Of course, the districts of Saint-Jacques and of Jardin-des-Plantes do not always give the spectacle of the same...
Frederic Ozanam
What Rich Man will be Saved? • A Weekly Reflection with Ozanam
We need not dwell on those amongst them who are better off [at Lyonnais Street]; those who, for six persons, can...
The Situation of the Poor in our Cities • A Weekly Reflection with Ozanam
On either side of a filthy sewer rise houses five stories high, many of which shelter fifty families. Low, damp, and...
The Privilege of Serving the Poor • A Weekly Reflection with Ozanam
Those who have the privilege of distributing the public help [...] go, for instance, to the twelfth arrondissement, one of the strongholds of the insurrection, and out of about ninety thousand inhabitants they find eight thousand families inscribed on the list of the...
The Small Graces We Receive from God • A Weekly Reflection with Ozanam
We are not sufficiently grateful for God's little benefits. We thank Him for having created and redeemed us, and given us good parents, and a wife, and beloved children, and for so often giving us Himself in the Sacrament of the Altar. But besides these powerful...
Responsible for Proclaiming the Word of God • A Weekly Reflection with Ozanam
Dear friend, we have not faith enough; we are always looking for the re-establishment of religion by political means; we dream of a Constantine who, with one blow and one effort, would bring back the nations to the fold. The fact is we don't really know the history of...
Faith: an Act of Will • A Weekly Reflection with Ozanam
Dear friend, you are continually heading out on long and fatiguing journeys that are dangerous to your health (your health has already been severely tested). Bear with me as I express my concern. You say you are seeking to create new sources of interest for yourself...
Defending our Beliefs and Loving our Adversaries • A Weekly Reflection with Ozanam
Above all else, let us learn how to defend our convictions without hating our adversaries, to love those who have a different opinion, to recognize the fact that Christians have many and varied viewpoints and that God can be served today as always. Let us complain...
The Small Pleasures of Life • A Weekly Reflection with Ozanam
I do not like and do not share in any way the rigorist doctrines of some Christians, who, without even realizing it, have clothed themselves in arrogance and false modesty; they are far from the true spirit of faith. The innocent joys of life were never forbidden....
Experience, the Mother of Knowledge • A Weekly Reflection with Ozanam
We are convinced that the science of charitable reforms is not learned in the books or in the tribunes of the public assemblies, but by going up to the hovel of the poor, sitting at their bedside, suffering the cold they suffer. Then, in friendly conversation, we have...
Learning from Our Children and Our Parents • A Weekly Reflection with Ozanam
What an incredible moment when I heard the last cries of my beloved wife and the first cries of my daughter! What an incredible moment to behold that child, small but immortal; that child that God placed in my hands; that child that has brought me much love and many...
Weaving God’s Plan • A Weekly Reflection with Ozanam
We, all of us, are like the weavers of the Gobelins, who, following out the pattern of an unknown artist, endeavor to match the threads of diverse colors on the wrong side of the loom, and do not see the result of their labor. It is only when the work is complete that...
