Make the psalms your own. Do not sing them as verses composed by another person. Let them be born in your own prayers. When they come from your lips, understand that they were not merely fulfilled temporarily when they were first written. They are being fulfilled now in your daily life.
–Saint John Cassian (c. 360-435)
I believe no happiness can be found worthy to be compared with that of a soul in Purgatory except that of the saints in Paradise; and day by day this happiness grows as God flows into these souls, more and more as the hindrance to His entrance is consumed. Sin’s rust is the hindrance, and the fire burns the rust away so that more and more the soul opens itself up to the divine inflowing.
–Saint Catherine of Genoa (1447-1510)
There is a celebrated saying by the French writer Léon Bloy, who in the last moments of his life said, “The only real sadness in life is not becoming a saint.” Let us not lose the hope of holiness; let us follow this path. Do we want to be saints? The Lord awaits us, with open arms; he waits to accompany us on the path to sanctity. Let us live in the joy of our faith, let us allow ourselves to be loved by the Lord . . . let us ask for this gift from God in prayer, for ourselves, and for others.
–Pope Francis (1936-
He who stays in the desert and practices stillness is delivered from three temptations, that of hearing, that of speaking, and that of seeing. He has only one temptation, that of the heart
— Saint Anthony of Egypt (c. 251-356)
And because they have abandoned themselves to God in doing, in leaving undone, and in suffering, they have steadfast peace and inward joy, consolation and savor, of which the world cannot partake; neither any dissembler, nor the man who seeks and means himself more than the glory of God.
— Blessed John Ruysbroeck (1293-1381)
In our approach to God, we must carry with us ourselves and all our works, as a perpetual sacrifice to God; and in the Presence of God, we must forsake ourselves and all our works, and, dying in love, go forth from all creatureliness into the superessential richness of God: there we shall possess God in an eternal death to ourselves.
— Blessed John Ruysbroeck (1293-1381)
