To Receive

Painting: Louis Comfort Tiffany

Your Constant Practice

On Our Way

But I Have a Wandering Mind

"Some say 'I do not make mental prayer, because I am subject to desolation, to distractions, and to temptations. I have a wandering mind that I cannot confine to the subject of meditation, and therefore I have given up mental prayer.' But to such persons St. Francis de Sales says: if in their meditations they do nothing else than banish distractions and temptations, the meditation is well made, provided the distraction is not voluntary. The Lord is pleased with a good intention, with patient endurance, during the whole time prescribed for meditation, and with pain arising from distractions, and will bestow many graces in return. We ought to go to prayer, not to please ourselves, but to please God. Even holy souls generally suffer aridity in meditation, but because they persevere, God enriches them with His blessings.' 

St. Alphonsus Liguori

 Painting: Carl Holsoe, in US public domain due to age

Do Not Forget Him in Prosperity

 'When you receive some pleasant news, do not act as certain unfaithful and ungrateful persons are wont to do.  They pray to God in adversity but forget and abandon Him in prosperity...

'Go at once to God and tell Him of your joy, praise and thank Him for it, and thus acknowledge that it is entirely a gift from His bounty.  And rejoice in this happiness, because it has been bestowed on you by His good pleasure.'

St. Alphonsus de Liguori

Painting: Charles Courtney Curran, Peonies, in US public domain due to age