QUOTATION: Time and Sin

We have a strange illusion that mere time cancels sin. I have heard others, and I have heard myself, recounting cruelties and falsehoods committed in boyhood as if they were no concern of the present speaker’s, and even with laughter. But mere time does nothing either to the fact of to the guilt of sin.

--C.S. Lewis, The Problem of Pain

QUOTATION: Modesty

How many young girls there are who do not see any wrongdoing in following certain shameless styles like so many sheep. They certainly would blush if they could guess the impression they make and the feelings they evoke in those who see them.

--Pope Pius XII

QUOTATION: Modesty

Few women know how easily men are stimulated by what they see and how much they can do to help men control their passions by feminine modesty.

--Fr. John Hardon

QUOTATION: Tribulation

A meek man ought to behave in this way during tribulation; he should neither speak proudly himself nor retort to what is spoken wickedly, but should bless those who speak evil of him and suffer willingly, either for justice' sake if he had deserved it or for God's sake if he has deserved nothing.

--St. Thomas More

QUOTATION: Modesty

Decorum and modesty are younger brothers of purity.


--St. Josemaria Escriva

QUOTATION: Blessed Sacrement

Nowhere does Jesus hear our prayers more readily than in the Blessed Sacrament.

--Bl. Henry Suso

QUOTATION: Evangelization

They who want to win the world for Christ must have the courage to come into conflict with it.

 -- Bl. Titus Brandsma

QUOTATION: God's Will

God's Will: Nothing more, nothing less, nothing else.

--St. Elizabeth Ann Seton

QUOTATION: Right to Life

If a person's right to life is violated at the moment in which he is first conceived in his mother's womb, an indirect blow is struck also at the whole of the moral order, which serves to ensure the inviolable goods of man. Among those goods, life occupies the first place. The Church defends the right to life, not only in regard to the majesty of the Creator, who is the First Giver of this life, but also in respect of the essential good of the human person.


--Pope John Paul II, 1979

QUOTATION: Advertizing

You can almost define modern advertising as the science of exploiting the seven capital sins.

--Fr. John Hardon

QUOTATION: The Gospel of John

No one can grasp the meaning of the Gospel (of John) unless he has rested on the breast of Jesus, and unless he has received from Him Mary, who becomes his mother also.

--Origen, Commentary on John

QUOTATION: Faith in Action

Let us not merely call him Lord, for that will not save us. For he says, “Not everyone who says to me, Lord, Lord, will be saved, but he who does what is right” (Matt. 7:21). Thus, brothers, let us acknowledge him by our actions, by loving one another, by refraining from adultery, backbiting, and jealousy, and by being self-controlled, compassionate, kind. We ought to have sympathy for one another and not to be avaricious. Let us acknowledge him by acting in this way and not by doing the opposite. We ought not to have greater fear of men than of God. That is why, if you act in this way, the Lord said, “If you are gathered with me in my bosom and do not keep my commands, I will cast you out and will say to you: ‘Depart from me. I do not know whence you come, you workers of iniquity.’”


--St. Clement of Alexandria

QUOTATION: Opposing Error

Not to oppose error is to approve it; and not to defend truth is to suppress it; and indeed to neglect to confound evil men, when we can do it, is no less a sin than to encourage them.

--Pope St. Felix III

QUOTATION: The Right to Life

To be actively pro-life is to contribute to the renewal of society through the promotion of the common good. It is impossible to further the common good without acknowledging and defending the right to life, upon which all the other inalienable rights of individuals are founded and from which they develop.

-- Pope John Paul II

QUOTATION: Fear of the Lord

Not only are we missing something when fear is absent from religion, but (far worse) we are sinning grievously. For the absence of the fear of God is arrogance and pride. How dare sinners sashay up to God as a chum without first falling down in repentance and fear and calling on the Blood of Christ to save us?

--Dr. Peter Kreeft

QUOTATION: Knowledge and Belief

We can’t have full knowledge all at once. We must start by believing; then afterwards we may be led.

-- St. Thomas Aquinas

QUOTATION: Knowledge and Reason

All possible knowledge, then, depends on the validity of reasoning. If the feeling of certainty which we express by words like must be and therefore and since is a real perception of how things outside our own minds really ‘must’ be, well and good. But if this certainty is merely a feeling in our own minds and not a genuine insight into realities beyond them—if it merely represents the way our minds happen to work—then we can have no knowledge. Unless human reasoning is valid, no science can be true.

