DAILY WORD of BLESSED JAMES ALBERIONE 2023
To commemorate the 50th anniversary of the death of our founder, Blessed James Alberione, we will reflect on his words and use them as our daily guide.
PRAYER INTENTION for DECEMBER
Sin broke unity: and now there is great turmoil. Reason had to govern the heart and the heart to make reason shine with love; and the will, having removed the obstacles of the passions and strengthened by reason, would have done good: here is unity (ACV, 30).
On Christmas day, Jesus will open his school to men: a school of truth, a school of holiness, a school of love. But we must feel the need for this school. At this time, we must recognize ourselves as ignorant, full of defects (Pr 2, 6-7).
Jesus, Divine Master, we adore you as the incarnate Word. Show us the treasures of your wisdom, let us know the Father, make us your true disciples. Increase our faith so that we can reach the eternal vision in heaven.
The spirit of Advent requires humility: we must recognize the great need we have of the Divine Master. Humility and a spirit of penance, recognizing our mistakes and our sins. Humility and supplication, knowing that we are weak, fragile, inclined to evil (Pr 2, 9).
There are persons... sometimes they are of beautiful intelligence... wasted in futile things, very busy doing nothing; abundant foliage and flowering, but without fruits; broken cisterns that cannot contain healthy, clear water (ACV, 35).
Fill the mind with good thoughts; with all attention, always and everywhere: so that neither space nor time remains for the bad ones. This will happen for those who think of God, of piety, of study, of the apostolate, of his duties (ACV, 91).
Whoever has abundant and wise piety will easily use the talents, whether they are few or many. Knowledge alone, apostolate alone, poverty alone, without mercy do not enlighten or warm; but piety is the soul of every apostolate (ACV, 36).
Once unity is broken, reason and heart push the will in opposite ways: reason acts by itself; uncontrolled love lights its fires... and the will is dragged along muddy paths: rebuild unity in Christ (ACV, 30).
Man represented the Unity and Trinity of God; «made in the image and likeness» of Him, he was triune in his faculties (mind, feeling, will) and one in his interior and exterior activity (ACV, 30).
Rejoice, because the Son of God, who «enlightens every man who comes into this world», comes to bring us from heaven his most holy and lofty doctrine, by which he is constituted the only Teacher of humanity (Pr 2, 13).
Through Mary Immaculate, we ask for purity of heart. May the heart be dominated by holy desires, aspirations! May the heart never turn to mud! May it never cling to the things of the earth; but that of the earthly things we know how to necessarily use them to save ourselves and in order to save (Pr 5, 6).
The Pauline priest in his love for God and for men, all that he is and has, he wants to use for them: knowledge, health, prayer, strength and life itself. It is the greatest charity lived: «No one has a greater love than this: to lay down one’s life for one’s friends» (ACV, 63).
The ideal is a clear, precise and limpid point of arrival... a climb to be made, a victory to be achieved; capable of organizing all our spiritual, supernatural, physical faculties... it elevates the individual and establishes him in his social mission according to his vocation (ACV, 45).
The same things harm some, and do others good: for example, temptation, pain, misery. This depends on the internal thoughts. The same punishment throws a person into despair; while for another, it serves for repentance and joy (ACV, 44-45).
A praise or a reproach, a success or a disappointment, what effect will they have? According to the thoughts, the beliefs, the idea. The idea affects the judgment, the judgment excites the feeling, the feeling determines the internal and external acts (ACV, 45).
The greatest battles are fought in the mind. Here the effort must be concentrated. We need to be vigilant over thoughts... Replace with good thoughts the bad thoughts: «Overcome evil with good». For empty or bad readings, for example, substitute healthy readings. If you save your mind, you save yourself (ACV, 45).
The fear of displeasing God and the desire to love him, the thought of paradise and the firm will to conquer it, the Gospel, the Most Holy Eucharist, Mary our Mother... all these absorb the soul, penetrate, dominate, guide it (ACV, 65).
Sacred Scripture is the «Epistola Dei ad homines», the Letter of God to men. It is the first and principal reading for acquiring the thought of God; especially the New Testament (ACV, 66).
Truly pious souls make the Holy Gospels their delight because they find there the teachings and examples of Our Lord Jesus Christ and nothing better forms them to solid piety, nothing more effectively initiates them to imitate the Divine Master (ACV, 66).
Become like children, because He Himself became a child. And here we find him in the cave. He became a child so that no one, however great he may be, find reason to elevate himself, to be proud (Pr 2, 28-29).
In the Pauline, life one has to take into account study, together with piety and virtue, as the first requirement for a vocation... The apostle must possess and love sacred knowledge so much that he feels the need to communicate it (ACV, 71-72).
We will always find Jesus in the arms of Mary. As at the beginning of Christianity, the first to be sent to Jesus, that is, the shepherds and the wise men, found Jesus in Mary’s arms, so we, through Mary’s intercession, will be able to form Jesus Christ in us (Pr 5, 123).
There, in the silence of the night, the Child Jesus is born: and is welcomed by Mary and Joseph with a spirit of adoration... Here is the first Tabernacle, the first exposure of Jesus in the world: above a little straw, in a crib (Pr 1, 132).
Above all, ask that the Son of God come and be born in our hearts, in our minds; transform us, because here is the redemption of each one: to become similar to Jesus Christ (Pr 2, 9).
Let us ask Jesus Christ, who is the Truth, for the grace to sanctify our thoughts. Elevated thoughts! Thoughts of God! Thoughts of things that are the fulfilment of God’s will. Sanctification of the mind! (Pr 5, 5-6).
Our crib is the altar: it is particularly here that man meets God and becomes part of the divine family. The altar is our crib, where Jesus is born for us (Pr 2, 12).
Editors possess the word, multiply it, diffuse it dressed in paper, typefaces, ink. They have, on the human level, the mission that Mary had in the divine plan: that she was the Mother of the Divine Word... she made Him visible and accessible to men, presenting Him in human flesh (Pr 5, 118).
Let us pray that the Lord would kindle ever more the light of faith in us: that everyone may know Jesus Master, Way, Truth and Life, and that Our Lady show him to all nations as she showed him to the shepherds, to the wise men, and that all may know and love him (Pr 1, 168).
The intellect was given to us to know the truth and, above all, God and divine things. God is the true Sun of the mind, who illumines us with double light, the light of reason and that of faith
(ACV, 75).
Love. Love some more. Love according to the example of Jesus Christ, with the added reason that we are united in only one family: we have the heart of St Paul... Ask the Lord, with greater insistence and grace, the charity in the religious family (Pr 1, 58).
Proud persons who know neither God nor themselves; they go on according to their impressions: praise exalts them, criticism knocks them down; they trust themselves and despise the advice of others; they do not feel the need to have recourse to God, for which he «has scattered the proud in the thoughts of their hearts» (ACV, 80).
Our foundress
Venerable Thecla Merlo
night of 31 December 1900 and felt obliged “to do something for God and for the people of the new century.”
Our founder Blessed James Alberione
Fr James Alberione encountered the Lord in the
Eucharistic adoration on the
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