QUOTATION: Possessions

Be not anxious about what you have, but about what you are.

--Pope St. Gregory the Great

QUOTATION: How to Have Enough

There are two ways to get enough. One is to continue to accumulate more and more. The other is to desire less.

--G.K. Chesterton

QUOTATION: Materialism

The love of worldly possessions is a sort of bird line, which entangles the soul, and prevents it flying to God.

--St. Augustine

QUOTATION: Perfection in the Rich

The rich ought to reach that degree of perfection of possessing the riches of which they are the masters, with out allowing them to possess them.

--St. Ignatius Loyola

QUOTATION: Possessions

It is ironic. Many of us spend a good deal of our lives accumulating stuff. What the "stuff" is will differ from person to person. Yet at the end of our lives, it's all finally the same junk. It piles up in bookcases, in garages, in boxes in the attic, in the secret places of our souls. As life's evening sets in, we see the need to begin to detach. The things we've accumulated are distractions. They should become less and less important. We need to strip them away--the layers of our life--until, at the very end, all that is left is God and us. "Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of Heaven" (Matthew 5:3). Thus, I suspect that poster--"Whoever dies with the most toys, wins"--should really read, "Whoever dies with no toys, wins."

--Archbishop Charles J. Chaput

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

QUOTATION: Possessions

In the twilight of life, God will not judge us on our earthly possessions and human successes, but on how well we have loved.

-- Saint John of the Cross