August 18
“When one is already leading an honest and regulated life, it is far more important, in order to become a true Christian, to change the within rather than the without.”
-Francois De Salignor Fenelon
Category Archives: Gracelines
Spirituality and Action
August 17
“The distance between spirituality and social action is not as great as many believe. Scripture does not reveal a spiritual man or a secular man. It speaks only of a whole man – integrated by the salvation that Christ brings.”
-Venerable Archbishop Fulton Sheen
Be humble in this life
Feast of St. Stephen of Hungary, King (969-1038)
“Be strong lest prosperity lift you up too much or adversity cast you down. Be humble in this life, that God may raise you up in the next. Be chaste so that you may never voluntarily bring disgrace upon anyone.”
-St. Stephen of Hungary
Who is she that ascends so high, next the Heavenly King?
Harmony with God’s will
Feast of St. Maximilian Kolbe
“Obedience raises us beyond the limits of our littleness and puts us in harmony with God’s will. Obedience is the one and the only way of wisdom and prudence for us to offer glory to God.”
-St. Maximilian Kolbe
The simplicity of truth
Feast of Sts. Pontian and Hippolytus
“Do not devote your attention to the fallacies of artificial discourses, nor the vain promises of heretics, but to the venerable simplicity of unassuming truth.”
-St. Hippolytus
Exercise faith
“If the work of God could be comprehended by reason, it would no longer be wonderful, and faith would have no merit if reason provided proof.”
-Pope St. Gregory the Great
The brightness of eternal light
Feast of St. Clare
“(Jesus Christ) is the splendor of eternal glory, the brightness of eternal light, and the mirror without cloud. Queen and bride of Jesus Christ, look into that mirror daily and study well your reflection, that you may adorn yourself, mind and body, with an enveloping garment of every virtue, and thus find yourself attired in flowers and gowns befitting the daughter and most chaste bride of the king on high.”
-St. Clare of Assisi
Accept this suffering with joy
August 10
Feast of St. Lawrence, Martyr (D. 258)
“When slow consuming had seared
The flesh of Lawrence for a space,
He calmly from his gridiron made
This terse proposal to the judge:
‘Pray turn my body, on one side
Already broiled sufficiently,
And see how well your Vulcan’s fire
Has wrought its cruel punishment.'”
-From a poem by Prudentius
On the martyrdom of St. Lawrence
Lay it in God’s hands
August 9
Feast of St. Teresa Benedicta of the Cross – Edith Stein
“…when night comes, and retrospect shows that everything was patchwork and much that one had planned left undone, when so many things rouse shame and regret, then take all as is, lay it in God’s hands, and offer it up to Him. In this way we will be able to rest in Him, actually to rest and to begin the new day like a new life.”
-St. Teresa Benedicta of the Cross
