Prayers of Saint Gianna Beretta Molla
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| 'A Saint in Action' |
PRAYERS from Saint Gianna
Most of the quotations are taken from the booklet “Gianna Beretta Molla: Journey of Holiness”, prepared under the direction of the organizational committee for the beatification of gianna beretta molla, trans. Sr. L. DeStefano (Milan: ITTI, 1994).
“My most good Jesus, God of infinite mercy, most sweet Father of our souls and especially of the most weak, of the most miserable, of the most sick, of those souls that you carry with a special tenderness in Your divine arms, I come to ask You, thanks to the love and to the merits of Your sacred heart, for the grace to understand and to always do your holy will, the grace to trust in You, and the grace to rest securely in time and eternity in Your divine arms filled with love.”
“I make note of doing all for Jesus. I offer Him all my work, all my disappointments and sufferings. I make note that in order to serve God, I no longer wish to go to the cinema unless I know beforehand that it is worth seeing-that it is modest, moral, and not scandalous. I wish to die rather than commit mortal sin. I wish to fear mortal sin as if it were a serpent and I repeat I would die a thousand times rather than offend the Lord. I wish to ask the lord for help not to go to hell and therefore to avoid all that would harm my soul. I will say on ‘Ave‘ daily so that lord will grant me a holy death. I beg the Lord to help me understand His great mercy. I propose to obey mother Malatto and to study even though I don’t feel like it, for the love of Jesus. from this day on, I wish to pray on my knees in the morning in Church just as I do in my room in the evening at the foot of my bed.”
“Lord, keep your grace in my heart. Live in me so that Your grace may be mine. Make it that I may bear every day some flowers and new fruit.”
“Lord, may this light you have lit in my soul never be extinguished.”
ON PRAYER
“Prayer…’the soul of every apostolate’, interior life, life of union with God. Constant, intense prayer to obtain grace from God. personal and communal prayer; meditation, visits to the Blessed Sacrament, recitation of the rosary, frequent confession, daily communion, spiritual exercises…”
“even if you go to work, don’t ever neglect your meditation and if possible, make a visit to the blessed sacrament, receiving communion at least once a week, if not daily…only if we are rich in grace ourselves, can we spread it around us, for we cannot give what we do not have.”
“why do you not succeed in doing good? It’s because you do not pray enough.”
SURRENDER
“Whatever God wants.”
“God’s providence is in all things. it’s always present.”
DUTY
“when one does one’s own duty, one must not be concerned, because God’s help will not be lacking.”
“One earns paradise with one’s daily task.”
“the secret of happiness is to live moment by moment and to thank God for all that He, in His goodness, sends to us day after day.”
“as to the past, let us entrust it to God’s mercy, the future to divine providence. our task is to live holy the present moment.”
PURITY
“our body is a cenacle, a monstrance; through its crystal the world should see God.”
“Purity must control the proper use of the pleasures of the senses. our body is sacred. it is in conjunction with the soul in doing good. purity is a resultant virtue, that is, a unity of other virtues that bring it into custody. How does one keep custody of purity? By surrounding our body with the hedge of sacrifice, purity becomes beauty. purity becomes freedom.”
SUFFERING AND SACRIFICE
“Also in suffering, let us say: thanks be to God.”
“One cannot love without suffering or suffer without loving.”
“Look at the mothers who truly love their children; how many sacrifices they make for them. They are ready for everything, even to give their own blood so that their babies grow up good, healthy, and strong.”
“Yes, I have prayed so much in these days. With faith and hope I have entrusted myself to the Lord…I trust in God, yes; but now it is up to me to fulfill my duty as a mother. I renew to the Lord the offer of my life. I am ready for everything, to save my baby.”
“Sacrifice; the final end of prayer and action is not to receive praise or self advantage but to busy oneself, as did Jesus, in the total giving of oneself for others at the cause of renunciation and suffering, in the impassionate competition of love which arrives at the sacrificing of one’s own life.”
“To work, to sacrifice oneself solely for the glory of God. To sow our small seed tirelessly…and if after having worked in the best way possible, we do not succeed, we must generously accept this. a failure well-accepted by an apostle who has used all means to succeed, is more meritorious than a triumph.”
ACTION
“Do not be afraid to defend God, the church, the pope and priests. it is just the moment for action. Against this anti-religious and immoral campaign one cannot be indifferent.”
“We must act, we must enter into all the fields of social, familiar and political action. and to work, because all the dark and threatening forces of evil are united. It is necessary that the forces of good be all united and form a kind of dam, a barrier as if to say:
‘there is no passing over here.”
“it is not enough to speak well, we must show by examples.”
“We must be living witnesses of the beauty and grandeur of christianity. to make truth visible in one’s own person, to render truth pleasing, offering oneself as a significant and, if possible, heroic example.”
“Action, Apostolate: complete dedication to others, especially for the salvation of those fallen away from the church. all must be done for the kingdom of God because Jesus must reign.”
“Let us always work generously with humility, not wanting to see immediate results in our work. that which counts is to work and not to give up. saving the world has never been an easy task, either for the Son of God of for the apostles. I have told you that Catholic Action is a sacrifice.”
VOCATION
to know your vocation: “(1) Ask God in prayer; (2) ask one’s spiritual director; (3) ask oneself, knowing one’s own inclinations.”
“Everything has a particular end and obeys a law. Everything develops toward a predestined end. God has traced a way for each one of us…both our earthly and eternal happiness depends on following our vocation very carefully.”
“Every vocation is a call to motherhood or fatherhood, earthly, spiritual, and moral. God has placed in us an instinct for life. A priest is a father, nuns are mothers, mothers of souls.”
“Woe to those young people who do not accept the vocation of motherhood.”
“Each of us must prepare ourselves for our own vocation and prepare ourselves to be givers of life.”
“All the Lords’s ways are beautiful because their end is one and the same: to save our own soul and to succeed in leading many other souls to heaven, to give glory to god.”
“If during the struggles to carry out our vocation, we should have to die, that would be the most beautiful day of our life.”
LOVE
“to love means the desire to perfect oneself and the loved one, to overcome selfishness and to give oneself.”
“Love must be total, full, complete, governed by god’s law and it must carry over into eternity.”
posted by Sempermom @ 9:17 PM
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