Sermons of the Curé D'Ars: We Are Extraordinarily Blind

"We must certainly be extraordinarily blind because when all is said and done, there is not a single person who could say that he is ready to appear before Jesus Christ. Yet in spite of the fact that w are quite aware of this, there is still not one among us who will take a single step nearer to God. Dear Lord, how blind the sinner is! How pitiable is his lot! My dear children, let us not live like fools any longer, for at the moment when we least expect it, Jesus Christ will knock at our door. How happy when will be the person who has not been waiting until that very moment to prepare himself for Him. That is what I wish you to be."
- St. John Marie Baptiste Vianney

St. Melania the Younger - December 31

http://www.catholic.org/saints/saint.php?saint_id=426

Blessed Pius IX

Born: May 13, 1792 (exactly 125 years before Our Lady of Fatima appeared)

Died: Feb 7, 1878 (Feast Day)

Champion of stamping out heresies.

Called the First Vatican Council.

Confirmed papal infallibility and solemnly defined the Immaculate Conception.

Among his writings are the famed Syllabus of Errors, Quanta Cura, and Quanto Conficiamur Moerore.

Sermons of the Curé D'Ars: Follow One Master Only

"What a sad life does he lead who wants both to please the world and to serve God! It is a great mistake to make, my friends. Apart from the fact that you are going to be unhappy all the time, you can never attain the stage at which you will be able to please the world and please God. It is as impossible a feat as trying to put an end to eternity. Take the advice that I am going to give you now and you will be less unhappy: give yourselves wholly to God or else wholly to the world. Do not look for and do not serve more than one master, and once you have chosen the one you are going to follow [God], do not leave him. You surely remember what Jesus Christ said to you in the Gospel: you cannot serve God and Mammon; that is to say, you cannot follow the world and the pleasures of the world and Jesus Christ with His Cross. Of course you would be quite willing to follow God just so far and the world just so far! Let me put it even more clearly: you would like it if your conscience, if your heart, would allow you to go to the altar in the morning and the dance in the evening; to spend part of the day in church and the remainder in the cabarets or other places of amusement; to talk of God at one moment and the next to tell obscene stories or utter calumnies about your neighbor; to do a good turn for your next-door neighbor on one occasion and on some other to do him harm; in other words, to do good and speak well when you are with good people and to do wrong when you are in bad company."
- St. John Marie Baptiste Vianney

Sermons of the Curé D'Ars: The World is Everything - God, Nothing!

"If people would do for God what they do for the world, my dear people, what a great number of Christians would go to Heaven! But if you, dear children, had to pass three or four hours praying in a church, as you pass them at a dance or in a cabaret, how heavily the time would press upon you! If you had to go to a great many different places in order to hear a sermon, as you go for your pastimes or to satisfy your avarice and greed, what pretexts there would be, and how many detours would be taken to avoid going at all. But nothing is too much trouble when done for the world. What is more, people are not afraid of losing either God, or their souls, or Heaven. With what good reason did Jesus Christ, my dear people, say that they children of this world are more zealous in serving their master, the world, than the children of light are in serving theirs, who is God. To our shame, we must admit that people fear neither expense, nor even going into debt, when it is a matter of satisfying their pleasures, but if some poor person asks them for help, they have nothing at all. This is true of so many: they have everything for the world and nothing at all for God because to them, the world is everything and God is nothing."
- St. John Marie Baptiste Vianney

St. Charbel

St. Charbel's incorruptible body