St. Philip Neri said.....

[Denise]

"Our sweet Jesus, through the excess of His love and liberality, has left Himself to us in the Most Holy Sacrament."

[Denise]

"Let all go to the Eucharistic Table with a great desire for that Sacred Food. Sitientes! Sitientes! (Thirsting)"

[Denise]

"To feel any displeasure because we are refused the Communion, is a sign of hardiness, pride, and a want of mortification."

[Denise]

"Those who are going to Communion should prepare themselves for more temptations than usual, for the Lord will not have us stand idle."

[Denise]

"It is a good thing, during the week that follows our communion-day, to do something more than usual; for example, to say five Our Fathers and Hail Mary's with our arms extended, or an extra rosary."

I had to smile when I read this. I mentioned years ago that when I was about 14 until I was 17 years old we prayed the Franciscan Crown Rosary nightly during Lent together as a family. We prayed the whole 7 decades with our arms extended as though we were nailed to the cross. I had forgotten about this and when I read this quote from St. Neri it brought all those memories of my dad back. I am glad I was young and strong because I certainly couldn't do it now.

[Denise]

"It is not a good thing to load ourselves with many spiritual exercises; it is better to undertake a little, and go on with it: for if the devil can persuade us to omit an exercise once, he will easily get us to omit it the second time, and the third, until at last all our pious practices will melt away."

[Denise]

"We must take care of little faults: for he who once begins to go backward, and to make light of such defects, brings a sort of grossness over his conscience, and then goes wrong altogether."

[Denise]

The servant of God ought to seek knowledge, but never to show it or make a parade of it.

[Denise]

"Let us always go to confession with sincerity, and take this as our rule - Never out of human respect to conceal anything from our confessor, however inconsiderable it may be."

[Denise]

"He who conceals a grave sin in confession, is completely in the devil’s hands."

[Denise]

"Penitents should not generally change their confessors, nor confessors be forward to receive the penitents of others, a few particular cases excepted."

[Denise]

"When a person who has been living a spiritual life for a long time falls into a serious fault, there is no better way of raising him up again than by exhorting him to manifest his fall to any pious friend with whom he has a particular intimacy: and God will reconduct him to his first estate for the sake of his humility."

[Denise]

"For young men to make sure of persevering, it is absolutely necessary that they should avoid wicked companions, and be familiar with good ones."

[Denise]

"In the spiritual life there are three degrees: the first may be called the animal life; this is the life of those who run after sensible devotion, which God generally gives to beginners, to allure them onwards by that sweetness to the spiritual life, just as an animal is drawn on by a sensible object."

[Denise]

"The second degree of the spiritual life may be called the human life; this is the life of those who do not experience any sensible sweetness, but by the help of virtue combat their own passions."