Return thanks to God
Return thanks to God for all your spiritual graces, natural gifts and every other good that you possess, attributing nothing to yourself except your sins, faults and imperfections.
— Saint John of Avila (1500 – 1569)
Listen rather than speak…
When you place yourself in God’s presence, endeavor rather to listen to Him than to speak to Him, and strive more to love Him than to learn from Him.
–Saint John of Avila (1500-1569)
Give thanks to…
Frequently during the day, but especially when you make your examination of conscience, remember to render thanks to our Lord Jesus Christ for having redeemed you and made you a friend of God, and for having gained so many benefits for you by His Passion and sufferings. Bless God for having given Him to you; you should also glorify God for His own Perfections.
— Saint John of Avila (1500 – 1569)
Courage in trials…
Let not your faith and love be weakened by your pain and trouble. A large fire is increased, rather than quenched by the wind; so, though a weak love of God is, like a candle, easily extinguished by the first puff of air, yet true charity gains force and courage by its trials. This is the fire which comes down from heaven which no water of tribulation can extinguish.
–Saint John of Avila (1500 – 1569)
Continue in their sins…
Some people understand the charity of our Lord and are saved by it; others, relying on this mercy and kindness, continue in their sins, thinking that it may be theirs whenever they wish. But this is not so, for then they are too late and are taken in their sins before they expect it, and so damn themselves.
–Walter Hilton (1340-1396)
Every Christian must…
Every Christian must be a living book wherein one can read the teaching of the gospel. This is what Saint Paul says to the Corinthians, ‘Clearly you are a letter of Christ which I have delivered, a letter written not with ink, but by the Spirit of the living God, not on tablets of stone but on tablets of flesh in the heart’ (2 Cor. 3:3).
— Saint Joseph of Leonessa (1556-1622)
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