It is impossible for a man to experience the sweetness of God as long as he is experiencing the sweetness of the world. But if, on the other hand, he tastes the sweetness of God, he will hate the world.
–The Desert Fathers (and Mothers)
If you hate something, refrain from doing it to anybody else. Do you hate it when somebody speaks ill of you? Then speak no ill of any person. Do you hate it when somebody makes false accusations against you? Then do not accuse anybody falsely. Do you hate it if somebody sets you at naught or insults you or makes off with what is yours or [does] whatever is like that? Then do nothing of that sort to another. For the person who can keep this saying, it will suffice for his salvation.
–The Desert Fathers (and Mothers)
When you arise at dawn each day, make a fresh start in every virtue and commandment of God with greatest patience, with fear and long-suffering, in the love of God, with all spiritual and physical fervor, and with much humiliation; enduring affliction of the heart and prevention, with much prayer and intercession, with groans, in purity of the tongue and custody of the eyes.
–Saint John the Dwarf (Fourth Century)
Time is not our own, and we must give a strict account of it.
–Saint Toribio de Mogrovejo (1538-1606)
Mysticism, according to its historical and psychological definitions, is the direct intuition or experience of God; and a mystic is a person who has, to a greater or less degree, such a direct experience — one whose religion and life are centered, not merely on an accepted belief or practice, but on that which the person regards as first hand personal knowledge.
–Evelyn Underhill (1875-1941)
Don’t shirk your duty. Carry it out conscientiously, even though others neglect theirs.
–Saint Josemaría Escrivá (1902-1975)
