Thoughts for Lent, Monday after the Fourth Sunday in Lent

The Indelible Record

If a man, in the course of a speech in court or in Congress, speaks a word in passion and later retracts and begs that the word be counted as not said, it may be expunged from the record. But there is no expunging from the eternal record. The recording angel says curtly, like Pilate, Quod scripsi, scripsi - "What I have written, I have written." From the very beginning of the use of reason until the moment of our last sigh, everything that we have done and thought and felt and suffered, is recorded, and on the day of judgment our fate shall depend upon that record. Some one has said wisely, "Sow an act and reap a habit, sow a habit and reap a destiny." This is good Catholic doctrine. There is no other doctrine that makes life or character so important. We impute an eternal, an infinite, value to character.

- Father James M Gillis

Blessed is the soul which frequently considereth the last hour, when all must be ended in, this life - joys or sorrows, honors and reproaches. Happy the soul that is as a poor pilgrim traveling towards God - that despiseth all the pomp of the world, however great and enticing. For in that last hour all shall perish - cities, castles, villages, vessels of gold and silver, all dainty meats and flowers, cups of smelling wine. Then shall be dumb the lyre, trumpet, pipe and harp. Then shall be no more sport nor mirth, no more dance nor loud applause, no more songs nor merry laughter, no more the sound of revelry in street or bower - for the hearts of all living shall fail, and the whole earth shall tremble at the presence of God. O how wise is he that daily considereth these things! Blessed is he that of his own desire keepeth himself away from the many snares and dangers of the world. Blessed is he that watcheth day and night against temptation; for so long as the soul is united to the body, and the body is nourished with the fruit of the earth, man cannot be exempt from sin nor free from temptation, nor assured that he may not fall.

There is nothing that endureth, nothing that abideth on this earth, of which the body of Adam and his sons were formed. Then in all your works, whatever they may be, wherever you goest, to what place soever you proceedest, remember the end of life, and the last hour, which shall come at a time you thinkest not.

- Thomas a Kempis

He who has made you what you are has the right to require that you should be wholly His. - Saint Augustine of Hippo

Serve ye the Lord with gladness. - Offertory

My God! I love Thee, not because
   I hope for heaven thereby,
Nor because they that love You not,
   Must burn eternally.
Thou, O my Jesu! You didst me
   Upon the cross embrace;
For me didst bear the nails, the spear.
   The manifold disgrace;
And griefs and torments numberless.
   And sweat of agony;
E'en death itself - and all for one
   Who was Your enemy.
Then why, O blessed Jesus Christ!
   Should I not love You well.
Not for the sake of winning heaven
   Or of escaping hell;
Not for the hope of gaining aught.
   Not seeking a reward.
But as Thyself hast loved me,
   O ever-loving Lord.
E'en so I love You and will love.
   And in Your praise will sing.
Solely because You are my God
   And my eternal King.

- Saint Francis Xavier

- the texts are taken from -