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The original title of this book was, 'Cautions which any who would be true religious and would quickly attain to perfection must needs bear ever in mind'.

To put on Christ and to make Him live in oneself is the highest perfection.

-"Oh LORD, help me do this!"

Are we as generous to others as God is to us? And remember the holy souls can do nothing anymore for themselves, yet they can help you.

Got behind... Reading and praying every page, ust not on the death anniversaries. Hope to be caught back up soon.

'Embracing Christ and his claims always has required an act of faith, both for Thomas and for us. Christ gave him help for his faith—but he gives us help, too. Let’s not make excuses; let’s make the good confession.'

I love Divine Mercy Sunday!

Consider with what wrath I shall smite the haughty of the earth, if I have not forborne to smite for the sin of pride, those even, whom I have created next to Myself in heaven.

Really enjoying the Bible in a Year. We're actually further along than this because we've read two Gospels, the books of Proverbs, Job, Sirach, Ecclesiastes and Wisdom, though they come after this place in the bible, but that's okay.

‘I must wait outside as long as in my lifetime the heavens wheeled around me while I put off my sighs of penance to the end, unless I’m helped by prayers that rise from a heart that lives in grace. What good are those that go unheard in Heaven?’

His love is distributed to all, while being appropriated to each one of us. The life, the humiliations, the sufferings, the Passion of Jesus—all concern me. And how has He loved me? To love’s last extremity: in finem dilexit.

Mexican American war. The Texians briefly a Republic but finding it too ponderous to continue surrounded by two big powers, wooed the Americans, and made a marriage of convenience more than love. Once in the Union, East Coasters were horrified by Western lack of civilized behavior, while the highly effective, if unorthodox Texas rangers looked down on softness of American soldiers sent to fight with them.

We are permitted to see this rhinoceros, that is, this prince of the earth, bound w/the bands of faith; how he both wears his horn, by the power of the world, and bears the yoke of faith, by the love of God. This rhinoceros was greatly to be feared, unless bound. For he has in truth a horn, but yet he is bound. The lowly have therefore something to love in his bands, the proud have something to fear in his horn.

Of Affective Prayer - To be acquainted with meditation alone, whose method we have just explained, would be regrettable. As time goes on, and we make progress, we shall feel drawn to a more simple form of prayer, in which the mind begins to be silent in order to let the heart speak.

David is on the run from King Saul who has just had all the priests killed.

I was known to one of them who caught me by the hem & cried out, ‘What a wonder!’ While he held his arm outstretched to me, I fixed my eyes on his scorched face 'til beneath the charred disfigurement I could discern features that I knew, lowering my hand toward his face, asked: ‘Are You here, Ser Brunetto?’ He:‘O my son, let it not displease you if Brunetto Latini for a while turns back w/you & lets the troop go on.’

On the part of the understanding there is 1° ignorance of the supernatural life. The remedy is the word of God which we can find in instructions and in pious reading. To listen attentively to the word of God or to read it carefully is already a beginning of meditation.

For the bases of each single soul are its intentions. For as the fabric rests on columns, but the columns on bases, so is our life based upon its virtues, but our virtues on our inmost intention. And because it is written, other foundation can no man lay than that is laid, which is Jesus Christ; [1 Cor. 3, 11] the bases are then on the foundation, when our intentions are firmly fixed on Christ.

Finished the Books of Judges and Ruth. Ruth is lovely. Judges is horrifying. But as Father said, the last line says it all: "In those days there was not king in Israel; everyone did what he thought best."

Listening to the Books of Judges and Ruth at the same time. I have read Judges before but do not remember it and it is fascinating. Want to come back to it!

Chapter V: The Trace

The minds of the arrogant are doubtless so very mad, that even in what they think rightly, they are disfigured by the deformity of their pride. And hence even their sound opinions do not instruct their hearers, because in truth they lead them by their haughty sentiments not to reverence but to despise them.

When self-knowledge arouses in a soul sorrowful contrition at the same time as ardent love, profound adoration and the most elevated aspirations, the feeling of its own powerlessness w/most generous resolutions, one can declare it authentic: it bears the divine mark of its origin, which is peace, spiritual balance, freedom and fecundity.

Often, by the marvelous regulating of our Ruler, we're allowed to be torn in pieces by calumnies even, so when the voice of one commending lifts up the heart, the tongue of one calumniating should abase it, because the tree too often, which is so driven by the impulse of one wind as to seem now that it might well-nigh be rooted out of its place, is set up again by a blast of another wind from an opposite quarter.

Chapter III< El Camino Real

Although this record will go back again once Lent starts, we jumped ahead when we moved into Ordinary Time. This is the 3rd Sunday in OT, Feast of Word of God, since 2019. Biblemas? Excellent exegesis on this new feast.

‘O sun, you who heal all troubled sight, you so content me by resolving doubts it pleases me no less to question than to know. But go back a little way, I said, to where you told me usury offends God’s goodness, and untie that knot for me. ... The usurer, who takes another path, scorns nature in herself and in her follower, and elsewhere sets his hopes.

They that in Holy Church are truly humble, and truly instructed, are taught touching heavenly mysteries, both some things when viewed to understand, and some things not understood to reverence, that so what they understand they may hold with reverence, and what they do not as yet understand they may look forward to with humility.

In addition to recording the names and death anniversaries of family and friends, I was bothered by Oklahoma's continued death row executions. So, I went back through the list of all those who had been murdered by my state from the very beginning and added them plus the names of their victims (where they were given) on the dates of the executions. Eternal rest grant unto them, O LORD, may they rest in peace.

The “Battle of the Sea of Japan” was a turning point in modern history.

While I was reading this here, I was also reading about this same war in the novel, The Lady of the Decoration! 😁 As a reader, that is really fun!