February Food for Thought

Hi again, By My Side friends.

Happy Family Day Weekend. I hope this February 2024 post finds you all well, hopeful and full of our Lord’s abundant peace today.

I have been thoroughly enjoying the 2-year Encounter program I have been studying the last 2 years. I have learned so much about our Catholic/Christian faith and how the Holy Spirit wants to work in our lives to bring those who are broken hearted to Him for encouragement, direction, wisdom, healing, and renewed hope.

Today and next month I thought I would share with you a few quotes from our beloved Saints to reflect upon to hopefully look at our world from their eternal perspective.

The wisdom I’ve learned from the Saints in the Encounter program has been truly inspirational. After all, in truth, we are here on earth for such a short time and we will be in eventually in eternity forever. Our eternal perspective in living this life now is therefore essential and most important to Jesus in valuing the things on earth that are important to God, for us to be able to live with Him forever in eternity.

I hope you enjoy these quotes.

1) If you believe what you like in the gospels and reject what you don’t like, it is not the gospel you believe but yourself. – St. Augustine.

2) Prayer is, therefore, the source and origin of every upward journey toward God. Let us each, then, turn to prayer and say to our Lord God: “Lead me, O Lord, on your path, that I may walk in your truth”. – St. Bonaventure.

3) When you begin a good work, earnestly pray to God to bring it to perfection. – St. Benedict.

4) The truly righteous are set apart from the world because they produce the fruits of grace in their actions. – St. Clement of Alexandria.

5) If everyone took only what is needed and gave the rest to those in need, there would be no such thing as rich and poor. – St. Basil.

6) Devote your first and principal care to cleansing your own conscience. Let cleansing the consciences of others come later. For how can one be of use to others who takes no care of their own self? – St. Francis Xavier.

7) The heart is the first organ in the human body to be formed. The heart symbolizes humility, for it is in the heart that this virtue has its principal seat: ” learn from me”, says the Lord, ” for I am gentle and humble of heart”. – St. Anthony of Padua.

8) Without humility of heart, all the other virtues by which one runs toward God seem – and are absolutely worthless. – Bl. Angela of Foligno.

9) You cannot better appreciate your worth than by looking into the mirror of the Cross of Christ; there you will learn how you are to deflate your pride, how you must mortify the desires of the flesh, how you are to pray to your Father for those who persecute you and to commend your spirit into God’s hands. – St. Anthony of Padua.

And finally…

10) The Lord did not come to make a display. He came to heal and to teach suffering humanity. For one who wanted to make a display, the thing would have been just to appear and dazzle the beholders. But for Him who came to heal and to teach, the way was not merely to dwell here, but to put Himself at the disposal of those who needed him. – St. Athanasius.