Reprimand and rebuke should be accepted as healing remedies for vice and as conducive to good health. From this it is clear that those who pretend to be tolerant because they wish to flatter– those who thus fail to correct sinners — actually cause them to suffer supreme loss and plot the destruction of that life which is their true life.
–Saint Basil the Great (329-379)
The greatest challenge of the day is: how to bring about a revolution of the heart, a revolution which has to start with each one of us?
–Dorothy Day (1897-1980)
I condemn no other man’s conscience: their conscience may save them, and mine must save me. We should remember, in all the controversies in which we engage, to treat our opponents as if they were acting in good faith, even if they seem to us to be acting out of spite or self-interest.
–Saint John Fisher (1469-1535)
Rain cannot fall without a cloud, and we cannot please God without a good conscience.
–Saint Mark the Ascetic (Fifth Century)
But beware of supposing that this is ordinary ointment. For just as the Bread of the Eucharist after the invocation of the Holy Spirit is simple bread no longer, but the Body of Christ, so also this holy ointment is no longer plain ointment, nor, so to speak, common, after the invocation. Rather, it is the gracious gift of Christ; and it is made fit for the imparting of His Godhead by the coming of the Holy Spirit. This ointment is symbolically applied to your forehead and to your other senses; and while your body is anointed with the visible ointment, your soul is sanctified by the holy and life-creating Spirit.
— Saint Cyril of Jerusalem (c. 313-386)
What kind of poverty, then, is blessed? The kind that is not in love with earthly things and does not seek worldly riches: the kind that longs to be filled with the blessings of heaven.
— Saint Leo the Great (c. 400-461)
