May 2nd
St Athanasius (296-373); Bishop, Confessor, Doctor of the Church; Alexandria, Egypt

"The Son of God took upon Himself our poverty and miseries, that He might impart to us a share of His riches.  His sufferings will render us one day impassible, and His death immortal.  His tears will be our joy, His burial our resurrection, and His baptism is our sanctification, according to what He says in His gospel: For them I sanctify myself, that they also may be made holy in fruits."

"Hold fast to the tradition, teaching, and faith proclaimed by the apostles and guarded by the fathers."

"Jesus that I know as my Redeemer cannot be less than God."

"Both from the confession of the evil spirits and from the daily witness of His works, it is manifest, then, and let none presume to doubt it, that the Savior has raised His own body, and that He is very Son of God, having His being from God as from a Father, Whose Word and Wisdom and Whose Power He is.  He it is Who in these latter days assumed a body for the salvation of us all, and taught the world concerning the Father.  He it is Who has destroyed death and freely graced us all with incorruption through the promise of the resurrection, having raised His own body as its first-fruits, and displayed it by the sign of the cross as the monument to His victory over death and its corruption."

"But for the searching and right understanding of the Scriptures there is need of a good life and a pure soul, and for Christian virtue to guide the mind to grasp, so far as human nature can, the truth concerning God the Word.  One cannot possibly understand the teaching of the saints unless one has a pure mind and is trying to imitate their life.  Anyone who wants to look at sunlight naturally wipes his eye clear first, in order to make, at any rate, some approximation to the purity of that on which he looks; and a person wishing to see a city or country goes to the place in order to do so.  Similarly, anyone who wishes to understand the mind of the sacred writers must first cleanse his own life, and approach the saints by copying their deeds.  Thus united to them in the fellowship of life, he will both understand the things revealed to them by God and, thenceforth escaping the peril that threatens sinners in the judgment, will receive that which is laid up for the saints in the kingdom of heaven."

"These are fountains of salvation that they who thirst may be satisfied with the living words they contain.  In these alone is proclaimed the doctrine of godliness.  Let no man add to these, neither let him take out from these.  For concerning these, the Lord put to shame the Sadducees, and said, "Ye do err, not knowing the Scriptures" and He reproved the Jews, saying, "Search the Scriptures, for these are they that testify of ME."

"The Son of God became man so that we might become God."

May 1st
St James the Less (AD 62), Apostle, Martyr; Palestine; Feast day May 1st

"but if any of you is wanting wisdom, let him ask it of God, who gives abundantly to all men, and does not reproach; and it will be given to him.  But let him ask with faith, without hesitation."

"Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of Lights, with whom there is no change, nor shadow of alteration."

"Blessed is the man who endures temptation; for when he has been tried, he will receive the crown of life which God has promised to those who love Him."

"But let every man be sift to hear, slow to speak, and slow to wrath.  For the wrath of man does not work the justice of God."

"And if anyone thinks himself to be religious, not restraining his tongue but deceiving his own heart, that man's religion is vain.  Religion pure and undefiled before God the father is this:  to give aid to orphans and widows in their tribulation, and to keep oneself unspotted from this world."

"For just as the body without the spirit is dead, so faith also without works is dead."

"For every kind of beast and bird, and of serpents and the rest, is tamed and has been tamed by mankind; but the tongue no man can tame -- a restless evil, full of deadly poison.  With it we bless God the Father; and with it we curse men, who have been made after the likeness of God."

"But the wisdom that is from above is first of all chaste, then peaceable, moderate, docile, in harmony with good things, full of mercy and good fruits, without judging, without dissimulation.  The fruit of justice is sown in peace by those who make peace."

"Whoever wishes to be a friend of this world becomes an enemy of God."

"Draw near to God, and he will draw near to you....Humble yourselves in the sight of the Lord, and he will exalt you."

April 30th

St Catherine of Siena (1347-1380), Virgin, Doctor of the Church; Siena, Italy; Feast day April 30

"To acquire purity of the soul, it is necessary to guard against passing judgment on our neighbor, or useless remarks on his conduct."

"What have You taught me, O Love Uncreated?  You have taught me that I should bear patiently like a lamb, not only harsh words, but even blows harsh and hard, and injury and loss."

"O eternal Trinity, You are a deep sea in which the more I seek the more I find, and the more I find, the  more I seek to know You.  You fill us insatiably, because the soul, before the abyss which You are, is always famished; and hungering for You, O eternal Trinity, it desires to behold truth in Your light.  As the thirsty hart pants after the fount of living water, so does my soul long to leave this gloomy body and see You as You are, in truth.

"O unfathomable depth!  O Deity eternal!  O deep ocean!  What more could You give me than to give me Yourself?  You are an ever-burning Fire; You consume and are not consumed.  By Your fire, You consume every trace of self-love in the soul.  You are a Fire which drives away all coldness and illumines minds with its light, and with this light You have made known Your truth.  Truly this light is a sea which feeds the soul until it is all immersed in You, O peaceful Sea, eternal Trinity!  The water of this sea is never turbid; it never causes fear, but gives knowledge of the truth.  This water is transparent and discloses hidden things; and a living faith gives such abundance of light that the soul almost attains to certitude in what it believes.

