Quotes

To love Jesus only when…

What a weakness it is to love Jesus Christ only when He caresses us, and to be cold immediately once He afflicts us. This is not true love. Those who love thus, love themselves too much to love God with all their heart.
–Saint Margaret Mary Alacoque (1647- 1690)

No one who lies…

No one who lies is linked to God. God is the truth. He says, “I am the Way, the Truth and the Life” (Jn. 14:6). See how we sort ourselves out and what position we take up through lying: clearly on the side of the evil one. If, therefore, we want to be saved, we must with all our hearts love the Truth and guard ourselves from every kind of falsehood so that we may not be separated from truth and from life.
–Saint Dorotheus of Gaza (Sixth Century)

Love is sufficient…

Love is sufficient of itself; it gives pleasure by itself and because of itself. It is its own merit, its own reward. Love looks for no cause outside itself, no effect beyond itself. Its profit lies in the practice.
–Saint Bernard of Clairvaux (1090-1153)

To love God…

We are to love God for Himself, because of a twofold reason; nothing is more reasonable, nothing more profitable.
–Saint Bernard of Clairvaux (1090-1153)

Love God, then neighbor…

It is not possible to love your neighbor unless you love God. If you love God first, then you can love your neighbor in God… If we really love God, we will love what belongs to God. We will love in the same manner as we have been loved. We care about others even as Christ cared. We love the Lord not because he is good to us, but because the Lord is good.
–Saint Bernard of Clairvaux (1090-1153)

After your death…

Don’t be deceived regarding the knowledge of what will be after your death: what you sow here, you will reap there. After leaving here, no one can make progress. Here is the work, there the reward; here the struggle, there the crowns.
–Saint Barsanuphius the Great (Sixth Century)

How God loved the world…

For, says Scripture, this is how God loved the world: he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him may not perish but have eternal life. Nor did he simply give him, but even to death, death on a cross. . . Have you seen the mighty love of his strength? Have you seen the measureless mercy of his love for humanity? How unsearchable are his mercies and inscrutable his acts of compassion, which he has poured out on us through Jesus Christ our Savior! What may we, poor wretches, say to all this? What may we think? Shall we willingly return to sin? Shall we long for dishonor? Shall we choose corruption and condemnation?
–Saint Theodore the Studite (c. 759-826)

Grant the petitions…

If we can enter the church day and night and implore God to hear our prayers, how careful we should be to hear and grant the petitions of our neighbors in need.
–Saint Francis of Assisi (1181–1226)

One thing matters…

Only one thing in life matters: Being found worthy of the Light of the World in the hour of his His visitation.
–Fulton Sheen (1895-1979)

Like a cash register…

Life is like a cash register, in that every account, every thought, every deed, like every sale, is registered and recorded.
–Fulton Sheen (1895-1979)

Justice and charity…

The order of society is based on two virtues: justice and charity. Charity is the Samaritan who pours oil on the wounds of the traveler who has been attacked. It is justice’s role to prevent the attack.
–Blessed Frédéric Ozanam (1813-1853)

Forgive us our debts…

Forgive us our debts. One cannot ask for forgiveness if one has not forgiven. Forgiveness like grace is something one does not ask for oneself alone, but for all people.
–Blessed Charles De Foucauld (1858-1916)

Not ‘my Father’ but ‘our Father.’

I do not make any request for myself alone. I do not say ‘my Father’ but ‘our Father.’ I do not say ‘my bread but ‘our bread’. I ask for nothing for myself alone, rather I am careful to ask for all people, for us all, children of Our Lord, loved by him, all of us, whom he has redeemed by his blood.
–Blessed Charles De Foucauld (1858-1916)

Spiritual progress…

For though there are no seasons which are not full of Divine blessings, and though access is ever open to us to God’s mercy through His grace, yet now all men’s minds should be moved with greater zeal to spiritual progress, and animated by larger confidence, when the return of the day, on which we were redeemed, invites us to all the duties of godliness: that we may keep the super-excellent mystery of the Lord’s passion with bodies and hearts purified.
–Saint Leo the Great (c. 400-461)

