Category Archives: today

MARCH 2 – SAINT LUCIO
“Since most people are somehow like the loves that drive them, and since their own concern in determining how they ought to live should only be to choose what they should love; why be surprised if those who love Christ and want to follow Christ should deny themselves in loving him?”
Sermon 96, 1

MARCH 1 – SAINT ALBINO
“Submit yourselves, my dear brothers and sisters, to a thorough interrogation, turn out your innermost closets and cupboards. Take careful stock of how much you have of charity – and increase the stock you find. Pay attention to that sort of treasure, so that you may be rich within.”
Sermon 34, 7

FEBRUARY 28 – SAINT ROMANUS
“Only if you know how to love yourself, will I entrust your neighbor to you to be loved. If you don’t yet know how to love yourself, I’m afraid you are only too likely to cheat your neighbor of love as you are cheating yourself.”
Sermon 128, 5

FEBRUARY 27 – SAINT GABRIEL
“If poverty pinches, if grief saddens, if pain overcomes us, if exile darkens our life, if anyother misfortune fills us with foreboding, let there be good friends at hand who know how to ‘weep with those who weep’ as well as ‘rejoice with those who rejoice.’ With such good friends such bitter trials are lessened, the heavy burdens are lightened, obstacles are met and overcome.”
Letter 130, 2.4

FEBRUARY 26 – SAINT ROMEO
“The world continues to grab at us, enticing us with its charms. We like lots of money, we like splendid honors, we like the power to dominate others. We like all these things, but let’s keep in mind the words of the apostle: ‘We brought nothing into this world, neither can we take anything out.’”
Sermon 39, 2

FEBRUARY 25 – SAINT CESARIUS
“Lord, you frighten me! You demand from me what you gave me. You gave me my talents because you want to profit from them. You don’t want them hidden away in some secret place. You don’t want to get back only what you gave me. You want more. You want all your money, every coin that bears your image – i.e., every human soul that ever existed.”
Sermon 125, 8

FEBRUARY 24 – SAINT SERGIO
“There is a place in the Church for the chastity of the virgin, for the continence of the widow, and for the modesty of the married. Indeed, all her members have their place, and this is where they are to follow Christ, in their function and in their way of life. They must deny themselves, that is, they must not presume on their own strength. They must take up their cross by enduring in the world for Christ’s sake whatever paint the world brings.”
Sermon 96

FEBRUARY 23 – SAINT POLYCARP
“What does it mean, let him take up his own cross? … This is not a command for virgins to obey and brides to ignore, for widows and not for married women, for monks and not for married men, or for the clergy and not for the laity. No, the whole Church, the entire body, all the members in their distinct and varied functions, must follow Christ.”
Sermon 96

FEBRUARY 22 – CHAIR OF SAINT PETER
“The medicine for all the wounds of the soul, and the one propitiation for the offenses of men is to believe in Christ … They who believe in him become the children of God; because they are born of God by the grace of adoption, which is by faith in Jesus Christ our Lord.”
Sermon 143.1

FEBRUARY 21- SAINT PETER DAMIAN
“The new will which had come to life in me and made me wish to serve you freely and enjoy you, my God, who are our only certain joy, was not yet strong enough to overcome the old, hardened as it was by the passage of time. So these two will within me, one old, one new, on the servant of the flesh, the other of the spirit, were in conflict and between them they tore my soul apart.”
Confessions VIII, 5