Meditate on Christ crucified…
If we meditate on Christ crucified we shall find strength enough. It is at the feet of Christ crucified that I draw all of my strength. It is for Him and my neighbor that I suffer.
–Saint Joan Antide-Thouret (1765-1826
Go to church…
Further, one must go to church not inattentively. For, it is always possible that one may go to church not in a way worthy of praise but rather of condemnation, i.e., by going and not receiving any spiritual benefit. Approaching the church, you must leave every care and worry about your affairs at the threshold in order to enter with a serene mind. Entering the church, you must put on reverence like a garment, remembering to Whom we are coming and to Whom we intend to address our prayers. Having taken your place in the church (best of all, the same place each time), you should gather your thoughts and mentally stand before the face of the omnipresent God, offering Him reverent worship in body and spirit, with a contrite heart and in humble reverence. After this, you must follow, without wandering thoughts, everything that is going on — what is being sung and read in the church — all the way to the end of the service. That is all! In this way, we won’t be bored in church, looking here and there and starting conversations, and we won’t be wishing that the service be over soon. Instead, passing from one prayerful feeling to another and from one reverent thought to the next, we will be like those in a fragrant garden, moving from one group of flowers to another.
–Saint Theophan the Recluse (1815-1894)
Christian Worship
Christian worship… involves then, an adoring acknowledgement: first of God’s cosmic splendor and otherness, next of his redemptive and transfiguring action revealed in history, and last of his immanent guidance of life. Christian worship is never a solitary undertaking. Both on its visible and invisible sides, it has a thoroughly social and organic character. The worshiper, however lonely in appearance, comes before God as a member of a great family; part of the communion of saints, living and dead. His own small effort of adoration is offered “in and for all.”
–Evelyn Underhill (1875-1941)
Commune with God…
When we desire to commune with God to strengthen our souls for combat in the battles of life, we can close our eyes. When we have done that, we have closed the “doors” of our senses. We have for a few moments closed out the world around us. Now..it is dark, and if we are quiet and become aware of this silence in our souls, we suddenly realize He is there.
–Mother Angelica (1923-2016)
Joseph adored Jesus…
Words cannot express the perfection of his adoration. If Saint John leaped in the womb at the approach of Mary, what feelings must have coursed through Joseph during those six months when he had at his side and under his very eyes the hidden God! If the father of Origen used to kiss his child during the night and adore the Holy Spirit living within Him, can we doubt that Joseph must often have adored Jesus hidden in the pure tabernacle of Mary? How fervent that adoration must have been..
— Saint Peter Julian Eymard (1811-1868)
The name of God…
In times of affliction, unceasingly call out to the merciful God in prayer. The unceasing invocation of the name of God in prayer is a treatment for the soul which kills not only the passions, but even their very operation. As a doctor finds the necessary medicine, and it works in such a way that the sick person does not understand, in just the same way the name of God, when you call upon it, kills all the passions, although we don’t know how this happens.
— Saint Barsanuphius the Great (Sixth Century)
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