Uniquely among the responsible leaders on all sides of the First World War, Karl had frontline experience. After assuming power he strove to alleviate the horrors of war he saw, and took concrete steps to bring about peace. As emperor he understood peace to be his absolute, kingly duty. In his ascension manifesto, therefore, he named peace as his central goal. Only Karl took up the peace proposal of Pope Benedict XV, incorporating its principles in a set of proposed peace accords (which historians have evaluated as thoroughly realistic and having had great potential).

The life of Emperor Karl is an encouraging example of faith. His beatification gives encouragement to all who feel overtaxed by their duty – and it invites us to use his inherent qualities (yet also limited) for the pursuit of peace, freedom and loving responsibility.

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Holy Communion is the most efficacious means of uniting the soul to God. The best preparation for the divine banquet is to keep ourselves well purified.

Let everything in creation draw you to God. Refresh your mind with some innocent recreation and needful rest, if it were only to saunter through the garden or the fields, listening to the sermon preached by the flowers, the trees, the meadows, the sun, the sky, and the whole universe. You will find that they exhort you to love and praise God; that they excite you to extol the greatness of the Sovereign Architect Who has given them their being.

Believe me, afflictions, fears, desolations, dryness, abandonment, temptations, and other persecutions make an excellent broom, which sweeps from your soul all the dust of hidden imperfections.

St Paul of the Cross

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Let nothing Disturb you, Let nothing frighten you,
All things are passing. God does not change.
Patience wins all things. For God alone suffices.

Accustom yourself continually to make many acts of love
for they enkindle and melt the soul.

May today bring you inner peace. May you be content knowing you are a child of God. Let God’s presence settle into your bones, and allow your soul the freedom to sing, dance, praise and love. It is there for each and every one of us.

Trust God that you are exactly where you are meant to be.

Saint Teresa

“just as food is necessary to the life of the body
so good reading is necessary to the life of the soul.”

“Consult not your fears but your hopes and your dreams.”

“If God created shadows it was to better emphasize the light.”

Pope St John XXIII

I shall do good, I shall do God’s work; I shall be an angel of peace, a preacher of truth in my own place, while not intending it, if I do but keep His commandments and serve Him in my calling.

Dear Lord…shine through me, and be so in me that every soul I come in contact with may feel Your presence in my soul…Let me thus praise You in the way You love best, by shining on those around me.

God knows what is my greatest happiness, but I do not. Thus God leads us by strange ways; we know He wills our happiness, but we neither know what our happiness is, nor the way.

I will trust Him. Whatever, wherever I am, I can never be thrown away. If I am in sickness, my sickness may serve Him; in perplexity, my perplexity may serve Him; if I am in sorrow, my sorrow may serve Him. My sickness, or perplexity, or sorrow may be necessary causes of some great end, which is quite beyond us. He does nothing in vain.

St John Henry Newman

In solitude and silence … God gives his athletes the reward they desire: a peace that the world does not know and joy in the Holy Spirit.

When you observe true obedience with prudence and enthusiasm, it is clear that you wisely pick the most delightful and nourishing fruit of divine Scripture.

For the devil may tempt the good, but he cannot find rest in them; for he is shaken violently, and upset, and driven out, now by their prayers, now by their tears of repentance, and now by their alms giving and similar good works.

Saint Bruno