Without wondering…

Men go abroad to wonder at the heights of mountains, at the huge waves of the sea, at the long courses of the rivers, at the vast compass of the ocean, at the circular motions of the stars, and they pass by themselves without wondering.
–Saint Augustine (354-430)

Learning something…

There is no time of life past learning something.
–Saint Ambrose of Milan (339-397)

Cares of this world…

As a man whose head is under water cannot inhale pure air, so a man whose thoughts are plunged into the cares of this world cannot absorb the sensations of that new world.
— Saint Isaac of Syria (Seventh Century)

In God alone…

The soul that loves God has its rest in God and in God alone. In all the paths that men walk in in the world, they do not attain peace until they draw nigh to hope in God.
–Saint Isaac of Syria (Seventh Century)

Compassion of the Creator…

Just as a strongly flowing fountain is not blocked up by a handful of earth, so the compassion of the Creator is not overcome by the wickedness of his creatures.
–Saint Isaac of Syria (Seventh Century)

Love, sincerity, and simplicity…

It is necessary to rouse the heart to pray, otherwise it will become quite dry. The attributes of prayer must be: love of God, sincerity, and simplicity.
–Saint John of Kronstadt (1829-1908)

With sincere Christians…

With sincere Christians prayer is continual, because we continually sin; gratitude is perpetual, because everyday, every moment, we receive fresh mercies from God, beside the old mercies, which are numberless. Praise is also perpetual, because we perpetually see the glory of God’s works in ourselves and in the world, especially the glory of His infinite love towards us.
–Saint John of Kronstadt (1829-1908)

Two serious evils…

In order that what we have said may be the more clearly and fully understood, it will be well to set down here and state how these desires are the cause of two serious evils in the soul: the one is that they deprive it of the Spirit of God, and the other is that the soul wherein they dwell is wearied, tormented, darkened, deﬁled and weakened.
–Saint John of the Cross (1542-1591)

Ignorance not malice…

If I should say anything that is not in conformity with what is held by the Holy Roman Catholic Church, it will be through ignorance and not through malice.
–Saint Teresa of Avila (1515-1582)

To will is to do…

Even if the whole world should blame you, and deafen you with its cries, what matter so long as you are in the arms of God? He is powerful enough to free you from everything; for only once did He command the world to be made and it was done; with Him, to will is to do.
–Saint Teresa of Avila (1515-1582)

Believe only those…

Cease troubling about these fears, then, sisters; and never pay heed to such matters of popular opinion. This is no time for believing everyone; believe only those whom you see modeling their lives on the life of Christ. Endeavor always to have a good conscience; practice humility; despise all worldly things; and believe firmly in the teaching of our Holy Mother Church.
–Saint Teresa of Avila (1515-1582)

Born to love…

We are born to love, we live to love, and we will die to love still more.
–Saint Joseph Cafasso (1811-1860)

Dwells within my soul…

I think, if I had understood then, as I do now, how this great King really dwells within this little palace of my soul, I should not have left Him alone so often, but should have stayed with Him and never have allowed His dwelling-place to get so dirty. How wonderful it is that He Whose greatness could fill a thousand worlds, and very many more, should confine Himself within so small a space, just as He was pleased to dwell within the womb of His most holy Mother! –Saint Teresa of Avila (1515-1582)

Virtues and vices…

All the virtues grow through the practice of any one of them, and all the vices grow through the practice of any one of them likewise.
–Saint John of the Cross (1542-1591)

Do not become captive…

Do not allow your heavenly spirit to become captive to earthly things.
–Saint Francis de Sales (1567-1622)

Walk very simply…

Walk very simply along the way our Lord shows you and don’t worry.
–Saint Francis de Sales (1567-1622)

Go on joyfully….

