Thanksgiving

"The Lord is gracious and merciful, slow to anger and abounding in love. The Lord is good to all, compassionate to every creature. All your works give you thanks, O Lord and your faithful bless you." Psalm 145: 8-10
I am grateful today for our country and the many blessings God has lavished on us!

Prayer for our Times

"May prayer strengthen us for the spiritual battle we are told about in the Letter to the Ephesians: 'Draw strength from the Lord and from His mighty power' (Ephesians 6:10). The Book of Revelation refers to this same battle, recalling before our eyes the image of St. Michael the Archangel (Revelation 12:7). Pope Leo XIII certainly had a very vivid recollection of this scene when, at the end of the last century, he introduced a special prayer to St. Michael throughout the Church. Although this prayer is no longer recited at the end of Mass, I ask everyone not to forget it and to recite it to obtain help in the battle against forces of darkness and against the spirit of this world."'

Faithfulness in Prayer

After that first decision to take the prayer life seriously, the first battle we must fight is the battle to be faithful to our times of mental prayer, come what may, according to a definite plan we have established. It is not an easy battle. Knowing how much is at stake, the devil wants at all costs to keep us from being faithful to mental prayer. He knows that a person who is faithful to mental prayer has escaped from him, or at least is sure of escaping in the end. He therefore does everything he can to prevent us from being faithful.
(from Time For God, by Fr. Jacques Philippe, p.17)

Prayer as God's gift

"Prayer is the raising of one's mind and heart to God or the requesting of good things from God." But when we pray, do we speak from the height of our pride and will, or "out of the depths" of a humble and contrite heart? He who humbles himself will be exalted; humility is the foundaton of prayer. Only when we humbly acknowledge that "we do not know how to pray as we ought," are we ready to receive freely the gift of prayer. "Man is a beggar before God."

Catechism of the Catholic Church, #2559