Contemplation, Page: Quotes, Quote Topic, Spiritual (life)
Even in the act of true contemplative prayer, it is well to remember these strong words of Saint Paul’s: “If I speak in the tongues of mortals and of angels, but do not have love, I am a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal. And if I have prophetic powers, and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have all faith, so as to remove mountains, but do not have love, I am nothing.” (1 Cor 13:1–2). It is therefore essential that anyone who… is called to a contemplative life should take more care than anyone else that his prayer be a work of love, and that it be an authentic and living one.
–René Voillaume (1905–2003)
Acceptance, Page: Quotes, Quote Topic, Spiritual (life)
We should humbly and realistically accept our limitations both in prayer and in action. It rests with us to devote ourselves to prayer, to prepare ourselves for it, to begin to pray, and to advance as best as we can, but we will come up against a limit beyond which only the Holy Spirit can enable us to pass. It is the same with action. We can indeed expend ourselves on a variety of activities but we shall find our limitations in the strength we bring to them, in our courage an detachment, and, above all, in the perfecting of our charity. Only the Holy Spirit can take us beyond these limitations. Whether in prayer or in action, we are, then, wholly dependent on the Holy Spirit.
–René Voillaume (1905–2003)
Acceptance, Page: Quotes, Quote Topic, Suffering
I have shed many tears. I have, however, also obtained a favor; after each suffering I understood more clearly Jesus’ conduct towards me… This grace consists in accepting suffering with joy in the firm hope that suffering will come to an end one day.
–Marcel Nguyễn Tân Văn (1928–1959)
Page: Quotes
When the body is tried, then the soul is sanctified. With sickness, our body is pained, this mud-built house of ours, but thus its tenant, our soul, will rejoice eternally in the heavenly palace which Christ will prepare for us.
–Elder Paisios of the Holy Mountain (1924-1994)
Abandonment (of self), Page: Quotes, Quote Topic, Spiritual (life)
A cup is a container for holding something. Whatever it holds has to eventually be emptied out so that something more can be put into it. I have learned that I cannot always expect my life to be full. There has to be some emptying, some pouring out, if I am to make room for the new. The spiritual journey is like that-a constant process of emptying and filling, of giving and receiving, of accepting and letting go.
–Joyce Rupp (1943-
Augustine (354-430), Discipleship, Grace, Page: Quotes, Quote Author, Quote Topic
What grace is meant to do is to help good people, not to escape their sufferings, but to bear them with a stout heart, with a fortitude that finds its strength in faith.
–Saint Augustine (354-430)