Go on joyfully and with your heart as open and widely trustful as possible; and if you cannot always be joyful at least be brave and confident.
–Saint Francis de Sales (1567-1622)

We retire into God…

By interior recollection we retire into God, or draw God within ourselves. But when and where can we have recourse to it? At all times, and in all places.
–Saint Francis de Sales (1567-1622)

God works through…

God works through people and situations both because of them and in spite of them.
–Daniel Burke (3/10/2017)

Suffer patiently…

We need to suffer patiently not only the burden of being ill, but of being ill with the particular illness that God wants for us, among the people that He wants us to be with, and with the discomforts that He permits us to experience. I say the same of all other tribulations.
–Saint Francis de Sales (1567-1622)

When we are in sin…

When we are in sin, our soul is all diseased, all rotten; it is pitiful. The thought that the – good God sees it ought to make it enter into itself… Put yourself on good terms with God; have recourse to the Sacrament of Penance; you will sleep as quietly as an angel. You will be glad to waken in the night, to pray to God; you will have nothing but thanksgivings on your lips; you will rise towards Heaven with great facility, as an eagle soars through the air.
–Saint John Vianney (1786-1859)

Sacrament of Penance…

My children, we cannot comprehend the goodness of God towards us in instituting this great Sacrament of Penance. If we had had a favor to ask of Our Lord, we should never have thought of asking Him that. But He foresaw our frailty and our inconstancy in well-doing, and His love induced Him to do what we should not have dared to ask. If one said to those poor lost souls that have been so long in Hell, “We are going to place a priest at the gate of Hell: all those who wish to confess have only to go out,” do you think, my children, that a single one would remain? The most guilty would not be afraid of telling their sins, nor even of telling them before all the world. Oh, how soon Hell would be a desert, and how Heaven would be peopled! Well, we have the time and the means, which those poor lost souls have not.
–Saint John Vianney (1786-1859)

Makes the Sign of the Cross…

We need not be surprised, my dear brethren, at the honor which the Church pays to this holy wood, which obtains for us so many graces and so many benefits. We see that the Church makes the Sign of the Cross in all her ceremonies, in the administration of all the Sacraments. Why is that? My friends, this is why. It is because all our prayers and all the Sacraments draw from the Cross their power and their virtue. During the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass, which is the greatest, the most solemn and the most sublime of all those actions which can glorify God, the priest makes the Sign of the Cross over and over again. God desires that we may never lose the memory of it as the surest means of our salvation and the most formidable instrument for repelling the Devil. He has created us in the form of a cross so that every man might be the image of this cross upon which Jesus Christ died to save us. See how eager the Church is to increase their number? She urges them as a special embellishment on our churches and on all altars; she places them in the most public places.
–Saint John Vianney (1786-1859)

The Sign of the Cross is…

The sign of the cross is the most terrible weapon against the Devil. Thus the Church wishes not only that we should have it continually in front of our minds to recall to us just what our souls are worth and what they cost Jesus Christ, but also that we should make it at every juncture ourselves: when we go to bed, when we awaken during the night, when we get up, when we begin any action, and, above all, when we are tempted. We can say that a Christian who makes the Sign of the Cross with genuine religious sentiments, that is to say, when fully aware of the action which he is performing, makes all Hell tremble. But when we make the Sign of the Cross, we must make it not by habit but with respect, with attention and thinking of what we are doing. Ah, dear Lord, with what devout awe we should be filled when we make the Sign of the Cross upon ourselves and recall that we are pronouncing all that we hold holy and most sacred in our religion!
–Saint John Vianney (1786-1859)

Preparation for death…

A man’s entire life should be a continual preparation for death.
–Saint John Bosco (1815-1888)

Death spares no one…

Regardless of condition or dignity, we are all subject to death. Death spares no one.
–Saint John Bosco (1815-1888)

Love of God consists…

Love consists not in feeling great things but in having great detachment and in suffering for the Beloved.
–Saint John of the Cross (1542-1591)

Attach your heart to God…

Live as though only God and yourself were in this world, so that your heart may not be attached to anything else.
–Saint John of the Cross (1542-1591)

Making good Communions…

Making really good Communions often is the best way to make sure you will die happy and save your soul.
–Saint John Bosco (1815-1888)

The moment of death…

Make hay while the sun shines. Let us not allow the devil to delude us into thinking we may put our conscience in order at the moment of death.
–Saint John Bosco (1815-1888)

