The Blood of God (from The Everlasting Man, by G.K. Chesterton)

Long years and centuries ago our fathers or the founders of our people drank, as they dreamed, of the blood of God. Long years and centuries have passed since the strength of that giant vintage has been anything but a legend of the age of giants. Centuries ago already is the dark time of the second fermentation, when the wine of Catholicism turned into the vinegar of Calvinism. Long since that bitter drink has been itself diluted; rinsed out and washed away by the waters of oblivion and the wave of the world. Never did we think to taste again even that bitter tang of sincerity and the spirit, still less the richer and the sweeter strength of the purple vineyards in
our dreams of the age of gold. Day by day and year by year we have lowered our hopes and lessened our convictions; we have grown more and more used to seeing those vats and vineyards overwhelmed in the water-floods and the last savour and suggestion of that special element fading like a stain of purple upon a sea of grey. We have grown used to dilution, to dissolution, to a watering down that went on for ever. But 'Thou hast kept the good wine until now.'

Prayer for Hope

O God, we dare not place our hope in you
because we have no hope to place.
We have forgotten mercy, like the dew;
we have lost sight of days of grace.
Our heart's bowl brims with hollow emptiness.
Our dreams have vanished like the smoke
of incense burned to gods of faithlessness
upon an altar stone that broke.

O God, you have stirred up the darkened heart
with promises of light to come.
The embers of our cold hearth shift and start
a flicker that may yet become
the fire we fear because we shy from burns
our soul once suffered at the hands
of our own treachery. If life returns
for us, we dread rebirth's demands.

O God, ignore our plea for cold despair,
its ashes undisturbed, its chill
unwarmed by any hint borne on the air
by unseen angels, crying still
that promises are kept. Grant us instead
that small perturbing flick of flame
that wakens even in the living dead
just hope enough to call your name!

The Holy Name of Mary, St. Bernard of Clairvaux

If the winds of temptations surge, if you run aground on the shoals of troubles, look to this star, call upon Mary! If you are tossed by the winds of pride or ambition or detraction or jealousy, look to this star, call upon Mary! If anger or greed or the allurements of the flesh dash against the boat of your mind, look to Mary! And if you are troubled by the enormity of your sins, confused by the foulness of your conscience, terrified by the horror of the Judgment, so that you begin to be swallowed up by the pit of sadness, the abyss of despair, think of Mary! In dangers, in straits, in perplexity, think of Mary, call upon Mary. Let her name be always in your mouth and in your heart, and, if you would ask for and obtain the help of her prayers, do not forget the example of how she lived. If you follow her, you will not go astray. If you pray to her, you will not despair. If you think of her, you will not be lost. If you cling to her, you will not fall. If she protects you, you will not fear; if she is your guide, you will not tire; if she is favorable to you, you will reach your goal. Thus you will experience personally how rightly it was spoken "And the Virgin's name was Mary."

Saint Bernard of Clairvaux (died 1153) is considered the last of the Fathers of the Church and is a Doctor of the Church.

Psalm 31, pt. 2

Have mercy on me, O Lord,
for I am in distress.
Tears have wasted my eyes,
my throat and my heart.

For my life is spent with sorrow
and my years with sighs.
Affliction has broken down my strength
and my bones waste away.

In the face of all my foes
I am a reproach,
an object of scorn to my neighbors
and of fear to my friends.

Those who see me in the street
run far away from me.
I am like a dead man, forgotten,
like a thing thrown away.

But as for me, I trust in you, Lord,
I say: "You are my God.
Let your face shine on your servant.
Save me in your love."

Psalm 69

Save me, O God,
for the waters have risen to my neck.

I have sunk into the mud of the deep
and there is no foothold.
I have entered the waters of the deep
and the waves overwhelm me.

I am wearied with all my crying,
my throat is parched.
My eyes are wasted away
from looking for my God.

This is my prayer to you,
my prayer for your favor.
In your great love, answer me, O God,
with your help that never fails:
rescue me from sinking in the mud;
save me from my foes.

Save me from the waters of the deep
lest the waves overwhelm me.
Do not let the deep engulf me
nor death close its mouth on me.

2 Corinthians 1:8-10a

We were utterly weighed down beyond our strength, so that we despaired even of life. Indeed, we had accepted within ourselves the sentence of death, that we might trust not in ourselves but in God who raises the dead. He rescued us from such great danger of death, and he will continue to rescue us.

Receiving the Child, by Mother Elvira Petrozzi

A world that does not love or respect little ones, that does not defend those who are weakest in this life is a world of the dead, a world of truly desperate people. A world that rejects life, which does violence to the life of children, cannot even be called a world. Yet God calls us specifically to love this world, to be carriers of hope and sparks of light and kindness that resurrect humanity.

Today we suffer a deadly cancer: the incapacity to love.If you do not love, you remain in death. You are not truly alive. If you do not authentically love, you do not suffer, struggle, or cry, but you also never rejoice. If you do not love, you are indifferent! Often though, the one who does not know how to love has not known the One true Love. He has not known Him who captures your heart and turns you again towards life, who makes you explode with the will to love. Yes, Love generates love, and today there is an immense need of persons able to generate hope in Love . . .

We experience resurrection every day with the lost and dead youth who enter our houses, as well as with their families who have been destroyed by suffering and desperation. We see resurrection in the eyes of the children of our missions, in whom the violence of the streets has left open and bleeding scars. Daily we live an experience of hope that gives life to those from whom life has been stolen. Because of this we believe that in the darkest night it is possible to find light again. Even in the darkest sadness, joy can be rekindled. Even in the bitterest loneliness, a friend's love can pierce a hardened heart. Yes, we want to be witnesses of this hope. We want to announce to this world that the secret of rebirth is to open our hearts to that marvelous Father who waits for each of us as His most precious child.

Mother Elvira Petrozzi is foundress of Comunità Cenàcolo, welcoming the lost and desperate in fifty-six houses in fifteen countries.

Excerpt from "Make us Worthy" by Anthony Esolen

We think that mercy is a sweeter and easier thing than justice, but it is not so; for justice takes us as we are, but mercy assaults us and batters at the gates of our heart, demanding that we be made new. Face to face with Love, the speaker in Herbert's poem, torn by both love and shame, wants to retreat, to go to that place more deserving of his sins. Sometimes sorrow is easier than joy, and despair more comforting than hope.

How the Humble Are Exalted

The greatest certainty of spiritual safety in this life is to be found in thus utter self-abandonment which... consists in being driven to breaking-point and to an utter despair of oneself so as to have no hope but in God alone... Now God has given you two kinds of grace to bring you to this full self-abandonment: (1) strong inducements to tempt you to put full confidence in his great mercy and goodness; (2) surpassing understanding and penetrating awareness of your wretchedness, weakness, perversity, and general failure to achieve goodness. In effect he says to you: Know that in your present state you neither ought, nor can, in any wise help yourself, nor be helped by anything coming from that pit of corruption which is yourself. By self-abandonment, by renunciation of all recourse to self and by fixing all your thoughts upon me, do you then leave all your burdens to me!... Instead of shaking and undermining the soul's blessed joy, these discoveries inspire it with resolute trust... I have known... souls following this way to be astonished when they behold their trust in God increase proportionately with their increasing perception of their poverty, weakness, and misery. The explanation is that the keener this consciousness of our wretchedness and corruption becomes, the greater grows the self-distrust of those souls possessing it and the greater their corresponding trust in God.

--Father Jean-Pierre de Caussade, S.J. (died 1751) a French Jesuit, a writer, and a revered spiritual director.