--C.S. Lewis, Miracles

QUOTATION: Bench Warmers

We're at a time for the Church in our country when some Catholics — too many — are discovering that they've gradually become non-Catholics who happen to go to Mass. That's sad and difficult, and a judgment on a generation of Catholic leadership. But it may be exactly the moment of truth the Church needs.

-- Archbishop Charles J. Chaput

QUOTATION: Being Catholic

The difficulty of explaining ‘why I am a Catholic’ is that there are ten thousand reasons all amounting to one reason: that Catholicism is true.

--G. K. Chesterton

QUOTATION: The Way of the World

We live in a culture in which condoms can be handed out in schools and Bibles can’t. And I think that tells you everything you need to know about our society.

-- Janet E. Smith

QUOTATION: Marriage

It was God who brought Eve to Adam and gave her to him as his wife, and it is God, my friends, who with his invisible hand bound the knot which united you and gave you to one another; therefore give good heed that you cherish a love which is holy, sacred and divine.

-- St. Francis de Sales, Introduction to the Devout Life

QUOTATION: Our Short Life

We have only short moments of this life to work for God's glory. The devil knows this and this is why he tries to make us waste time in useless things. O, let us not waste our time! Let us save souls!

-- St. Therese of Lisieux

QUOTATION: The Sense of Sin

A recovery of the old sense of sin is essential to Christianity. Christ takes it for granted that men are bad. Until we really feel this assumption of His to be true, though we are part of the world He came to save, we are not part of the audience to whom His words are addressed. We lack the first condition for understanding what He is talking about. And when men attempt to be Christians without the preliminary consciousness of sin, the result is almost bound to be a certain resentment against God as to one always inexplicably angry. Most of us have at times felt a secret sympathy with the dying farmer who replied to the Vicar’s dissertation on repentance by asking ‘What harm have I ever done to Him?’ There is the real rub. The worst we have done to God is to leave him alone—why can’t He return the compliment? Why not live and let live? What call has He, of all beings, to be ‘angry’? It’s easy for him to be good!

Now at the moment when a man feels real guilt—moments too rare in our lives—all these blasphemies vanish away. Much, we may feel, can be excused to human infirmities, but not this—this incredibly mean and ugly action which none of our friends would have done, which even such a thorough-going little rotter as X would have been ashamed of, which we would not for the world allow to be published. At such a moment, we really do know that our character, as revealed in this action, is, and ought to be, hateful to all good men, and, if there are powers above men, to them. A God who did not regard this with unappeasable distaste would not be a good being. We cannot even wish for such a God—it is like wishing that every nose in the universe were abolished, that smell of hay or roses or the sea should never again delight any creature, because our own breath happens to stink.

When we merely say that we are bad, the ‘wrath’ of God seems a barbarous doctrine; as soon as we perceive our badness, it appears inevitable, a mere corollary of God’s goodness. To keep ever before us the insight derived from such a moment as I have been describing, to learn to detect the same real inexcusable corruption under more and more of its complex disguises, is therefore indispensable to a real understanding the Christian faith. This is not, of course, a new doctrine. I am attempting nothing very splendid in this chapter. I am merely trying to get to my reader (and, still more, myself) over a pons asinorum—to take the first step out of fools’ paradise and utter illusion.
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--C.S. Lewis, The Problem of Pain

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: Sin

In a world that has lost a sense of sin, one sin remains: Thou shalt not make people feel guilty (except, of course, about making people feel guilty). In other words, the only sin today is to call something a sin.


-- Christopher West

QUOTATION: Worldliness

You cannot please both God and the world at the same time. They are utterly opposed to each other in their thoughts, their desires, and their actions.

-- St. Jean Vianney, Cure of Ars

QUOTATION: Education

Sometimes people will say 'Well I've outgrown my faith.' I've met eight zillion people who have said 'Yeah I used to be Catholic...' Well what are you now? And they may be Buddhist, or who knows what? And they sometimes say 'Well I outgrew my Catholic faith, I became more sophisticated, I became more educated.' There's something I have found. Now I have some education. I have earned five university degrees, most of them with highest honors. I'm not bragging, I'm just saying that to let you know that I respect education. I have a high regard for education. But in my many years around the education establishment, I was given a great revelation by God, and the revelation is: a lot of people done been educated into imbecility.