When a just one dies…

When the just man dies, God, whom he has loved and served, together with the Blessed Virgin, hastens to assist him, consoles him in his agony, fills him with courage, confidence, and resignation, and leads him triumphantly into heaven.
–Saint John Bosco (1815-1888)

The hour of death…

Remember that at the hour of death we shall reap what we have sown in life. If we have done good works, we will be happy. Death will be a blessing because it will usher us into Paradise. Otherwise, woe to us! Remorse of conscience and the open jaws of hell will await us. ‘What a man sows, that he will also reap.’ (Galatians 6:8)
–Saint John Bosco (1815-1888)

Shout the Gospel…

Our entire existence, our whole being must shout the Gospel from the rooftops. Our entire person must breathe Jesus, all our actions. Our whole life must cry out that we belong to Jesus, reflect a Gospel way of living. Our whole being must be a living proclamation, a reflection of Jesus.
–Blessed Charles De Foucauld (1858-1916)

Give them Jesus…

Jesus says to those who share his hidden life, make others holy by bringing me among them. Bring them the Gospel not by your words but by your example, not by proclaiming it but by living it. Make the salvation of all the one work of your life until Jesus Savior, which signifies perfectly what I am, expressed perfectly what you are too. How to do that? Be all things to all people with a single desire at heart, to give them Jesus.
–Blessed Charles De Foucauld (1858-1916)

Every Christian must be…

Every Christian must be an apostle, this is not a counsel, it is a commandment. My apostolate must be an apostolate of goodness. On seeing me people should say to themselves, since this man is so good, his religion must be good. And if I am asked why I am so gentle and good I must reply, because I am the servant of the One whose goodness is still greater. If only you knew how good my Master Jesus is!
–Blessed Charles De Foucauld (1858-1916)

By our acceptance of the Cross…

The consolation is this and this our faith too: by our suffering and our failures, by our acceptance of the Cross, we unleash forces that help to overcome the evil in the world.
–Dorothy Day (1897-1980)

Feed just one…

If you can’t feed a hundred people, then feed just one.
–Blessed Teresa of Calcutta (1910-1997) (attributed)

God still loves the world…

God still loves the world and He sends you and me to be His love and His compassion to the poor.
–Blessed Teresa of Calcutta (1910-1997) (attributed)

Giving it to Jesus…

My mother often said to me in the house, “Each time that you give something to a poor person, think that you are giving it to Jesus. Pay no regard to the value of what you give, but rather to the love that you have for the one who receives. That is to say, in giving something you must also give your heart. Consequently, never scorn the poor but, on the contrary, if it is an old man, respect him; if a child, have pity on him; if a sick person, support and help him. It is necessary that they are members of the mystical body of Jesus and also our brothers.”
–Marcel Nguyễn Tân Văn (1928–1959)

Pessimism and discouragement…

Let us never give in to pessimism, to that bitterness that the devil offers us every day. Do not give in to pessimism and discouragement. We have the firm certainty that the Holy Spirit gives the Church with His mighty breath, the courage to persevere and also to seek new methods of evangelization, to bring the Gospel to the ends of the earth.
–Pope Francis (1936-

Never forget…

Never forget that you are His.
— Gabriela Papayannis (1897-1992)

Holy indifference is…

Holy indifference is not inactivity. It is the furthest possible from it. It is indifference to anything and everything out of God’s will; but it is the highest life and activity to anything and everything in that will.
— François Fénèlon (1651-1715)

Envy makes us…

Envy makes us sorry that our neighbor enjoys a greater good than ours, or a like good, even though he takes nothing away from ours. In such cases, envy is unreasonable and makes us think that our neighbor’s good is our ill.
–Saint Francis de Sales (1567-1622)

Indifference is poison…

The most deadly poison of our times is indifference. And this happens, although the praise of God should know no limits. Let us strive, therefore, to praise Him to the greatest extent of our powers.
— Saint Maximilian Kolbe (1894-1941)

Love is greater…

It can happen that when we are at prayer someone comes to see us. Then we have to choose, either to interrupt our prayer or to sadden our visitor by refusing to communicate. But love is greater than prayer. Prayer is one virtue amongst others, whereas love contains them all.
–Saint John Climacus (c. 525-606)

