A Garland of Short Meditations

GOD is so near that He hears the slightest whisper from oar lips and the most secret thought. We have no need of wings to go in search of Him ; let us . enter into the solitude and look within us—it is there that He is. Let us talk with Him in great humility, but also with love, like children talking with their father, confidently telling Him our troubles, and begging Him to help us, and recognising above all that we are not worthy to bear the name of His children.
St. Teresa.

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Prayer is the bridge over temptations, and the death of sadness and the token of future glory.
St. John Cliinacus.

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Beloved brother, bear with others, and they will bear with you ; excuse, and you will be excused ; pity the weaknesses of the sinner, and you will be pitied ; comfort the afflicted, and you shall be comforted ; raise up him that falls, and you shall be yourself raised up by the help of God.
Thomas a Kempis.

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In the virtue of humility the whole discipline of Christian wisdom consisteth.
. Blosius.

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The soul that finds no pleasure outside of God cannot be long unvisited by the Beloved.
St. John of the Cross.

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Let us run after God, for we may be sure He will not fly from us. He is nailed upon the Cross, and infallibly we shall find Him there. Let us convey Him into our hearts, and then shut the
door that He retire not thence.
St. John of the Cross.

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He who hourly awaits death, even if he die suddenly, will not fail to die well.—St. Alphonsus Liguori.

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There be many that, all their lives, seek the light of perfect devotion, and never attain unto it. But, if they have piously and perseveringly sought, so soon as they have put off the body, there is granted unto them that which in this world by divine dispensation was denied.—St. Bernard.

To Jesus Heart All Burning.

To Jesus' Heart all burning
With fervent love for men,
My heart with fondest yearning
Shall raise its joyful strain.
While ages course along,
Blest be with loudest song
The Sacred Heart of Jesus
By every heart and tongue.

Too true I have forsaken
Thy love by wilfuI sin,
Yet let me now be taken
Back to Thy grace again.
While ages course along, etc.

THE great object of the devotion to the Sacred Heart is that it should teach us to love Out Lord because He loves us. We were brought into the world solely because He loved us, and He wanted our love. He wants to do us good. He longs to do us good. He wants to know us,
and wants us to know Him.—D. Considine, S.J.

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The fear of God sets us free from the fear of His enemies.—St. Ambrose.

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Forget all that is past, and imagine each day you do but begin.—St. Augustine.
I cannot understand how a man can ever smile who is in a state of mortal sin.
St. Thomas Aquinas.

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A Christian must desire perfection, or he sins.—St. Jerome.

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Dread the torments suffered by the souls in Purgatory, and have-compassion on them. Succour them by your prayers, and deliver them by your good works.
B. Albert the Great.

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That is true and firmly-cemented Christian friendship which is brought about by no selfish interest, mere bodily presence, or deceitful coaxing flattery, but by the fear of God.—St. Jerome.

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Give me the grace to be content to be solitary; not to long for worldly company, little and little utterly to cast off the world, and r i a my mind of all the business thereof ; not to long to hear of any worldly things.—B. Thomas More.

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Persons who live in the world should persevere in coming to church to hear sermons, and should remember to read spiritual books, especially the lives of the Saints.—St. Philip Neri.

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At every step, at our coming in and our going out, when we wash, when we sit down to eat, when we light a candle, when we go to bed, in whatsoever conversation we join, we sign our foreheads with the Sign of the Cross.—Tertullian.