"Let us rend our hearts, beloved, but keep our garments whole. Our garments are our virtues; love is a good garment, obedience is a good garment. Happy is the one who cares for these garments that he may not walk naked... We can also take this rending of the heart in another way: if the heart is wicked it may be rent by confession; if hard, by compassion."
— St. Bernard of Clairvaux, Sermons for Lent and the Easter Season

"[O]ver that sacrifice of propitiation we beseech God... for all, in a word, who need help, we all pray and offer this sacrifice."
— St. Cyril of Jerusalem, Mystagogical Lectures

"She who does not know worldly desire is filled by grace, so that, by the Spirit’s coming upon her, she who declines to admit a husband may give birth to the Son of the Most High."
— St. Bernard of Clairvaux, Sermons for Lent and the Easter Season

"The Annunciation is the beginning of Jesus in His human nature. Through His mother He is a member of the human race... About to found a new generation of the children of God, The Redeemer does not arrive in the way of earthly generations: the power of the Holy Spirit enters the chaste womb of the Virgin, forming the humanity of Christ."
— Catholic Encyclopedia, The Annunciation

"Then there is the singular glory of our Virgin, and Mary’s surpassing prerogative, that she has merited to have one and the same Son in common with God the Father."
— St. Bernard of Clairvaux, Sermons for Lent and the Easter Season

"During this Lent we must truly seek with greater fervor that which is not just a part but is the entire mystery of this whole season. Therefore if perhaps your zeal has somewhat abated during recent days, it is fitting that you rekindle your fervor of spirit."
— St. Bernard of Clairvaux, Sermons for Lent and the Easter Season

"The enemy can arouse the impulse of temptation, but it rests with you, if you choose, to give or to refuse consent... you alone can refuse your consent, and as many times as you resist so many times will you be crowned."
— St. Bernard of Clairvaux, Sermons for Lent and the Easter Season

"Let us learn never to lose hope, no matter into what abyss of troubles we are cast, for Jonah came out of the belly of the whale, and Jesus Christ from the tomb and from hell, thus assuring his faithful ones of their own deliverance."
— Jacques-Bénigne Bossuet, Meditations for Lent

"We preach not one coming of Christ, but a second as well, far more glorious than the first. The first gave us a spectacle of His patience; the second will bring with it the crown of the Kingdom of God."
— St. Cyril of Jerusalem, Mystagogical Lectures

"None of you should think his prayer of small account, brothers. I tell you that he to whom we pray does not think it of small account. Before it has left your mouth he has ordered it written in his book."
— St. Bernard of Clairvaux, Sermons for Lent and the Easter Season

"It is always necessary for God’s servants to fast, but it is even more imperative when we are preparing for the sacrifice of the Lamb, for the sacrament of Baptism, for the Body and Blood of Christ."
— St. Jerome, Homily 90 on Lent

"If we reserve all of the business of our salvation until the day of our death, it will be far too busy a day. Let us begin now to prepare for the graces that we will need then, and, by pardoning those who hurt us, let us assure ourselves of the eternal mercy of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen."
— Jacques-Bénigne Bossuet, Meditations for Lent

"Certain problems today... are practically all problems which men try to solve by smoothing over or playing down the difficulties, by suggesting, supposedly out of sympathy for men’s needs, the easier way. And yet in the long run it is the narrow way which attracts the best men."
— Hans Urs von Balthasar, Elucidations

"Let the Spirit rend your heart with his sword, which is the word of God; let him rend it and speedily shatter it into many fragments. There is no way to turn to the Lord with all your heart except your heart be rent."
— St. Bernard of Clairvaux, Sermons for Lent and the Easter Season

"The attachment of the heterodox to Vatican II is opportunism, not assent to the magisterium. This is why you won't persuade them by quoting its doctrinal statements, even where these rise to definitions. A conversion of the heart is needed."
— Fr. Thomas Crean O.P.

"Here then are the three degrees of charity toward our enemies: to love them, to do good to them, and to pray for them. The first is the source of the second: if we love, we give. The last is the one that we think is the easiest to do, but is in fact the most difficult, because it is the one that we must do in relation to God."
— Jacques-Bénigne Bossuet, Meditations for Lent

The end is near, please pray that they may always be united to God and be granted a peaceful death.

Thank you to all who prayed, they died peacefully surrounded by family.

"Prayer demands the virtue of fasting, and fasting earns the grace of prayer. Fasting strengthens prayer; prayer sanctifies fasting and offers it to the Lord."
— St. Bernard of Clairvaux, Sermons for Lent and the Easter Season

"No one crowned is despondent; no one glum holds up a trophy. Do not be gloomy while you are being healed. It is absurd not to rejoice in the soul’s health, and rather to sorrow over the change in food and to appear to favor the pleasure of the stomach over the care of the soul."
— St Basil the Great, On Fasting and Feasts

Someone else close to me is now also in the process of dying. Please pray for them, but also especially for their family.