30 August 2024

Those who are to go among these infidels to convert them have need of many virtues: obedience, humility, perseverance, patience, love of their neighbor, and great chastity because of the numerous occasions of sin; and they should have good judgement and sound bodies in order to endure the hardships.
St. Francis Xavier

It is not possible that you should so soon be mistress of your soul, or that you should control it so absolutely at first.
St. Francis de Sales

We should eliminate sin if we wish to eliminate the scourge of tyrants.
St. Thomas Aquinas

My whole strength lies in prayer and sacrifice. They can move hearts far better than words.
St. Thérèse of Lisieux

Great and glorious God, who alone art worthy of our love and service, cure me of, and preserve me from, the sin and vanity of admiring this world.

Give me, O Lord, a perfect indifference for the world, its profits, pleasures, honours, fame, and all its idols. Give me the eye of faith, that I may see it just as it is; the vanity of its promises, the folly of its pleasures, the unprofitableness of its rewards, the multitude of its snares, and the danger of its temptations.

Give me grace to renounce all covetous desires, all love of riches and pleasures; to desire only what is necessary, and to be content with what Thou, O Lord, thinkest so. Grant that I may resist every temptation to the love of creatures, lest they steal my heart from Thee, my God, whom I desire to love with all my soul; so that I may cheerfully part with all these things when thou requirest it of me. And that I may ever be prepared to do so, dispose me to a temperance in all things, and to lay up my treasure in heaven.

Represent Thyself unto me as my true happiness, that I may love Thee with all my heart, and soul, and strength; so that when I am called out of this world, I may rejoice in hope of going to the paradise of God, where the souls of the faithful enjoy rest and felicity, in hopes of a blessed resurrection, through Jesus Christ our Lord.
Amen.