The name of Jesus…
The name of Jesus, pronounced with reverence and affection, has a kind of power to soften the heart.
–Saint Philip Neri (1515-1595)
Devout and determined prayer…
The soul cannot have true knowledge of God through its own efforts or by means of any created thing, but only by divine light and by a special gift of divine grace. I believe there is no quicker or easier way for the soul to obtain this divine grace from God, supreme Good and supreme Love, than by a devout, pure, humble, continual, and determined prayer.
–Blessed Angela of Foligno (1248-1309)
Suffice to save us…
What does it cost us to say: “My God help me! Have mercy on me!” Is there anything easier than this? And this little will suffice to save us if we be diligent in doing it.
–Saint Alphonsus Liguori (1696-1787)
By the grace of God…
When your poor, restless heart turns by the grace of God towards the divine light, and conceives a wish to fly thither and be consumed therein, speak to God with profound reverence and gratitude of the wonders He did in becoming incarnate, suffering and dying for us.
–Saint Paul of the Cross (1694-1775)
That is enlightenment…
“The more you pray,” Angela of Foligno wrote, “the more you will be enlightened.” But I knew better: The statement, as it stands, is both true and false. When we turn God into a vending machine, when we pray to “get” things rather than to get God — there is no “enlightenment” in that. When prayer is a journey into the mind and heart of God, into the nature of life, into the shaping of a holy heart, then it is necessarily enlightening. We come to understand ourselves: our fears, our darkness, our struggles, our resistance. Then we are faced with choice. That is enlightenment.
–Joan Chittester (1936-
Listening to God…
God has things to tell us which will enlighten us — we must wait for Him to speak. No one would rush into a physicians office, rattle off all the symptoms, and dash away without waiting for a diagnosis. It is every bit as stupid to ring God’s bell and then run away. The Lord hears us more readily than we suspect; it is our listening to Him that needs to be improved.
–Fulton Sheen (1895-1979)
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