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."

April 25th
St Thomas Aquinas (1225-1274), Confessor, Doctor of the Church; Roccasecca, Italy; Feast day March 7th

"In recalling to mind the life and actions of the saints, walk in their footsteps as much as possible, and humble yourself if you can not attain to their perfection."

St Alphonsus (1696-1787), Bishop, Confessor, Doctor of the Church; Marianella, Naples; Feast day August 2nd

"Blessed are the actions enclosed between two Hail Marys."

St Vincent de Paul (1580-1660), Confessor, Priest, Founder; Gascony, France; Feast day July 19th

"Prayer teaches us the need of laying before God all our necessities, of corresponding with His grace, of banishing vice from our heart and of establishing virtue in it."

April 24th
St Fidelis of Sigmarengen (1577-1622), Martyr; Sigmarengen, Germany; Feast day April 24th

"Pardon my enemies, O Lord: blinded by passion, they know not what they do.  Lord Jesus, have pity on me.  Mary, mother of Jesus, assist me."

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

"The deceitful charms of prosperity destroy more souls than all the scourges of adversity."

St Teresa of Avila (1515-1582), Virgin, Doctor of the Church; Avila, Spain; Feast day, October 15th

"I have noticed that all persons who have true devotion to St Joseph and tender him special honor, are very much advanced in virtue, for he takes great care of souls who recommend themselves to him; and I have never asked of him anything which he did not obtain for me."