nightingale

"Once when St. Francis was about to eat with Brother Leo, he was greatly delighted to hear a nightingale singing. So he suggested to his companion that they also should sing praise to God alternately with the bird. While Leo was pleading that he was no singer, Francis lifted up his voice and, phrase by phrase, sang his duet with the nightingale. Thus they continued from verpers to lauds, until the saint had to admit himself beaten by the bird, Thereupon the nightingale flew on to his hand, where he praised it to the skies and fed it. Then he gave it his blessing and it flew away."  ~John R. H. Moorman

phantoms of devotion

"In his pictures, Arelius painted all faces after the manner and appearance of the women he loved, and so too everyone paints devotion according to his own passions and fancies. Someone given to fasting thinks himself very devout if he fasts, although his heart may be filled with hatred. Much concerned with sobriety, he doesn't care to wet his tongue with wine or even water, but won't hesitate to drink deep of his neighbor's blood by detraction and gossip.

Another person thinks himself devout because he daily recites a vast number of prayers, but after saying them, he utters the most disagreeable, arrogant, and harmful words at home and among the neighbors...

All these individuals are usually considered to be devout, but they are by no means such. Saul's servants searched for David in his house, but David's wife, Michal, had put a statue on his bed, covering it with David's clothes, and thus led them to think that it was David himself who was lying there sick and sleeping. In the same manner, many persons clothe themselves with certain outward actions connected with holy devotion, and the world believes that they are truly devout and spiritual whereas they are in fact nothing but copies and phantoms of devotion."

~Francis de Sales

love

"May the power of Your love, Lord Christ, fiery and sweet, so absorb our hearts as to withdraw them from all that is under heaven; grant that we may be ready to die for love of Your love, as You died for love of our love. Amen." 

 

~St. Francis of Assisi