Recall yourself sometimes to the interior solitude of your heart, and there, removed from all creatures, treat of the affairs of your salvation and your perfection with God, as a friend would speak heart to heart with another.
–Saint Francis de Sales (1567-1622)
If we are able to speak to our Lord, let us do so; let us praise Him, pray to Him, listen to Him. If we are unable to speak because our voice fails us, let us, nevertheless, stay in the hall of the King and bow down before Him; He will see us there, will graciously accept our patience, and look with favor on our silence… So when you come before the Lord, talk to Him if you can; if you can’t, just stay there, let yourself be seen, and don’t try too hard to do anything else.
–Saint Francis de Sales (1567-1622)
We must love our neighbor as being made in the image of God and as an object of His love.
–Saint Vincent de Paul (1581-1660)
Our Lord wishes us to have great charity for our neighbor, for whom we should pray as for ourselves; it is one of the characteristic effects of this devotion to reconcile hearts and to bring peace to souls.
–Saint Margaret Mary Alacoque (1647-1690)
We must love our fellows, without expecting friendship from them; they leave us and return, they go and come; let them do as they will; it is but a feather, the sport of the wind. See God only in them; it is He that afflicts or consoles us, by means of them, according as we have need.
–François Fénèlon (1651-1715)
God does not disregard the prayers of the faithful. Yet He sometimes does not fulfill their desires, only in order to better arrange everything according to His Divine purpose.
–Saint Leo of Optina (1768-1822)
