Sunday, July 31, 2011

QUOTATION: Laity

Who is going to save our Church? Not our bishops, not our priests and religious. It is up to you, the people. You have the minds, the eyes, the ears to save the Church. Your mission is to see that your priests act like priests, your bishops, like bishops, and your religious act like religious.

--Archbishop Fulton J. Sheen, before the Knights of Columbus, June of 1972.

Saturday, July 30, 2011

QUOTATION: Ignorance

Ignorance is no excuse when we have neglected to learn what we are obliged to know.

--St. Ambrose

Friday, July 29, 2011

QUOTATION: God and Time

God is not hurried along in the Time-stream of this universe any more than an author is hurried along in the imaginary time of his own novel. He has infinite attention to spare for each one of us. He does not have to deal with us in the mass. You are as much alone with Him as if you were the only being He had ever created. When Christ died, He died for you individually just as much as if you had been the only man in the world.

--C.S. Lewis, Mere Christianity

QUOTATION: Only Personally Opposed to Abortion

Politicians who say they personally oppose abortion, but then don't work to change the laws in order to protect unborn life, are examples of the most damaging kind of secularism. Their faith life has virtually no effect on their public service.

--Archbishop Charles J. Chaput, Living the Catholic Faith

QUOTATION: Confession

He who conceals a grave sin in confession is completely in the devil's hands.

--St. Philip Neri

QUOTATION: Seeking the Lord

The Lord is hidden in His own commandments, and He is to be found there in the measure that He is sought.

--St. Mark the Ascetic

QUOTATION: Mary's Humility

Because Mary remained hidden during her life she is called by the Holy Spirit and the Church "Alma Mater", Mother hidden and unknown. So great was her humility that she desired nothing more upon earth than to remain unknown to herself and to others, and to be known only to God. In answer to her prayers to remain hidden, poor and lowly, God was pleased to conceal her from nearly every other human creature in her conception, her birth, her life, her mysteries, her resurrection and assumption. Her own parents did not really know her; and the angels would often ask one another, "Who can she possibly be?", for God had hidden her from them, or if he did reveal anything to them, it was nothing compared with what he withheld.

--St. Louis de Montfort

QUOTATION: Communion

One of the most admirable effects of Holy Communion is to preserve the soul from sin, and to help those who fall through weakness to rise again. It is much more profitable, then, to approach this divine Sacrament with love, respect, and confidence, than to remain away through an excess of fear and scrupulosity.

--St. Ignatius Loyola

QUOTATION: Swearing

It is indeed surprising, my dear brethren, that God should have had to give us a commandment forbidding us to profane His sacred name. Can you imagine, my children, that Christians could so hand themselves over to the Devil as to allow him to make use of them for execrating God, Who is so good and so benevolent? Can you imagine that a tongue which has been consecrated to God by holy Baptism, and so many times moistened by His adorable Blood, could be employed in vilifying its Creator? Would anyone be able to do that who truly believed that God had given him his tongue so that he might bless Him and sing His praises? You will agree with me that this is an abominable crime, one which would seem to urge God to overwhelm us with all sorts of evils and to abandon us to the Devil, whom we have been obeying with so much zeal.

It is a sin which makes the hair stand on end in anyone who is not entirely lost to the Faith.

And yet, in spite of its enormity, its horror, its blackness, is there a more common sin than swearing, than the uttering of blasphemies, imprecations, and curses? Do we not all have the sorrow of hearing such language coming from the mouths of children who hardly know their Our Father, horrible words which are sufficient to draw down all sorts of evils upon a parish?

--St. Jean Vianney, the Cure d’Ars

QUOTATION: Abortion

Society as a whole must defend the conceived child's right to life and the true good of the woman who can never, in any circumstances, find fulfilment in the decision to abort.

--Pope Benedict XVI

Thursday, July 28, 2011

QUOTATION: Self-Mastery

Say to your body: I should rather keep you in slavery than be myself a slave of yours.

-- St. Josemaria Escriva, The Way

QUOTATION: The World and the World to Come

This world and the world to come are two enemies. We cannot therefore be friends to both; but we must decide which we will forsake and which we will enjoy.

--Pope St. Clement I

QUOTATION: Petitions

You pay God a compliment by asking great things of Him.


