April 5th
St Vincent Ferrer (1357-1419), Priest, Confessor; Valencia, Spain

"Do you desire to study to your advantage?  Let devotion accompany all your studies, and study less to make yourself learned than to become a saint.  Consult God more than your books, and ask Him, with humility, to make you understand what you read.  Study fatigues and drains the mind and heart.  Go from time to time to refresh them at the feet of Jesus Christ under His cross.  Some moments of repose in His sacred wounds give fresh vigour and new lights.  Interrupt your application by short, but fervent and ejaculatory prayers: never begin or end your study but by prayer.  Science is a gift of the Father of Lights: do not therefore consider it as barely the work of your own mind or industry."

"For whosoever will proudly dispute or contradict, will always stand without the door.  Christ, the master of humility, manifests His truth only to the humble, and hides Himself from the proud."

St Maria Crescentia Hoss (1682-1744), Virgin; Kaufbeuren, Bavaria

"God wants the monastery rich in virtue, not in temporal goods."

St Augustine (354-430), Confessor, Bishop, Father of the Church; Thagaste, Algeria; Feast day August 28th

"A single tear shed at the remembrance of the Passion of Jesus is worth more than a pilgrimage to Jerusalem, or a year of fasting on bread and water."