QUOTATION: Crosses

That we are generally the carpenters of our own crosses is a truth sadly easier to recognize in others than in ourselves.

--St. Philip Neri

QUOTATION: Love

Love is the measure of our ability to bear crosses.

--St. Teresa of Avila

QUOTATION: Crosses

Crosses release us from this world, and by doing so, bind us to God.

--Charles de Foucauld

QUOTATION: Two Kinds of Crosses

Crosses are of two kinds: pure ones, which come from the outside, such as pain, persecution, and ridicule; and inner, or impure crosses, which come as the result of our sins, such as sadness, despair, and unhappiness. These latter crosses can be avoided. They are made by contradicting the will of God.

--Archbishop Fulton J. Sheen, The Fifteen Mysteries

QUOTATION: Crosses

Any cross would be easy to bear if we could only tailor it to fit ourselves. Our Lord’s cross was not made by Him, but for Him. Crosses and burdens are thrust upon us.

--Archbishop Fulton J. Sheen, The Fifteen Mysteries

QUOTATION: Carrying the Cross

In this life Jesus does not ask you to carry the heavy cross with Him, but a small piece of his cross, a piece that consists of human suffering.

--St. Padre Pio

QUOTATION: Why God Sends Us Crosses

He sends us crosses, not because He wishes evil to us, but because He desires our welfare, and because He knows that they are conducive to our salvation.

--St. Alphonsus Liguori

QUOTATION: Predestination

To bear patiently and perseveringly a heavy cross is a great sign of predestination.

--Reginald Garrigou-Lagrange, Life Everlasting

QUOTATION: Becoming Like Christ

Do not forget that being with Jesus means we shall most certainly meet with his Cross. When we abandon ourselves into God’s hands, he frequently permits us to taste sorrow, loneliness, opposition, slander, defamation, ridicule, coming from both within and outside. This is because he wants to mold us into his image and likeness. He even tolerates that we be called lunatics and be taken for fools.

--St. Josemaria Escriva

QUOTATION: Crosses

If you seek to carry no other crosses but those whose reason you understand, perfection is not for you.

--St. Teresa of Avila

QUOTATION: Suffering

The glory of one who knows how to suffer is so great that Heaven, angels and men, and even God Himself, gaze on him with joy as a most glorious sight. And if the saints in Heaven desired anything, it would be to return to earth so as to bear some crosses.

--St. Louis de Montfort

QUOTATION: When You Receive Crosses...

Whenever you receive any cross, always welcome it with humility and gratitude. And when God favours you with a cross of some importance, show your gratitude in a special way, and get others to thank him for you. Follow the example of the poor woman who lost all that she had in an unjust law- suit and immediately offered her few remaining coins to have a Mass said in thanksgiving for her good fortune.

--St. Louis de Montfort, Letter to the Friends of the Cross

QUOTATION: Wasted Pain

One of the greatest tragedies in the world is wasted pain. Pain without relation to the cross is like an unsigned check - without value. But once we have it countersigned with the Signature of the Saviour on the Cross, it takes on an infinite value.

--Archbishop Fulton J. Sheen, About Crosses

QUOTATION: Conditional Crosses

We meet often enough with souls who desire to suffer and to carry the cross, and I know there are some who even ask afflictions from God, but it is on condition that He will frequently visit and console them in their pains and sufferings, and that He will show them He is much pleased with their sufferings, and intends to reward them with eternal glory.

--St. Francis de Sales, Consoling Thoughts

QUOTATION: Be Prepared for Crosses

Make the resolution to suffer any kind of cross without excluding or choosing any: any poverty, injustice, loss, illness, humiliation, contradiction, slander, spiritual dryness, desolation, interior and exterior trials, saying always, "My heart is ready, O God, my heart is ready." Be prepared, then, to be forsaken by men and angels, and seemingly by God himself; to be persecuted, envied, betrayed, slandered, discredited and abandoned by everyone; to suffer hunger, thirst, poverty, nakedness, exile, imprisonment, the gallows, and all kinds of torture, even though you have done nothing to deserve it.

--St. Louis de Montfort, Letter to the Friends of the Cross

QUOTATION: Crosses

He permits mental crosses, like worries, fear, anxieties, to make us feel His absence. If our love of goodness does not draw us to Him, at least our weariness will throw us back to Him. He permits physical crosses like sufferings to make us feel His Presence. Sickness forcibly draws us away from the world and its pleasures, and makes us realize that His scarred Hands cannot touch us without leaving wounds.

--Archbishop Fulton J. Sheen, About Crosses

QUOTATION: Crosses

Let us receive with love the crosses that we have not chosen, that God gives us from His hand; let us bless them, let us love them: they are all perfumed with the excellent odor of the place from which they come.

--St. Francis de Sales, Consoling Thoughts

QUOTATION: Self-Selected Crosses

The crosses we impose on ourselves are always put on in a mincing kind of way, because they are our own, and therefore they are less meritorious. Humble yourself, and receive those joyfully that are imposed on you without your selection.

--St. Francis de Sales, Consoling Thoughts

QUOTATION: Crosses

The best crosses are the weightiest.

--St. Francis de Sales, Consoling Thoughts

QUOTATION: Taking Up One's Cross

To take up one's cross cannot mean anything else than that we should receive and suffer all the pains, contradictions, afflictions, and mortifications that happen to us in this life without any exception, with an entire submission and indifference.

--St. Francis de Sales, Consoling Thoughts