--St. Teresa of Avila

QUOTATION: Fighting for Life

You must feel the full urgency of the task. Woe to you if you do not succeed in defending life.

--Blessed Pope John Paul II, Homily at World Youth Day Mass, 1993

QUOTATION: Prayer-- Safeguard of Purity

Vigilance and prayer are the safeguards of chastity. You should pray often and fervently to be preserved from temptations against purity, and for the grace to overcome them.

--St. John Baptist de la Salle

QUOTATION: Spiritual Progress

People who change their way of life and begin to think about spiritual progress also begin to suffer from the tongues of detractors. Whoever has not yet suffered this trial has not yet made progress, and whoever is not ready to suffer it does not even endeavor to progress.

– St. Augustine

Wednesday, July 27, 2011

QUOTATION: Prayer Life

Without a deep experience of prayer, growth in the moral life will be shallow.

--Pope John Paul II

Tuesday, July 26, 2011

QUOTATION: The Good of Freedom

God has supreme hatred for sin, and yet He most wisely permits it. This is to allow rational creatures to act according to their natural condition; it is also to render the good more worthy of commendation when they do not violate the law, even though they are able to violate it. Let us therefore adore and bless this holy permission.

--St. Francis de Sales

Monday, July 25, 2011

QUOTATION: Bad Christians

When a man who accepts the Christian doctrine lives unworthily of it, it is much clearer to say he is a bad Christian than to say he is not a Christian.

--C.S. Lewis, Mere Christianity

Sunday, July 24, 2011

QUOTATION: Salvation

It did not please God to save his people through dialectic.

--St. Ambrose, De fide

Saturday, July 23, 2011

QUOTATION: Revolution

You can never have a revolution in order to establish a democracy. You must have a democracy in order to have a revolution.


--G.K. Chesterton

Friday, July 22, 2011

QUOTATION: Prayer

Prayer is the bond that most effectively unites us all.

--Pope John Paul II

Thursday, July 21, 2011

QUOTATION: Liberalism

What naturalists or rationalists aim at in philosophy, the supporters of liberalism, carrying out the principles laid down by naturalism, are attempting in the domain of morality and politics. The fundamental doctrine of rationalism is the supremacy of the human reason, which, refusing due submission to the divine and eternal reason, proclaims its own independence, and constitutes itself the supreme principle and source and judge of truth. Hence, these followers of liberalism deny the existence of any divine authority to which obedience is due, and proclaim that every man is the law to himself; from which arises that ethical system which they style independent morality, and which, under the guise of liberty, exonerates man from any obedience to the commands of God, and substitutes a boundless license. The end of all this it is not difficult to foresee, especially when society is in question. For, when once man is firmly persuaded that he is subject to no one, it follows that the efficient cause of the unity of civil society is not to be sought in any principle external to man, or superior to him, but simply in the free will of individuals; that the authority in the State comes from the people only; and that, just as every man's individual reason is his only rule of life, so the collective reason of the community should be the supreme guide in the management of all public affairs. Hence the doctrine of the supremacy of the greater number, and that all right and all duty reside in the majority. But, from what has been said, it is clear that all this is in contradiction to reason. To refuse any bond of union between man and civil society, on the one hand, and God the Creator and consequently the supreme Law-giver, on the other, is plainly repugnant to the nature, not only of man, but of all created things; for, of necessity, all effects must in some proper way be connected with their cause; and it belongs to the perfection of every nature to contain itself within that sphere and grade which the order of nature has assigned to it, namely, that the lower should be subject and obedient to the higher.

--Pope Leo XIII, Libertas Praestantissimum, 1888

Wednesday, July 20, 2011

QUOTATION: Adam and Eve and Original Sin

Why did the serpent not attack the man, rather than the woman? You say he went after her because she was the weaker of the two. On the contrary, In the transgression of the commandment, she showed herself to be stronger...For she alone stood up to the serpent. She ate from the tree, but with resistance and dissent after being dealt with perfidiously. But Adam partook of the fruit given by the woman, without even beginning to make a fight, without a word of contradiction--a perfect demonstration of consummate weakness and a cowardly soul. The woman, moreover, can be excused; she wrestled a demon and was thrown. But Adam will not be able to find an excuse...he had personally received the commandment from God.


