Great Line from Margaret Thatcher :)

“Do you think you would ever have heard of Christianity if the Apostles had gone out and said, ‘I believe in consensus?’” ~Margaret Thatcher

http://hotair.com/archives/2013/04/08/gop-reps-son-cnn-and-msnbc-canceled-my-interviews-when-i-refused-to-bash-my-dad/

The Anima Christi

“If [God] can give us his Son with so total a giving, what can he refuse us? There is no refusal in God. The refusals are ours. In this truth the contradiction vanishes between infinite mercy and infinite justice. Repentance is acceptance of God and changes the man, so that mercy can have its way with him, justice content. There is no ultimate loss for any man save in his ultimate refusal of God.”

—Frank Sheed

From his book “Knowing God: God and the Human Condition”

Don't let temptations frighten you. They are the trials of those souls whom God wants to put to the test when He sees them strong enough to sustain the battle, weaving with their own hands, the crown of glory. Up to now your life has been that of an infant.; now the Lord wants to treat you as an adult. And as the trials of adult life are much greater than those of an infant, this is why you find yourself rather disorganized in the beginning. But the soul will acquire its calm, and the calm will not delay in coming. Be patient a while longer and everything will work out well St. Padre pio (Letters III, p. 630)

Bishop Sheen on the Virgin Mary

“Mary was chosen by God to be His Mother and was even prepared for that honor by being preserved free from the primal sin that had infected all humanity. If she were so prepared, would she be free to accept or to reject, and would her answer be the full fruit of her free will? The answer is that her redemption was already completed but that she had not yet accepted or ratified it. It was, in a way, something like our dilemma. We are baptized as infants, and our bodies become temples of God, as our souls have been filled with infused virtues. We become not just creatures made by God but partakers in Divine nature. All this is done in Baptism before our freedom blossoms, the Church standing responsible for our spiritual birth as our parents did for our physical birth. Later on, however, we ratify that original endowment by the free acts of our moral lives — by receiving the Sacraments, by prayers, and by sacrifices. So, too, Mary's redemption was completed — as our Baptism was completed — but she had not yet accepted, ratified, or confirmed it before she gave her consent to the Angel. She was planned for a role in the drama of redemption by God, as a child is planned for a musical career by his physical parents, but it was not fulfilled until this moment. The Holy Trinity never possesses a creature without the consent of his will. When, therefore, Mary had heard how this was to take place, she uttered words that are the greatest pledge of liberty and the greatest charter of freedom the world has ever heard: "Be it done unto me according to thy word." As in Eden there took place the first espousals of man and woman, so, in her, there took place the first espousals of God and man, eternity and time, omnipotence and bonds. In answer to the question "Will you give me a man?" the marriage ceremony of love becomes bathed with new depths of freedom: "I will." And the Word was conceived in her.” Archbishop Fulton Sheen (World’s First Love)

St. Therese knows that God's grace enfolds all of us, regardless of merit. Share this special prayer with someone who might be feeling distant from our Lord today.