Great Throughts Treasury

"Meditation is like a needle after which comes a threatd of gold, composed of affections, prayers and resolutions."

"Ask those who love Him with a sincere love, and they will tell you that they find no greater or prompter relief amid the troubles of their life than in loving conversation with their Divine Friend."

"Acquire the habit of speaking to God as if you were alone with Him, familiarly and with confidence and love, as to the dearest and most loving of friends. Speak to Him often of your business, your plans, your troubles, your fears— of everything that concerns you. Converse with Him confidently and frankly; for God is not wont to speak to a soul that does not speak to Him."

"Ah, did I but love You, did I but really love You, my most amiable Sacrament, I also should wish never to leave the foot of a tabernacle either night or day; and fixing myself near Your majesty, concealed under the apparent shadow of the sacred species, I also should find that divine sweetness and that happiness which souls enamored of You find."

"All persons desire to be saved, but the greater part, because they will not adopt the means of being saved, fall into sin and are lost. . . In fact, the Elect are much fewer than the damned, for the reprobate are much more numerous than the Elect."

"But You never reject a repentant and humble heart."

"Assuredly, Loving Souls, you should go to God with all humility and respect, humbling yourselves in His presence, especially when you remember your past ingratitude and sins."

"Certainly amongst all devotions, after that of receiving the sacraments, that of adoring Jesus in the Blessed Sacrament holds the first place, is the most pleasing to God, and the most useful to ourselves. Do not then, O devout soul, refuse to begin this devotion; and forsaking the conversation of men, dwell each day, from this time forward, for at least half or quarter of an hour, in some church, in the presence of Jesus Christ under the sacramental species. Taste and see how sweet is the Lord."

"Each day I will . . . visit the Blessed Sacrament, especially where it is exposed."

"Could anyone ever have been able to imagine that the Word become flesh would take on the appearance of bread to become our food unless he himself had already done so?"

"God is displeased at the diffidence of souls who love Him sincerely and whom He Himself loves."

"He who trusts himself is lost. He who trusts God can do all things."

"I rejoice more in the supreme happiness which Thou enjoyest, and wilt enjoy forever, than in any good thing which I could ever have in time or in eternity. My supreme satisfaction is, that Thou, my beloved Redeemer, art supremely happy, and that Thy happiness is infinite. Reign, reign, my Lord, over my whole soul; I give it all to Thee; do Thou ever possess it."

"If you desire to find Him immediately, see--He is quite close to you. Tell Him what you desire, for it is to console you and grant your prayer that He remains in the Tabernacle."

"If you pray, you are positive of saving your soul. If you do not pray, you are just as positive of losing your soul."

"If we would completely rejoice the heart of God, let us strive in all things to conform ourselves to His divine will. Let us not only strive to conform ourselves, but also to unite ourselves to whatever dispositions God makes of us. Conformity signifies that we join our wills to the will of God. Uniformity means more. Uniformity means that we make one will of God's will and our will. In this way we will only what God wills. God's will alone is our will."

"If you wish to strengthen your confidence in God still more, often recall the loving way in which He has acted toward you, and how mercifully He has tried to bring you out of your sinful life, to break your attachment to the things of earth and draw you to His love."

"Just as a mother finds pleasure in taking her little child on her lap, there to feed and caress him, in like manner our loving God shows His fondness for His beloved souls who have given themselves entirely to Him and have placed all their hope in His goodness."

"It is a great mistake, as we have already remarked, to be afraid of Him and to act in His presence like a timid and craven slave trembling with fright before his master."

"May my will, my senses, and my faculties be all servants of Thy love, and may they never in this world serve for anything else than to give Thee satisfaction and glory. Such was thy life, O first lover and Mother of my Jesus! Most Holy Mary, do thou help me; do thou obtain for me the grace to live henceforward, as thou didst always live, in the happiness of belonging to God alone."

"Know also that you will probably gain more by praying fifteen minutes before the Blessed Sacrament than by all the other spiritual exercises of the day. True, Our Lord hears our prayers anywhere, for He has made the promise, ‘Ask, and you shall receive,’ but He has revealed to His servants that those who visit Him in the Blessed Sacrament will obtain a more abundant measure of grace."

"My Lord, set me on fire with love for you. Let me think of nothing, crave for nothing, yearn for nothing, search for nothing, but you. How I wish to be caught up in this scorching fire of love! How I wish it would consume every obstacle that blocks my path toward you! Make my love for you grow stronger each day of my life."

"Nowhere have holy souls made more admirable resolutions than here at the feet of their hidden God. Out of gratitude to my Jesus, veiled in this great Sacrament, I must declare that it was through this devotion, visiting Him in the tabernacles, that I withdrew from the world where, to my misfortune, I had lived until the age of twenty-six. Happy will you be if you can separate yourself from it earlier than I did and give yourself wholly to that Lord who has given Himself wholly to you."