--St Irenaeus

Tuesday, July 19, 2011

QUOTATION: Purity in Speech

Never talk of impure things or events, not even to deplore them. Look, it's a subject that sticks more than tar. Change the conversation, or if that's not possible, continue, but speaking of the need and beauty of holy purity - a virtue of the men who know what their souls are worth.

--St. Josemaria Escriva, The Way

Monday, July 18, 2011

QUOTATION: Education

Without education we are in a horrible and deadly danger of taking educated people seriously.

--G.K. Chesterton

Sunday, July 17, 2011

QUOTATION: Subjectivism

One if the constant temptations in every age, even among Christians, is to make oneself the norm of truth. In an age of pervasive individualism, this temptation takes a variety of forms, but the mark of those who are in the truth is the ability to love humbly. This is what Jesus teaches us: Truth expressed in love.


--Pope John Paul II

Saturday, July 16, 2011

QUOTATION: Our True Selves

The more we get what we now call "ourselves" out of the way and let Him take us over, the more truly ourselves we become.

--C.S. Lewis, Mere Christianity

Friday, July 15, 2011

QUOTATION: Love of God

He who wishes to love God does not truly love Him if he has not an ardent and constant desire to suffer for His sake.

--St. Aloysius Gonzaga

QUOTATION: Holy Abandonment

In this holy abandonment springs up that beautiful freedom of spirit which the perfect possess, and in which there is found all the happiness that can be desired in this life; for in fearing nothing, and seeking and desiring nothing of all things of the world, they possess all.

-- Saint Teresa of Avila

QUOTATION: Beatitudes

The Sermon on the Mount is at such variance with all that our world hold dear that the world will crucify anyone who tries to live up to its values. Because Christ preached them, He had to die. Calvary was the price He paid for the Sermon on the Mount. Only mediocrity survives. Those who call black black, and white white, are sentenced for intolerance. Only the grays live.

--Archbishop Fulton J. Sheen

QUOTATION: The Question of God's Existence

When faced with the question of God, man cannot permit himself to remain neutral. All he can say is Yes or No – without ever avoiding all the consequences that derive from this choice even in the smallest details of life. Accordingly, we see that the question of God is ineluctable; one is not permitted to abstain from casting one’s vote…

--Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger (Pope Benedict XVI), Christianity and the Crisis of Cultures

QUOTATION: Temptation

Earthly life is a pilgrimage, and as such it is full of temptations. But our spiritual growth is worked out in temptation. By experiencing temptations, we know ourselves. By fighting them we have a chance to become winners. By overcoming them, we are crowned victors. Lord, you are our physician, healing the ills of all.

-- Saint Augustine of Hippo

QUOTATION: Having it All

Everyone has noticed how hard it is to turn our thoughts to God when everything is going well with us. We ‘have all we want’ is a terrible saying when ‘all’ does not include God. We find God an interruption. As St. Augustine says somewhere, ‘God wants to give us something, but cannot, because our hands are full—there’s nowhere for Him to put it.’

--C.S. Lewis, The Problem of Pain

Thursday, July 14, 2011

QUOTATION: What we love

The things that we love tell us what we are.

--St. Thomas Aquinas

QUOTATION: Pain

No doubt Pain as God’s megaphone is a terrible instrument; it may lead to final and unrepented rebellion. But it gives the only opportunity the bad man can have for amendment. It removes the veil; it plants the flag of truth within the fortress of a rebel soul.

--C.S. Lewis, The Problem of Pain

QUOTATION: Battle Scars in the Pro-Life Cause

A wise man once said that when we appear before the judgment seat of Jesus Christ, He will look at us very carefully and ask, `Where are your scars?’ If we respond we have no scars, He will then reproach us and say, `Was there nothing worth fighting for?’

I believe, my dear friends, there is something worth fighting for. The cause of life is worth fighting for, the cause of Christ is worth fighting for. Let us see to our duties and with resolution, determination, and defiance, go forward so that at the end, we can show to Christ our scars.

— Bishop Fabian Bruskewitz

QUOTATION: Death

It is folly not to think of death. It is greater folly to think of it, and not prepare for it.

