MARCH 2008 THOUGHT OF THE MONTH

Remember, if you’re headed in the wrong direction,
God allows U-turns!  ~Allison Gappa Bottke

DECEMBER 2007 THOUGHT OF THE MONTH

Munich School Master Evaluation of ten year old Albert Einstein,
“You’ll never amount to much”. Munich School Master

NOVEMBER 2007 THOUGHT OF THE MONTH

If the only prayer you say
in your whole life is
“thank you”, that would suffice.
- Meister Eckhart

OCTOBER 2007 THOUGHT OF THE MONTH

Forgiveness is another word for letting go.
Matthew Fox

SEPTEMBER 2007 THOUGHT OF THE MONTH
I learned to listen to my body with an inner concentration
like meditation, to get guidance as to when to exercise and
when to rest. I learned that healing and cure are active
processes in which I myself needed to participate.
- Rollo May

AUGUST 2007 THOUGHT OF THE MONTH
God respects me when I work, but He loves me when I sing.
Rabindranath Tagore

JULY 2007 THOUGHT OF THE MONTH

“You must fight off a “bad luck” way of thinking as if you were
dealing with an invasion of hostile forces -
for that is precisely what you are dealing with.”
Maxwell Maltz

JUNE 2007 THOUGHT OF THE MONTH

“There is nothing as easy as denouncing. It don’t take much to see that something is wrong,
but it takes some eyesight to see what will put it right again.”

Will Rogers

Apr-May 2007 Thought of the Month

Children by loving their parents; as they grow older, they judge them;
Sometimes they forgive them.
Oscar Wilde

March 2007 Thought of the Month

“There is nothing stronger in the world than gentleness” from Han Suyin.

Fwbruary 2007 Thought of the Month

It is not true that life is one damn thing after another
– it is one damn thing over and over.
Edna St. Vincent Millay

January 2007 THOUGHT OF THE MONTH

“The richest person is the one who is content with what he has.”
Robert C. Savage
See also Anthony DeMello’s story in PRAYING NAKED pages 57-59

DECEMBER 2006 THOUGHT OF THE MONTH

“Let nothing disturb you. Let nothing frighten you. Everything passes away except God.”
Saint Theresa

NOVEMBER 2006 THOUGHT OF THE MONTH

“ If the only prayer you say in your whole life is ‘thank you’ that would suffice.”
Meister Eckhart

OCTOBER 2006 THOUGHT OF THE MONTH

Forgiveness is another word for letting go.
Matthew Fox

SEPTEMBER 2006 THOUGHT OF THE MONTH

I learned to listen to my body with an inner concentration like meditation,
To get guidance as when to exercise and when to rest.
I learned that healing and cure are active processes
In which I myself needed to participate.

Rollo May

AUGUST 2006 THOUGHT OF THE MONTH

“God respects me when I work
But He loves me when I sing”

Rabindranath Tagore

JULY 2006 THOUGHT OF THE MONTH

“The very best and utmost of attainment in this life is
TO REMAIN STILL and let God act and speak in thee.”
Meister Eckhart

MAY/JUNE THOUGHT OF THE MONTH 2006

The greatest happiness you can have is knowing
that you do not necessarily require happiness – William Saroyan

Just knowing that God is within me will make me happy today

We make a living by what we get. We make a life
by what we give – Sir Winston Churchill

Anger is a wind that blows out the lamp of the mind

APRIL THOUGHT OF THE MONTH 2006

Example is not the main thing in influencing others. It is the ONLY thing.
Albert Schweitzer

MARCH THOUGHT OF THE MONTH 2006

I am writing this as we celebrate Valentine’s day.
It may sound simplistic, but it is absolutely true that
“love makes the world go round”.
You can never be truly grateful and unhappy at the same time.
They are incompatible. To be truly grateful (and always happy)
you must allow the Spirit of God, the Spirit of Love to take
over your being. To do this you must learn the art of prayer
and meditation. Two of the laws of prayer are,
1. Faith and 2. Forgiveness. To have faith,
you must say with the man in the Gospels,
“I believe, Lord, help my unbelief”.
Faith is a gift. There is nothing you can do to merit it.
If you ask for it, it will be given to you. But ask often,
pray often, you must.
To forgive, you must drop resentments. Remember,
holding a resentment is like taking poison and hoping
the other person gets sick. Drop them.


FEBRUARY THOUGHT OF THE MONTH 2006

Helen Keller once said, “I long to accomplish a great and
noble task, but it is my chief duty to accomplish small
tasks as if they were great and noble.”

Short and pithy thoughts are more effective than long-winded sermons.
When one preacher was delivering a long and dull sermon,
a man got up and walked out of the Church.
The preacher called out, “Where are you going?”
The man said, “I’m going to get a haircut.”
The preacher replied, “Why didn’t you get one before coming to Church?”
“I didn’t need one then!” was the answer.

 

JANUARY THOUGHT OF THE MONTH 2006

One of Tony DeMello’s favorite saints was Juliana of Norwich,
a mystic of the middle ages. This month’s quote is from her.
“Often our trust is not full.
We are not certain that God hears us
because we consider ourselves worthless and as nothing.
This is ridiculous
and the cause of our weakness.
I have felt this way myself.”

 

DECEMBER THOUGHT OF THE MONTH

Tony DeMello would have laughed if he heard the words
Norman Lear put in the mouth of Archie Bunker, his famous
character of the TV series “All in the Family”:
“What’s wrong with revenge? That’s a perfect way to get even!”
Tony often said that revenge is like taking poison and hoping
the other person gets sick!

 

THOUGHT FOR THE MONTH-NOVEMBER

Our thought for this month comes from Juliana of Norwich,
a mystic whom Tony DeMello would often quote.
“Often our trust is not full. We are not certain
that God hears us because we consider ourselves
worthless and as nothing. This is ridiculous and
the very cause of our weakness.”

 

THOUGHT FOR THE MONTH-OCTOBER

This thought comes from a little
gem of a book which is now out of print.

“In the degree…that you come into a vital
realization of your oneness with the
Infinite Spirit of Life whence all life
in individual form has come and is
continually coming, and in the degree
that through this realization you open
yourself to its divine inflow, do you set
in operation forces that sooner or later
bring even the physical body into a state
of abounding health and strength.”
From “In Tune With The Infinite”
by Ralph Waldo Trine (Keats Publishing Co. 1973)

 

Thought of the Month -September

Two thoughts on SUFFERING
Tony DeMello said "A neurotic is a person who worry
about things that never happened in the past.
Not like us normal people who only about things
that won't happen in the future."
Mark Twain said "I suffered many things in my life.
Some of which actually happened."
Both quotes appear in PRAYING NAKED by J. Francis Stroud, S.J.
which will be released by Doubleday in September.


Thought for the Month – August

My first thought of the month has to do with fear.
We fear for our health, our security, our jobs,
our financial, situation. Your have heard it said
that fear spelled out is FALSE EVIDENCE APPEARING REAL.
When we have fears, we can always see them as healthy.
They become toxic only when we let them consume our lives.
The antidote to this toxicity is trust.
If you focus on this reality –
that God is constantly near you,
watching over you, loving you,
then you will have nothing to fear!