Quote of the Day

"Our heart was already joyful in awaiting this moment; now that joy abounds and overflows, for the promise has been at last fulfilled. Joy and gladness are a sure sign that the message contained in the mystery of this night is truly from God. There is no room for doubt; let us leave that to the skeptics who, by looking to reason alone, never find the truth. There is no room for the indifference which reigns in the hearts of those unable to love for fear of losing something. All sadness has been banished, for the Child Jesus brings true comfort to every heart."

--Pope Francis

Quote of the Day

"Joy springs from a grateful heart. Truly, we have received much, so many graces, so many blessings, and we rejoice in this. It will do us good to think back on our lives with the grace of remembrance. Remembrance of when we were first called, remembrance of the road travelled, remembrance of graces received… and, above all, remembrance of our encounter with Jesus Christ so often along the way. Remembrance of the amazement which our encounter with Jesus Christ awakens in our hearts."

--Pope Francis

A Christmas Reflection

"Jesus has given us the gift of Himself. We can give him the gift of our hearts. The fullness of our hearts is revealed by our actions: how I treat the homeless, how I treat these refugees, how I treat each individual person—-not as an impersonal one of millions, but as one in a million. Each one is Jesus, who suffers in this distressing disguise. It’s the body of Christ you are touching. How loving our hearts and our hands must be, to be able to bring our compassion to them…

"The Joyful Mysteries are not all pure joy; rather they are tinged with sorrow and suffering. For Jesus, Mary and Joseph, that was their life, and they freely accepted the will of God. On this joyous Christmas Day, we too can share in the sorrow and suffering of the refugees. Our joy transcends this transient human suffering when we embrace it with love."

--Blessed Teresa of Calcutta, address to Bengali refugees, December 25, 1971 (from the forthcoming book My Christmas with Mother Teresa by John Mathews with Justin Soutar)

Quote of the Day

"The heart of man desires joy. All of us aspire to joy. Every family, every people aspires to happiness. But what is the joy to which the Christian is called to live and to give witness? It is that that comes from the closeness of God, of his presence in our lives. Since Jesus entered history, with his birth in Bethlehem, humanity has received the seed of the Kingdom of God, as the earth receives a seed, the promise of a future harvest. We don't need to look elsewhere. Jesus came to bring joy to everyone and for ever.

"It is not a joy that is merely anticipated or set in paradise -- 'here on earth we are sad but in paradise, we'll be happy.' No. It's not that. Rather, [it is] a joy that is already real and that can be felt now, because Jesus himself is our joy, is our home....

"All of us who are baptized, the children of the Church, are called to welcome ever again the presence of God in our midst and to help others to discover it, or to rediscover it if we've forgotten it. It is a beautiful mission, similar to that of John the Baptist: to point people toward Christ -- not to ourselves -- because He is the final goal toward which the human heart reaches when it seeks joy and happiness....

"The Christian is a person who has his heart full of peace, because he knows how to place his joy in the Lord, even when the difficult moments of life arise.

"To have faith does not mean to not have difficult moments, but to have the strength to face them, knowing we are not alone. And this is the Peace that God gives to his children."

--Pope Francis

Quote of the Day

"We must tell the truth: Christian life is not just one big party. Not at all! We cry, we cry so many times: when we are sick; when we have a problem with our son, in the family, with our daughter, or wife, or husband; when we see that our salary does not reach the end of the month and we have a sick child; when we see that we cannot pay the mortgage on the house and we must somehow survive ... So many problems, we have so many. But Jesus tells us: 'Do not be afraid!' 'Yes, you will be sad, cry and people will even rejoice, the people who are against you.'...

"Be courageous in suffering and remember that after, the Lord will come; after, joy will come, after the dark comes the sun. May the Lord give us all this joy in hope. And the sign that we have this joy in hope is peace. How many sick, who are at the end of life, in pain, have that peace of soul.

“This is the seed of joy, this is the joy of hope and peace. Do you have peace of soul in times of darkness, in times of trouble, in times of persecution, when everyone else rejoices at your suffering? Do you have peace? If you have peace, you have the seed of joy that will come later.”

--Pope Francis

Quote of the Day

“We are not so used to thinking of Jesus smiling, joyful. Jesus was full of joy - full of joy. In that intimacy with his Father: ‘He rejoiced in the Holy Spirit and praised the Father.’ It is the inner mystery of Jesus, that relationship with the Father in the Spirit. It is His inner joy, his interior joy that he gives to us...

“We cannot think of a Church without joy and the joy of the Church is this: announcing the name of Jesus. To say: ‘He is the Lord. My spouse is the Lord. It is God. He saves us, He walks with us.’ And that is the joy of the Church, who in this joy of a wife becomes a mother...

"May the Lord give us all this joy, this joy of Jesus, praising the Father in the Spirit. This joy of our mother Church in evangelizing, in announcing Her Spouse.”

--Pope Francis