Category Archives: today

October 28 – SAINTS SIMON AND JUDE
“We are celebrating a feast day, consecrated for us by the blood of the apostles. Let us love their faith, their lives, their labors, their sufferings, their confession of faith, their preaching. We make progress ourselves, you see, by loving them, not by celebrating these things just for worldly pleasure and enjoyment. After all, what are the martyrs looking for from us? They must have very little, if they are still looking for human praises, they haven’t yet overcome. But if they have overcome, they are not looking for anything from us for their own sakes; but they are looking for it for our sakes. So, let our way be directed toward the Lord. It was a narrow way, a thorny way, a rough way; but with the passage of so many and such wonderful feet it has become smooth. The Lord himself went along it first, the apostles went along it fearlessly; after them the martyrs, boys, women, girls. But who was in them? The one who said, ‘Without me you can do nothing.’”
Sermon 295, 8

October 27 -SAINT EVARISTO

“Humans go distances to admire the soaring mountains, the giant raging
waves of the sea, the broad expanse of the silently flowing rivers, the
seemingly infinite expanse of the ocean. They wander at the limitless paths
of the stars but they ignore themselves. The feel no wonder at themselves.
The fact, for example that I could not have spoken of the wonders above,
unless I could see them in my memory with all of its endless expanse.”

Confessions, 10.8.15

October 26 – SAINTS LUCIANO AND MARCIANO
“Just think of the world in which we live! Think of the thousands of beautiful things for seeing and the thousands of objects just right for making things. There are the soft shadows of forests at noon, the shade and smells of spring flowers, the different songs and exotic dresses of the birds. How amazing the animals who are around us, the smallest (the ant) even more amazing than the huge bulk of the whale! How grateful should we be for the gentle animals and silent plants that give themselves so that we might have wool and cotton for our clothes.”
City of God, 22.24

October 25 -SAINT JOHN STONE, AUGUSTINIAN MARTYR
“The glory of the martyrs in the celebration of their feasts is something people can observe, but what cannot be seen is how great it is with God. Precious in the sight of the Lord is the death of his saints. How immensely precious, and what’s more in the sight of the Lord! Because when they were being slaughtered in the sight of men, they were worthless. How could the blood of the martyrs have been shed so freely, if it hadn’t been worthless to those who were shedding it? Those who were killing the martyrs didn’t know it was going to seed itself. From those few, you see, falling into the earth this crop has sprung.”
Sermon 335E, 2

October 24 – SAINT ANTHONY MARY CLARET
“I see that when you praise love you shout out. But just as it pleases you when you praise love may it so please you that you preserve it in your heart. Love is praised by you; it pleases you. Well, have it, possess it! There is no need for you to consider buying it. It stands available at no cost. Take hold of it, embrace it. Nothing is sweeter than love. If it is delicious to talk about, what is it like when it is possessed?
Commentary on the Epistle of John, 7.10.2

October 23 -SAINT WILLIAM THE HERMIT AND BLESSED JOHN THE GOOD
“What does ‘walking’ mean? It means to ‘keep on going.’ So, keep on moving my friends. Examine yourself without self-deception, without flattery. There is no one inside you before whom you need to be ashamed, no one that you need to impress. Of course, God is there but he is pleased with your humility. You must be dissatisfied with the way you are now if you ever want to get to where you are not yet. When you are self-satisfied, you get stuck where you are. If you say to yourself, ‘That’s enough; I need not go farther,’ it is then that you die. Keep on walking, don’t stop on the road, don’t turn around and go back. Especially don’t wander off the road by turning away from Christ. A lame man limping along the road goes farther towards God than a sprinter running off the road.”
Sermon 169, 18

October 22 -SAINT JOHN PAUL II, POPE
“We should shout for joy when we look upon the whole of creation: the earth, the sea, the sky, and all the creatures in it with their own time for birth, existence, and decline. We watch the stars revolve from east to west as the time speeds by in hours and years. We see the hints of an invisible something, a spirit or soul, in living things which enables them to seek pleasure, flee from harm, and avoid decay. In ourselves we perceive a quality of mind that seems almost divine, a quality whereby we are not only able to live and see and hear like other animals but are able to think about God and distinguish justice from injustice as the eye can tell white from black.”
Commentary on Psalm 99, 5

October 21
“Let us listen to the voice of the Lord encouraging us from on high and comforting us. He has taken notice of our desire and has willingly accepted our plea that we have sent through Jesus. While we are still plodding along on our pilgrimage, he has deferred giving us what he promised. He urges us to ‘Hold out for the Lord!’ You will not be holding out for one who will be unable to find anything to give you. By holding out for the Lord you will come to possess him. The one for whom you are holding out will be yours forever. Long for something else, if you can find something greater or better or more lovely.”
Commentary on Psalm 26/2, 23

October 20 -SAINT MAGDALENE OF NAGASAKI, AUGUSTINIAN MARTYR
“You’re a Christian, you carry on your forehead the cross of Christ. The mark stamped on you teaches you what you should profess. When he was hanging on the cross – the cross you carry on your forehead … he was looking round at the people raving against him, putting up with their insults, praying for his enemies. Even while he was being killed, the doctor was curing the sick with his blood. He said, you see, ‘Father, forgive them, because they do not know what they are doing (Lk 23:34). Nor were these words futile or without effect. And of those people, thousands later on believed in the one they had slain, so that they learned how to suffer for him who had suffered both for them and at their hands.”
Sermon 302