"You are the supreme and infinite Good, good above all good; good which is joyful, incomprehensible, inestimable; beauty exceeding all other beauty; wisdom surpassing all wisdom, because You are Wisdom itself.  Food of angels, giving Yourself with fire of love to men!  You are the garment which covers our nakedness; You feed us, hungry as we are, with Your sweetness, because You are all sweetness, with no bitterness.  Clothe me, O eternal Trinity, clothe me with Yourself, so that I may pass this mortal life in true obedience and in the light of the most holy faith with which You have inebriated my soul."

"O loving, tender Word of God, You tell me: 'I have marked the path and opened the gate with My blood; do not be negligent in following it, but take the same road which I, eternal Truth, have traced out with My Blood.'  Arise, my soul, and follow your Redeemer, for no one can go to the Father but by Him.  O sweet Christ, Christ-Love, You are the way, and the door through which we must enter in order to reach the Father."

"O You who are mad about Your creature! true God and true Man, You have left Yourself wholly to us, as food, so that we will not fall through weariness during our pilgrimage in this life, but will be fortified by You, celestial nourishment."

April 29th
St Louis de Montfort (1673-1716), Priest, Confessor; Montfort, France; Feast day April 29th

"Can we love someone we do not even know?  Can we love deeply someone we know only vaguely?  Why is Jesus, the adorable, eternal and incarnate Wisdom loved so little if not because he is either too little known or not known at all?...Yet this is the most noble, the most consoling, the most useful and the most vital of all sciences and subjects in heaven and on earth."

"Pray with great confidence, with confidence based on the goodness and infinite generosity of God and upon the promises of Jesus Christ.  God is a spring of living water which flows unceasingly into the hearts of those who pray."

"The cross is the greatest gift God could bestow on His Elect on earth.  There is nothing so necessary, so beneficial, so sweet, or so glorious as to suffer something for Jesus.  If you suffer as you ought, the cross will become a precious yoke that Jesus will carry with you."

"Mary alone gives to the unfortunate children of unfaithful Eve entry into that earthly paradise where they may walk pleasantly with God and be safely hidden from their enemies.  There they can feed without fear of death on the delicious fruit of the tree of life and the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.  They can drink copiously the heavenly waters of that beauteous fountain which gushes forth in such abundance."

"She [Mother Mary] is an echo of God, speaking and repeating only God.  If you say 'Mary' she says 'God'."

"If you put all the love of all the mothers into one heart it still would not equal the love of the Heart of Mary for her children."

"Never will anyone who says his Rosary every day be led astray.  This is a statement that I would gladly sign with my blood."

"We fasten our souls to Your hope, as to an abiding anchor.  It is to Her that the saints who have saved themselves have been the most attached and have done their best to attach others, in order to persevere in virtue.  Happy, then, a thousand times happy, are the Christians who are now fastened faithfully and entirely to Her, as to a firm anchor!"

April 28th
St Gianna Beretta Molla (1922-1962), Confessor; Magenta, Italy; Feast day April 28th

"If one were to consider how much Jesus has suffered, one would not commit the smallest sin."

Ven. Louis of Granada (1505-1588), Confessor; Granada, Spain

"Remember that Our Lord and Saviour, at His coming into this world, disdained to possess riches, which are the object of your desires.  On the contrary, He so loved poverty that He chose for His Mother not a rich and powerful queen, but a poor and humble Virgin.  He willed to be born, not in a palace, but in a bleak stable, the manger of which, covered with a little straw, was His only couch....

"Man cannot freely rise to God and the contemplation of His beauty while he is breathless in the pursuit of riches.  A heart filled with material and earthly pleasures can never know spiritual and divine joys.  No; it is impossible to unite what is false with what is true; what is spiritual with what is carnal; what is temporal with what is eternal; they can never dwell together in one heart."

April 27th
St Thomas Aquinas (1225-1274), Confessor, Doctor of the Church; Roccasecca, Italy; Feast day March 7th

"All sin proceeds from self-love, for we never commit sin without coveting some gratification for self."

Ven. Louis of Granada (1505-1588), Confessor; Granada, Spain

"Be patient in bearing persecution, for the patient endurance of affronts is the touchstone of true humility.  Never despise the poor and abject, for their misery should move us to compassion rather than contempt.  Be not too eager for rich apparel, for humility is incompatible with a love of display.  One who is too solicitous about his dress is a slave to the opinions of men, for he certainly would not expend so much labor upon it if he thought he would not be observed.  Beware, however, of going to the other extreme and dressing in a manner unsuited to your position.  While claiming to despise the approbation or notice of the world, many secretly strive for it by their singularity and exaggerated simplicity.  Finally, do not disdain humble and obscure employments.  Only the proud seek to avoid these, for the  man of true humility deems nothing in the world beneath him."

April 26th

St Bernard (1090-1153), Confessor, Doctor of the Church; Fontaine-les-Dijon, France; Feast day August 20th

"God has two feet, one of justice and the other of mercy.  We must embrace both, lest justice separated from mercy should cause us to despair, or mercy without justice should excite in us presumption."

St Mary Magdalena de Pazzi (1566-1607), Virgin; Florence, Italy; Feast day May 29th

"If I am in contemplation, God is helping me; if I assist my neighbor, I am helping God."

St Ambrose (340-397), Confessor, Doctor of the Church; Present day Trier, Germany; Feast day December 7th

"If strength is wanting, pray to God and He will give it to you."