- Fr. John Corapi

QUOTATION: Kindness

Kindness has converted more people than zeal, science, or eloquence.

--Blessed Mother Teresa of Calcutta

QUOTATION: Suffering

If you love, you will suffer. The only way to protect yourself against suffering is to protect yourself against love - and that is the greatest suffering of all, loneliness.


--Peter Kreeft

QUOTATION: Desires

It would seem that Our Lord finds our desires not too strong, but too weak. We are half-hearted creatures, fooling about with drink and sex and ambition when infinite joy is offered us, like an ignorant child who wants to go on making mud pies in a slum because he cannot imagine what is meant by the offer of a holiday at the sea. We are far too easily pleased.

-- C.S. Lewis

QUOTATION: Abortion

If we really believe that abortion is an intimate act of violence – and of course, it is – then we can’t aim at anything less than ending abortion. It doesn’t matter that some abortions have always occurred, or that some will always occur. If we really believe that abortion kills a developing, unborn human life, then we can never be satisfied with mere ‘reductions’ in the body count.

-- Archbishop Charles Chaput

QUOTATION: God-Sized Hole

The big, blazing truth about man is that he has a heaven-sized hole in his heart, and nothing else can fill it. We pass our lives trying to fill the Grand Canyon with marbles. As Augustine said: 'Thou hast made us for Thyself, and our hearts are restless until they rest in Thee.'

-- Dr. Peter Kreeft

QUOTATION: Untried

One thing that is not being tried in any particularly enthusiastic way by people who call themselves Catholic is Catholicism. -

- Fr. Benedict Groeschel, The Reform of Renewal

QUOTATION: Knowledge

You need to know your faith. You cannot give what you do not have.

-- Fr. John Corapi

QUOTATION: Human Dignity and Freedom

The value of human dignity, which takes precedence over all political action and all political decision refers to the Creator: only He can establish values that are grounded in the essence of humankind and that are inviolable. The existence of values that cannot be modified by anyone is the true guarantee of our freedom and of human greatness […] .

--Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, (Pope Benedict XVI), Without Roots: The West, Relativism, Chistianity, Islam, 2004

QUTOATION: Self-Surrender

The terrible thing, the almost impossible thing, is to hand over your whole self--all your wishes and precautions--to Christ. But it is far easier than what we are all trying to do instead. For what we are trying to do is to remain what we call "ourselves," to keep personal happiness as our great aim in life, and yet at the same time be "good."


-- C.S. Lewis, Mere Christianity

QUOTATION: Standing up for God

Stand your ground like an anvil under the hammer. The mark of a true champion is to stand up to punishment and still come out victorious. It is our duty, particularly when the cause is God's, to accept trials of all kinds, if we ourselves are to be accepted by him.


--St Ignatius of Antioch

QUOTATION: Maternal Love

Mothers of children, even if they have a thousand, carry each and every one fixed in their hearts, and because of the strength of their love they do not forget any of them. In fact, it seems that the more children they have the more their love and care for each one is increased.

-- St. Angela Merici

QUOTATION: Progress

Progress is Providence without God. That is, it is a theory that everything has always perpetually gone right by accident. It is a sort of atheistic optimism, based on an everlasting coincidence far more miraculous than a miracle.


-- G.K. Chesterton

QUOTATION: Faith and Work

Perhaps part of the problem today is that there is a growing cultural demarcation between the sacred and the secular. Increasingly, love and faith are reserved for Church on Sundays, while the workplace demands a focused self-interest and a competitive edge to survive.


--Charlie Douglas, Moral Hazards in the Marketplace

QUOTATION: Church and State

That the State must be separated from the Church is a thesis absolutely false, a most pernicious error. Based, as it is, on the principle that the State must not recognize any religious cult, it is in the first place guilty of a great injustice to God; for the Creator of man is also the Founder of human societies, and preserves their existence as He preserves our own. We owe Him, therefore, not only a private cult, but a public and social worship to honor Him. Besides, this thesis is an obvious negation of the supernatural order. It limits the action of the State to the pursuit of public prosperity during this life only, which is but the proximate object of political societies; and it occupies itself in no fashion (on the plea that this is foreign to it) with their ultimate object which is man's eternal happiness after this short life shall have run its course. But as the present order of things is temporary and subordinated to the conquest of man's supreme and absolute welfare, it follows that the civil power must not only place no obstacle in the way of this conquest, but must aid us in effecting it. The same thesis also upsets the order providentially established by God in the world, which demands a harmonious agreement between the two societies. Both of them, the civil and the religious society, although each exercises in its own sphere its authority over them. It follows necessarily that there are many things belonging to them in common in which both societies must have relations with one another. Remove the agreement between Church and State, and the result will be that from these common matters will spring the seeds of disputes which will become acute on both sides; it will become more difficult to see where the truth lies, and great confusion is certain to arise. Finally, this thesis inflicts great injury on society itself, for it cannot either prosper or last long when due place is not left for religion, which is the supreme rule and the sovereign mistress in all questions touching the rights and the duties of men. Hence the Roman Pontiffs have never ceased, as circumstances required, to refute and condemn the doctrine of the separation of Church and State.

