A Year With The Saints

"The soul that perseveres in the exercise of prayer, however many sins, temptations and falls of a thousand kinds the devil may oppose to it, may hold it for certain, after all, that the Lord will sooner or later rescue it from danger and guide it into the harbor of salvation."--St. Teresa

A Year With The Saints

"Souls that have no habit of prayer are like a lame and paralytic body, which, though it has hands and feet, cannot use them. Therefore, to abandon prayer seems to me the same thing as to lose the straight road; for as prayer is the gate through which all the graces of God come to us, when this is closed, I do not know how we can have any."--St. Teresa

A Year With The Saints

"Prayer well made gives much pleasure to the angels, and therefore it is much assisted by them; it gives great displeasure to the devils, and therefore is much persecuted and disturbed by them."--St. John Chrysostom

A Year With The Saints

"There is certainly nothing more useful than prayer. Therefore, we ought to entertain great esteem and love for it, and employ every effort to make it well."--St. Vincent de Paul

A Year With The Saints

"All that we do receives its value from conformity to the will of God. When I take food or recreation, if I do it because it is the will of God, I merit more than if I went to suffer death without that intention. Plant this principle firmly in your mind, and then at ever action fix your eyes upon it, in imitation of the carpenter, who brings every board under the square. Thus, you will do your work with perfection."--St. Francis de Sales

A Year With The Saints

"All that we do receives its value from conformity to the will of God. When I take food or recreation, if I do it because it is the will of God, I merit more than if I went to suffer death without that intention. Plant this principle firmly in your mind, and then at every action fix your eyes upon it, in imitation of the carpenter, who brings every board under the square. Thus, you will do your work with perfection."--St. Francis de Sales

A Year With The Saints

"It is a great error of certain souls otherwise good and pious that they believe they cannot retain interior repose in the midst of business and perplexities. Surely there is no commotion greater than that of a vessel in the midst of the sea; yet those on board do not give up the thought of resting and sleeping, and the compass remains always in its place, turning towards the pole. Here is the point: we must be careful to keep the compass of our will in order, that it may never turn elsewhere than to the pole of the divine pleasure. This is the third means of performing our actions well."--St. Francis de Sales

A Year With The Saints

"Another good method is to consider only the present day. One of the arts which the devil employs to ruin souls and to retard many in the service of God is to represent to them that it is a very difficult and insupportable thing to live for many years with so much exactness, circumspection and regularity. Now, to consider today only closes the path to this temptation, and at the same time lends much support to human weakness. For who is there that cannot for one day make a strong effort to do all he can, that his actions may be well performed? Let one say to himself in the morning, "This day I mean to perform my ordinary actions well." So, that becomes easy and tolerable, which might appear very difficult if it were taken in a general way, and with the thought that this effort was to be made for a lifetime. Meanwhile, by proceeding every day in this manner, little by little a good habit is formed, and no further difficulty is experiences."--St. Alphonsus Rodriguez

A Year With The Saints

"Among the many means of performing our actions well, one is to do each of them as if it were to be the last of our lives. At every action, then, say to yourself: 'If you knew that you were to die immediately after this action, would you do it? and would you do it in this way?'"--St. Vincent de Paul

A Year With The Saints

"The fourth hindrance is a desire to do too much. There is no need of wearing ourselves comletely out in the exercises of virtue, but we should practice them freely, naturally, simply, as the ancient Fathers did, with good will and without scrupulosity. In this consists the liberty of the children of God: that is, in doing gladly, faithfully, and heartily, what they are obliged to do."--St. Francis de Sales

A Year With The Saints

"It is a characteristic of the spirit of GOd to work with gentleness and love; and ths surest way of succeeding in whatever we undertake is to imitate Him."--St. Vincent de Paul

A Year With The Saints

"The third hindrance is anxiety and solicitude. Be diligent and accurate in all the affairs of which you have charge; but, if possible, do not let them cause you anxiety and vexation; that is, do not manage them with disquiet, solicitude, and eagerness. Do not worry in attending to them, for worry disturbs the reason, and hinders us from diong well even what does not trouble us. But great affairs do not disturb us so much as a great number of little ones; therefore, receive these also with calmness, and try to attend to them in order, one after another, without perturbation. Thus, you will gain great merit by them, for the time spenc peacefully is doubtless most usefully employed."--St. Francis de Sales

A Year With The Saints

"The works of God are performed, for the most part, little by little, and have their beginnings and their progress. We ought not to expect to do everything at once and in a hurry, nor imagine that all is lost, if success does not come in an instant, but we must advance quietly, pray much to God, and make use of the means suggested by His spirit, and never of the false maxims of the world."--St. Vincent de Paul

A Year With The Saints

"The second hindrance is haste. Beware of it, for it is a deadly enemy of true devotion; and anything done with precipitation is never done well. Let us go slowly, for if we do but keep advancing we shall thus go far."--St. Francis de Sales

A Year With The Saints

"Perform faithfully what God requires of you each moment, and leave the thought of everything else to Him. I assure you that to live in this way will bring you great peace."--St. Jane Frances de Chantal

A Year With The Saints

"Among the hindrances which prevent us from performing our actions well, the foremost is that while we are doing one thing, we are thinking of another which we have to do or which we have done; so that our accupations interfere with one another, and none is well performed. The way to do them all well is to attend solely to the one we have in hand, taking care to do it as perfectly as possible, and banishing for the time the thought of every other; and when this is finished, not to think of it any more, but to think of what remains to be done."--Father M. d'Avila

A Year With The Saints

"Be careful not to forget God in your occupation, from a belief that in this way you will accomplish more; for if He abandons you, you will not be able to take a stop without falling prostrate on the ground. Rather imitate little children, who with one hand cling to their fathers, while with the other they pluck strawberries and mulberries along the hedges. Attend to what you are doing, yet not without raising a glance from time to time to your Heavenly Father, to see whether He is pleased with your plans and to ask His help. In this manner, you will accomplish even the most difficult business better and more easily. See how the Blessed Virgin quietly employed one hand in work, while she was holding upon the other arm Our Infant Lord."--St. Francis de Sales

A Year With The Saints

"Whoever his not experienced it will not be able to believe how much we gain by being careful not to fail in little things; for the devil, by means of these, makes gaps and breaches through which great things can enter."--St. Teresa

A Year With The Saints

"Much more is accomplished by a single word of the Pater Noster said, now and then, from the heart, than by the whole prayer repeated many times in haste and without attention."--

St. Teresa

A Year With The Saints

"Even little actions are great when they are done well; so that a little action done with desire to please God is more acceptable to Him, and gives Him more glory, than a great work done with less fervor. We must, then, give particular attention to perform well these little works, which are easiest, and are constantly within our reach, if we wish to advance in friendship with God."--St. Francis de Sales