• Seek God early in the day

    From Weedy@21:1/5 to All on Tue Dec 21 23:42:23 2021
    Seek God early in the day

    Seek God early in the day, before He gets crowded out by life's
    problems, difficulties, or pleasures. In that early quiet time gain a
    calm, strong confidence in the goodness and purpose in the universe.
    Do not seek God only when the world's struggles prove too much and too
    many for you to bear or face alone. Seek God early, when you can have
    a consciousness of God's spirit in the world. People often only seek
    God when their difficulties are too great to be surmounted in any
    other way, forgetting that if they sought God's companionship before
    they need it, many of their difficulties would never arise. I pray
    that I may not let God be crowded out by the hurly burly of life. I
    pray that I may seek God early and often.
    --From Twenty-Four Hours a Day

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    22 December – Saint Hungerus Frisus of Utrecht
    (Also known as Hunger}

    Bishop of Utrecht – born in the Low Countries, now the Netherlands
    and died in 866 at Prum, Germany of natural causes.

    St Hungerus was the Bishop of Utrecht from 854 to 866. We are not sure
    when he was born. After the death of his predecessor Luidger of
    Utrecht, Luidger’s nephew Craft, was offered the seat. However, Craft,
    a very wealthy person, refused because he was afraid that he would
    attract Viking raids.

    Instead the Canon, St Hungerus was appointed. At first, his relations
    with the Vikings were peaceful but eventually Utrecht was threatened
    by the Vikings, at which the Bishop and the entire clergy of Utrecht
    fled to Saint Odilienberg, near Roermond. During this time of exile,
    Hungerus spent his time teaching the faith in the surrounding areas.
    In 858 King Lothair II made a Monastery available for them. Later, the
    Bishop settled in Prum and then in Deventer.

    By all accounts, St Hungerus was a Godly and pious man, who unlike his predecessors, did not engage in nepotism. In the case of the childless
    marriage between King Lotharius and his wife, he defended the sanctity
    of their marriage on Biblical and theological grounds but against his
    counsel, to secure his succession, Lothair repudiated his wife and
    married Waldrada, with whom he had a son.

    https://anastpaul.com/2020/12/22/


    “Mary said: My soul proclaims the greatness of the Lord,
    my spirit rejoices in God my Saviour.” – Luke 1:46-47

    “The Lord has exalted me by a gift so great,
    so unheard of, that language is useless to describe it
    and the depths of love in my heart can scarcely grasp it.
    I offer then all the powers of my soul
    in praise and thanksgiving.
    As I contemplate His greatness,
    which knows no limits,
    I joyfully surrender my whole life,
    my senses, my judgment,
    for my spirit rejoices in
    the eternal Godhead of that Jesus, that Saviour,
    whom I have conceived in this world of time.”

    “Those who refuse to be humble cannot be saved.
    They cannot say with the prophet:
    See, God comes to my aid;
    the Lord is the helper of my soul.
    But anyone who makes himself humble,
    like a little child,
    is greater in the kingdom of heaven.”
    --St Bede the Venerable (673-735)

    Bible Quote:
    "My sheep hear my voice, and I know them, and they follow me and I
    give unto them eternal life; and they shall never perish, neither
    shall any man pluck them out of my hand." (John 10:27)


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    Saint Alphonsus Liguori, from The Redeeming Love of Christ

    God says to each of us: "Give me your heart, that is, your will." We,
    in turn, cannot offer anything more precious than to say: "Lord, take possession of us; we give our whole will to you; make us understand
    what it is that you desire of us, and we will perform it."

    If we would give full satisfaction to the heart of God, we must bring
    our own will in everything into conformity with his; and not only into conformity, but into uniformity also, as regards all that God ordains. Conformity signifies the joining of our own will to the will of God;
    but uniformity signifies, further, our making of the divine and our
    own will one will only, so that we desire nothing but what God
    desires, and his will becomes ours. This is the sum and substance of
    that perfection to which we ought to be ever aspiring; this is what
    must be the aim of all we do, and of all our desires, meditations and
    prayers. For this we must invoke the assistance of all our patron
    saints and our guardian angels, and, above all, of our divine mother
    Mary, who was the most perfect saint, because she embraced most
    perfectly the divine will.

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