QUOTATION: Fake Religious

If you meet a religious person who never laughs he or she is a fake. Go on, tell him a joke. If he doesn’t laugh, don’t trust him.

--Fr. Dwight Longenecker, “Why Religious People Are Worse Than Darth Vader”, Standing on My Head, May 7, 2015

QUOTATION: Self-Chosen Poverty

Rigorous poverty is our safeguard. We do not want, as has been the case with other religious orders throughout history, to begin serving the poor and then gradually move towards serving the rich. In order for us to understand and to be able to help those who lack everything, we have to live as they live. The difference lies only in the fact that those we aid are poor by force, whereas we are poor by choice.

--Mother Teresa of Calcutta, No Greater Love.

QUOTATION: A Religious Sister's Vocation

Many people say that we should work with social programs and with development programs; we are not here for that. Let everyone do what each can. I beg you sisters, never get mixed up. Love is for today, programs are for the future.

--Mother Teresa of Calcutta, Where There is Love, There is God, Brian Kolodiejchuk, M.C., Ed.

QUOTATION: Religious

Religious are the nobility, the aristocracy of the Church. But as the nobility of a kingdom form its main strength, and is always in the first rank, to defend the person of the prince and the honor of their country; as we see them expose themselves to all perils with admirable courage, which proves that they count their own life as nothing, so ought the religious to be in the first rank to defend the sacred Person of Jesus Christ and the Church, which is His kingdom.

--St. Peter Julian Eymard

QUOTATION: The Work of Religious

Religious are the nobility, the aristocracy of the Church. But as the nobility of a kingdom form its main strength, and is always in the first rank, to defend the person of the prince and the honor of their country; as we see them expose themselves to all perils with admirable courage, which proves that they count their own  life as nothing, so ought the religious to be in the first rank to defend the sacred Person of Jesus Christ and the Church, which is His kingdom.

--St. Peter Julian Eymard

QUOTATION: Religious

The religious life is a grace of excellent and very special honor, which Jesus Christ extends to us. The religious is to Our Lord what the Cardinals are morally to the Sovereign Pontiff. He is a prince of the blood, the intimate companion of Our Lord.

--St. Peter Julian Eymard

QUOTATION: The Religious Life

All the helps afforded by the religious life share in the nobility of its end. All its graces are eminent. Only extraordinary graces are therein received. Everything in it elevates us to uncommon holiness, to eminent sanctity. In it we must be saints under penalty of being altogether unfaithful There is no middle course. Every religious is called to be a great saint, and the graces he receives are m proportion to this sublime vocation.

--St. Peter Julian Eymard

QUOTATION: Being a Religious

Sometimes we pride ourselves on the merit of havnng become a religious, and think we have done a heroic action. Alas! we are in arrears with mercy. The advantage is all on our side. We receive a hundred times more than we have given. It is all for our gross interest. It is we who are the gainers, we who are served by it, and not we who serve.

--St. Peter Julian Eymard

QUOTATION: Religious

They [religious] live more purely, they fall more rarely, they rise more speedily, they are aided more powerfully, they live more peacefully, they die more securely, and they are rewarded more abundantly.

--St. Bernard of Clairvaux

QUOTATION: Cloistered Religious

The cloistered men and women are doing more for our country than all its politicians and labor leaders; they are atoning for sins of us all. They are averting the just wrath of God, repairing the broken fences of those who sin and pray not, rebel and atone not. As ten just men would have saved Sodom and Gomorrah, so ten just saints can save a nation now.

--Archbishop Fulton J. Sheen