Posted in CATHOLIC Quotes

Quote/s of the Day – 20 September – Love

You are just, O Lord, and Your ordinance is right. Deal with Your servant according to Your kindness.

Ps 118:137; 118:124

Can we have any conception of a greater love for men than that of our Saviour, since, however wicked or ungrateful we may have been, He does not cease to love us? He forgives us our trespasses so readily that one would say that He was under an obligation to us. He rewards us for our good works liberally, never revealing how much He has contributed towards their performance. Although, in fact, we have done next to nothing for Him, He does not cease to be grateful, and showers down graces with profusion, just as if we had rendered Him some important service.

Fr Juan Eusebio Nieremberg SJ (17th century)

We should love our neighbour with a genuine affection, and not in the same way as we love things necessary or useful, such as bread, a house, and other things which are for our use or for our amusement, these we not love as ourselves, but for ourselves.

St Bernadine of Siena

When the Son of God gave us the best of prayers, He did not intend that we should say ‘My Father’ but Our Father, inasmuch as we have a common Father in heaven we should consider all men as our brethren, and that in this way we should love each other with a mutual love, with a love stronger on grace than in nature, as we have all an equal right to a vocation to a supernatural life, the same hope of a heavenly reward,

St John Chrysostom

How sweet is this command! Does it not appear worthy of the goodness and wisdom of God? Is it not reasonable that men who are endowed with one and the same nature, who have one and the same Father in heaven, who are obliged to live in society, who are all fellow-travellers, and who ought to meet again in heaven, is it not reasonable that we should love one another here below, and should help one another in the same degree as we would wish to be helped ourselves?

Pere de la Colombiere

The love of our neighbour may be placed in the same category as the love we owe to God. All who say ‘Lord, Lord’ (that is to say, all who say that they love God) shall not enter the kingdom of heaven. Good works and proof of that love requisite. He alone will enter the kingdom of heaven who does the will of My Father. The same may be said of the love of our neighbour. We must show it by solid proofs.

St Augustine

He who does not believe that he has aught to pay to his neighbour, as if he had discharged the debt, ought rather to weep for himself as being without charity.

St Fulgentius

Posted in "Follow Me", CHRIST the WORD and WISDOM, CHRIST, the WAY,TRUTH,LIFE, EUCHARISTIC Adoration, GOD ALONE!, JESUIT SJ, LOVE of NEIGHBOUR, Quote on SELF-ABANDONMENT, QUOTES on FEAR, QUOTES on LOVE, QUOTES on LOVE of GOD, QUOTES on MYSTERIES of our FAITH, QUOTES on SACRIFICE, QUOTES on SELF-DENIAL, QUOTES on UNITY/with GOD, QUOTES on WORRY/ANXIETY, Quotes Self-Oblation, SELF-DISTRUST, The HOLY EUCHARIST / The HOLY MASS, The WORD

Quote/s of the Day – 13 April – ‘… Clothing ourselves with the Lord …’

Quote/s of the Day – 13 April – “The Month of the Resurrection and the Blessed Sacrament” – Wisdom 5:1-5; Luke 14:26-33 – Scripture search here: https://www.drbo.org/

If anyone comes to Me
without hating his father
and mother, wife and children,
brothers and sisters
and even his own life,
he cannot be My disciple.”

Luke 14:26

So likewise, everyone of you,
who does not renounce all
that he possesses,
cannot be My disciple.

Luke 14:33

Take nothing for your journey,
neither staff, nor bag,
nor bread, nor money;
neither have two tunics.

Luke 9:3

“That is why all the faithful who love God
and their neighbour, truly drink the Cup
of the Lord’s Love, even though,
they may not drink the cup of His Bodily Suffering.
And becoming inebriated from it,
they put to death, whatever in their nature
is rooted in earth.
They clothe themselves with the Lord Jesus Christ
and do not indulge fleshly desires.
They do not fix their gaze on visible things
but contemplate things, which the eye cannot see.
Thus they drink the Lord’s Cup
by preserving the holy bond of love –
without it, even if a man should deliver his body
to be burned, he gains nothing.
But the gift of love enables us to become,
in reality, what we celebrate
as Mystery in the Sacrifice.

St Fulgentius of Ruspe (c462–533)
Bishop, Father

What is not pleasing to God,
is anxiety and disquiet of mind.
The Lord wants our limitations
and weaknesses, to find their support
in His Strength; He wants us
to hope that His Goodness will complete
and perfect the imperfectness of our means.

St Ignatius Loyola (1491-1556)
Priest, Founder of the Society of Jesus

(Letter of 17 November 1555)

Posted in SAINT of the DAY

Saint of the Day – 20 June – Saint Florentia (Died c612) Virgin,

Saint of the Day – 20 June – Saint Florentia (Died c612) Virgin, Nun, sister of Saints Leander, Isidore and Fulgentius. Born towards the middle of the 6th Century in Cartagena, Spain and died in c612. Florentia was younger than her brother Leander, later Archbishop of Seville but older than St Isidore, who succeeded Leander as the Archbishop. Patron of – the Diocese of Plasencia. Also known as – Florentyna, Florentina.

The Roman Martyrology reads today: “At Seville, in Spain, the holy virgin Florentia, sister of the Holy Bishops Leander, Isidore and Fulgentius.”

Statue of St Florentia at the Church of Santa María de Gracia in Cartagena

Florentia’s family supplies us with an example of lives of total service to God and active engagement in furthering the best interests of the Church of Christ.

Florentina was the sister of three renowned and Sainted Bishops in the time of the Visigothic dominion, Leander, Isidore and Fulgentius, St Isidore also being a Doctor of the Church.

She consecrated her virginity to God. Before his elevation to the Episcopal dignity, Leander had been a Monk and it was through his influence that Florentia embraced the ascetic life. She, together with a number of virgins, who also desired to forsake the world, formed themselves into a religious community. Later sources declare their residence to have been the Convent of St Maria de Valle near Ecija (Astigis), where her brother Fulgentius, was the Bishop.

In any case, it is certain that she had consecrated herself to God before the year 600, as her brother Leander, who died either in the year 600 or 601, wrote for her guidance an extant work dealing with a Nun’s Rule of Life and with contempt for the world.

St Leander expresses the Rules according to which cloistered virgins, consecrated to God, should regulate their lives. He strongly advises them to avoid communication with women living in the world and with men, especially youths; recommends strict temperance in eating and drinking, gives advice concerning the reading of and meditation on Holy Scripture, enjoins equal love and friendship for all those living together in community and earnestly exhorts his sister to remain true to her holy state.

Florentia regulated her life according to the advice of her brother, entered with fervour into the spirit of the Rule in Religious life and was honoured as a Saint after her death.

Her younger brother Isidore dedicated his work “De fide catholica contra Judeos” to her which he wrote at her request.

Florentia died early in the 7th Century and is venerated as the patron of the Diocese of Plasencia. Below from the eldest Leander, then Isidore, then Fulgentius.

Jose’ Montes de Oca and Pedro Duque Cornejo, St. Isidore of Seville, 17th century