QUOTATION: Falls from Grace

My beloved, may every fall, even if it is serious and habitual sin, always become for us a small step toward a higher degree of perfection.

In fact, the only reason why the Immaculate permits us to fall is to cure us from our self-conceit, from our pride, to make us humble and thus make us docile to the divine graces.

The devil, instead, tries to inject in us discouragement and internal depression in those circumstances, which is, in fact, nothing else than our pride surfacing again.

--St. Maximillian Kolbe

QUOTATION: Feelings of Guilt

Whenever you feel guilty, even if it is because you have consciously committed a sin, a serious sin, something you have kept doing many, many times, never let the devil deceive you by allowing him to discourage you. Whenever you feel guilty, offer all your guilt to the Immaculate, without analyzing it or examining it, as something that belongs to her…

--St. Maximillian Kolbe

QUOTATION: Discouragement

Whatever leads to discouragement, to despair, to trouble, is contrary to charity, which teaches us to make every effort, though with fear and trembling, but never to distrust the goodness of God, who wills all men to be saved, and to come to penance.

--St. Francis de Sales, Consoling Thoughts

QUOTATION: How Do The Pious Fall?

And the pious, why do they fall? Because they, too, despair. They are discouraged by their falls. They have not succeeded. That is not what they were hoping for. The demon fills their soul with diffidence. That is his best secret for entering into the soul and ruining it. May this sentiment never rule in yours!

--St. Peter Julian Eymard

QUOTATION: God's Mercy

Beginners in the service of God sometimes lose confidence when they fall into any fault. When you feel so unworthy a sentiment rising within you, you must lift your heart to God and consider that all your faults, compared with divine goodness, are less than a bit of tattered thread thrown into a sea of fire.

--St. Paul of the Cross

QUOTATION: Discouragement

When you fail to measure up to your Christian privilege, be not discouraged for discouragement is a form of pride. The reason you are sad is because you looked to yourself and not to God; to your failings not to His love. You will shake off your faults more readily when you love God than when you criticize yourself. God is more lenient than you because he is perfectly good and therefore loves you more. Be bold enough then to believe that God is on your side, even when you forget to be on His.

--Archbishop Fulton J. Sheen, Preface to Religion

QUOTATION: Discouragement

Discouragement itself is a form of pride.

--St. Therese of Lisieux

QUOTATION: Discouragement

If you are discouraged it is a sign of pride because it shows you trust in your own power. Your self-sufficiency, your selfishness and your intellectual pride will inhibit His coming to live in your heart because God cannot fill what is already full. It is as simple as that.

– Blessed Mother Teresa of Calcutta