Different saints…

How different are all the saints! In heaven the greatest doctor of the church will sit down with a little child.
–Saint Therese of Lisieux (1873-1897)

Make rapid progress…

The only way to make rapid progress along the path of divine love is to remain very little and to put all our trust in Almighty God. That is what I have done.
–Saint Therese of Lisieux (1873-1897)

God does not need years…

The good God does not need years to accomplish His work of love in a soul; one ray from His heart can, in an instant, make His flower bloom for eternity.
–Saint Therese of Lisieux (1873-1897)

Sorrow and darkness…

There is the true picture of our souls. Often we go down into the fertile valleys where our heart loves to find its nourishment. And the vast fields of Holy Scripture, which have so often opened to yield us richest treasures, now seem but an arid and waterless waste. We no longer even know where we stand. In place of peace and light, all is sorrow and darkness.
–Saint Therese of Lisieux (1873-1897)

Complete spiritual dryness…

I was far from getting any consolation. Instead, I suffered complete spiritual dryness, almost as if I were quite forsaken… But that doesn’t upset me. It fills me with great joy. It’s true that I am a long way from being a saint, and this attitude of mine proves it. Instead of the lighting in my spiritual aridity, I have to blame my lack of faith and fervor for it. I should be distressed that I drop off the sleep during my prayers and during my thanksgiving after Communion. But I don’t feel at all distressed. I know that children are just as dear to their parents whether they are asleep or awake and I know that doctors put their patients to sleep before they operate. So I just think that God “knows our frame; remembers that we are dust.”
–Saint Therese of Lisieux (1873-1897)

Conscience is the…

Conscience is the light by which we interpret the will of God in our own lives.
–Thomas Merton (1915-1968)

Gratitude takes nothing for granted…

Gratitude takes nothing for granted, is never unresponsive, is constantly awakening to new wonder and to praise the goodness of God.
–Thomas Merton (1915-1968)

Not at peace…

We are not at peace with others because we are not at peace with ourselves, and we are not at peace with ourselves because we are not at peace with God.
–Thomas Merton (1915-1968)

Silence makes us…

Not only does silence give us a chance to understand ourselves better, to get a truer and more balanced perspective on our own lives in relation to the lives of others: silence makes us whole if we let it. Silence helps draw together the scattered and dissipated energies of a fragmented existence.
–Thomas Merton (1915-1968)

Christian life is…

All Christian life is meant to be at the same time profoundly contemplative and rich in active work. It is true that we are called to create a better world. But we are first of all called to a more immediate and exalted task: that of creating our own lives. In doing this, we act as co-workers with God.
–Thomas Merton (1915-1968)

Pray with…

Pray with perseverance, with faith, with calmness and serenity.
–Saint Pio (1887-1968)

Never tire of praying…

Be souls of prayer. Never tire of praying, it is what is essential. Prayer shakes the Heart of God, it obtains necessary graces!
–Saint Pio (1887-1968)

Open your heart wide..

It is the Lord who works within you, and you must do nothing except leave the door of your heart wide open so that he might work as he pleases.
–Saint Pio (1887-1968)

Will we be alive tomorrow?

Who can assure us that we will be alive tomorrow? Let us listen to the voice of our conscience, to the voice of the royal prophet: “Today, if you hear God’s voice, harden not your heart.” Let us not put off from one moment to another (what we should do) because the (next moment) is not yet ours.
–Saint Pio (1887-1968)

Quench our thirst…

Let us therefore, love to quench our thirst at this fountain of living water and go forward all the time along the way of divine love. But let us also be convinced that our souls will never be satisfied here below. In fact it would be disastrous for us if, at a certain stage of our journey, we were to feel satisfied, for it would be a sign that we thought we had reached our goal, and in this we would be deceived.
–Saint Pio (1887-1968)

Baloney and blarney…

Baloney is flattery laid on so thick it cannot be true, and blarney is flattery so thin we love it.
–Blessed Fulton Sheen (1895-1979)

