“Dear children, winds of peacelessness, selfishness, and sin are catching hold of many hearts and leading them into peacelessness and perdition. That is why I am calling you, little children: return to God and to prayer, so that it may be good for you in the hearts and on the earth on which you live. I love you, little children, and that is why I am not tiring of calling you to conversion. Thank you for having responded to my call.” -Our Lady of Medjugorje, in private revelation given to Marija Pavlovic-Lunetti, on April 25, 2025
“Be selfless. Ask yourself: What is the selfish thing to do here? What is the selfless thing to do here? Choose selflessness. Self-interest is not the purpose of life, and we are not inevitably trapped in a world of suffering and adversity. We can choose to make the world a kinder, gentler, fairer world with our generosity.” –Matthew Kelly
Saint Teresa of Calcutta, from a press conference in Tokyo, on April 22, 1982:
God has entrusted to you the joy of spreading the Good News that we have all been created for greater things, to love and to be loved. And so, whatever you do, whatever you write, make sure that you remember that you can make people and you can break people. You can give good news and bring joy into the lives of many people, and you can bring much sorrow to many people. So let us always remember that in writing there is always someone being drawn closer to God, or being taken away from Him.
Always write the truth. Because Jesus Christ said, “I am the Truth, I am the Light, I am the Joy, and the Love. I am the Truth to be told, and the Love to be loved. I am the Way to be walked. I am the Light to be lit. And I am the Peace to be given. And I am the Joy to be shared.” So let us today, as we have gathered together, let us make one strong resolution that you, through your writing, will always spread love, peace, and joy.
From “The Love of Eternal Wisdom” by Saint Louis-Marie Grignion de Montfort:
We must not believe or follow the false maxims of the world or think, speak, or act like people of the world. Their doctrine is as opposed to that of incarnate Wisdom as darkness is to light, and death to life. Look closely at their opinions and their words: they think and speak disparagingly of all the great truths of our religion. True, they do not tell brazen lies, but they cover their falsehood with an appearance of truth; they do not think they are being untruthful, but they lie nonetheless. In general, they do not teach sin openly, but they speak of it as if it were virtuous, or blameless, or a matter of indifference and of little consequence. This guile which the devil has taught the world in order to conceal the heinousness of sin and falsehood is the wickedness spoken of by St. John when he wrote, “The whole world lies in the power of evil” (1 John 5:19) and now more than ever before.
An excerpt from “Arise from Darkness” by Father Benedict Groeschel:
O Lord, Jesus Christ, when You walked this earth You experienced much rejection… the rejection of Your family in Nazareth and of the people You met in Israel, and also the betrayal of Your own apostles. This did not deter You, even though You wept over Jerusalem and deeply regretted the failure of Your friends. You loved them even unto the end. You also gave us the Church and called it Your Church. You suffered and died for the mystical reality we call Your Body, the union of all those who in eternal life will be saved and united with You.
Help us, O Lord, when the Church on earth fails us. Help us not to be bitter, not to be rebellious, not to expect much, but, following Your own example and the example of Your saints, let us love and not rebel. Help us to accept and correct without bitterness. Help us to serve and not to expect a reward. In this difficult time, shed Your grace upon the children of Your Church so that we may withstand the attacks and scandals of our time.
By Your grace, call those who are the enemies of Your Church to be her friends and members, as You once called [Saint] Paul to be the servant of the Church. And help us, O Lord, in the midst of all this confusion, to believe in Your own words spoken through the apostles to the whole Church, “And behold, I am with you until the end of the world” (Matthew 28:20b). Amen.
