Detaching your heart…

You see plainly that I do not mean to advise you to perform great austerities, but rather generously to mortify your passions and inclinations, detaching your heart and emptying it of all that is earthly, and exercising charity towards your neighbor and liberality towards the poor.
–Saint Margaret Mary Alacoque (1647-1690)

A soul on fire with charity…

A good tree, that is, a good heart as well as a soul on fire with charity, can do nothing but good and holy works. For this reason Saint Augustine said: “Love, and do what you will,” namely, possess love and charity and then do what you will. It is as if he had said: Charity is not able to sin.
–Saint Angela Merici (1474-1540)

Want God to hear your prayers?

If you want God to hear your prayers, hear the voice of the poor. If you wish God to anticipate your wants, provide those of the needy without waiting for them to ask you. Especially anticipate the needs of those who are ashamed to beg. To make them ask for alms is to make them buy it.
–Saint Thomas of Villanova (1488-1555)

When you are generous..

What great profit you gain from God when you are generous! You give a coin and receive a kingdom; you give bread from wheat and receive the Bread of Life; you give a transitory good and receive an everlasting one. You will receive it back, a hundred times more than you offered.
–Saint Thomas of Villanova (1488-1555)

The smallest act…

Have a love that goes with special preference towards the humble and the poor, remembering that it is directly to Jesus that the smallest act of kindness and love is addressed when it is done to the least among his brothers and sisters. Welcome them with respect and love, be all the more considerate towards them, for they are the suffering members of Jesus’ body.
–Blessed Charles De Foucauld (1858-1916)