--Pope St. Pius X, Vehementer Nos, 1907

QUOTATION: Forget Yourself

If I say I'm doing well, I'm a proud, self-righteous, arrogant, self-satisfied, priggish Pharisee; if I say I'm doing lousy, I'm a miserable worm with a guilt complex and I need some psychiatry; and if I say I'm sort of fair to midland then I'm dull, wishy-washy, Charlie Brown. So what's the solution? Don't look at yourself. Take your temperature when you're sick, otherwise look at other people and God. They're much more interesting. The first step is to try to forget about yourself altogether. Your real self, your new self, will not come as long as you are looking for it. It will come only when you're looking for Him.


--Dr. Peter Kreeft

QUOTATION: Self-Help

God provides the wind. Man must raise the sail.


-- St. Augustine of Hippo

QUOTATION: Marriage

The Christian idea of marriage is based on Christ's words that a man and wife are to be regarded as a single organism - for that is what the words 'one flesh' would be in modern English. And the Christians believe that when He said this He was not expressing a sentiment but stating a fact - just as one is stating a fact when one says that a lock and its key are one mechanism, or that a violin and a bow are one musical instrument.

-- C. S. Lewis, Mere Christianity

QUOTATION: Tyranny

A despotism may almost be defined as a tired democracy. As fatigue falls on a community, the citizens are less inclined for that eternal vigilance which has truly been called the price of liberty; and they prefer to arm only one single sentinel to watch the city while they sleep.

– G. K. Chesterton

QUOTATION: Lying

It is not lawful to tell a lie in order to deliver another from any danger whatever.

--St. Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologica

QUOTATION: Self-Reform

We all talk of reforming others without ever reforming ourselves.

--St. Peter of Alcantara

QUOTATION: Friends

If I should have to advise parents, I should tell them to take great care about the people with whom their children associate…Much harm may result from bad company, and we are inclined by nature to follow what is worse than what is better.

-- St. Elizabeth Ann Seton

QUOTATION: Trust in Divine Providence

Cast yourself into the arms of God and be very sure that if He wants anything of you, He will fit you for the work and give you strength.

-- St. Philip Neri

QUOTATION: Trials

God allows us to experience the low points of life in order to teach us lessons that we could learn in no other way.  

-- C.S.  Lewis

QUOTATION: Social Justice

It is too clear that social justice means different things to different people. One essential point that distinguishes the Catholic Church's notion of social justice from its secular counterpart has to do with the concept of personal virtue ... The secular world compartmentalizes the personal and the social, holding that what one does in his personal life -- whether as a private citizen or as the president of a nation -- has little or no relevance to what he does on a social level. The Church understands social justice as a continuity of the personal and the social, the secular world does not ... The Church maintains that, in order to have social justice, we must first have virtuous people. The secular world maintains that social justice does not require virtuous people, only good programs. For the Church, social justice is a personal virtue; for the secular world, it is a political accomplishment. The Church believes that good people make good social programs; the secular world believes that good social programs make good people. Concerning social justice, the Church and the secular world have very little in common.

--Dr. Donald DeMarco

QUOTATION: Prayer

Everything begins with prayer, spending a little time on our knees ... If all the world's rulers and leaders would spend a little time on their knees before God, I believe we would have a better world.

-- Blessed Mother Teresa of Calcutta

QUOTATION: Prayer

The first rule for prayer, the most important first step, is not about how to do it, but to just do it; not to perfect and complete it but to begin it. Once the car is moving, it’s easy to steer it in the right direction, but it’s much harder to start it up when it’s stalled. And prayer is stalled in our world.

--Dr. Peter Kreeft