The life of Mahatma Gandhi

By: Louis Fischer

BookNo.: r019

Asunto: highlights

Fecha: 13/10/11

• Proper accounting... Essential especially for charitable institutions
• Cleanliness... He was completely against humans doing their ba ic necessities anywhere, poverty not being an excuse
• Ready to acknowledge he was wrong: India served on a platter to Japan if Britain left ... Change of position in Harijan

• The purity of Gadhi's methods made it difficult for Smuts to oppose him. Victory came to Gandhi not when Smuts had no more strength to fight him but when he had no more heart to fight him. Professor Gilbert Murray wrote: 'be careful in dealing with a man who cares nothing for sensual pleasures, nothing for comfort or praise or promotion, but is simply determined to do what he believes to be right. He is a dangerous and uncomfortable enemy because his body which you can always conquer gives you so little purchase over his soul' (fortitude, poverty, dettachment)
• 'I expect through cleaning of heartsl he declared. It did not matter what the Moslem's in Pakstan were doing. Hindus and Sikhs should remember Tagore's favorite song: 'If no one responds to your call, Walk alone, Walk alone.' (perseverance, difficulties )

Praying 15 days with Saint Josemaria

By Guillaume Derville


15th day
Constructing the new city of love
We must learn to recognize Christ when he comes out to meet us in our brothers, the ppl around us


14th day
A love that knows no bounds
The Lord never forces himself on us. He wants us to turn to him freely... We have to hold him back (like the disciples of Emmaus)


13th day
True love of God is as far removed from sensuality as it is from insensitivity, and as far from sentimentality as it is from heartlessness or hard-heartedness.
Purity gives love wings. It sets us free.
Speak out. When water flows it stays clean; blocked up, it becomes a stagnant pool full of repugnant filth.

12th day
The fundamental motive behind prudence is to fulfill the will of God who wants us to be straight forward w/o being childish, friends of truth but never superficial or bewildered.
To love the truth gives peace & makes possible authentic dialogue w others . Speaking the truth is a sign of authentic respect and condition for real love.
Dialogue , freedom n responsibility go together.
To defend the truth we must love.
The true charity of Christ involves affection n warmth

11th day
The disciples didnt understand Jesus' choice of a donkey. Didnt realice it was to fulfill the Scripture, nor that it represented each of them.


10th day
Learning to love like a child
If you want to be great, make yourself little. To be little you must believe, love, abandon yourself, pray as children do.
Be children means be simple in pr and ask for the moon if need be
Grown ups feel embarrassd when they tumble... Children just get up
Humility is the virtue that helps us to recognize , at one and the same time, both our wretchedness and our greatness




9th day
St Josemaria used to call penance 'the sacrament of joy'
Jesus does not condemn. He forgives. In him, God loves us.
Humor - a word with the same root as humility

8th day
We have God with us; we can receive him every day and, if we want to, we can speak intimately with him... As we talk with love itself.
St Josemaria often meditated on 7 pgospel passages about prayer of petitiion he had written in his planner.
So it is necessary to ask with faith.
With faith n love we can steal God's heart, making him fall madly in love.



7th day
love of freeedom
Freedom finds its true meaning when it is put to the service of the truth which redeems.
In creating us God has accepted the risk and the adventure of our freedom.
Things are not all on the same plane, and love is always supreme.
The source of respect forbfreedom lies in love.


6th day
As at Nazareth, so also there (Bethany) the human face of God was visible in his holy humanity in a special way.
Follow example of both sisters, spending time with Jesus means working as well as praying.
Jesus Christ was not, and is not insensitive to the suffring that stems from love... But at the same time requires tha we first admit the pre-eminence of divine love.
We must be very human, otherwise we cannot be divine.
The love we experience on earth when it is really genuine, helps us to savor divine love.



Book No. r001
Date: 27/12/10 onwards

El hombre de Villa Tevere. Chapter XIV.

St. Josemaria was (is) a man in love, in love with Jesus Christ through and through. He is completely given to Jesus and doesn’t keep anything for himself or anybody else.

“I had not thought of becoming a priest, but Jesus came to my soul, as love comes: ‘sicur fur’, as a thief, at an unexpected moment. He said: now you are mine, meus es tu! […] Those were inklings of Love”. He said.

He would count his age by years of love to God. Once he said he was very old: “seventy three!”... but then he rectified: “No! I’m young! I’m just a little above 30, those I’ve been serving Our Lord Jesus Christ” (1965). He is respectful with women, but always keeping distance; he would never be alone with a lady (young or old); even though he is a good observer, he would avoid looking at them in such a way that he would not even know the colour of their eyes. He would tell his daughters that he love them very much, with the heart of a father and mother, but only when many of them were together, never when only one of them was present. He would never go alone to a Center of women.

He would speak of celibacy as “the most precious jewel of the crown of the Church”.

He would avoid any attachment from other people to himself: in 1954, a worker was told that the Father had praised his work. The worker replied that he would do ‘anything for the monsignore’. When told about this, the Father said that it was a pity that it had been done for himself and not for God.

Mother Teresa, The Glorious Years. Chapter IX

Book title: Mother Teresa, The Glorious Years
Author: Edward Le Joly, S.J., 1989
Edition: 3rd print, 1998
Publisher: St. Paul's

"The Pope's Ambassadress-at-large"

As a woman in love with Jesush, she was deeply united to the Church, thus to the Pope. But for John Paul II, Mother became a trusted collaborator.

He used her (asked for her help, usually her presence and words):

for his campaigns, for peace, for prayer, for respect of the holiness of family, for the right of unborn child to life, for the union of all Christians, etc.

There was a great friendship between the two of them, due to their very close friendship with Jesus Christ. He called her to support his campaign to rekindle the devotion to the Sacred Heart of Jesus, to Synod of bishops, to the Marian Year procession in Rome with him (first he had asked her to go be in Poland).

At Paray-le-Morial, where the devotion to the Sacred Heart started she told th pilgrims without mincing her words:

Let your purity be purse, lt your chastity be chaste, let your virginity be virgin, do nothing to sully your soul and your bodies that belong to the Lord. And when you marry, if you do, there is no more beautiful gift you can bring to your spouses than a body and mind that have remained pure and chaste.

Le Joly says:

She knows that the young like straight talk better than anything else.