"Nothing else is required than to act toward God, in the midst of your occupations, as you do, even when busy, toward those who love you and whom you love."

"Not only is there no need of an intermediary through whom He would want you to speak to Him, but He finds His delight in having you treat with Him personally and in all confidence."

"Open to me, he says, O soul, thy heart, and there I will come to unite myself to thee; so that, being one with me, thou mayst become my sister by resemblance, my friend by participation in my riches, my dove by the gift of simplicity, my undefiled by the gift of purity, which I shall communicate to thee. And then he goes on to say, 'Open to me, for my head is full of dew and my locks the drops of the night.' As if he said: Consider, my beloved, that I have waited for thee all the night of the bad life thou has led in the midst of darkness and error. Behold, now, instead of bringing scourges to chastise thee, I come in the Blessed Sacrament, with my hair full of heavenly dew, to extinguish in thee all impure desires towards creatures, and to kindle in thee the happy fire of my love."

"To cast fire upon the earth—that is my mission! And how I wish it were already blazing fiercely! Nothing in the world can set hearts ablaze with love for God like the Blessed Sacrament. That is why this divine bread has been pictured as a furnace of love. Saint Catherine of Siena saw far-reaching flames coming from this furnace of love and spreading throughout the world. Seeing this, Catherine simply could not understand how so many people could live without loving God."

"To souls enamored of God, hours spent before Jesus in the Blessed Sacrament appear moments."

"The more a person loves God, the more reason he has to hope in Him. This hope produces in the Saints an unutterable peace, which they preserve even in adversity, because as they love God, and know how beautiful He is to those who love Him, they place all their confidence and find all their repose in Him alone."

"Speak to Him often of your business, your plans, your troubles, your fears - of everything that concerns you."

"The heart of man is, so to speak, the paradise of God."

"Upon her entrance into heaven, our dear Mother humbly presented herself before God himself. She adored him and thanked him for all the graces bestowed upon her in life. Then our almighty God embraced his beloved daughter, blessed her, and declared her Queen of the universe, exalted above all the angels and saints."

"True, He is infinite Majesty, but He is also infinite Goodness and infinite Love. There can be no greater Lord than God; neither can there be a more ardent lover than He."

"We have always with us in this land of miseries our God made Man, who, by His real presence, is with us all the days of our life, and comforts and helps us with the greatest affection and compassion."

"What grieves me most in my past offenses, O my loving God, is not so much the punishment I have deserved, as the displeasure I have given You, Who are worthy of infinite love."

"What joy ought not we men to conceive, what hopes and what affections, in knowing that in the midst of our land, in our churches, near our houses, the Holy of holies, the true God, dwells and lives in the Most Holy Sacrament of the Altar! He who by his presence alone renders the saints in heaven blessed! He who is love itself."

"When our dear Savior left this world, he did not wish to leave us alone, and therefore he devised a means of remaining with us in the Holy Eucharist to the end of time, that even here below we may enjoy his sweet company."

"Who is there that ever receives a gift and tries to make bargains about it? Let us, then, return thanks for what He has bestowed on us. Who can tell whether, if we had had a larger share of ability or stronger health, we should not have possessed them to our destruction."

"Why hidest Thou Thy face? Job feared when he saw that God hid his face: but to know that Jesus Christ veils his majesty in the Most Blessed Sacrament should not inspire us with fear, but rather with greater love and confidence; since it is precisely to increase our confidence, and with greater evidence to manifest his love, that he remains on our altars concealed under the appearance of bread. Novarinus says 'that while God hides his face in this Sacrament, he discloses his love.' And who would ever dare approach him with confidence, and lay bare before him his affections and desires, did this King of heaven appear on our altars in the splendor of his glory?"

"Yet you should practice the greatest possible love and confidence in treating with Him."

"With such thoughts in your mind, now that you have resolved to love Him and please Him with all your strength, your only fear should be to fear God too much and to place too little confidence in Him."

"Your God is ever beside you - indeed, He is even within you."

"You have commanded that all who approach the altar to honor You should present a gift: 'Thou shall not appear empty before Me. (Exod. xxiii. 15) What, then, am I to do? Am I no more to appear before You? Ah no, this would not please You. Poor as I am, I will approach You; and please do provide me with the gifts which You desire me to have. I see that You dwell in the Sacrament, not only to reward Your lovers, but also to provide for the poor out of Your riches."

"You have already done so much for me, do this also: banish from my heart all love which does not tend towards You. Behold, I give myself completely to You: I now dedicate the whole remainder of my life to the love of the Most Blessed Sacrament. You, O Sacramental Jesus, have to be my comfort, my love in life, and at the hour of my death, when You will come to be my Viaticum and my guide to Thy blessed kingdom. Amen, amen. So do I hope; so may it be!"

"You may be sure that of all the moments of your life, the time you spend before the divine Sacrament will be that which will give you more strength during life and more consolation at the hour of your death and during eternity."