Vocal prayer, meditation, and contemplation…

In vocal prayer we go to God on foot. In meditation we go to God on horseback. In contemplation we go to God in a jet.
–Blessed Fulton Sheen (1895-1979)

Sinners who deny…

The deaf who deny they are deaf will never hear; the sinners who deny there is sin deny thereby the remedy of sin, and thus cut themselves off forever from Him Who came to redeem.
–Blessed Fulton Sheen (1895-1979)

Tolerance and intolerance…

There is no subject on which the average mind is so much confused as the subject of tolerance and intolerance. Tolerance applies only to persons, but never to principles. Intolerance applies only to principles, but never to persons.
–Blessed Fulton Sheen (1895-1979)

Every moment comes…

Every moment comes to you pregnant with a Divine Purpose; time being so precious that God deals it out only second by second. Once it leaves your hands and your person to do with as you please, it plunges into eternity, to remain forever whatever you made it.
–Blessed Fulton Sheen (1895-1979)

Hope is simply…

Hope is simply looking towards – and striving for – our supreme good, who is God. We hope for such things as we expect to gain by another’s aid, whereas we aspire to such things as we strive after by our own resources and by ourselves.
–Saint Francis de Sales (1567-1622)

Striving toward God…

We must try to keep our heart steadily, unshakably equal during the great variety and inequality of daily events. Even though everything turns and changes around us, our hearts must remain unchanging and ever looking, striving and aspiring toward God.
–Saint Francis de Sales (1567-1622)

When we are tempted…

We should not despair, therefore, when we are tempted, but pray to God the more fervently that He may see fit to help us, for according to the word of Paul, He will make issue with temptation that we may be able to bear it. Let us humble our souls under the hand of God in every trial and temptation for He will save and exalt the humble in spirit.
–Saint Francis de Sales (1567-1622)

Our heart is made…

Our heart is made for God, and God constantly entices it and never ceases to cast before it the allurements of divine love. Yet five things impede the operation of this holy attraction:

sin, which removes us from God;
affection for riches;
sensual pleasures;
pride and vanity;
self-love, together with the multitude of disordered passions it brings forth, which are like a heavy load wearing it down.sin, pride, greed, self-love

–Saint Francis de Sales (1567-1622)

Defects of saints…

Noticing the defects of the saints we must avoid the mistake of being complacent with ourselves as we are. We should consider that even if the saints are imperfect then it is no wonder that we are imperfect, too…It is a good thing to see the defects in the lives of the saints. It not only teaches us to imitate the saints in their efforts to overcome their failings and to do penance for them, but it shows us God’s goodness in forgiving them.
–Saint Francis de Sales (1567-1622)

Holy Communion…

Your chief aim in Holy Communion should be to advance, strengthen and comfort yourself in the love of God, receiving for love’s sake what love alone can give. There is nothing in which the love of Christ is set forth more tenderly or more touchingly than in the Sacrament by which He, so to say, annihilates Himself for us and takes upon Himself the form of bread in order to feed us, and unites Himself closely to the bodies and souls of the faithful.
–Saint Francis de Sales (1567-1622)

The Mother of God…

The humble soul is blessed. The Lord loves her. The Mother of God is higher than all in humility, and therefore all races bless her on earth, while the heavenly powers serve her. And the Lord has given us this blessed Mother of His as a defender and helper.
–Saint Silouan the Athonite (1866-1938)

Mary, His mother…

Anyone who would understand the nature of a tree should examine the earth that encloses its roots, the soil from which its sap climbs into branch, blossom, and fruit. Similarly to understand the person of Jesus Christ, one would do well to look to the soil that brought him forth: Mary, his mother.
–Roman Guardini (1885-1968)

Imitate the Virgin Mary…

If you love adventure, imitate the life of the Virgin Mary. Her life was nothing short of an epic journey of faith, during which she entrusted everything to God’s providence. She followed where he led, whether it was to a manger in Bethlehem, a road to Egypt, a common house in Nazareth, or a desolate hill outside Jerusalem. No matter where she was, she continued to persevere in this faith, risking everything in the sure confidence of God’s fidelity to his promise.
–Francois-Xavier Nguyen Van Thuân (1928-2002)

