Listen to the faithful…
Let us listen to what all the faithful say, because in every one of them the Spirit of God breathes.
–Saint Paulinus of Nola (c. 354-431)
One body in Christ…
By nature, each one of us is enclosed in his own personality, but supernaturally, we are all one. We are made one body in Christ, because we are nourished by one flesh. As Christ is indivisible, we are all one in him. Therefore, He asked His Father “that they may all be One as We also are one.”
–Saint Cyril of Alexandria (378-444)
The gift of the Cross…
How precious the gift of the cross, how splendid to contemplate! In the cross there is no mingling of good and evil, as in the tree of paradise: it is wholly beautiful to behold and good to taste. The fruit of this tree is not death but life, not darkness but light. This tree does not cast us out of paradise, but opens the way for our return… A tree once caused our death, but now a tree brings life. Once deceived by a tree, we have now repelled the cunning serpent by a tree. What an astonishing transformation! That death should become life, that decay should become immortality, that shame should become glory!
–Saint Theodore the Studite (c. 759-826)
The spiritual life…
These two stages sum up the whole of the spiritual life: when we contemplate ourselves we are troubled, and our sadness saves us and brings us to contemplate God; that contemplation in turn gives us the consolation of the joy of the Holy Spirit.
–Saint Bernard of Clairvaux (1090-1153)
The grace of contemplation…
The grace of contemplation is granted only in response to a longing insistent desire.
–Saint Bernard of Clairvaux (1090-1153)
By ineffable sweetness…
The mind stolen from itself by the ineffable sweetness of the Word
–Bernard of Clairvaux (1090-1153)
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