There are four degrees of love…
[T]here are four degrees of love: 1) Love of self for self’s sake. 2) Love of God for self’s sake. 3) Love of God for God’s own sake. 4) Love of self for God’s sake.
— Saint Bernard of Clairvaux (1090-1153)
Spiritual life is…
Spiritual life is like living water that springs up from the very depths of our own spiritual experience. In spiritual life everyone has to drink from his or her own well.
–Saint Bernard of Clairvaux (1090-1153)
The divine scriptures…
Great is the profit of the divine Scriptures, and all-sufficient is the aid which comes from them…. For the divine oracles are a treasury of all manner of medicines, so that whether it be needful to quench pride, to lull desire to sleep, to tread under foot the love of money, to despise pain, to inspire confidence, to gain patience, from them one may find abundant resource.
–Saint John Chrysostom (347-407)
The Church is a hospital…
The Church is a hospital, and not a courtroom, for souls. She does not condemn on behalf of sins, but grants remission of sins. Nothing is so joyous in our life as the thanksgiving that we experience in the Church. In the Church, the joyful sustain their joy. In the Church, those worried acquire merriment, and those saddened, joy. In the Church, the troubled find relief, and the heavy-laiden, rest.
— Saint John Chrysostom (347-407)
Let us have mercy…
Let us have mercy, that we be shown mercy, that we be forgiven.
— Saint John Chrysostom (347-407)
Envy consumes…
As a moth gnaws a garment, so doth envy consume a man.
–Saint John Chrysostom (347-407)
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