About Mary…

From the point of view of the world, there was nothing out of the ordinary about the things Mary did during her life: her help to her cousin Elizabeth, her care and concern for her infant son, her duties in the home at Nazareth, the journeys to worship at the Temple in Jerusalem, her burial of her husband Joseph, and her anguish at the sufferings of her son, Jesus. But from a supernatural perspective, her life was extraordinary because everything she did, she did out of obedience to and love for God.
–Francois-Xavier Nguyen Van Thuân (1928-2002)

Not knowing the Scriptures…

This is the cause of all evils, the not knowing the Scriptures. We go into battle without arms, and how are we to come off safe?
–Saint John Chrysostom (347-407)

Only one enemy…

We are commanded to have only one enemy, the devil. With him never be reconciled! But with a brother, never be at enmity in thy heart.
–Saint John Chrysostom (347-407)

Prayer is an…

Prayer is an all-efficient panoply, a treasure undiminished, a mine which is never exhausted, a sky unobscured by clouds, a heaven unruffled by the storm. It is the root, the fountain, the mother of a thousand blessings.
–Saint John Chrysostom (347-407)

Discouragement does not allow the…

Discouragement does not allow the one who falls to get back up, and laziness throws down the one who is upright. The latter deprives us constantly of the goods that we gain; it does not allow us to escape from the evils that are to come. Laziness throws us down even from heaven, while discouragement hurls us down even to the very abyss of wickedness. Indeed, we can quickly return from there if we do not become discouraged.
–Saint John Chrysostom (347-407)

Care of our children…

Let everything take second place to our care of our children, our bringing them up to the discipline and instruction of the Lord. If from the beginning we teach them to love true wisdom, they will have great wealth and glory than riches can provide. If a child learns a trade, or is highly educated for a lucrative profession, all this is nothing compared to the art of detachment from riches; if you want to make your child rich, teach him this. He is truly rich who does not desire great possessions, or surround himself with wealth, but who requires nothing…Don’t think that only monks need to learn the Bible; Children about to go our into the world stand in greater need of Scriptural knowledge.
–Saint John Chrysostom (347-407)

How absurd and foolish is it that should a harper, or a dancer, or any one of these kind of people, invite us to his house, we would go there with all haste, and thank him for having invited us, and spend almost half the day there; paying attention only to him. But when God is speaking to us through His holy Prophets and Apostles we yawn, and we scratch, and we turn this way and that! And at the circus, without a roof above them to keep off the rain, the crowds stand there crazy, the rain pouring down on them, and the wind blowing it in their faces, and they think nothing of the cold or the rain or the distance, and nothing will keep them from going there, and nothing will keep them at home! But to go to the Church, a shower, or the mud on the road, is a serious obstacle!
–Saint John Chrysostom (347-407)

No soul can rest…

No soul can have rest until it finds created things are empty. When the soul gives up all for love, so they can have him that is all, then it finds to rest.
–Saint Julian of Norwich (1342-1416)

Never cease longing for God…

Our natural will is to have God, and the good will of God is to have us, and we may never cease willing or longing for God until we have him in the fullness of joy. Christ will never have his full bliss in us until we have our full bliss in him.
–Saint Julian of Norwich (1342-1416)

Rejoice with God…

It is God’s will that we should rejoice with him in our salvation, and then we should be cheered and strengthened by it. He wants our soul delight and it’s salvation, to his grace. For we are the apple of his eye. He delights in us forever as we shall see him, by his grace.
–Saint Julian of Norwich (1342-1416)

Flee to the Lord…

Flee to our Lord, and we shall be strengthened. Touch him, and we shall be cleansed. Cling to him, and we shall be safe and sound from every danger. For it is the will of our courteous Lord that we should be as much at home with him as heart may think or soul desire.
–Saint Julian of Norwich (1342-1416)

Were we to die now…

If we were to die now, what would happen to us? What account should we give of the many riches, graces, and companions left to perish through our means?
–Saint Ignatius of Loyola (1491-1556)

Words of Wisdom & Encouragement

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