Discipleship, Page: Quotes, Quote Topic, Spiritual (life)
You cannot cure the soul of others or ‘help people,’ without having changed yourself. You cannot put in order the spiritual economy of others, so long as there is chaos in your own soul. You cannot bring peace to others if you do not have it yourself. Often, we help other people, not by a series of conscious acts directed upon their soul, but rather by influencing them through our spiritual gifts, without ourselves seeing or knowing how we do so. Once (St.) Anthony the Great asked a visitor who said nothing at all, ‘Why do you not ask me anything?’ and the other answered, ‘It is enough for me to look at you, holy father’.
–Alexander Elchaninov (1881-1934)
Discipleship, Page: Quotes, Quote Topic, Spiritual (life)
Our continual mistake is that we do not concentrate upon the present day, the actual hour, of our life; we live in the past or in the future; we are continually expecting the coming of some special moment when our life will unfold itself in its full significance. And we do not notice that life is flowing like water through our fingers, sifting like precious grain from a loosely fastened bag. Constantly, each day, each hour God is sending us people, circumstances, tasks, which should mark the beginning of our renewal; yet we pay them no attention, and thus continually we resist God’s will for us. Indeed, how can God help us? Only by sending us in our daily life certain people, and certain coincidences of circumstance. If we accepted every hour of our life as the hour of God’s will for us, as the decisive, most important, unique hour of our life – what sources of joy, love, strength, as yet hidden from us, would spring from the depths of our soul!
–Alexander Elchaninov (1881-1934)
Abandonment (of self), Fulton Sheen (1895-1979), Page: Quotes, Quote Author, Quote Topic, Spiritual (life)
When we die to something, something comes alive within us. If we die to self, charity comes alive; if we die to pride, service comes alive; if we die to lust, reverence for personality comes alive; if we die to anger, love comes alive.
–Blessed Fulton Sheen (1895-1979)
Page: Quotes, Quote Topic, Spiritual (life)
There exists in our heart an interior land where we are alone, to which no one finds his way but God. This innermost, unfrequented chamber of our heart is really there – the only question is whether we ourselves avoid it foolishly… because no one and no familiar things of this earth can accompany us if we enter it.
–Karl Rahner (1904-1984)
Charity, Page: Quotes, Quote Topic, Spiritual (life)
If it were given to a man to see virtue’s reward in the next world, he would occupy his intellect, memory and will in nothing but good works, careless of danger or fatigue.
–Saint Catherine of Genoa (1447-1510)
Ignatius of Loyola (1491-1556), Page: Quotes, Quote Author, Quote Topic, Spiritual (life)
Since the object of our love is infinite, we can always love more and more perfectly.
–Saint Ignatius of Loyola (1491-1556)
