QUOTATION: No Boasting

There can be no boasting towards God even on the part of His most matured saints and exactest servants. There can, I say, be no boasting, because whatever we do is the fruit of His grace, and because we do very little, and because, in spite of His grace, what we do is infected with sin, and because even if we did all, we should be doing no more than we are bound to do.

--Blessed John Henry Newman, "Reliance on Religious Observances", Parochial and Plain Sermons, Vol.4

QUOTATION: God's Presence

God by a common mode is in all things by His presence, power and substance; still He is said to be present more familiarly in some by grace.

--Pope St. Gregory I, Homily 8 on Ezechiel

QUOTATION: Love of God is Salvation

He who does not acquire the love of God will scarcely persevere in the grace of God, for it is very difficult to renounce sin merely through fear of chastisement.

-- St. Alphonsus Liguori

QUOTATION: Your Merit is Not Your Own

You will say, perhaps, that since you cooperate with grace, a part of the result ought to be attributed to you, and that you may share the fruits at least by the right of the farmer whose labor increases the value of his master's lands. Not at all! Your own labor becomes valuable only by the grace which accompanies it, elevating it, rendering, it supernatural and meritorious, just as it had commenced it. Doubtless, God will reward you, but it will be His own gifts that He will crown in your merits. And so, there is no moment, neither at the commencement, the middle, nor the end, when you may consider yourself as acting by yourself, by your own strength.

--St. Peter Julian Eymard

QUOTATION: Communion

Among the gifts of grace which the soul receives in Holy Communion, there is one that must be counted among the highest; it is that Holy Communion does not permit the soul to remain long in sin, nor to obstinately persevere in it.

--St. Ignatius Loyola, Letter 34

QUOTATION: Grace

You will ask, perhaps, what is the source of this liberty and the glorious victory which it enables us to gain. After God, its source is grace, which, by means of the virtues it nourishes in us, subdues our passions and compels them to submit to the empire of reason. Certain men are said to charm serpents to such a degree that, without injuring them or lessening their venom, the snakes are rendered perfectly harmless. In like manner, grace so charms our passions-the venomous reptiles of the flesh – that, though they continue to exist in our nature, they can no longer harm us or infect us with their poison.

--Louis de Granada, The Sinner's Guide

QUOTATION: God's Will

God gives to each one of us sufficient grace ever to know His holy will, and to do it fully.

--St. Ignatius Loyola, Letters

QUOTATION: Grace

A third effect of grace is to render man so pleasing to God that every good action performed by him contributes to merit for him eternal life. By good we here mean not only acts of virtue, but all those which arise from the necessities of nature, such as eating, drinking, and sleeping, which, by an upright intention, become pleasing to God and meritorious in His sight.

--Louis de Granada, The Sinner's Guide

QUOTATION: Grace Hurts

This notion that grace is healing omits the fact that before it heals, it cuts with the sword Christ said He came to bring.

--Flannery O'Connor

QUOTATION: The State of Grace

The greatest security we can have in this world that we are in the grace of God, does not consist in the feelings that we have of love to Him, but rather in an irrevocable abandonment of our whole being into His hands, and in a firm resolution never to consent to any sin great or small.

--St. Francis de Sales

QUOTATION: The Blessed Virgin Mary and Grace

To desire grace without recourse to the Virgin Mother is to desire to fly without wings.

--Pope Pius XII

QUOTATION: Humility

The humble realize that of themselves they are nothing, and that they stand in extreme need of help and grace of heaven; but the proud are convinced that they are full of grace and virtue. That is why God takes pleasure in showering His gifts on the former and in depriving the latter of His bounty.

--St. Augustine

QUOTATION: Trials

Without the burden of afflictions it is impossible to reach the height of grace. The gifts of grace increase as the struggle increases.

--St. Rose of Lima

QUOTATION: Mary

We must have frequent recourse to the Mother of God for she is the Mother of the supernatural life and the Mother of grace. The Lord desires that we receive all graces through her, and this depends on our approaching her.

--St. Maximilian Kolbe