To be a servant of God means to be charitable towards one’s neighbors, to have an unshakeable determination in the superior part of your soul to obey the will of God, to trust in God with a very humble humility and simplicity, and to lift oneself up as often as one falls, to endure with all your abjections and to quietly put up with others in their imperfections.
–Saint Francis de Sales (1567-1622)
When comfort is withdrawn, do not be cast down, but humbly and patiently await the visitation of God. He is able and powerful to give you more grace and more spiritual comfort than you first had.
–Thomas à Kempis (1380-1471)
We count on God’s mercy for our past mistakes, on God’s love for our present needs, on God’s sovereignty for our future.
–Saint Augustine (354-430)
In our sickness we need a savior, in our wanderings a guide, in our blindness someone to show us the light, in our thirst the fountain of living water which quenches for ever the thirst of those who drink from it. We dead people need life, we sheep need a shepherd, we children need a teacher, the whole world needs Jesus!
–Saint Clement of Alexandria (c. 150-215)
Live simply, honestly, always remember that God sees everything, and as for the rest, do not pay attention!
–Elder Anatoly Potapov of Optina (20th Century)
Let us live with God as with a Friend. Let us make our faith a living thing, so as to remain in communion with Him through everything. That is how saints are made. We carry our heaven within us, since He who completely satisfies every longing of the glorified souls in the light of the Beatific Vision, is giving Himself to us in faith and mystery. It is the same thing. It seems to me I have found my heaven on earth, since heaven is God and God is in my soul. The day I understood that, everything became clear to me, and I wish I could whisper this secret to those I love in order that they also might cling closely to God through everything.
–Saint Elizabeth of the Trinity (1880-1906)
