Hope is simply looking towards – and striving for – our supreme good, who is God. We hope for such things as we expect to gain by another’s aid, whereas we aspire to such things as we strive after by our own resources and by ourselves.
–Saint Francis de Sales (1567-1622)
We must try to keep our heart steadily, unshakably equal during the great variety and inequality of daily events. Even though everything turns and changes around us, our hearts must remain unchanging and ever looking, striving and aspiring toward God.
–Saint Francis de Sales (1567-1622)
We should not despair, therefore, when we are tempted, but pray to God the more fervently that He may see fit to help us, for according to the word of Paul, He will make issue with temptation that we may be able to bear it. Let us humble our souls under the hand of God in every trial and temptation for He will save and exalt the humble in spirit.
–Saint Francis de Sales (1567-1622)
Our heart is made for God, and God constantly entices it and never ceases to cast before it the allurements of divine love. Yet five things impede the operation of this holy attraction:
–Saint Francis de Sales (1567-1622)
Noticing the defects of the saints we must avoid the mistake of being complacent with ourselves as we are. We should consider that even if the saints are imperfect then it is no wonder that we are imperfect, too…It is a good thing to see the defects in the lives of the saints. It not only teaches us to imitate the saints in their efforts to overcome their failings and to do penance for them, but it shows us God’s goodness in forgiving them.
–Saint Francis de Sales (1567-1622)
Your chief aim in Holy Communion should be to advance, strengthen and comfort yourself in the love of God, receiving for love’s sake what love alone can give. There is nothing in which the love of Christ is set forth more tenderly or more touchingly than in the Sacrament by which He, so to say, annihilates Himself for us and takes upon Himself the form of bread in order to feed us, and unites Himself closely to the bodies and souls of the faithful.
–Saint Francis de Sales (1567-1622)
