This site is dedicated to the memory of Dr. Alan William Smolowe who gave birth to the creation of this database.
I was not so committed to financial success that I was willing to abandon my principles and priorities. One of the most visible examples of this is our decision to close on Sunday. Our decision to close on Sunday was our way of honoring God and of directing our attention to things that mattered more than our business.
Business | Money | Order | Public | Receive | Service | Business |
No one knows what he himself is made of, except his own spirit within him, yet there is still some part of him which remains hidden even from his own spirit; but you, Lord, know everything about a human being because you have made him...Let me, then, confess what I know about myself, and confess too what I do not know, because what I know of myself I know only because you shed light on me, and what I do not know I shall remain ignorant about until my darkness becomes like bright noon before your face.
Contemplation | Life | Life | Man | Neglect | Right | Service | Contemplation |
The soul cannot live without love. She always wants to love something because love is the stuff she is made of, and through love I created her.
Brother Bernard was the first brother whom the Lord gave me, as well as the first to put into practice and fulfill most completely the perfection of the Holy Gospel by distributing all his goods to the poor; because of this and many other prerogatives, I am bound to love him more than any other brother of the entire Order. Therefore, as much as I can, I desire and command that, whoever the minister general is, he should cherish and honor him as he would me, and likewise the ministers provincial and the brothers of the entire Order should esteem him in place of me.
O Divine Master, grant that I may not seek to be consoled, as to console. To be understood, as to understand. To be loved, as to love. For it is in giving that we receive. It is in pardoning that we are pardoned. It is in dying that we are born to eternal life.
When he is brought to nothing, the highest degree of humility, the spiritual union between his soul and God will be effected. The journey does not consist on recreations, experiences and spiritual feelings, but in the living, sensory and spiritual, exterior and interior death of the cross.
Blessings | Lord | Means | Service | Soul | Trials | Troubles | Will |
To go to God there are many ways perhaps more excellent than the one we follow; let us recognize its excellence, but let us put forth all our efforts to progress in the way God has given us, because it is there where He wants us to be.
May it please our Lord that I be not one of these; and may His Majesty give me grace to take that for peace which is really peace, that for honor which is really honor, and that for delight which is really a delight. Let me never mistake one thing for another — and then I snap my fingers at all the devils, for they shall be afraid of me. I do not understand those terrors which make us cry out, Satan, Satan! when we may say, God, God! and make Satan tremble. Do we not know that he cannot stir without the permission of God? What does it mean? I am really much more afraid of those people who have so great a fear of the devil, than I am of the devil himself. Satan can do me no harm whatever, but they can trouble me very much, particularly if they be confessors. I have spent some years of such great anxiety, that even now I am amazed that I was able to bear it. Blessed be our Lord, who has so effectually helped me!
Evil | Fear | Friend | Harm | Hell | Love | Nothing | Peace | Satan | Service | Sin | Terror | Understanding | Weapons | Will | World | Understand |
They think that when they enter in here [the church], that they enter into our presence [the clergy], they think that they hear from us. They do not lay to heart, they do not consider that they are entering the presence of God, that it is He who addresses them. For when the Reader standing up says Thus says the Lord, and the Deacon stands and imposes silence on all, he does not say this as doing honor to the Reader but to honor Him who speaks to all through him [the Reader]. If they knew that it was God who through His prophet speaks these things, they would cast away all their pride. For if rulers are addressing them, they do not allow their minds to wander, much else would they when God is speaking. We are ministers, beloved. We speak not our own things, but the things of God. Letters coming from heaven are read every day.… These letters are sent from God; therefore let us enter with becoming reverence into the churches and let us hearken with fear to the things here said.
Clearly the person who accepts the Church as an infallible guide will believe whatever the Church teaches.
Excellence | Man | Obligation | Reverence | Service | Witness | Worship | Excellence |
I would rather him to bear patiently with it than to put himself in danger of a greater evil.
Opportunity | Service | Will |
Indeed, good is not good if one does not suffer in doing it.
Experience | Service | Will |
It is a ruse of the devil, by which he deceives good people, to induce them to do more than they are able, so that they end up not being able to do anything. The spirit of God urges one gently to do the good that can be done reasonably, so that it may be done perseveringly and for a long time.
What a reason the Company has for observing its Rules faithfully: to do what the Son of God came into the world to do! That there should be a Company, and that it should be the Company of the Mission, composed of poor men, and that it should be entirely dedicated to that purpose, going here and there through hamlets and villages, leaving the towns behind-something that’s never been done-and going to announce the Gospel only to persons who are poor; yet, those are our Rules!
You know that you yourself are not always in the same state. If you are exact today, closely united to God, and a consolation to the whole house, tomorrow you will be out of sorts, indolent, and a source of affliction to others. Then you will need their support, as you have supported them.
Consolation | Service |
The most perfect humour and irony is generally quite unconscious.
A computer can tell you down the dime what you’ve sold. But it can never tell you how much you could have sold.
Science | Service | Understand |