Some Christians, who have a quietist tendency, are inclined to think that a person can rapidly reach perfection by the assiduous reading of the great mystics, without concerning himself enough with practising the virtues which these books recommend, and without remembering sufficiently that true contemplation should be completely penetrated by supernatural charity and forgetfulness of self.
–Reginald Garrigou-Lagrange (1877–1964)
The more anyone estranges himself from himself, and passes out of himself into God, the more completely he is established in the very truth.
–Blessed Henry Suso (c. 1295–1366)
The greatest act of faith is that which rises to your lips in total darkness together with the sacrifices, sufferings and wholehearted efforts of a determined will to do good. This act of faith strikes through the darkness of your soul like lightening. In the midst of tempest it raises you up and leads you to God.
–Saint Pio (1887-1968)
Not the power to remember, but its very opposite, the power to forget, is a necessary condition for our existence.
— Saint Basil the Great (330-379)
We receive our faith from the church and keep it safe; and it is as it were a precious deposit stored in a fine vessel, ever renewing its vitality through the Spirit of God, and causing the renewal of the vessel in which it is stored. For this gift of God has been entrusted to the church, as the breath of life to created man, to the end that all members by receiving it should be made alive. And herein has been bestowed on us our means of communion with Christ, namely the Holy Spirit, the pledge of immortality, the strengthening of our faith, the ladder by which we ascend to God.
–Saint Irenaeus (late Second Century)
Listen and attend with the ear of your heart.
–Saint Benedict (480-547)
