QUOTATION: The Church is For Sinners

The operation of the Church is entirely set up for the sinner; which creates much misunderstanding among the smug.

--Flannery O’Connor

QUOTATION: God's Love for Sinners

To say that God turns away from the sinful is like saying that the sun hides from the blind. 

--St. Anthony of Egypt

QUOTATION: Our Lord's Indignation

Never once is Our Blessed Lord indignant against those who are already, in the eyes of society, below the level of law and respectability. He attacked only the sham indignation of those who dwelt more on the sin than the sinner and who felt pleasantly virtuous, because they had found someone more vicious than they. He would not condemn those whom society condemned; his severe words were saved for those who had sinned and had not been found out. That was why He said to the woman taken in sin, “he that is without sin among you, let him first cast a stone at her” (John 8:7). Only innocence has a right to condemn. He would not add His burden of accusation to those that had already been hurled against the winebibbers and the thieves, the cheap revolutionists, the streetwalkers, and the traders. They were everybody’s target and everybody knew that they were wrong.

--Archbishop Fulton J. Sheen, Peace of Soul, 1949

QUOTATION: Judging

The Inquisition confused sin with sinners and judged both. Modern Americans make the same mistake but judge neither.

--Peter Kreeft

QUOTATION: Sinners

We are not sinless, but we must be sinners without sin.

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

QUOTATION: Protesting Too Much

Stop slandering the church by protesting against the conduct of those whom the church herself condemns.

--St. Augustine

QUOTATION: What Bothers Jesus

[Jesus] didn't complain of big sinners, He didn't complain of the people who do bad things. He complained of people like you and me, Christians, who should be known by that love for one another.

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

QUOTATION: Heaven

Heaven is filled with converted sinners of all kinds, and there is room for more.

--St. John Cafasso

QUOTATION: Priests

Priests do not exist to give certificates of virtue to the just, but to absolve and console poor sinners.

--St. Peter Julian Eymard

QUOTATION: Why Does God Allow Evil Men to Live?

They say sometimes that it is sufficient to be impious to be long-lived. We might believe it on seeing God's longanimity toward certain impious men. The Holy Spirit, also, has said: " The just man dies in the midst of his good works, and the impious man lives long in his iniquity. " God is waiting to convert him. He permits him to heap up crime upon crime that He may make of him a trophy of His mercy. He loves those great strokes of grace, those miracles of His mercy. They are feast-days of mercy, holidays in heaven.

--St. Peter Julian Eymard

QUOTATION: Pray for Those Who Sin at Night

Pray often at night, and ask the Lord to have pity on those who sin by night: because they are more numerous than those who sin by day. By day, they are usually busy doing something else. Offer to Suffering Jesus a whole night of prayer for those who continually make him cry because of their sins. You will want to pass other nights in prayer. It will be worth a superbe place of eternal rest.

--St. Andre Bessette, as quoted in Frère André disait souvent... Recueil de paroles de Frère André rapportées par ses amis.

QUOTATION: Hope and Despair

It is not sinners, but the wicked who should despair; it is not the magnitude of one’s crime, but contempt of God that dashes one’s hopes.

--St. Peter Damian

QUOTATION: We Are All Sinners

Let us not forget, in our lawful and fitting horror at evil men, that they have souls, and that they know not what they do, when they oppose the Truth. Let us not forget, that we are sons of sinful Adam as well as they, and have had advantages to aid our faith and obedience above other men.

--Blessed John Henry Newman, "Use of Saints' Days", Parochial and Plain Sermons, Vol. 2

QUOTATION: The Blessed Mother's Mercy

The greater sinners we are, the more tenderness and compassion Mary has for us. The child who has cost the Mother the most tears is closest to her heart.

--St Jean Vianney, the Curé of Ars

QUOTATION: Sinners No Argument Against Christianity

It is no disgrace to Christianity, it is no disgrace to any great religion, that its counsels of perfection have not made every single person perfect. If after centuries a disparity is still found between its ideal and its followers, it only means that the religion still maintains the ideal, and the followers still need it.

--G.K. Chesterton in The Illustrated London News, March 2, 1929

QUOTATION: Contrition

Remember: The sinner who is sorry for his sins, is closer to God than the just man who boasts of his good works.

--St. Padre Pio

QUOTATION: Saints Are Former Sinners

Ponder this truth well, my brethren, and let it be your comfort. Among the Preachers, among the Priests of the Gospel, there have been Apostles, there have been Martyrs, there have been Doctors;—Saints in plenty among them; yet out of them all, high as has been their sanctity, varied their graces, awful their gifts, there has not been one who did not begin with the old Adam; not one of them who was not hewn out of the same rock as the most obdurate of reprobates; not one of them who was not fashioned unto honour out of the same clay which has been the material of the most polluted and vile of sinners; not one who was not by nature brother of those poor souls who have now commenced an eternal fellowship with the devil, and are lost in hell. Grace has vanquished nature; that is the whole history of the Saints. Salutary thought for those who are tempted to pride themselves in what they do, and what they are; wonderful news for those who sorrowfully recognise in their hearts the vast difference that exists between them and the Saints; and joyful news, when men hate sin, and wish to escape from its miserable yoke, yet are tempted to think it impossible!

--Blessed John Henry Newman

QUOTATION: The Sinner's Despair

The sinner of necessity, as it were, despairs. That is the effect which always follows sinful pleasure, and the second effect is much more certain than the first. Adam and Eve, who fled and doubted of mercy, Cain, who rejected it and exclaimed: "My sin is too great for pardon, " are types of the sinner after his fall. They are discouraged for having been unfaithful; and the majority of sinners who put off their conversion are held back by despair " It is impossible for me to be pardoned. I have too deeply offended God!" The day on which they would weep, they would be converted.

--St. Peter Julian Eymard

QUOTATION: Patience with Sinners

Therefore, an upright and devout man ought to bear with patience the malice of those whom he seeks to make good, in order to increase the number of the good rather than to add himself to the number of the bad.

--St. Augustine, Letters to Marcellinus

QUOTATION: The Sinner

The sinner alone dares despise divine authority. God lays down laws. He threatens, He punishes transgressors.. The sinner mocks at God, at His threats, at His chastisements. You have not done so in this sentiment. That is possible, but your actions have done so. And if you do not insult Him directly and to His face, you despise Him by your indifference and forgetfulness.

--St. Peter Julian Eymard