(Ephesians 5:8)
Parents, leaders, and educators, we have a mission, a duty to lead children's souls toward the Light which will be their guide and their happiness. In order to illuminate the way that lies before each one of us, once a week we invite you to discover some of the words of certain wisemen and witnesses, measuring their worth by the words of St. Thomas Aquinas: “Do not consider the one who speaks, but whatever good you hear from him, confide it to your memory.” (from The Sixteen Ways to Acquire the Treasure of Knowledge by St. Thomas). Happy reading!
What costs the most is not what you give to God, but what you hesitate to give.
Saint Madeleine-Sophie Barat (1779-1865)
Founder of the Society of the Sacred Heart
“Devoted to the Heart of Jesus, this generous soul no longer belongs to herself, but belongs entirely to Him. Her interior life consists in being Christ’s disciple, and this is the source of her sanctity. Her exterior life is wholly devoted to being an apostle, and this is the goal of all her actions. Thus, perpetually governed by God, Miss Barat’s clear and peaceful features reflect the purest beauties of heaven and earth. She sees into the depths of souls, and penetrates the secret of hearts. Even the affairs of her century do not escape her, she touches them lightly as if with an exact, though oh so delicate brush of a wing as she flies above them. How many of her modest yet clear and insightful judgments on our times will remain true and definitive in the annals of history! Her joyfulness, her wit, and her grace animate and give life to her words which have been nourished by faith and wisdom, and which are like the sound judgment of Saint Jane de Chantal, the ardor of Fénelon, and the supernatural grace of Saint Francis de Sales. Greater even in heart than in intellect, she is gentle without weakness, strong without rigidity. Her humility tempers the brilliance of her greatest gifts, and against the backdrop of virtue and virility, blossoms a candor which is her purest charm and which gives to her features the unalterable youthfulness of a child of the Gospel. Her heart, filled with God, loves all that God has made great – the Church, man, souls – while at the same time, she has an ineffable tenderness for the smallest of God’s creatures. Her apostolic zeal has a two-fold force, one that is interior, seen in the direction of her daughters, and one that is exterior, seen in the education of children, but both are kindled and continually stoked in the Sacred Heart, in His worship and in His love, in this fire which Jesus came to cast upon the earth, with the single and ardent desire that it be enkindled.”
Monsignor Baunard (1828-1919)
Rector of the Catholic University of Lille and historian
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