Create With Joy

Here’s What’s Inspiring me: fine art as well as quotes from by A Religious, The Peter Reilly Co, Philadelphia, 1952)

Mary Young Cassatt’s unfinished painting that speaks to me about breaking free to live in the Spirit of God. The painting was done in 1880 or so and is unfinished..we are unfinished, living fragmented, broken lives outside of God.

‘Sanctity consists essentially in union with God,

and in the love with which we perform daily actions.

The great secret of sanctity consists in loving much,

but this love presupposes an interior and daily warfare –

a warfare against our unruly appetites and our self-will,

a warfare waged by prayer which softens the heart,

and by its sweetness, compensates for the bit

Sheltering the Divine Outcast

“During the many occupations that fill the day, our minds must be fixed on God and our eyes always turned towards Him… for He is always within the depths of our souls, always, always, always there, listening to us and asking us to speak to Him sometimes.“Is this quite true? Yes, the Eternal God, my loving God, is within me. He is the Divine Guest of my soul. I must live my life with Him as much as my weakness, my misery, my meanness, my lukewarmness, my cowardice will allow.

Mary’s love for all of her children and the compassion and strength of Joseph as our protector

quotes:Thanks to Nancy Shuman at The Cloistered Heart.