Category Archives: today

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

December 31 – SAINT SYLVESTER
“Let us walk in Jesus’ ways, following the paths he has shown us; above all let us pursue the way of humility, since he himself became the way of humility for our sake … But how did he bring himself down? John tells us: The Word was made flesh and lived among us. The Word of God could not be slain; and so, for the immortal word to be able to die for us, he became man and lived among us. The Immortal put on mortality in order to die for us, and by his death to slay the death of us all. This is the Lord’s doing; this is his gift to us.”
Sermon 23A

December 30
“God not only made a written covenant with us to win our faith, but he also gave us a mediator of his pledge. This mediator was not a prince, an angel, or an archangel, but his only Son; through his own Son he meant both to show us and give us the way by which he would lead us to the promised goal. He was not satisfied with sending his Son to show us the way. He made him the way itself.”
Exposition of the Psalms, 109

December 29 – SAINT THOMAS BECKET
“The Word was made flesh and dwelt among us. By Christ as man you wend your way to Christ as God. God is too much for you; but God has become man. What was a long way away from you has come down right next to you through a man. The place for you to stay in, that’s God; the way for you to get there, that’s man. It’s one and the same Christ, both the way to go by and the place to go to.”
Sermon 261