Reflection: Don't you have by your side booklets on which you enter your account each day? In the same way, you must make an accounting every day for your conscience.
- St. John Chrysostom
Prayer: God of forgiveness, help me to make a daily examination of conscience. Teach me how to pinpoint faults, ask Your forgiveness for them, and resolve to do better in the future.
Reflection: Where Peter is, there is the Church. Where the Church is, there is Jesus Christ. Where Jesus Christ is, there is eternal salvation.
- St. Ambrose
Prayer: Lord Jesus, You left us Your Church and You Vicar the Pope to insure our contact with You. Let me always cling to Your Church and follow her teachings with all my heart.
Reflection: Imitate Jesus, Who is sovereignly perfect and sovereignly holy. Then you will never run the danger of losing your way.
- St. John of the Cross
Prayer: Heavenly Father, enable me to put on the attitude of Your Son Jesus. Grant that I may be His follower in all things on earth so that I may follow Him to heaven.
From: Every Day Is A Gift (Catholic Book Publishing Corp., New York)
Reflection: The true secret of love consists in this: We must forget self like St. John the Baptist and exalt and glorify the Lord Jesus.
- St. Peter Eymard
Prayer: Almighty God, help me to put my self-interests in the background. Let me seek Your interests and do everything for the honor and glory of Your Son Jesus.
Reflection: Goodwill in the soul is the source of all good things and the mother of all virtues. Those who possess it hold in their hand--without fear of losing it--all that is necessary to lead a good life.
- St. Albert the Great
Prayer: Heavenly Father, grant me the true spirit of goodwill toward all. Let me be ever ready to carry out Your will and to come to the aid of all I encounter on this earthly pilgrimage.
Reflection: Everything on this earth passes away--all too quickly. But eternity will never pass away.
- St. Aloysius Gonzaga
Prayer: Ever-living God, let me not get over caught up in the day-to-day press of earthly affairs. Help me to keep my eyes fixed on Your eternal truths and consider all things in the light of eternity.
Reflection: What a thrill will be yours on the last day when you hear the words of those whom you have led to heaven almost by the hand: "These people are servantgs of the great God who have proclaimed the ways of salvation to us!"
- St. John Baptist de la Salle
Prayer: Almighty God, make me a willing messenger of Your Good News of Salvation to those who do not know You. Let me be a messenger through prayer as well as through words and actions.
Reflection: No one can advance in virtue except by following Jesus Christ. He is the truth, the life, and the only door through Whom everyone who wants to be saved must enter.
- St. John of the Cross
Prayer: Father of goodness, make me realize that Jesus is the only way to You for everyone in the world. Grant that I may follow Him closely on earth and reach my heavenly home.
Reflection: The family is the domestic Church. Parents should by word and example be the first preachers of the Faith to their children. They should encourage their children in the vocation proper to each, carefully fostering vocations to the religious state.
- Vatican II: The Church, no. 11
Prayer: Heavenly Father, help me to take seriously my role in the domestic Church. Let me work to ensure that Christian love and harmony will always reign in my family.
Reflection: Faithfulness is the reason for living. It is not a chain restraining the boldness of talent and love. When it consists of adherence to our creed, which never ages and never is exhausted, it opens a path to order, always positive, strong, and happy.
- Pope Paul VI
Prayer: Lord Jesus, help me never to see my commitment to my Faith as a prison. On the contrary, let me regard it as a suitable means of expressing my life and my love.
Reflection: The sight of the risen Christ helped the disciples to believe in the Church that was to follow. In the same way, the spectavle of that Church helps to confirm our faith in the Resurrection of Christ.
- St. Augustine
Prayer: Lord Jesus Christ, let Your Church be a beacon of knowledge and truth for me and for all people. Confirm my faith in Your Life, Death, and Resurrection by keeping me ever in tune with Your Church in all things.
Reflection: You must be holy in the way God asks you to be holy. God does not ask you to be a Trappist monk or a hermit. He wants you to sanctify the world and your everydat life.
- St. Vincent Palloti
Prayer: Holy God, show me the path to holiness that You want me to follow. Teach me how to recognize it and help me to follow it diligently all the days of my life.
Reflection: The real Church is being born today in the faithfulness and boldness of the Spirit, in the unity of Christ's Body. We do not ask you to praise her a priori, but to give these positive facts the place they deserve. Like the Lord, we say to you. Come and see.
- Pope Paul VI
Prayer: O Lord, let me never prejudge actions of the Church that might seem questionable. Let me find love in her and lover her into healing.
Reflection: Presumption is like vermin burrowing at the root of the tree of our soul. If we do not uproot it with great care and humility, it will eventually destroy the soul.
- St. Catherine of Siena
Prayer: All-powerful God, keep me from all presumption of mind and heart. Help me to realize that I depend on You for everything and of myself I can do nothing.
Reflection: Being a Christian means saying "yes" to Jesus Christ. It consists in surrendering to the Word of God and relying on it, but also endeavoring to know better and better the profound meaning of this Word.
- Pope John Paul II
Prayer: Self-revealing God, let me rely always on Your all-enlightening Word. Help me to read it often, study it diligently, ponder it well, and put it into practice in my daily life.
Reflection: Make sure that you never spurn the Savior's words. They have in themselves such tremendous majesty that they can instill fear into those who have wandered from the path of righteousness, whereas they ever remain a great solace to those who heed them.
- St. Justin the Martyr
Prayer: Lord Jesus, let me daily take to heart and ponder Your words. Grant that they may lead me to penance and also provide needed consolation amid the troubles of life.