--St. Alphonsus Liguori

QUOTATION: The Temptation to Despair

Any temptation to despair is not of God, and you need to remember that the enemy wants you to despair. Know your enemy. He's not handing you roses, he's handing you hell. So be careful of any kind of despair. Those temptations come directly from the liar, the enemy who was a liar from the beginning. He cannot give truth. He cannot give beauty. He can't give you anything that is good. He wants to take that good away from you. The only thing he can do to a human being is to encourage him to despair -- what a waste of time it is to listen to a liar. Listen to the Lord, pray for the grace to overcome the temptation, and keep moving.

-- Mother Angelica

QUOTATION: Punishment

Some enlightened people would like to banish all conceptions of retribution or desert from their theory of punishment and place its value wholly in deterrence of others or the reform of the criminal himself. They do not see that by doing so they render all punishment unjust. What can be more immoral than to inflict suffering on me for the sake of deterring others if I do not deserve it? And if I do deserve it, you are admitting the claims of ‘retribution’. And what can be more outrageous than to catch me and submit me to a disagreeable process of moral improvement without my consent, unless (once more) I deserve it?

--C.S. Lewis, The Problem of Pain

QUOTATION: Evolution

It is absurd for the Evolutionist to complain that it is unthinkable for an admittedly unthinkable God to make everything out of nothing, and then pretend that it is more thinkable that nothing should turn itself into everything.

— G.K. Chesterton

QUOTATION: The Purpose of the Passion

Our Lord is upon the Cross saying, I am suffering so that men, who are my brothers, may be happy, not only in Heaven, but also – as far as possible – on earth, if they really embrace the most Holy Will of my heavenly Father.

--St. Josemaria Escriva

QUOTATION: Sin

A single venial sin is more displeasing to God than all the good works we can perform.

--St. Alphonsus Liguori, Uniformity with God’s Will

QUOTATION: Sin is Personal

Sin, in the proper sense, is always a personal act since it is an act of freedom on the part of an individual person, and not properly of a group or community.

--Pope John Paul II

Wednesday, July 13, 2011

QUOTATION: Commandments

God does not command impossibilities, but by commanding admonishes you do what you can and to pray for what you cannot, and aids you that you may be able.

-- Saint Augustine of Hippo

QUOTATION: The Existence of Evil

No one wants to believe in evil, really, above all, not in an evil being, an evil spirit. Everyone wants to abolish the idea. To admit the existence of evil means a responsibility, and no one wants that responsibility. That is the opening through which the evil spirit crawls, stilling all suspicions, making everything seem normal and natural. This is the “thought,” the unwariness of the ordinary human being which amounts to a disinclination to believe in evil. And if you do not believe in evil, how can you believe in or ever know what good is?

-- Pope Benedict XVI

Quotation: Error and Sin

Now error and sin both have this property, that the deeper they are the less the victim suspects their existence; they are masked evil.

--C.S. Lewis, The Problem of Pain

QUOTATION: Prayer, Fasting, Mercy

There are three things, my brethren, by which faith stands firm, devotion remains constant, and virtue endures. They are prayer, fasting and mercy. Prayer knocks at the door, fasting obtains, mercy receives. Prayer, mercy and fasting: these three are one, and they give life to each other. Fasting is the soul of prayer, mercy is the lifeblood of fasting. Let no one try to separate them; they cannot be separated. If you have only one of them or not all together, you have nothing. So if you pray, fast; if you fast, show mercy; if you want your petition to be heard, hear the petition of others. If you do not close your ear to others you open God's ear to yourself.

-- Saint Peter Chrysologus

QUOTATION: Putting the Clock Back

Would you think I was joking if I said that you can put a clock back, and that if the clock is wrong it is often a very sensible thing to do? But I would rather get away from that whole idea of clocks. We all want progress. But progress means getting nearer to the place you want to be. And if you have taken a wrong turning, then to go forward does not get you any nearer. If you are on the wrong road, progress means doing an about-turn and walking back to the right road; and in that case the man who turns back soonest is the most progressive man.

--C.S. Lewis, Mere Christianity

Tuesday, July 12, 2011

QUOTATION: Moral Issues

Not all moral issues have the same moral weight as abortion and euthanasia.... There may be a legitimate diversity of opinion even among Catholics about waging war and applying the death penalty, but not however with regard to abortion and euthanasia.

--Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger (now Pope Benedict XVI), in 2004