the derelict Christ, reassuring and strengthening them.”– Iain Matthew –
“If Lent makes us think of an austere, judgmental or frightening God, we need to recall the God of the Psalms who ‘delights’ in us, the God proclaimed by the prophet Zephaniah: ‘he will rejoice over you with happy song, he will renew you by his love, he will dance with shouts of joy for you, as on a day of festival.’ This is encouraging indeed.”– James McCaffrey, OCD –
“Believe that He loves you, that He wants to help you in the struggles you have to undergo. Believe in His love, His exceeding love.”– St Elizabeth of the Trinity –
“Let us turn our gaze upon the Babe as one who shows us what God is like. He shows us the sort of heart the Father has. And what strikes us so wonderfully is that it is a vulnerable heart. A heart that offers itself to us unprotected.”– Ruth Burrows –
“The Father spoke one Word, which was his Son, and this Word he speaks always in eternal silence, and in silence must it be heard by the soul.”– St John of the Cross –
“The holiest, most ordinary, and most necessary practice of the spiritual life is that of the presence of God.”– Brother Lawrence of the Resurrection –
“We do not always have to be in church to be with God. We can make of our hearts a chapel where we can withdraw from time to time to converse with him there, gently, humbly, and lovingly.”– Brother Lawrence of the Resurrection –
“May the God who is all love be your unchanging dwelling place, your cell and your cloister in the midst of the world; remember that he dwells in the deepest centre of your soul.”– St Elizabeth of the Trinity –
“When you look back over the day and see how fragmentary everything has been and how much you planned that has gone undone and all the reasons you have to be embarrassed and ashamed: just take everything exactly as it is, put it in God’s hands and leave it with Him.”– St Edith Stein –