QUOTATION: Jesus' Self-Denial

Jesus, splendour of the substance of the Father, is born on the spiky straw of the manger, is stiff with cold, is exposed to all weathers. Even from his first hour he submits to all kinds of suffering for the salvation of men. What self-denial was his! And I who for my many sins should be given the hardest penance, shall I not feel ashamed to complain about every little inconvenience, or take any notice of a draught of air, an annoying fly or a change in the weather?

--Pope St. John XXIII, Journal of a Soul

QUOTATION: Joy and Mortification

Joy is to be thought of as the true source of that liberty of mind which alone is able to unite the apparently incompatible qualities of the spiritual life, giving a freer rein to natural expressions of love while remaining inseparably attached to mortification. In our joy we must be careful to keep our spirit mortified, and practise mortification in order to increase our joy.

I must therefore remain always and invariably happy, while never for one moment desisting from self-denial. It is self-love which stunts the growth of the spirit and saddens us; self-denial restores life, serenity and peace.

--Pope St. John XXIII, Journal of a Soul

QUOTATION: Fabricated Sanctity

Many, on the other hand, fabricate a sort of sanctity according to their own inclinations; some, inclined to melancholy, make sanctity consist in living in seclusion; others, of a busy temperament, in preaching and in making up quarrels; some, of an austere nature, in penitential inflictions and macerations; others, who are naturally generous, in distributing alms; some in saying many vocal prayers; others in visiting sanctuaries; and all their sanctity consists in such or the like practices. External acts are the fruit of the love of Jesus Christ; but true love itself consists in a complete conformity to the will of God; and as a consequence of this, in deny ing ourselves and in preferring what is most pleasing to God, and solely because he deserves it.

--St. Alphonsus Liguori, The Holy Eucharist

QUOTATION: The Crucifix

You are fond of the crucifix; what then would you wish to be, unless crucified?

--St. Francis de Sales, Consoling Thoughts

QUOTATION: How to Measure Spiritual Progress

We should not measure our spiritual progress by our deeds, our amiability, or our love of solitude, but by the violence we do ourselves.

--St. Ignatius Loyola

QUOTATION: Self-Denial

Deny yourself and you'll find what your heart really longs for.

--St. John of the Cross

QUOTATION: Self-Crucifixion

The Beatitudes cannot be taken alone: they are not Ideals; they are Hard-Facts and Realities inseparable from the Cross of Calvary. What He taught was Self-Crucifixion:

* to Love those who Hate us;

* to pluck-out-eyes and cut-off-arms in order to prevent Sinning;

* to be Clean on the Inside when the Passions clamor for Satisfaction on the Outside;

* to Forgive those who would put us to Death;

* to overcome Evil with Good;

* to Bless those who Curse us;

* to stop mouthing Freedom until we have Justice, Truth and Love of God in our Hearts as the condition of Freedom;

* to live in the World and still keep oneself Unpolluted from it;

* to Deny ourselves sometimes Legitimate Pleasures in order the better to Crucify our Egotism - all this is to sentence the Old-Man in us to Death.


--Archbishop Fulton J. Sheen

QUOTATION: Heaven is a difficult path

The way to Heaven is straight and narrow: they who wish to arrive at that place of bliss by walking in the paths of pleasure shall be disappointed; and therefore few reach it, because few are willing to use violence to themselves in resisting temptations.

--St. Alphonsus Liguori

QUOTATION: Self-Denial

It is well to deny ourselves that which is permitted, in order to avoid more easily that which is not.

--St. Benedict of Nursia