Dear Friends,

Pope Saint John XXIII often reminded people, "Do not forget your prayers. These may be as short as you wish if you find long prayers too hard, but do not forget them. Even a sign can be a prayer."

We all have our routine and we don't always want to change it. Never-the-less we can find more time for prayer, if we just look at our daily routine.

Dear Friend,

Once armies carried cannonballs with them, afraid they would meet the enemy somewhere and have nothing to shoot at it.

In terms of specific gravity, grudges are about as heavy as cannonballs.

But it makes little sense to carry them.

Dear Friend,

THE WORLD NEEDS WOMEN AND MEN…

who cannot be bought;
whose word is their bond;
who put character above wealth;
who possess opinions and a will;
who are larger than their vocations;
who do not hesitate to take chances;
READ MORE

Dear Friend,

In his book, An Anthropologist on Mars, neurologist Oliver Sacks tells about Thomas, a man who had been blind from early childhood. When he was 50, Thomas underwent surgery and was given the gift of sight. But as he and Dr. Sacks found out, having the physical capacity for sight is not the same as seeing.

Dear Friend,

In the early days of the church BAPTISM was a declaration that the believer was definitely identifying with that group of people who were called Christians and were often despised and hated.

To be a Christian meant taking a leap of Faith.

The Seven Last Words by Bishop Fulton Sheen, was written eighty years ago. Few books can match it for either retreat or Lenten spiritual reading. Christ's statements on Calvary, as recorded in the Gospels, are reflected upon and prayed over. This is a work of devotion meant to stimulate one another ever more heroically. The truly cosmic implications of the shattering events of Calvary are brought to the fore in these stirring reflections.

Dear Friend,

I heard a story of a little girl who walked to and from school daily. The weather one morning was questionable and clouds were forming, yet she made her daily trek to the elementary school.

As the afternoon progressed, the winds whipped up, along with thunder and lightning.

Dear Friend,

The Bible defines worldliness by centering morality where we intuitively know it should be. Worldliness is the lust of the flesh (a passion for sensual satisfaction), the lust of the eyes (an inordinate desire for the finer things of life), and the pride of life (self-satisfaction in who we are, what we have, and what we have done). Worldliness, then, is a preoccupation with ease and affluence.

Dear Friend,

In football they have a "huddle."

The goal of the huddle is to give you thirty seconds to call the play, that is why they give you a huddle.

At a professional football game there may be sixty thousand people watching you huddle, they don’t mind you taking thirty seconds to call the play.

Dear Friend,

Jesus calls us to be people who live in present-tense.

An average person’s anxiety is focused on:
40% -- things that will never happen
30% -- things about the past that can’t be changed
12% -- things about criticism by others, mostly untrue
10% -- about health, which gets worse with stress
8% -- about real problems that will be faced

This pocket-sized booklet of thirty meditations will help you unlock the courage to believe in God’s desire to save and bless you, especially in times of sadness and desolation. Each meditation includes a Scripture passage; a brief reflection by Sister Kathryn James Hermes, FSP, award-winning author of Surviving Depression: A Catholic Approach; and a short prayer.

Dear Friend,

Many people turn water into wine. It takes at least six weeks. But with Jesus it took no time at all. And it required no effort: he did it without even a word or a gesture or command; it just turned into wine in his presence, and he instructed the waiters to take it to the table. C.S. Lewis remarked that all the miracles worked by Jesus were in accord with the laws of nature, and not against them.

Dear Friend,

The "Coronary and Ulcer Club" lists the following rules for members:

1. Your job comes first. Forget everything else.

2. Saturdays, Sundays, and holidays are fine times to be working at the office. There will be nobody else there to bother you.

Dear Friend,

At a recent gathering of university professors, one teacher reported that at his school the most damaging charge one student can lodge against another is that the person is being "judgmental." He found this pattern very upsetting. "You can't get a good argument going in class anymore," he said.

Dear Friend,

These are the last New Year's Resolutions of Saint Sir Thomas More who was executed by the English King Henry VIII in 1535 because of his fidelity and loyalty to the Pope. He was the Lord High Chancellor of England. The Church has named him Patron of Statesmen and Politicians.

Think faith and science don't go together? Think again! Meet the faith-filled Catholics behind groundbreaking discoveries in science and math with this illuminating collection of twenty-eight biographies and stunning black-and-white illustrations of pioneering men and women like Father Gregor Mendel, Louis Pasteur, Saint Gianna Beretta Molla, and Sister Miriam Michael Stimson.