Notes, Homilies, and News

"In a single act of love hold the entire world in your heart. There consider all the good people together and rejoice. There look upon the evil and lament. Gaze upon those in trouble and oppressed and share their suffering." Cistercian abbot and author Saint Aelred of...

"In the darkening June evening I draw a blossom near, and bending close search it as a woman searches a loved one's face." "Peonies at Dusk," by American poet Jane Kenyon, +1995

"For most of us, this is the aim Never here to be realized; We are only undefeated Because we have gone on trying... For us, there is only the trying. The rest is not our business." American poet, playwright, essayist publisher T. S. Eliot, +1965

PO Box 270, Abiquiu, NM 87510 • Telephone: 575-613-4233 • www.christdesert.org JOURNEY TO GOD Many people ask today: where is our Church and Catholic culture headed? The replies to the question are not always positive or encouraging. There may be many reasons to agree...

"Maybe it will only be at the end of our life that we will begin to appreciate that searching for happiness and pleasure apart from God leads only to misery." Trappist monk Father Michael Casey

"The Spirit comes to the help of our weakness. We do not know how to pray as we ought, but the Spirit makes intercession for us with wordless sighs." Saint Paul's Letter to the Romans (8.26)

"Neither be crushed by adversity nor lose discipline through too much joy. It is by this means that joys are more appreciated and difficulties more readily endured. Blessed be God forever." Cistercian abbot Saint Bernard of Clairvaux, +1153

"The joy of generous giving is a barometer of the health of a Christian." Pope Francis

"When it all starts, monastic life feels like a thousand swords wounding you at once. Later, you discover that the wounds were there in the first place, and being a monk has healed them." Camaldolese Benedictine monk Anselmo Giabbani

"Become what you were meant to be and you will set fire to the whole earth." Dominican mystic Saint Catherine of Siena, +1380

"We know that all things work together for good for those who love God." Saint Paul's Letter to the Romans, chapter 8, verse 28

"Do not anticipate the mishaps of life by worrying about them beforehand; instead, prepare for them by perfect hope that as they occur, God to whom you belong, will deliver you from them." Bishop Saint Francis de Sales, +1622

"My soul is longing for the Lord more than watchman for daybreak." Psalm 129(130)

"I am a link in a chain, a bond of connection between persons. God has not created me for naught. I shall do good, I shall do God's work. I shall be an angel of peace, a preacher of truth in my own place while not intending it--if I do but keep God's commandments."...

"You will find among the woods something you never found in books." Cistercian abbot and author Saint Bernard of Clairvaux, +1153

"An old man said: 'One man is thought to be silent, and yet his heart judges and condemns others, and the one who acts thus speaks continually. Another man speaks from morning till evening and yet keeps silence, that is to say, he speaks nothing which is not...