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February 9 – SAINT APPOLONIA
The deeper our faith, the stronger our hope, the greater our desire, the larger will be our capacity to receive that gift, which is very great indeed. No eye has seen it. No ear has heard it; it has no sound. It has not entered man’s heart; man’s heart must enter into it.
Letter 130, 8

February 8 – SAINT JEROME EMILIANI
Why (God) should ask us to pray, when he knows what we need before we ask him, may perplex us if we do not realize that our Lord and God does not want to know what we want (for he cannot fail to know it) but wants us rather to exercise our desire through our prayers, so that we may be able to receive what he is preparing to give us. His gift is very great indeed, but our capacity is too small and limited to receive it.
Letter 130, 8

February 7 – BLESSED ANSELM POLANCO, O.S.A.
Let them love him who alone can neither deceive nor be deceived, who alone will not fail them. Let them love him because his promises are true. Faith sometimes falters because he does not reward us immediately. But hold out, be steadfast, endure, bear the delay, and you have carried the cross.
Sermon 96

February 6 – SAINT PAUL MIKI AND COMPANIONS
On the cross the Lord made the great exchange. There the purse which held our price was opened, for when the soldier’s spear opened his side, the price of the whole world poured forth. Thus he purchased the faithful and the martyrs. But the faith of the martyrs has been tested; their blood is the proof. They paid back the price Christ paid for them, thus fulfilling the words of Saint John: Just as Christ laid down his life for us, we too must lay down our lives for our brothers.
Sermon 329

February 5 – SAINT AGATHA
So that we might obtain this life of happiness, he who is true light itself taught us to pray, not in many words as though speaking longer could gain us a hearing. After all, we pray to one who, as the Lord himself tells us, knows what we need before we ask for it.
Letter 130, 8

February 4 – SAINT GILBERT
Sacrifice, though performed or offered by man, is something divine; that is why the ancient Latins gave it this name of ‘sacrifice,’ of something sacred. Man himself, consecrated in the name of God and vowed to God, is therefore a sacrifice insofar as he dies to the world in order to live for God.
City of God, 10, 6

February 3 – BLESSED STEPHEN BELLESINI, O.S.A.
So far as the God whom I fear grants me the strength, I shall search everywhere. I shall recall the straying; I shall seek after those on the verge of being lost. If you do not want me to suffer, do not stray, do not become lost. It is not enough that I lament your straying and loss. No, I fear that in neglecting you, I shall also kill what is strong.
Sermon 46, 15

February 2 – PRESENTATION OF THE LORD
A woman cried out: Happy is the womb that bore you, blessed is that womb! But the Lord, not wishing people to seek happiness in a purely physical relationship, replied: More blessed are those who hear the word of God and keep it. Mary heard God’s word and kept it, and so she is blessed. She kept God’s truth in her mind, a nobler thing that carrying his body in her womb. The truth and the body were both Christ: he was kept in Mary’s mind insofar as he is truth; he was carried in her womb insofar as he is man; but that is kept in the mind is of a higher order than what is carried in the womb.
Sermon 25

February 1 – SAINT SEVERUS
Every work that effects our union with God in a holy fellowship is a true sacrifice; every work, that is, which is referred to that final end, that ultimate good, by which we are able to be in the true sense happy. As a consequence, even that mercy by which aid is given to man is not a sacrifice unless it is done for the sake of God.
City of God, 10, 6

January 31 – SAINT JOHN BOSCO
Do you love me? Tend my sheep. Surely this means: ‘If you love me, your thoughts must focus on taking care of my sheep, not taking care of yourself. You must tend them as mine, not as yours; seek in them my glory, not yours; my sovereign rights, not yours; my gain, not yours. Otherwise you will find yourself among those who belong to the ‘times of peril,’ those who are guilty of self-love and the other sins that go with that beginning of evils.’
On the Gospel of John 123, 5